How Do We Counsel Someone with a Distorted Image of the Concept of “Father”?

Recent Biblical Counseling Discussions… 

Recently, the biblical counseling world has been discussing some vitally important questions.

How do we counsel a person whose earthly father portrayed a distorted image of the concept of ‘father’? 

What biblical passages and theological concepts about God the Father do we explore together and apply when counseling someone who had a sinfully abusive father?

“Is God the Father Like My Father”

When I saw these discussions, I remembered reading a very personal public post about this topic on The Gospel Coalition: Is God the Father Like My Father? In this post, Jonathan C. Edwards shares candidly and openly about his struggle.

“I was 25 years old before I could say the word “father” while praying. The word was foreign to me. It didn’t roll off my tongue the way it did for many of my Christian friends. It felt like a word from a foreign language. In one regard, it meant nothing. It was gibberish. But in another, it meant a world of things. Amid the cultural barriers, it still struck a nerve, because while it meant nothing, it meant everything.

It meant broken things.

Scary things.

Hurtful things.

How was I supposed to use a word that, for me, brought to mind everything a parent shouldn’t be when I was in conversation with a God whom I’d been told was everything my dad wasn’t? How was I supposed to call God by a name I hadn’t used for most of my life; a name that didn’t mean to me what I knew Scripture insisted God is?

For me to call God a father was like calling an apple an orange. They didn’t mix. Sure, I knew God was a Father, but how was I sure he wasn’t like my father?”

Jonathan vulnerably and publicly speaks for many people when he writes:

“We’re frightened by God the Father, because we’re terrified of our earthly fathers. How can we come to God without fear when we’re scared to go home when Dad is there? How can we understand God’s love and faithfulness when Dad left town because he loved someone or something more than us? How can God be a mighty fortress of protection when Dad hit instead of hugged? How can God be a firm foundation of trust and assurance when Dad built in us a mountain of disappointment and insecurity?”

Jonathan then offers a beautiful story of his “recalibration.”

“What changed it all for me was a recalibration. It took a reorientation for me to move forward in trusting the Lord and calling him Father. What do I mean? Instead of looking at my dad and then back at God, I learned to look at God first. I realized if God wasn’t my first source of fatherhood, I was always going to be off-balance. If I didn’t start with God, then he would always be the replica rather than the original.

This recalibration took turning to Scripture to fill my mind with the true nature of God instead of turning to the empty shadow first.”

I appreciate Jonathan’s candor about the significant destructive impact his earthly father had on him. I also appreciate Jonathan’s confidence in the power of God’s Word to renew his mind.

The Bible’s Teaching About Life in Our Fallen World 

Let’s return to our question:

What biblical passages and theological concepts about God the Father do we explore together and apply when counseling someone who had a sinfully abusive father?

To answer this question, first we need to ponder biblically the relationship between our experiences in a fallen world and our beliefs about our perfect heavenly Father.

David Powlison on Life in Our Fallen World 

In 1993, David Powlison addressed this issue in his article, What If Your Father Didn’t Love You?

“If your father was abusive, demanding, critical, neglectful or selfish, are you crippled from knowing God as a loving Father?” (1).

“The intellectual source for the notion that your experience of your father determines your view of the heavenly father is psychodynamic psychology, not the Bible” (4). 

Don’t miss the important words, “crippled” and “determines.” Powlison is not saying that there is no impact from sinful experiences. He is not saying there is zero effect on us from sinful, abusive parenting. He is saying that life experiences are not the final word.

Powlison wrote often, and wrote compassionately, about the harmful effect of life in a fallen world. We can’t cherry-pick a quote from Powlison on personal responsibility, while neglecting scores of lengthy passages from Powlison on the horrible personal results of being sinned against.

Powlison’s 2010 booklet, Life Beyond Your Parents’ Mistakes, is a comprehensive further development of his brief 1993 editorial. Speaking specifically about the role of sinful parenting on our view of God, Powlison explains, “This is not to say that people with poor parents don’t often project those images onto the true God” (3). Powlison then introduces us to “Sally” who grew up “in a dangerous household” (1).

