Recently my friend BG asked me a good question: "Now that you are a Dad, how has that changed your view of God?" Bouncing along in a golf cart, here was my reply:
1. My kids will project their experience with me into their experience with God (heaven help us!). So I've known this from working with students, but I have a new appreciation for it now, and it makes me want to work hard to be more God-like, as opposed to making the God my kids come to know more Rob-like.
2. I marvel at how God the Father fully embraces and expresses contradictions. Here's what I mean: God is fully just and fully merciful, or he's both meek and majestic, or he's gracious and truthful, etc. Try as I might, as a Father I usually can't manage both ends of the spectrum; I end up somewhere in the middle. So I guess you could say that I have an appreciation for how God manages complexities!
3. This is the one you probably expect me to say, but I have a new understanding of the depth of God the Father's love for me/us. I really love my kids, and that love is ever-increasing and fierce (I worked hard on that adjective, but that's how I feel). And here's the kicker: as much as I love my kids those ways, how much more does someone with an unlimitted capacity for it love me and you?!? Marvelous.
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