In Our Father’s Hands
“Our Father which art in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2)
There is infinite comfort in the truth of the divine Fatherhood. The name “Father” carries in it a whole theology of joy and peace. If we accept it as a true revealing of the heart of God, we need not go further in our quest after a definition of the divine Being, and an explanation of His relation to us and His interest in us. If God is indeed our Father, what more do we need to know? We require no proof that God loves us—if He is our Father, that suffices. We need not ask for reasons when He seems to be dealing strangely with us—whatever our circumstances may be, we know that infinite love is the guiding principle and the great motive of all that He does. If He is our Father, we do not need to be disturbed by life’s events, however they may break into our plans and bring us hurt.
It was Jesus Christ who revealed this truth of the divine Fatherhood. If He had taught the world nothing else, this alone would have made Him the most wonderful Teacher that ever spoke. When He taught us to say “Our Father,” He brought God down close to us, and opened for us the way to His heart of infinite love.
For all of us, life has its mysterious and painful experiences. There come days when human reason can find nothing beautiful or good in what we are passing through. Everything seems destructive. We can see no love in the dark enigma. In such hours it gives us great comfort to be able to say: “It is my Father, and He loves me and is making no mistake!” It was this confidence that sustained Christ Himself in His darkest moments on the cross. In the inexplicable mystery of His suffering, when He could not see the face of His Father and felt as if He were even forsaken by Him—His faith found assurance in what He knew of the divine love. It was still “My God, my God.” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) The anchor held, and in a few moments more it was light again, and He said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
The Master gives us the lesson for ourselves, when He assures us that His Father has in His hands the care of our lives. “My Father is the husbandman,” (John 15:1) He said to His disciples. The gardener has entire charge of the vines. He understands them and knows how to care for them. He plants them where they will grow the best, looks after their culture, prunes them, and does for them whatever needs to be done. They are not left to grow without intelligent care.
When Jesus said, “My Father is the husbandman,” He was communicating to His disciples that the care of their lives is in the hands of God, whose name is Love. It is not entrusted to a being of only limited intelligence and only finite power and love. Still less is it “chance” that directs the events and shapes the circumstances of our days. That is what Atheism would have us believe. “There is no God,” it says to us. “Things just happen. There is no one at the center of all things who thinks about you. There is no hand but the iron hand of fate working in human affairs. There is no love, no heart, anywhere in the vast spaces, feeling, caring; no mind, planning good. The great machine of the universe grinds on, with resistless, relentless power, and what comes into your life, comes as the result of this inflexible, undirected, loveless grinding.”
This teaching brings no comfort. It can never give confidence and peace to any heart in time of trouble. It offers no hope when all things appear to be against us.
But Jesus Christ teaches us something vastly different. The theory of the universe which He gives us is that this is our Father’s world. Not only did He create it, adorning it with beauty and fitting it to be the home of His children, but He cares for it with constant, tender care. He has not abandoned the world He made to get along as best it may without any thought from Him.
Jesus says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” (John 5:17) There is no “chance”—all things are under control of God’s infinite wisdom and love. The universe is no mere loveless machine, grinding out our destiny for us. There is a great Heart of everlasting love at the center of all things. We have nothing to do with the vast machinery—it is ours only to do God’s will for us and fill our little place. We are not required to make all things work out for good. We do not have to bring about the beneficial results. Our part is simply to learn what God’s will for us is, what our duty is, and then do that with cheerful heart. This is our Father’s world, and if we do our own little part faithfully and well, we need give no thought to the outcome.
“My Father is the husbandman”—the gardener of our of souls. When we are taken up and transplanted, it is the Father who does it. When the pruning-knife cuts away beautiful things that we so much wanted to keep, the Father does it. It is not “blind chance” which sometimes uproots our life so ruthlessly. Nor is it cruelty that brings suffering and pain to us. Yet some people wonder, “How can I believe that God loves me, while He is afflicting me so?” The answer to the question is, “My Father is the gardener!”
We should remember, too, that there are blessings which can come to us only in sorrow, lessons which can be learned only in pain and suffering. Even Jesus was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). Having taken on the nature of man, there were qualities in Him which could not reach their best, except in the school of pain. There are in all of us possibilities of spiritual loveliness and strength and love and helpfulness, which never can come to their highest development, except in suffering. If we cannot endure suffering, we cannot grow to our best.
A gentleman said, “When I hired my gardener, he said he would have nothing to do with these grape vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk—and then we had no grapes for two years. But now this is the result,” he concluded, pointing to great clusters of luscious grapes weighing down the vines.
This is a parable of Christian life. We need not pray for suffering to come. But we may pray to reach the highest possibilities of Christlikeness and the largest measure of usefulness of which we are capable. Then when we find ourselves face to face with pain or suffering, which we must accept if our prayer is to be answered, we must not shrink from the experience. It is thus only, through suffering, that we can be made perfect.
Therefore, when we are called to suffer, we should never forget that it is always in love that our Father causes us pain. The name “Father” is the key to the meaning of the discipline. He sees our potential at the other end. On this end we may not understand—we need not understand. It is enough to know that the care of our lives is in our Father’s hands.