“Though she became a Christian in high school, Sally felt that she could never know God as her Father. Her relationship with her earthly father was just too damaging. Now twenty-eight-years-old, she still tends to see God as untrustworthy, demanding, merciless, and unpredictable” (1).

After several more counseling illustrations concerning the relationship of sinful parents to our view of God as Father, Powlison then applies this reality to his readers—to us.

What about you? Perhaps you too feel like your parents failures have kept you from knowing God’s love and learning to love others. It is a common problem. And it does not have a snap-your-fingers solution…. What do you do when there is little or no ‘Abba, Father’ in your heart?” (2).

Powlison is clear about “a common problem,” without “a snap-your-fingers solution.” Abusive parents distort “the ‘Abba, Father,’ in your heart.” Powlison is also clear that our minds can be renewed. His subtitle leaves no doubt: The Transforming Power of God’s Love.

Among scores and scores of examples where Powlison expresses the biblical truth of the destructive effects of life in a fallen world, is his article, Predator, Prey, and Protector: Helping Victims Think and Act from Psalm 10. Powlison begins with a litany of ways that “Helen’s” husband betrayed her. Does Powlison minimize or deny the victimization, the pain, the anguish of Helen being sinned against? Of course not.

“What should she say? How should she think? What should she do? Where does God fit amidst such devastation? Psalm 10 was uttered and written for those who have been victimized by others. Psalm 10 was written for Helen. It is a message of honest anguish and genuine refuge. It is not a message about pretending. It is a message about facing both reality and truth” (27).

“What does Psalm 10 say in particular? It contains two sorts of things: honest, aggrieved requests and thoughtful analysis. At the beginning and end, the aggrieved person bluntly talks to God: ‘Why are you far away? Bring to justice those who hurt others. Get up and do something. You see what’s going on. Sufferers trust You because You’ve helped the helpless in the past. Strip the power away from the hurtful now. I know You hear what I want. I know You will listen and make things right.’ In the middle, the sufferer vividly describes people who harm others. He probes how evildoers think and act and their effect on innocent victims. People who harm people are also rebelling against God, serving their pride and cravings. They terrorize those they victimize” (29).

Biblical counselors help counselees to face the reality of the agony of being sinned against. And they help counselees face life face-to-face with Christ.

Martin Luther on Life in Our Fallen World 

Powlison reminds me of Luther. Luther understood how Satan attempts to use our suffering to distort our image of God. Consider just a few insights from Luther.

“When God sends us tribulation, it is not as reason and Satan argue: ‘See there God flings you into prison, endangers your life. Surely He hates you. He is angry with you; for if He did not hate you, He would not allow this thing to happen.’ In this way Satan turns the rod of a Father into the rope of a hangman and the most salutary remedy into the deadliest poison. He is an incredible master at devising thoughts of this nature. Therefore, it is very difficult to differentiate in tribulations between him who kills and Him who chastises in a friendly way” (Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 16,  p. 214).

Satan’s lies: “Life is bad; God must be bad, too.” “God is not a loving Father but a hangman!”

The result in our lives of this lie—“it is very difficult to differentiate in tribulations” between seeing God as good and friendly and God as evil and against us. Listen again to Luther’s perceptive understanding of life lived in our fallen world.

“By the temptation of faith is meant that the evil conscience drives out of a person his confidence in the pardoning grace of God, and leads him to imagine that God is angry and wishes the death of the sinner, or that, in other words, the conscience places Moses upon the judgment-seat, and casts down the Savior of sinners from the throne of grace. This is the strongest, greatest and severest temptation of the devil, that he says: ‘God is the enemy of sinners, you are a sinner, therefore, God is your enemy.’ This is the noose which Satan throws over the head of the poor child of man in order to strangle him” (Luther As Spiritual Advisor, 189-190).

“This one line of attack the devil pursues to the utmost against us, undertaking to break down our faith and confidence by the thought that God is angry with us” (Luther As Spiritual Advisor, 179).

Satan uses the evils of life to tempt us to believe the ultimate lie—that God is not a good Father.

Satan attempts to use our suffering to distort our image of God.

The Apostle Paul on Life in Our Fallen World 

It would be naïve to imagine that life experiences do not impact a person. More than that, it would not be biblical. Consider Paul’s response to his experience.

