The One Word for God That Matters Most In Life
What If Our World Believed That God Is Our Father? Episode 17 - Psalm 103:13 - From the Series "From Dust to Eternity"
(This is Episode 17 in a series of posts (episodes) on the most beautiful psalm you have never heard of. Go here for the full list.)
Of All the Episodes I Have Written on Psalm 103, This One Matters Most
This episode on Psalm 103 excites me the most of all I have written. I have written it over and over because I want to be understood. And I do not want to be misunderstood. So please, if you have time to read this now, read it.
If you don’t have time—or are tempted to skim it—put it off. Read it later.
The idea I want to convey is one of those crucial ideas about the Judeo-Christian faith that we are so used to agreeing with—we accept it without thinking further about it—that we lose the incredible power and revolutionary truth of it.
In other words, this post touches on one of the most revolutionary ideas in the entire Bible and which has been hiding in plain sight for most of us.
And it’s also the most personal—for me.
It Gets Personal
I remember the first time I really grasped the idea—not just in my mind, but in my heart. I was sitting in church, reciting the Lord’s Prayer like I had a thousand times before. Our Father, who art in heaven…
And then, for whatever reason, I stopped. The words felt different. Is He our Father? My Father?
It hit me—this wasn’t just religious language. This wasn’t just an ancient title. This was real. The God of the universe wasn’t just a distant, powerful Creator. He wasn’t merely a King to be obeyed or a Judge to be feared.
He was my Father.
That’s when the prayer we all know so well—the one that Jesus taught His disciples to pray—became real to me at a heart level. We call it “The Lord’s Prayer,” but that day, it became my prayer—my prayer to my Father in Heaven.
And that changed everything.
What’s in a Metaphor?
If your English teacher did a good job, you might remember that a metaphor is more than just fancy language—it’s a bridge. It carries meaning from something we know to something we need to understand. (That’s what the word means: to carry (pherein) across (meta)).
The Bible is full of these bridges or metaphors.
The Lord is my shepherd → God guides, protects, and provides.
Your youth is renewed like the eagle’s → Strength is restored, lifted to soar.
As high as the heavens are above the earth → God’s love is beyond comprehension.
And now, in Psalm 103, verse 13, we come to the greatest metaphor of all. The Fatherhood of God
Psalm 103:13 says:
“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”
This is the defining picture of who God is.
Not just a ruler. Not just a judge. Not just an almighty presence beyond human grasp. David, speaking directly to himself (remember, the entire psalm is one long self-talk into a bathroom mirror as we have imagined) says clearly that God has compassion like a father.
David doesn’t invent the metaphor of father. It had been developing along the timeline of the Bible, beginning in the early book of Exodus.1 He would not be the last to use the word “Father” for God, either. The concept reaches its fullest expression in the New Testament and its zenith in Luke 11:1 when Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, saying (out loud) “Our Father.”
A World with a Father
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Imagine stepping onto a new planet. You don’t know its culture, its people, its governments. But you’re told one thing: The people believe in a Creator. And they believe He is their Father.
What would you expect to find?
Compassion—People would genuinely care for one another, knowing they are all children of the same loving Father.
Mercy—Forgiveness would matter more than vengeance.
Protection—The weak wouldn’t be left behind; the vulnerable would be safeguarded.
Justice—Not just harsh judgment, but fairness shaped by love.
Unity—People would see themselves as one family, transcending divisions of race, class, or nationality.
Self-Sacrificial Love—The kind of love that doesn’t count the cost, because that’s what a good Father does.
Faith, Understanding, and the World We Build
This is how faith works. What we believe in our hearts shapes our minds and directs our wills. When we believe something deeply—when we truly know it to be true at the core of our being—it changes how we live.
Faith moves the mind and the will in its direction. We don’t see in order to believe; we believe in order to see. St. Augustine captured this truth in three Latin words: Credo ut intelligam.
“I believe in order to understand.”
So, if we believe that God is our Father, then the world we create will reflect that belief. A world of people who know they are children of a loving Father will look different. It will be marked by love, justice, and dignity.
Isn’t this the kind of world we long for?
In fact, we can see the evidence of this belief in God the Father on the great documents that have shaped civilization.
The Edict of Milan (313 AD), which established religious freedom in the Roman Empire, was built on the idea that human dignity is inherent.
The Magna Carta (1215), a cornerstone of Western law, enshrined the truth that no one—not even a king—is above justice.
The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution speaks of establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, and securing the blessings of liberty—all principles that reflect the character of a just and loving Father.
The Declaration of Independence boldly states: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”
Where did these ideas come from?
