Father In Heaven

We call Him our ‘Father’ – and by doing so we disconnect our affections from the world and stake an immediate and irrevocable claim to be a child of God. We establish at the outset that our ‘citizenship is in heaven.’ Not simply above this world – but out of this world. Even our most precious earthly relationships are released. He is our Father and His name is hallowed, holy, set apart from all the rest in our life.

This is a radical start to a radical prayer. We begin the entire prayer by severing all ties to this world – every single one of them - and attaching ourselves to Him. Thus we too are set apart – made holy by Him, under His name, in His family.

To Ur is Human

Abraham understood this total separation. When he was asked to leave Ur and head toward Canaan, he severed all ties, every security that he had lived under his entire life, and went out as a pilgrim. He never went back to Ur, the place of his father’s family. To turn back to Ur would be a very human, natural response to any tough circumstance that might arise. But we are of a new nature – a spiritual nature – and we do not have to respond naturally any more.

Also, by praying this we immediately place ourselves in the ‘child’ position. He is our Father - not our peer, not our friend, not our servant, not our child. Because believe it or not, many Christians somehow manage to place God in the child position and place the expectations of a child upon Him, and their prayers reflect this. He must, like a child, behave in certain ways that we expect Him to behave. He must bend to our rules, our standards, our sense of justice and fairness. In other words – His actions lean on our understanding.

The world has the same mentality. They say that they don’t believe in Him, but if they did, they know exactly how He should act and what His standards would be. They impart their own personality onto what He would be like. They know what mercy looks like. They know what is fair. They know what is right. Then when experience doesn’t match their ideas, when the Truth doesn’t fit their model – they reject Him.

As you can see, one of the problems with our prayers is that we like to place ourselves in the position of the father - of already knowing what is right before we even pray. So we lay out our petitions for Him in such a way that we already know how He should respond. And when He doesn’t – we can’t handle it. We lay out our plans and our agendas and then, at the end, ask Him to bless them.

But by starting with this phrase, by calling Him ‘Our Father,’ we are submitting, humbling, yielding ourselves to the place of total dependence. The rules are His rules, the justice is His justice, and how He responds to our petitions and our cries is totally up to Him. We are the ‘receiver’ – nothing more – of all that follows. We don’t dictate any of the terms; we don’t bring anything to the table. He does not bend to our rules or our will, we bend to His.

The Mark of a Father

Another aspect of calling Him “Father” is our willingness to be identified with Him. We are not ashamed to have His name clearly written on our foreheads, for all the world to see. There are a lot of Christians who aren’t able to do this. They love Him, but in the quiet of their own homes or the comfort of their church. However, they shy away from being identified with Him when they’re out in the world. But when you call Him “Father” – you are marking yourself with Him, and like most children, desperate to please Him.

I think deep down we all are desperate to please our fathers. My earthly father doesn’t really know it – I probably don’t show it – but his approval is definitely one of my main motivations. I played basketball because he played basketball. I grew to love it because he loved it. I played football, which I didn’t love – because I knew it meant a lot to him – so I played to please him. I care deeply what he thinks about me, and I want to prove that to him, while I still have a chance.

This World is My Proving Ground

I have those same desires for my heavenly Father. I remember a while back I was thinking about the Rapture and I said to myself “Please not yet!” Not for the desire to live on this earth any longer, but for the ‘free will’ decisions of my life. I feel like I haven’t totally proven to God my love for Him and my desire to please Him. I want to get to certain ‘places’ here on earth – certain spiritual places of victory that show Him that I love Him out of my own free will. I love Him just because of who He is. I love Him in the face of all the persecution of this world.

I want Him to see this deep love before Heaven, because once there it seems like we go a little on auto-pilot and I want to please Him in my free will. This earth is my proving ground, my only real chance to show Him how much I love Him before He puts me into my spiritual body and mind – before I don’t have the chance to prove my love for Him.

Satan understands this desperate desire that children have for their father’s approval, so he tries to break the whole thing apart. He tries to convince us that our earthly fathers are not important, that they are useless accessories to a family, and he is desperately trying to break the traditional family unit apart by removing them. If he is successful, then he will try to move on and show us that our Heavenly Father is useless and unimportant. Even worse – he tries to show us that our earthly fathers simply don’t care – and in turn he hopes that we will see our Heavenly Father in the same way. He is successfully minimizing the role of father, moving it to the point of irrelevance.

So, as you can see, the simple title of “Father” is much deeper than it first appears. We are proclaiming to Him and to the world that we not ashamed to be His child in a world that is trying to make that look foolish.