God's Revelation of Himself as Creator, Father, and the All-Sufficient One
The Bible gives us a sure and certain word about who God is, His nature and His attributes. He has made it clear that He is our Heavenly Father. When Jesus, God's only begotten Son, gave His disciples a model prayer, which we know as the Lord's Prayer, He said to call God, "Our Father, who art in heaven."
God also reveals Himself to His chosen people and His relationship with them in terms of God as the husband and Israel as His wife. Clearly God is telling us something important about Himself that He wants us to know when He reveals Himself as our Heavenly Father.
However, the Bible also tells us in Genesis, "the book of beginnings," that He is the Creator. He also tells us that He "created man in His own image" and "He created them male and female." In other words human masculinity does not totally exhaust or circumscribe the divine attributes of God. This is also revealed to us in other Scriptures. In Isaiah 49:15, God gives reassurances to His people that He will never abandon them. He says, "Can a woman forget her nursing child or lack compassion for the child of her womb. Even if these forget, I will not forget you" – hardly a masculine reference.
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In the New Testament, Jesus looks down on Jerusalem and laments, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
. . . I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing." Jesus, God's only begotten Son, is describing His desires and existence in explicitly maternalistic terms.
In conclusion, let's do understand that God is our Heavenly Father, but that revelation of Himself does not limit Him exclusively to the attributes of human masculinity alone – His love, compassion, tenderness, and mercy are also reflected in the aspects of His nature that we have experienced from our mothers from our earliest memories.
God intends for all children to have a mother and a father, and we know that both parents, who parent very differently, are important to the rearing of healthy adults.
God our Heavenly Father includes the attributes of both parents in His nature. He is the perfect parent, the all sufficient God who loves each of us with a love beyond understanding.