They did not emerge from a vacuum. They arose from a world shaped by the belief that God is not just a ruler but a Father—a protector, a giver of dignity, a source of justice.
The more this truth is embraced, the more human flourishing followed.
Step by step, very slowly, across centuries, over countless lifetimes, generation by generation societies shaped by the Fatherhood of God have worked toward justice, mercy, and freedom. Not as fast as those of us today might have wanted, but considering the friction and resistance to this idea has been, the world has made incredible gains over the rolling centuries.
And the more the Fatherhood truth is embraced, the more human dignity is upheld.
Now, let’s flip it.
A World Without a Father
What happens when God is not seen as a Father?
We don’t have to imagine. History shows us. The more a culture drifts from this idea, the more it replaces relationship with rules, love with law, grace with performance.
In a world where God is just a distant authority, we find:
Authoritarianism—Power becomes about control, not care.
Punitive Law—Justice is about fear, not restoration.
Competition—People must prove their worth rather than rest in their identity.
Hostility—Strangers are not brothers and sisters but threats.
Fear—Obedience comes from terror, not trust.
The absence of Fatherhood leads to fractured societies and hardened hearts. Without God as Father, the world becomes colder.
Honestly, this is what most worries me about the religion of Islam and its rapid expansion across the world and into Western societies. Muslims do not call God Father. At all. The term is too intimate. Muslims feel it is too degrading of the character of God himself.
Muslims have 99 words to describe God. Allah: The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful, The Great Forgiver, The Ever-Accepter of Repentance, etc. But never, ever Father.
The Fatherhood of God is Revolutionary
This is why Christianity stands apart. God is not just the Creator, Sustainer, Sanctifies, Protector, Provider, or Redeemer—there are many more ways to refer to God according to His attributes. But the most important and powerful is that God is not just the Creator—He is our Father.
This is why Jesus taught us to pray this way. Not, Our Lord. Not, Our King. He taught us to pray, “Our Father.”
And this is why the idea is so resisted. Even today, some would rather strip God of this name than accept the intimacy it demands. Many want a God of power but not a God of personal relationship.
But this truth cannot be erased or excised from Scripture.
The Fatherhood of God is the foundation of the Christian life. It’s not just a theological statement—it’s our identity. It changes how we see God. It changes how we see ourselves. It changes how we treat one another.
We are not just His subjects. We are not just His creations. We are His children. And if we are His children then we are all related to each other as brothers and sisters.
Can you imagine a world where humans referred to other humans in such familial terms? That is what the Fatherhood of God would mean. If you are reading this, and you call God your Father, then guess what? I am your brother.
Look in the Mirror
Try something. It might be a big moment for you—the way saying “Our Father” was for me so many years ago. The exercise I am suggesting is somewhat of a silly way to cement these ideas in your heart, and throughout this series I have suggested it. So, if you haven’t tried it yet, you might consider doing it today.
Go find a mirror. Stand in front of it. Look at yourself. Really look. And say this out loud:
“I am a child of God. I have a Father in heaven and He loves me. His compassion for me is real. And no matter what, I belong to Him.
I may not have had a great father in this life, but I am a child of God anyway. My Father in heaven covers all of the deficits in my life I have about the word ‘father’’. I am a child of God because of the work my brother Jesus did for me on the Cross.”
There is no “Amen” at the end of this mirror statement. It is not a prayer. Nor is it just religious sentiment, either. It’s reality.
And Psalm 103:13 is not just poetry—it’s a fact. And it’s the foundation of everything.
Conclusion
The Fatherhood of God is not a small doctrine. It’s not just a metaphor. It is the core truth of our faith.
Without this vision of God, we are lost in this world. We are as lost as the Prodigal boy was when he was far away from his father—so far he forget he had one. Until the day he remembered his father. And then he remembered he had a home. And a name. And a place to stay. And a family to rejoin. And a heritage, an identity, and security.
Those are the blessings that come to us who believe that we have a Father in heaven who loves us. We have a name. We have a love that will never let us go.
So today, as we continue our journey through Psalm 103, let this truth sink in: You are not forgotten. You are not abandoned. You have a Father. And He loves you.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, who shows compassion to those who fear Him as a father shows compassion to his children. —Psalm 103:13
The Anglican is the Substack newsletter for LeaderWorks, where I share insights, encouragement, and practical tools for clergy and lay Christians. I’m also an author of over a dozen books available on Amazon.
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Exodus 4:22-23 – God as the Father of Israel; Deuteronomy 1:31 – God as a Father Who Carries His Children; Deuteronomy 32:6 – God as the Father of Creation; 2 Samuel 7:14 – God as Father to the King of Israel (Messianic Echoes)