God is our Father—just think of it! Fortunately, when we do that, we are not thinking, just realizing, delighting, being.
Being a son or daughter. We understand the Father through relating in the ways that are appropriate to who he is. Our Father loves us all. We learn about God by learning to love his children as our family.
Father implies personal, implies loving, implies close—as the Qur’an says, “closer than your jugular vein.” Father implies that we are all his children. But children can grow up to be like the parent.
Personal implies relationship, expression, even beyond words in the communion of soul and spirit. But words are often the most natural way for us to express ourselves naturally to our friend.
God implies Creator, good, perfect, worthy of worship. In worship we meet him most directly and fully. His power is not to overwhelm or terrify us, but to uphold the eternal order that structures the evolutionary process of the ongoing creation.
Even if scientists should clone a viable human, the unique personality and the divine spirit that indwells it come from the Father, not from the materials of the living body.
When my son Ben turned three, he surprised me. When he was two, Hagiko and I expected him to manifest the emotional rebellion known as “the terrible twos.” But there was no such rebellion. I prided myself on our parenting. But at age three for a number of months we got the emotional resistance—strong and determined. And I would become angry. At one point I realized that I could have hurt this beloved child seriously. At a conference I attended a workshop where I shared my problem, and the leader of the workshop, Tony Finstad, gave me the teaching I needed. When I came home, I adopted a new approach. Whenever I would start to get angry at my boy, I would think of my Father and how understanding and merciful he was and is toward me. That thought, that opening, that returning to square one, was enough to restore me to a right mind. I did not know well enough what it means to be a father until I got to know God.
I wonder what the concept of a universal family, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, could do for human families. And how divinely receptive families would reorganize this world.
This philosophy of living is for the family.
My evangelism is about family. My favorite technique these days at the moment is to ask persons, “What does it mean to you to be a daughter [or son] of God?” (If I ask someone who does not regard him- or herself as a son or daughter of God, I’m prepared to change the question: What would it mean to you to regard yourself as a daughter of God?
I’ve gotten some very interesting answers.
“To be living as a reflection of his presence and his love.”
“To be held in high esteem.”
“I’ll be in the best place eventually. I’m going to rise above.”
“It’s important that something bigger than me and bigger than anything I can imagine love me; and that mean’s all’s right with the world.”
“God looks after me in life’s hurdles. I pray for the strength to deal with them. I don’t pray for him to remove them.”
“Safety.”
“Full of life.”
“I get to help people.”
“I wake up every day asking how I can make the people happier that I’m going to meet today, what I can do to make their lives better, whether it’s my wife, tennis partners, business associates . . . . I’ve been so blessed, and I love to share that.”
I’ve posted on the concept of personality as a gift of God.
It means I have the potential to become like Him and that right now, despite my limitations and my failings, I have a divine nature; a desire to love, an ability to change, to forgive, to learn, to create, and to serve. I remember C.S. Lewis’s statement that we “live in a society of possible gods and goddesses” (The Weight of Glory), and that the choice is ultimately mine to either pursue the path that leads to Him, or to choose some other path. I already possess divine characteristics and attributes that are like God’s, but they are now in their embryonic state. I need to remember and feel God’s love for me each day, be reminded of the courage and strength of those who have gone before, and remember things as they really are and as guided by the Holy Ghost.
Welcome to our conversation, Melanie. Being able to affirm the divine within you, while being realistic about limitations and failings, gives a wonderful balance to your response to the question of what it means to you to be a daughter of God.
Realizing all your higher desires and abilities as gifts from God that you are developing is an excellent way to strengthen your sense of self. You realize the momentous implications of the freedom that the Creator has given us: no one is forced into the path to eternal life.
How many people sense that the best part of themselves is still embryonic? Congratulations!
To remember and feel God’s love for you each day is the best way to live. To recall the courage and strength of those who have gone before holds up the greatest of the past. And to remember things as they really are is something that religious people often neglect, while the embryonic awareness that those realities are being Spirit-guided in their outworking–now there is a remarkable faith, indeed.
It means I have the potential to become like Him and that right now, despite my limitations and my failings, I have a divine nature; a desire to love, an ability to change, to forgive, to learn, to create, and to serve. I remember C.S. Lewis’s statement that we “live in a society of possible gods and goddesses” (The Weight of Glory), and that the choice is ultimately mine to either pursue the path that leads to Him, or to choose some other path. I already possess divine characteristics and attributes that are like God’s, but they are now in their embryonic state. I need to remember and feel God’s love for me each day, be reminded of the courage and strength of those who have gone before, and remember things as they really are and as guided by the Holy Ghost.
Welcome to our conversation, Melanie. Being able to affirm the divine within you, while being realistic about limitations and failings, gives a wonderful balance to your response to the question of what it means to you to be a daughter of God.
Realizing all your higher desires and abilities as gifts from God that you are developing is an excellent way to strengthen your sense of self. You realize the momentous implications of the freedom that the Creator has given us: no one is forced into the path to eternal life.
How many people sense that the best part of themselves is still embryonic? Congratulations!
To remember and feel God’s love for you each day is the best way to live. To recall the courage and strength of those who have gone before holds up the greatest of the past. And to remember things as they really are is something that religious people often neglect, while the embryonic awareness that those realities are being Spirit-guided in their outworking–now there is a remarkable faith, indeed.
To me, to be a son of God means that I am a perfecting revelation of him. And as the earthly child each day moves toward a perfected biological revelation of his parents, so do I move towards a perfected spiritual revelation of God my spiritual Father.
Dr. Perry
To me, to be a son of God means that I am a perfecting revelation of him. And as the earthly child each day moves toward a perfected biological revelation of his parents, so do I move towards a perfected spiritual revelation of God my spiritual Father.
Dr. Perry