Knowing the Almighty God as “Father” is a privilege we have taken for granted. It is also something many have not fully understood. What is the personal Father-child relationship like? If God is a personal Father to us, in what way does He desire to relate with us? This article explores what this relationship involves, identifying what hinders many from experiencing the full depth of such a wonderful relationship.

The Father-Child Relationship
Obviously God requires of us the obedience, submission and the honour due to every Father (Malachi 1:6). That is the starting point. Without that, a relationship with Him is virtually impossible. Yet, though fundamental, obedience and submission cannot be all there is to the Father-child relationship. Otherwise, it would be no different from a rulersubject
relationship, a master-servant relationship, or an owner-slave relationship. He is Ruler, Master and Owner over us, yet He also chose to be a personal Father to us.

Unlike other relationships, a father-child relationship is far deeper. There is an emotive and affective bond not necessarily found in other relationships. As a Father, God loves us intimately and desires a relationship with us based on love and intimacy.

The Scriptures make this clear. From Luke 10:27, we see that God desires we love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our mind. From the way Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, it might be more accurate to say that He requires it. Here was a group of people who were learned in the Scriptures, strong in doctrine and did their utmost to be holy and obedient. But Jesus saw right through the superficiality of their religion. All that they did and knew mattered little to Jesus, because He saw they had no love for God (Luke 11:42).

For many Christians, obedience and submission to God fits our paradigm squarely. But we have difficulty imagining an intimate and loving relationship with the Father. Some of us may have been believers for years, but have never said to Him, “Father, I love you.” Others become uncomfortable when songs sung in church express feelings and emotions like that. We cannot identify with that. Perhaps we do love God with all our minds and our strength. But loving Him with all our hearts is something else.

One-Way Relationship?
Some sincerely want to love God, but find it a little unnatural. We say, “He is not a human person we can see, touch, or interact with. How could we develop an intimate relationship with Him?” In this “one-way” notion of relating to God, prayer becomes nothing more than leaving messages in His voice-mail. Worship becomes little more than a sing-along session. The fact that He is a personal God becomes a matter of religious knowledge rather than personal experience.

If God wants a relationship with us, such a relationship cannot be the sum total of what is called for. That is not a relationship. God is not a remote and distant Deity, but a personal Father and a living reality. Surely He desires a relationship with us like any other deep relationships we have – one that is dynamic and interactive.
To begin to experience that, we need to relate with Him in a “twoway” manner. We can start by learning to discern His voice and prompting.

A Communicating Father
I am an evangelical, the (spiritual) son of several evangelicals. But I find sufficient biblical and experiential evidence to believe He speaks in many ways – through the
Scriptures, wise counsel of others, circumstances, prophecy (words of knowledge spoken by others), that inner still small voice, impressions, dreams and visions.

He does so today the way He did in the Scriptures. After all, He is the same God today as He was then. Surely He desires to relate with His children the same way He did before. Surely His sheep hear and know His voice (John 10:3,4).

When I first ventured into this whole area of listening to God, my chief concern was, “How do I know if it’s God and not myself speaking? Or the devil?” A simple answer belies the weight and significance of the matter: put what you “hear” through the filter of the Scriptures. Is it consistent with the whole counsel of the Bible? Is it consistent with the pure, holy, loving, kind and righteous character of God? That screens out a lot of thoughts the devil can plant in our minds.

I believe we also have to learn discernment through experience. Even mature believers can hear God wrongly, and need to check themselves and seek confirmation. In my own experience, I have received from Him clear words that I can quote. There were also times I’ve journalled an impression I believe to be from Him, but even after several months, I remain not completely certain.

In a sense, I gained more confidence that something is planted by the Spirit (and are not just my own thoughts) when what I receive surprises me. My wife, Karen had such an experience a while ago.

We lived in Sydney for 18 months a year ago. On one occasion, we were singing the song “You said” in church. The closing line of the song goes, “O Lord I ask for the nations” in response to God’s words in Psalm 2:8. Then the worship leader led the church in singing more specifically, “O Lord I ask for Australia”. But our hearts were with the Singapore we were returning to. So with the same passion as everyone else, we sang instead, “O Lord I ask for Singapore”.

One day, after we returned to Singapore, Karen was worshipping alone at home along with CD music when this song was played. She remembered how fervently we asked and prayed when we were in Sydney. And she asked, “God, why haven’t you given me Singapore?” In reply, a still small voice in her heart asked, “Are you willing to pay the price?”

Do you think that came from the devil? Sounds much unlike what he would say. It was certainly not her own thoughts because it astounded her. She was dumbfounded for a few moments, not knowing how to answer. She had no doubt it was her Shepherd’s voice.

To some, listening to God is unacceptable because it is subjective, and prone to abuse and excesses. That, no doubt, is a valid concern. But to teach against listening to God because of that is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Someone who seeks balance should be equally concerned with the dangers of not listening to God (as the experience of Joshua with the Gibeonites in Joshua 9:1-15 shows).

