How Becoming a Dad Affected My View of God

I’d like to summarize how becoming a dad has affected how I view God. Our relationships with our fathers often play an important role in defining how we view God, and I had been aware of that impact in my life (although, looking back, as my relationship with my dad deepened and matured, my view of God didn’t experience the same sort of development, which you’ll see below). I wasn’t prepared for my view of God to be challenged in a whole new way when I became a father. I didn’t see it coming.


I had an unhealthy view of God, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I can’t really blame anyone for it - I think the way I read (past tense) Scripture tends to lend itself to a particular view of God. Notice that I said, “the way I read Scripture”, rather than “what Scripture says”. I firmly believe that “what God intends to communicate to us” and “what we interpret Scripture to say” are often extremely different things. There are a lot of reasons for that - and we won’t have it all sorted out in this life.

I viewed God as holy, righteous, just, all-knowing, and all the other characteristics we normally attribute to Him. I won’t dwell too much on these. I’d prefer to dwell on the unhealthy elements.

I viewed God as the One who had incredibly high (perfect) behavioural standards. God punished me when I did poorly and rewarded me when I was faithful. Of course we don’t use those terms (unless we’re a televangelist), we use gentler terms like “withholding His blessing” or “living inside the will of God”. Regardless of the terminology, it really meant the same to me. God was either happy with me because I was obedient or frustrated with me because I’d failed, but He was mostly angry. And why wouldn’t He be? I was and am a mess.

And this view of God is not without Scriptural basis (I’ve since realized that people use parts of the Bible to rationalize everything). The God of the Old Testament (OT) was regularly granting or withholding His favour from His people based on whether or not they met His standards. And often the punishments were severe (see the fate of Korah and his clan in Numbers 16). I was serving a very scary God. And, to be honest, I was scared most of the time. If the record of God’s interaction with the people He created ended at Malachi, it would be hard to see God in any different light.

The fear moved me to action, at least externally. I was faithful in church attendance, church service, ministry program leadership, daily devotions, all because I figured that was my ticket into God’s endearment. It motivated everything I did. And I had a compulsive streak. Here’s an example (that also shows how we use random and unconnected verses to build theologies).

Isaiah 59:2 tells us that our sins separate us from God. And we take that to mean that if we have sin in our life, access to God has been blocked and His favour and protection may not be available to us. And, we interpret 1 John 1:9 to mean that the only means of removing those sins is to confess them (and re-open the access with God again).

I was keenly aware of the screw-up I was (at least privately - I was accustomed to pretending otherwise publicly), and I realized that I sinned several times every minute. So, that meant I needed to confess my sins perpetually, to avoid going for stretches of time unable to access God’s blessing. It was a terrifying ordeal. I was a complete lunatic. But, given my understanding of God and how He interacted with us and our sin, there was simply no alternative.

There are several useful metaphors - hamster on a treadmill or being chased my lion through a forest seem to be quite applicable. Despite the fact that I had “trusted Christ as my Saviour” (I’ll leave that one for now), I still had to live out my faith to ensure it was real (James 2) and show God how thankful I was with my life. Salvation was not a reprieve from all this stress - it caused it all. If I wasn’t a Christian, I wouldn’t have cared so much about what God thought of me.

Perhaps this all seems hyperbolic. Not for me. This was the God I thought existed - and, in fact, it gets worse. I worshipped a God who took great pleasure in bloodshed, including that of children, and taking His anger out on His Son. And I kept telling myself things like, “God is loving” and “God never changes”. Say, what?

These are tough questions - ones that I’ve wrestled a lot with. I’m not sure I have definitive answers to them, but I’m becoming more convinced that their answer is in Jesus Christ (not in our incomplete interpretations of the OT).

Back to being a father. I quickly learned some interesting things as Ave (being our firstborn) started to grow. I realized I loved him more than I actually thought was possible. But I also realized that I would love him no matter the circumstances or his behaviour. My feelings didn’t change when he was cranky and inconsolable. In fact, at some of those times, I felt the closest to him.

I realized that his behaviour was not what mattered most to me. This was a surprise to me, given that controlling my own behaviour was the most important part of my spiritual life. I began to love watching Ave grow and develop in all ways. His child-like creativity is the most fun (and most inspiring). I think us adults are really missing out. I think we would live in a very different world if we were all encouraged (from a young age) to never stop creating in all its various expressions.

I don’t want perfect behaviour from my kids. Sure, it makes things easier. And the compliments are nice. But I’d rather see my children grow up and express themselves and be themselves - and that means they won’t be perfect. I do want them to learn that, in life, decisions have consequences and, in particular, bad decisions have bad consequences. I’m not suggesting that I want them to run wild. This is by no means an exhaustive account of our ever-developing parenting approach.

As a father, I want to be respected and loved. I want a relationship with my children on the deepest level. I want that far more than anything else. And that’s a very different goal than trying to achieve behavioural compliance in our children (which is most easily achieved through fear). Genuine relationships can’t exist in the context of fear - “Perfect love casts out fear”. I want to be the one my children turn to when they’re afraid, excited, or sad - whether or not they’re at fault for creating their situation. I want the deepest conversations I have on this planet to be conversations I have with my children. I want the deepest level of honesty that I reach in this life to be reached in the presence of my children. I want that connection more than I want anything.

Contrast my attitude towards my children with the manipulative, behaviour-obsessed God I had pulled out of the Bible. A father who uses constant fear of punishment to achieve his goal of behavioural perfection in his children borders on being abusive. That was my view of God. And when you add in the way I viewed God’s treatment of his Son, there is no question that the God I imagined was abusive.

While I was walking through this discovery as a parent, I was discovering something new to me in the NT. In Hebrews 1, Jesus is referred to as the “exact imprint of [the Father’s] nature”. I’d read that verse countless times, but I had not thought through all the implications. If Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, how am I misunderstanding the Father? If Jesus was the one who wouldn’t throw the stone in John 8, why do I see the Father as a vengeful, blood-thirsty tyrant, who will gladly manipulate me into carrying out His commands? What are we missing in our interpretations of the OT? Could our understanding be incomplete?

I started to wonder. Perhaps what God wanted all along was a relationship with his creation. Perhaps what I wanted most with my children is what God wants most with his. Perhaps that’s what Jesus is all about. Perhaps God’s greatest aim is not the adherence of his children to a list of commands and principles. That would explain why the Gospels are not a list of laws to be followed. And perhaps all the things we understand (and misunderstand) about God’s interactions with His creation in the OT are somehow pointing to Jesus.

The irony in all this is that love takes us farther than rules, or principles, or fear ever could. Think about marriage. Love makes us do far more for our spouses than our vows or Biblical rules do. This is the single best discovery we’ve made in our lives (and it’s a new one) - that God’s affection for us does not depend on our performance. And I really believe that as we grow in that love relationship, we live to a higher standard than we ever could by following a list of fear-inspiring rules. It makes even more sense when we realize that God’s standard is not a set of external, ritualistic regulations - it is a standard of love: love God, love others.

I realize I’ve raised some really big issues in this entry. And they deserve far more attention than I’ve given them here. But the reality is that I don’t know all the answers. There is much to be resolved. Personally, I’ve decided to focus on Jesus. If Jesus is God, is the exact imprint of the Father’s nature, and actually lived on earth for 33 years with much of His public life and teaching recorded for us, He’s a pretty good starting point. I wonder if we can’t truly understand the rest of Scripture without seeing things through the lens of Christ.

I was asked a few months ago how having a child impacted me. I knew I didn’t have time for a 1500 word response. My answer? “It changed my life. I’m a totally different person.” That’s no hyperbole.