"A Praying Life" (chapter 20)

A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
By Paul E. Miller

“A Father’s Love” - Chapter 20

Distance from God

• Why do we feel distant from God?
  
  • Has God withdrawn from us?
  • Or, have we have drifted from God?
• When we feel distant from God:
  
  • We may ignore him in good times
  • And blame him in bad times.
• Distance from God may result in or be related to our distance from other people.
• What has caused us to drift from God?
  
  • Self-dependence?
  • Selfish desires?
  • Pride?
  • Bitterness or anger?
  • Unconfessed/unrepented sin?
  • Cynicism/unbelief?
  • Apathy?

A Father’s Love

• God loves us as his children in spite of who we are.
  
  • God’s love is covenantal.
  • God’s love is unconditional.
  • God’s love is never-ending.
  • God’s love is infinite.
  • God’s love is incomprehensible.
  • God’s love is gracious and giving.
  • God’s love is sacrificial.
  • Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Horizontal and Vertical

• Our relationship with our heavenly Father is directly linked with our earthly relationships.
• Distance in one will result in distance in the other.
• A breakthrough in one leads to a breakthrough in the other.
• Drawing near to God in love will help us draw near to others in love.

Tough Love

• God often uses hardship and delay to draw us near to him.
  
  • It decreases dependence on ourselves.
  • It strengthens and refines our faith.
  • It shatters our worldly idols.
  • It moves us to reflection and prayer.
  • It teaches patience and endurance.
  • It teaches us to wait on God’s timing.
  • It teaches us to trust God’s wisdom.

Broken Images of God

• An earthly father’s love is intended to be a finite picture of the infinite and perfect love of God for his children.
• What if an earthly father failed you?
• How can you see God as your father if your father was distant, absent, or harsh?
• The good news is our heavenly Father trumps the failures of earthly fathers.
• Because we live in a fallen world, God has to use broken images of himself, such as fathers.
• In fact, all the images God gives us of himself in Scripture are flawed.
• The fact that we know our earthly father is flawed means we know what a good father should do.
• Because we are created in the image of the triune God, we have an instinctive knowledge of how a father should love.
• If we didn’t know what a good father was, we couldn’t critique our own.
• What we feel we are lacking in our earthly relationships is fully present in our relationship with God, who is perfect.
• God uses the weak things of the world—including fathers—to weave his stories.