students of jesus

It’s an established fact: parents do not live in reality.

When I was a 4-foot, 11-inch freshman in high school (you heard me), my Dad regularly told me I was a tough guy—tough enough to “beat up anyone in the school.” I knew what he was up to. He wanted me to believe in myself. He wanted me to approach life from a posture of confidence, yet he obviously didn’t live in my world. He had good intentions, but no wisdom to help me through high school.

This is true of all parents. When my oldest daughter went through high school she had a highly calibrated sense of social judgment and hierarchy. She knew from day to day who was “in” and who was "out." Check that—she knew it from hour to hour. This time I was the father: “Honey, who cares what other people think? You are smart, funny, warm, and beautiful.” Right, Dad.

I was disconnected from her world. I didn’t know the score, and what’s more, I was powerless to change the score. All the areas that matter to a teenage girl were beyond what little influence or power I possessed. What’s more, I suspect she would have been embarrassed if I really did know and understand her world. It belonged to her, not me.

The two lessons we learn growing up? Our loved ones may not have the wisdom or the power to help us. We are utterly on our own. Sometimes the best advice from our loved ones cannot provide the wisdom and strength we need to face our challenges. Experience teaches us that even if we trust our parent’s heart and motives toward us, they do not have the wisdom to guide us, or the power to act on our behalf. We love them and they love us, but it is not enough.

This is precisely the heart of the problem: first-hand we see our parent’s limitations, which means our experience also teaches us not to trust the Heavenly Father. One of the deepest transitions following our born-again experience is the need to grow up again—this time with the perfect parent. Paul wasn’t kidding when he said:

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corin. 5:16-17)

When he urged us not to regard anyone from a worldly point of view, it’s important to include the Heavenly Father in that mix. We enter a new world, with a new Father, and the defenses we built up to protect us from our earthly parents can actually hold us back from the love and yes, power, that flows from the New Father. In God’s kingdom, the Father displays perfect love (motivation), perfect wisdom (insight), and perfect power (strength to help us) toward his children.

After we come to terms with the idea that the One who knows us best loves us most we have a second transformation: total surrender to the Perfect Father. We have so many years of disappointment; too many memories of our loved ones letting us down. Life experience has caused us to turn inward. We take care not to let our hearts fall too deeply in love. We live by the whispered caution, “Take care: no one understands!”

The good news is better than you could have ever hoped for. We have Father poised toward us with perfect love, wisdom, and power. In the Kingdom of God there is a new, established fact: our New Father sees things the way they really are. We can trust him.