God must be Father/Mother/Brother/Husband

I’m still mulling over this thought I picked up from Rob Bell the other day:

(Paraphrased and expanded by me)

The narrative of the Bible is mainly concerned with God waiting and wanting to father/mother/brother/husband us while we’d rather spend our time running around looking for fruitless ways to earn the right to be a part of His family.

* * *

Bell's point was accentuated as he brought up all the parents from the audience who were holding young infants on their laps. He asked them to relate to the rest of the room how they felt about their child.

“I’m completely in love”
“Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“He’s our little surprise, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“She is a miracle.”
“We’ve overwhelmed with love.”
“I can’t describe how incredible she is.”
“We’re just so grateful to be her parents.”
“We prayed and waited for years in order to hold him.”

I almost burst into tears a number of times when I thought about the unity of love and gratitude that was voiced by each parent. And I couldn’t help but agree that I feel the same way about my own son- one year old and more amazing every single day.

Sure, a few years from now when sin continues to creep into our relationship, he’ll become defiant at certain moments. And I’ll probably hold unrealistic/prideful expectations of him that he’ll never obtain. There will be hostility and anger between us from time to time and I’m sure that he’ll sometimes wonder what life would be like if he had been born into a different family with different values that don’t seem so constraining.

But even within the fallen nature of our relationship, cracked and tainted by sin, there won’t be a requirement for him to perform a certain way in order to be my son. There’s absolutely nothing that he could do that would increase or decrease my love for him or my protection.

He’ll be my son no matter what happens.

And so if this is how an earthly relationship works, tarnished as it is by the human condition- I imagine that God’s attitude and love for us are even greater. I imagine that God doesn’t even have any “expectations” of us when it comes to our relationship other than that we engage in it as fully as we possibly can- just as we’d engage in relationships with our parents, siblings, and spouse.

After considering this further for the past few days, I believe that thinking of God in terms of relationship is a must. And it's also a perfect remedy for legalism!

What I mean is this: Anything that is done religiously that isn’t a relational joy between God and ourselves either is being done with the wrong attitude or is not an appropriate practice for us to engage in.

God doesn’t want us to perform, He wants us to engage.