Developing a “two way” relationship takes effort. We must be willing to “pay the price”. If we spend our days with virtually no fellowship with God, do not expect that in our obligatory 15-minute “Quiet Time”, we will learn to hear His voice. After all, like any other relationship, we draw close to Him in degrees.

Taking time daily to draw close to Him is absolutely essential. Remember that God did not speak to Samuel the first two times He called him. He spoke only when young Samuel was ready to respond to Him, ready to hear and obey (I Samuel 3).

Hearing the voice of God does not make us superior Christians. More importantly, it brings depth, reality and dynamism in our relationship with God. We take another step towards love and intimacy with the Father.

Too Emotional?
Some may be uncomfortable with emphasis on love and intimacy with the Father as it sounds too “emotional”. We are uneasy because we may have been warned against an emotional Christianity in the past and we guard against “emotionalism”.

Teachings on Emotionalism became popular in response to some excesses of the Charismatic movement in the 1960s and 1970s. In their sincere desire to protect their sheep, pastors and elders from the noncharismatic churches taught vigorously that our faith and commitment must not be emotional, but sound and rational.

In many ways, that teaching was warranted and is defensible. A believer with faith that is purely emotional lacks roots. He would be tossed about to Him in our private prayer “Father, I love you.” Perhaps we do love God our hearts is something else. It is a faith that is unlikely to be resilient in times of testing.

But what more does the Bible tell us about “emotions” and “emotionalism”? I believe even proponent of that teaching will concede that the Scriptures do not denounce the engagement or expression of emotions altogether. Far from requiring that we suppress emotion in our relationship with God, the Scriptures seem
to instruct the opposite!

We know that the Psalms make repeated references to dancing, shouting and rejoicing in our worship and celebration of God. Surely the Psalmists did not envisage
that dancing, shouting and rejoicing would be carried out in an emotionless way! Obviously the Psalmists pictured and encouraged something manifestly “emotional”. Not something purely external and passive. We are to love God, not just with our mental faculties, but also with all our hearts. That is unavoidably emotional.

In this regard, the episode where Jesus entered Jerusalem is interesting (Luke 19:37-40). Indignant that His disciples were praising God loudly and joyfully, the Pharisees asked Jesus to shut the disciples up. Of course Jesus refused, declaring that if they became silent, “even the stones will cry out!”

Jesus could have curbed His disciples’ “excessive” show of emotion. But He did not appear perturbed. Not as much as the Pharisees were, at least. It does not
seem to be a biblical directive to suppress the emotions in how we relate with God.

Teachings against Emotionalism may have been and continue to be warranted in certain contexts. But we do well to recognise that it too has dangers. In congregations where it is not properly balanced, the teaching has as much capacity for harm as what it was aimed at counteracting. Such teaching proposes that expression or engagement of emotion, whether in church, in worship, or in other aspects of the Christian life, is “not to be encouraged”. Inevitably, the unspoken
message is that it is something quite inappropriate, quite wrong. In some congregations, this has resulted in thinking that emotion and experience is taboo and off-limits for a Christian.

The effect of this denies a facet of our humanity and disconnects it from our faith. It encourages a faith that is cerebral and cognitive, characterised more by duty than by heartfelt devotion. This may be a faith that involves more intellectual assent than inner passion.

Finding Balance
I believe balance, for evangelicals, starts with the recognition that even God is a Person with emotions just like us. Even God is an “emotional” Being. If the Scriptures encourage a deep and rich relationship with Him, surely it is unreal to expect such a relationship to be emotionless. Only a religion of “do’s” and “don’ts” and dead works (Hebrews 6:1) would be. Balance must mean that just as we rightly reject hot-headed emotionalism and mindless fanaticism, we are equally careful to guard against cold intellectualism and unfeeling rationalism. Both are every bit as harmful, every bit as objectionable.

Much as we value a faith that is founded on solid fundamentals, we also emphasise the importance of a deep love for God. We also stress the importance of a faith marked by fiery passion and holy zeal. Balance means that we value the power in both, and pay lip service to neither.

To free us to love Him wholly, some of us need to know that it is all right to be “emotional” before the Father. He sees us as a total person and wants to relate with us as that total person – emotions and all.

Know for sure that our heavenly Father invites all of us to the privilege of that relationship. Whether one is a pastor, missionary or lay minister is not relevant. No matter how fruitful your ministry is, it cannot replace such a relationship. Only through that relationship with our Father can we experience a deeper, richer and more authentic Christianity.

Lim Keng Yeow, Deputy Worship Ministries’ Director in Covenant Evangelical Free Church, is a lecturer in criminology at Temasek Polytechnic. He and his wife, Karen have two children, Carissa and Bryan.