The Father's heart

“ . . . He is simply and altogether our friend, our father – our more than friend, father, and mother – our infinite, love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, He is delicate beyond all that human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, homely beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother.

He has not two thoughts about us. With Him all is simplicity of purpose and meaning and effort and end – namely, that we should be as He is, think the same thoughts, mean the same things, possess the same blessedness. It is so plain that any one can see it, every one ought to see it, every one shall see it. It must be so. He is utterly true and good to us, nor shall anything withstand His will.

How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God! Nearly all of them represent Him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand He is, and making it the business of His being and the end of His universe to keep up His glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against those who take His name in vain. They would not admit this, but if you follow what they say, it comes to this.

Brothers, have you found our king? There He is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There He is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on His bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand Him well. The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep is a truer likeness of our God than theology's monstrosity of a monarch.”

George MacDonald, 1824-1905
Unspoken Sermons, from Creation in Christ, edited by Rolland Hein, Harold Shaw Publishers

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