‘A long fuse, a short memory and a big heart’ by Claire Lynch, 16 June 2024

What kind of father is God? Claire Lynch takes a Father’s Day look at how God is described in Psalm 103. How well does this fit what we expect from God and good fathers in general?

Mentioned in the talk

Derek Redmond, running the 400m for Great Britain, helped by his father.

Transcript

Introduction

Good morning!! Happy Father’s Day to all of you Father’s in the room! I do hope you received your gift of a chocolate bar as you entered the building today - in fact if you are simply an adult male, you are lucky because you should have hopefully received a gift also, in celebration of all Father’s and Father like figures in our lives!!

And so as we celebrate fathers today and the gift they are to us, it would seem only appropriate to celebrate God as our Father too!

Jesus’ favourite way of describing God, was Father. Jesus’ refers to God as Father 70 times in the gospels, so it’s a pretty important image.

But before we go any further, let’s be clear, we are not saying that God is biologically male, that is not a box we can put God in. There are plenty of verses in the Bible that talk about God in mother language as well.

And I appreciate that for some of us, the image of a Father may not be a positive one, because our own Dad maybe didn’t treat us like a loving Father should. So often our experiences of others can affect the way we view God and taint our relationship with him.

But God, as a heavenly Father, shows us the best example of what a Father can be and he is able to restore what has been lost and heal what is broken. And so today I want us to look at the kind of Father that God is.

If you are a grandparent, parent or under the age of 30, you will most likely remember the much loved story of The Gruffalo. It may be a bit fresher in the minds of some of the children here?!

But it strikes me that God is a little bit like the Gruffalo! Bear with me on this for a moment!

Can any of the children remember the words used to describe the Gruffalo. Maybe you can finish these sentences for me.

A Gruffalo! Why, didn’t you know?

He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws…..

And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws.

How about this..

He has knobbly knees, and turned out toes…..

And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.

Or

His eyes are orange, his tongue is black…

He has purple prickles all over his back.

Do you remember how the fox, the owl and the snake were all incredibly scared of the Gruffalo? They had an image of the Gruffalo in their minds, that made them want to run away. But I don’t think the Gruffalo was all that scary after all. In fact, if you remember, the little mouse tricked him, and he ended up running away himself!!

Sometimes, we can get an image of God in our own minds, that is not really who he is. We can think God is something he’s not, that even if we don’t feel the need to run away, it may cause us at times to keep our distance.

And so I want to briefly look at just 3 characteristics of what God is like that we find described in Psalm 103 - these characteristics might be different to how we sometimes think of God. We don’t have time to read the whole Psalm today, you might like to do that at home later. But for today, I’m just going to refer to bits of it.

So in Gruffalo style, but unfortunately I’m not Julia Donaldson and I couldn’t get them to rhyme . What is God like, well, he’s got an astonishingly long fuse, a terribly short memory, and an exceptionally big heart. We’re going to take a quick look at each of these.

An astonishingly long fuse.

I’m sure we can all think of someone who has a short fuse. Imagine an image of a bomb or a stick of dynamite that you might see on a cartoon. When the fuse get’s lit, seconds later, the bomb explodes.

Some people can be like that can’t they? You say something or do something, and straight away they snap back at you or worse explode with a torrent of abuse. Or think about how quickly some people get angry when they’re driving - in an instant people can switch! Maybe, we ourselves, have a short fuse at times and have a tantrum or say something we don’t mean or lose our patience really quickly.

It’s normal human behaviour to act like this at times, when life gets a little stressful.

But sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that God is just like us. The term for that would be anthropomorphism - when we project human characteristics onto God.

The 17th century philosopher, Voltaire, once said:

“In the beginning God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favour ever since.”

Sometimes we imagine that God is angry, or even worse, angry with us. We think he’s watching us, ready to punish us as soon as we make a mistake.

But Verse 8 of Psalm 103: says that

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.

And again in Psalm 145 verse 8

The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

Slow to anger, that’s what having a long fuse means.

Can I have a volunteer ? - Hold the ball of string and pass it round - keep passing it along.

God’s anger is very different to human anger. God doesn’t have a temper, he’s not volatile and edgy, he doesn’t fly off the handle and slam the door in a tantrum. He’s not temperamental and unpredictable.

God is patient, he is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger.

The word wrath and in particular God’s wrath in the Bible is frequently misunderstood and is often better translated as the natural consequences of our actions, rather than the punishment of God. I don’t have time to expand on this more today, but I’d encourage you too have a listen to a talk I did on 5th November last year, to understand more of what God’s wrath is and isn’t - and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

God has a long fuse, (how are we going with that ball of string) God is slow to anger, rich in love.

A terribly short memory

A guy complained to his friend that whenever he argued with his wife, she got historical. His friend corrected him, saying “you mean hysterical?. “No he said, historical. She dredges up the past and reminds me of every time I’ve failed her before.”

It’s so easy to do that isn’t. When we feel frustrated with someone for doing the same thing wrong again. We remind them of the previous times they did the same thing. “You always do that!” Is a common phrase that comes to mind.

Verse 9 of Psalm 103 in the message version of the Bible, says that:

[God] doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever.

God chooses to have a short memory of our mistakes.

Can I have another volunteer. Please can you hold Freddie for me. Freddie is a goldfish, and we all know that goldfish are well known for their short memories - that’s why they can swim around a goldfish bowl all day long and not get bored!!

