Answering your child’s questions: Why is God a Father?

With Father’s Day just around the corner you’ve probably begun to notice that the shelves have filled up with bright ties and blue socks declaring “BEST DAD EVER” and “DAD YOU’RE ROARSOME!” (who actually buys those?) Teachers are scrolling Pinterest for new ideas of cute crafts, and our kids are spending their days creating beautifully unique handprint cards - just like everybody else! Whilst this day is quite rightly a celebration of the men in our lives who care so wonderfully for their families, it is also a painful reminder of what has been lacking for so many others.

In the UK today there are 2.7 million children growing up without a father, that’s a staggering 1 in 5 children. When my children sit in class to make their Father’s Day cards this year there’ll be half a dozen of their friends who won’t have a dad to give theirs to. When we gather at church that morning there’ll be kids there without stories of breakfasts in bed and garish gifts given. Instead, they’ll be processing why their family is different, why their mum is apparently not enough, why we keep comparing a God who is good with a man who is not.

Can’t we just ignore the ‘Father’ bit?

Maybe those questions have been surfacing through hard seasons with your own children already, or maybe you wonder why it even matters that God is a Father at all. In today’s culture of equality and feminism why can’t God be ‘mother’ instead? Why do we use parental language anyway when we could just say ‘saviour’ ‘creator’ ‘ruler’ or ‘Lord’ and keep everyone happy? What difference does it make that God is Father?