Our Father in Heaven pt.3

Tenderness

"As a father has compassion on his children, 

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him."

Psalm 103.13

This is an amazing verse in the Bible. It really needs to be read with the verse before. In v.12 David sings, "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him." It is a comparison that invites us to think on a (as my family say) mahusive scale (mahusive is a great word combining massive and huge). David challenges us to think of the greatest difference in height (in fact an infinite distance) and then says, 'that is how much God loves us.'

Then v.13 dramatically shifts from the immense to the personal and uses the analogy of a good father and his children. David's song invites us in our prayer to think of a father looking at his children and f   eeling love, care, tenderness and protection towards his children. It's that moment when you look at someone and almost physically feel your heart being pulled on a cord towards them. And what is more, though it is felt strongly when the one we love is facing success and happiness, it is felt more strongly still when they are beset by troubles and fears.

As you pray, "Father in heaven" - that is how God looks on you - with compassion.

But how do I know that this verse is for me. How do I know that I am one of his children. Verses 12-13 tell us. We know that he loves us and looks on us with compassion because we have chosen to fear him. But that fear can't be like the fear of losing your job or the abusive enemy or most of all death. This fear is found in the middle of vast and personal love. This fear is the act of total surrender to limitless love. It is frightening, because in becoming a Christian we surrender control of our lives, but it is wonderful because it is surrender to unimaginable love.

"Loving Father, I cannot get my head around the fact that though you are the creator and sustainer of everything that exists, yet you look on me, impossibly insignificant, and feel compassion."