This Father’s Day I want to take a moment to reflect on the following question: when we say that God is the “good father” what does that actually mean?
So often our relationships with our earthly fathers fall far short of perfect, and as such it can be hard to grasp this concept of faultless fatherhood found in God. I have seen close friends of mine battle with the contention between inadequate earthly fathers and the perceived impossibility of God being the perfect father with unconditional love for us.
There are many, many fathers in the Bible that I could have drawn upon for this article, but I decided to choose Jairus. Jairus, I believe, is an example of a good father.
In Mark 5, we read that Jairus threw himself down at Jesus’ feet and begged him to heal his sick daughter. They were then told by messengers that his daughter had died, but Jairus continued to have faith in Jesus – Jesus spoke to her, she got up, and started walking around.
There are several qualities of a good father we see in this reasonably short passage.
It is clear from the passage that Jairus loved his daughter – everything he does is indicative of a person acting desperately on behalf of someone that he loves. Jairus acts to help his daughter, protect his daughter, and seek the best outcome for his daughter.
As such, not only does he want to help his daughter, but he was willing to humble himself to do so. Jairus was one of the synagogue officials – he was someone of high social standing and import – yet he begged at Jesus’s feet for him to heal his daughter. He was willing to admit that he himself could not solve his daughter’s illness and humbled himself entirely to ask Jesus to help.
Furthermore, Jairus doesn’t lose faith on behalf of his daughter. He continues to trust in Jesus’ abilities to do what is best for her. He believes that God will be able to save her and doesn’t let what the world says discourage him from that.
So, what does this tell us about God being a good father?
If you take nothing else away from this article, know this:
- God loves us as his children
- He wants to help us
- He is able to help us
- And therefore, we can trust in him
No matter what experiences and struggles we have had with earthly fathers, God is a good father, and we can rely on him to take care of us.