The Bible tells us that if God kept a detailed record of all our mistakes, none of us would be able to stand before him, we wouldn’t be able to cope. Can you imagine this? If every time we came to God to say we are sorry, he just dragged up our past, it would be terrible.

If you’ve ever wondered how serious God is about forgetting our mistakes, there are all sorts of metaphors or images in the Bible to describe it.

Isaiah 38:17 says he'll put it behind his back where he can't see it.

Isaiah 43:25 says he'll blot it out. Like it doesn’t exist anymore

Isaiah 44:22 says he'll sweep it away just like a morning mist that gets burned off by the sun.

Jeremiah 31:34 says God will refuse to remember it; he'll just block it out of his memory.

Another way of saying it is in verse 12 of this Psalm 103 we are looking at, it says:

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

Transgressions is just a fancy word for the things we do wrong, the mistakes we make, the things we wish we never done.

At the time this Psalm was written, they still believed the world was completely flat not round. So when it says as far as the east is from the west, you can’t get further than that! The two are NEVER going to meet. From the east to the west is the very end every limit of everything.

We may have heard this before, but I’m not sure we always quite believe this. You see shame sticks.

Have you ever had someone say ‘shame on you’. Or ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’. That is the total opposite of what God is saying here. Shame on you, means “you better hold onto that guilt.” “You’ve got to carry round that memory, let it weigh heavy on you.” Shame sticks.

But that’s not what the Bible says - as far as is absolutely possible - God has gotten rid of our mistakes. As if he’s completely forgotten them. That’s not to say we shouldn’t acknowledge and address the mistakes we make. It’s just that we don’t need to carry them around like a weight on our shoulders, we can let that shame slide right off.

An exceptionally big heart.

Verse 11 of Psalm 103 says “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him”

Verse 13 says, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”

Now when it talks about fearing God, it doesn’t mean to be scared of him. 365 times in the Bible God says, do not fear - so it can’t mean that. To fear God in this context, means to know God and to follow him.

And of course this doesn’t mean that God ONLY loves those people who know him and follow him. The Bible tells us that God’s love is unconditional, it’s not based on what we do, but on God’s goodness - it’s just that when we know God and interact with him, we are more able to experience his love.

Can I have one last volunteer. (Place the big heart on them) - To remind us of God’s exceptionally big heart.

Now there’s a story in the Bible about a prophet called Elijah. Elijah was fearless and often stood up against wicked Kings and powerful false prophets.

On one occasion he challenged 850 false prophets to a contest. He said, "Let's prove once and for all whose God is the real God." He had them build an altar, then call on their God to send fire from heaven. Of course, nothing happened.

Then Elijah did the same thing. He built his altar, called upon God, and God sent a fierce fire so intense that it actually burned up the rocks of the altar as well.

But in the process of confronting the false prophets, he had humiliated the wicked queen Jezebel, who sent a message to Elijah that she was now going to kill him. Elijah, normally a very courageous man, ran and hid. He was hungry and physically exhausted. He was spiritually depleted. He was totally despondent and feeling sorry for himself. He told God, "It's over. I just want to die.”

God being the compassionate Father that God is, knew what Elijah needed - he miraculously provided Elijah with food and he caused him to sleep a long sleep. When Elijah woke, God assured him that he was not alone and gave him hope for the future.

When was the last time you were in one of those situations where you threw up your hands and said, “I can’t take anymore?”

“I can’t take one more criticism at work. I can’t take one more friend moving away. I can’t take one more rejection, one more sleepless night, one more adult misunderstanding me or one more friend being mean. I can’t take one more day feeling ill or one more day being alone, or one more day messing up again.”

Doesn’t God know how much I can take?

Verse 14, Psalm 130 says, that God knows exactly that. We read:

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we're formed. He remembers that we're dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it and it's gone, and its place remembers it no more."

It seems we are are not as invincible as we sometimes think we are! But God knows exactly that, and his heart is full of compassion for us. Isaiah 42:3 says that God is careful not to break a bruised reed. He understands our limitations, better than we do. He’s gentle and kind and he longs to help us, if we’ll let him.

At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona in Spain, the world witnessed a parable of the father's love played out on international television.

Due to licensing laws, I couldn’t show it today, but if you fancy a tear jerker later on, is worth watching - it’s only a 2 min clip, the link will be on our website with this talk. But it’s a beautiful image of the Father’s compassionate love.

Derek Redmond, running the 400m for Great Britain knew that his lifelong dream of winning gold was within reach. But part way through the race, as he entered the back stretch, Redmond experienced the ripping pain of a torn hamstring. He struggled to his feet, in excruciating pain and began hopping, clasping at his leg, toward the finish line.

The world watched on as suddenly Derek’s father bounded out of the stands, past a security guard. He threw his arms around his son. In a voice choked with emotion, he whispered, "Come on, Son, let's finish this together." The crowd cheered and wept as they watched the father, embracing his wounded son as he hobbled down the final stretch all the way to cross the finish line.

This is what our heavenly Father says to us, “come on, Son, let’s finish this together”. “Come on daughter, we’re in this together.” “Come on dear child, we’ll do this together”

You see God is not simply a distant God with an astonishingly long fuse, or a distant God with a terribly short memory - if that’s all he was it wouldn’t mean so much. But he’s a Father who also has an exceptionally big heart - full of compassion and rich in love. A Father who holds us, who understands us and walks beside us every step of the way.