Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Kind of Father is God? | The Writings | Psalm 121

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

What kind of father is God? Disappointed? Holier than thou? Neglectful? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Psalm 121 reminds us that God is a father that is engaged and interested in you. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 121

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. What kind of Father is God? Psalm 121 offers one of my favorite answers. It says this, verse 1. I lift up my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm.

He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore. The psalmist is telling us that God is not a neglectful father. He doesn't toss us into the deep end and hope that we make it to the other side alive. According to the psalmist, he watches over his people and over every individual day and night. Even while you're asleep, even while you're not conscious, he is conscious of you. This was written in a world without air conditioning, and so it says that God is like the shade at your right hand.

He's metaphorically like a shade tree protecting you from the blazing sun in the middle of a hot day. He's bigger than you. He's taking the heat for you. He's protecting you just like that tree. The psalmist says that, quote, he will watch over your life, over your coming and going now and forevermore. Is that your picture of God? Is he a attentive father who loves to be with you, to protect you, to stay alongside you? I ask because for all of us, our picture of God as father has been warped by the real life fathers we've had. I say this humbly as a father myself. I am not perfect. I want to do my best, but there will be ways I fail my kids.

There have already been ways I have failed my kids that have given them a false picture of what their heavenly father is like. And they will have to unlearn the bad lessons that I've taught them. They'll have to learn for the first time that God is both like me and not like me. And he is not like me in all the ways I've failed. So having said that, I don't mean to cast aspersions on my. fathers during this episode. But, but, but, but I do want you to reflect on your own father. What lessons did he teach you about what dads are like? The truth is that all fathers are not

created equal. Some of you listening had abusive fathers. They hit you, or maybe they yelled at you, maybe they demeaned you. And this is the sort of father that we think of as a bad dad. Everyone would agree. And while I wouldn't wish this on anyone, if you've experienced this in your life, you're probably conscious of the fact that your dad failed you in major ways and that you need to unlearn what he taught you about what a father is. On the opposite extreme, we have the best dads. Kind, generous, merciful, emotionally, and physically present dads who were attentive to their child's hearts and their child's needs. Just like the majority of people don't have bad dads, the majority of people also don't have exceptional dads. This is probably a bell curve.

the majority of us have dads somewhere between those two poles. And in some ways, this is a bit of a curse. Here's why I say that, because many people who had average dads, they can see the way their dads succeeded, the way their dads did a great job. But it's far harder for them to see the way their dads fell short. And because they can't see the way their dads fell short, they can't receive the ways God wants to heal those broken places,

the ways that God is different. I think that's partially because we fear that if we admit our father's faults, we somehow shame him or demean him or cheapen all the things he sacrificed to raise us. But that's far from the truth. A mature father would be the first to tell you that he knows that he failed. He'd be the first to tell you that he wants you to heal. He'd be the first to say that even though he knows he failed, he also had successes. You see, that's what it is to be an average dad, and an average dad wants his children to learn the truth of God's fatherhood. Amongst our average dads, I think the most common kind of dad is characterized by one feature, what I like to call

benign neglect. You see, you might think the opposite of Psalm 121 is a dad who is abusive. And I suppose that's kind of right, but I think it's also wrong. An abusive father is actually very attentive to his child. He's attentive to his child's faults, which is what makes him so abusive. And so the opposite of the attentive father in Psalm 121 isn't an abusive father. It's a neglectful father. And sometimes neglect is hard to see because unlike abusive dads, neglectful dads are benign. In other words, they aren't cancerous. They don't actively seek to do harm or to hurt their children like an abusive dad would. But I should say they seem benign. Because in reality, they're nothing but benign. Because in reality, they do do harm. Neglect is a form of hurt. This is why you can call

DFS on parents who neglect their children, who don't house them or feed them or feed them or or watch over them, we know that every child is deeply needy, and that neglecting those needs is tantamount to a kind of abuse. And that's the case with benign neglect. You see, a benignly neglectful dad is a dad who worked so much that he couldn't be emotionally or physically present when his child needed him. A neglectful dad is a dad who got home and then plopped down right in front of the TV and ignored his children. A neglectful dad is a dad who rarely asked deep questions. or maybe any questions at all, who was disconnected and disinterested in his children. A neglectful dad is a dad who rarely celebrated big victories, a dad who didn't know how to play,

a dad who didn't know how to smile or laugh. A neglectful dad is a dad who saw when his children were hurt, but never leaned in, never asked why. A neglectful dad was a dad who had high expectations, but never made much of his child when his child met those expectations. A neglectful dad was a a dad who confronted problems once and then ignored them and expected the child to figure things out on his own. A neglectful dad leaves his child feeling helpless, lonely, and not worth attention. These are deep wounds, and so many people have them. And I just have to say this, these are not wounds that most neglectful dads meant to leave. Nonetheless, the wounds are real. And they are precisely the wounds that Psalm 121 wishes to heal. You see, you have a heavenly father

who is not neglectful. You have a heavenly father who never stops watching over you, protecting you, providing for you, caring for you, and walking beside you. If you doubt that his love is upon you right now, remember this. When you pledged your allegiance to Jesus, when you gave him your faith, it's not only your sins that were forgiven, it was your status that was changed. By faith, you are united to Jesus. You are made one with him, such that his righteousness is your righteousness, and his status as the son of God becomes your status. You become a son of God. When God looks upon you, he sees Jesus his son.

And that means that through Jesus, the Spirit has adopted you into the family of God. Not because you earned it, but because Jesus earned it on your behalf. You are a son of a heavenly father who loves you deeply, and nothing can change that. Nothing can separate you from his constant, caring, attentive love. That is the truth. That is reality. And that reality can tell us a heavenly truth where our earthly fathers told us lies. You see, your Heavenly Father is interested in you.

And so you are a person of interest. Your Heavenly Father values you. And so you are a person of value. Your Heavenly Father loves to be with you, to know you, to search your heart. And so you are known by your Heavenly Father. So I want you to lean into Psalm 1.20. one and ask your heavenly father to give you a newer, truer, deeper, better vision of his love. And know that in Christ you are beloved as sons and daughters of God.