To think of God as a father or mother would hit us deeply even if it only raised gender issues but by linking God with parenthood it can send our sensitivities through the roof. Our strongest emotional bond during our most impressionable years is with our parents. If something goes even slightly wrong with that foundational relationship, causing the love and trust that children instinctively want to give their parents to be violated, it affects profoundly our every other relationship until our dying day, unless we experience a remarkable degree of healing. Even among those who think they have survived their childhood unscathed, many think of a father as colder and sterner than a mother and this unconsciously affects their feelings for God.

Yet another emotive layer to this mix is that those who truly know spiritual truth correctly recoil from any whiff of pagan religion. Rightly or wrongly, any hint of God being anything other than emphatically male conjures in many people fears of paganism or departure from biblical truth. Occasionally fear might protect us, but it also has the disturbing potential to paralyze what should be our relentless quest to know the God of the Bible with ever increasing depth and accuracy. Our only true protection is to be led by the Spirit, not driven by fear.

Taken from God as Tender as a Mother?

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