God is Intentional
It's another one of those famous refrigerator-and-magnet verses, so often quoted that we forget the deep impact and importance they have. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." This was spoken to a broken and bedraggled brood of leftover people who in the course of their lives had seen their beautiful nation devastated and parceled out over the then known world. They had lost their homes and lands and any sense of what was normal, and all they had left in common was the God of promise pursuing them with His prophetic words of restoration and hope and return. Years before God had sent His covenant attorney, Jeremiah, to serve notice to His people that God had sued them for a divorce for their spiritual unfaithfulness. What these poor people were experiencing was the result of a cosmic covenant divorce. They were in the very clutches of a family breakdown in the house of God's people. And so His encouragement that He still had a future and a hope for them and a plan for their restoration was a great encouragement for them, and by extension, us.
When we speak of God as intentional, we are appealing to God as a Faithful Father, and not necessarily a Great Architect. And while He certainly did plan and engineer the world as it is, this picture of an extension in exaggerated form of Thomas Edison or the Wizard of Oz, constantly inventing and tinkering with things from behind a curtain, or Santa Claus, always working on toys and gifts but only showing up once a year, are far short of the true nature of a loving, benevolent and faithful God the Father. He acts always as a Father to all that He has made, watching over with rapt attention, teaching in moments of openness and clarity, and bringing fair discipline and lessons while picking us up when we stumble or fall. This picture of God as purposeful, deliberate, and forward thinking while also being caring and concerned, and always loving and accepting is hard for those of us who live in the fatherless world of today.
It is interesting to look at the art over the centuries, and particularly the depictions of God the Father. The further you go back to the New Testament, you see a view of God as sitting in focused attention watching over the world, which He usually holds in His left hand, while holding His right hand up in the universal sign of covenantal blessing. His face is at once stern, but serene, and filled with love for all He has made. But the closer you get to modern times, this view of God the Father is replaced with a stern, angry looking King, usually looking disappointed or disgusted with the way things are, but still raising His hand in sign of blessing. Could it be that our view of fathers has changed and that is what is keeping us from seeing God as our Father in a positive light?
Knowing this problem existed, Jesus taught his followers that "If you have seen me, you've seen the Father." This was meant in the more figurative sense of seeing. Jesus was saying that if He has been revealed to you, that you can also have the Father revealed to you as well, that as you watch Jesus do the things He did that you could be confident that Jesus only did what His Father told Him, thus revealing the heart of the Father through the Son. Jesus begins his life in the search for His Father's house, and He tells Mary that He has not yet ascended to "My father and Your Father." His constant message was of His Father's kingdom, love and concern, and He said, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!(Matt:7:11)"
Even the Old Testament is full of references to God as a Father, intentionally blessing and watching over His people. In the book of Isaiah it is said of God, "Doubtless You are our Father, Though Abraham was ignorant of us, And Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name,(Isa. 63:16)" and "But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand(Isa 64:8)." Psalms 33:11 states, "But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations," and Psalms 40:5 says, "Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare." In Isaiah 46:10 we see the idea of God as Intentional Father: "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do."
Jesus leaves us with probably the most lasting and memorable picture of God the Father in the parable of the prodigal Son, which has often been said to really be the story of the Prodigal Father, prodigal being the word for extravagant, overflowing and even wasteful. So as we consider this aspect of God called His intentionality, We see a God who reaches out to establish, strengthen, and bless, we see "Our Father."
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