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthains 1:8-9).

Paul’s approach here is so instructive for us as biblical counselors. He never minimizes the doctrine of hamartiology (sin). Paul takes sin and suffering seriously. He’s real and raw about the effect of being sinned against on his own soul. Paul also always maximizes the doctrine of soteriology (salvation). Despairing of life, feeling the sentence of death; Paul clings to the God who raises the dead. Life hurts; God heals. Life kills; God resurrects. Where sin abounds; grace super-abounds.

It would be counter to Scripture to teach that parenting does not impact a child.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Colossians 3:21).

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

We can draw out several related principles from Powlison, Luther, and the Apostle Paul.

• Being sinned against does indeed impact us. Sin is not the way life was meant to be. As I have said elsewhere, “The world is fallen and it often falls on us.” “Life is a mess and it messes with our minds.”
• Satan uses the events, circumstances, situations, and relationships in our lives as fodder for his strategy of deceiving us about the character of God—tempting us to doubt our Father’s good heart.
• Life experiences do not trump Scripture.
• Scripture speaks authoritatively, compassionately, and powerfully into our experiences in this fallen world.

The Personalized Ministry of Jesus 

In thinking about how to help someone tempted to doubt the Father’s good heart, we first need to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all response in biblical counseling. Powlison explains that Jesus-like ministry is the idiosyncratic application of God’s truth to the individual.

“It is noteworthy that Jesus never ministers by rote. There is no distilled formula. No abstract generalizations. Because situations and people come unscripted, fluid, and unpredictable, Jesus engages each person and situation in a personalized way. It is no truism to say that Jesus really does meet you where you are. Always.” (From the devotional book, Take Heart.)

The Personalized Ministry of the Word 

What Powlison taught, aligns with Ephesians 4:29:

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

We speak God’s truth applied to the occasion, to the need of the person, to the need of the moment, to the unique situation (see various translations of Ephesians 4:29 such as the KJV, NIV, NASB, NIV, etc.).

Paul further develops the personalized ministry of the Word in 1 Thessalonians 5:14.

“And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.”

Biblical counseling is not “ministry-by-rote,” nor “paint-by-numbers.” Biblical counsel is not “one-problem-one-verse.” Christlike biblical counselors listen well to a counselee’s earthly story of pain and suffering, and then listen together with the counselee to God’s eternal story of healing and hope. 

How Do We Minister to People with a Distorted Image of the Concept of “Father”? 

Let’s assume that we have been empathetically engaging with and listening to a person’s earthly story of an abusive, sinful human father—and how it has distorted their concept of “father.” Now what? In Life Beyond Your Parents’ Mistakes, Powlison explains the counseling process in exactly this scenario.

“People change when truth becomes clearer and brighter than previous life experience” (9) “Find specific truths in the Bible that contend with those lies” (13).

As we listen together with our counselee to the Bible’s eternal story of God’s good heart, we ponder a vital biblical counseling question:

• Which relevant biblical passages and theological concepts might we explore and apply together with this specific individual who struggles with a distorted image of the concept of “father”?

In the recent online discussions about these issues, it was suggested that it could be difficult for some people with a distorted human image of the word “father” to be able to grasp the biblical truth of God as Father. It was further suggested that additional biblical passages about God could be helpful—such as passages where the Bible compares God’s care to the care of a mother.

Of course, this is not an either/or issue. We can explore together with our counselee a wide range of biblical passages and theological concepts about God. These could include passages that explicitly highlight God as our heavenly Father; it could include passages using a metaphor comparing God’s care to a mother’s care; it could include passages using metaphors for God as our shepherd or a lion.

Powlison’s Passages

It’s fascinating to see the two specific biblical passages about God that Powlison directs his readers to right after he says, “We change when our ears hear and our eyes see what God tells us about himself” (Life Beyond Your Parents’ Mistakes, 9). Powlison’s first passage uses the metaphor of a mother’s compassion (Isaiah 49:13-16). His second passage uses the metaphor of a father’s compassion (Psalm 103:10-13).

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15).

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13).

Comprehensive Biblical Teaching About God 

We know that ALL Scripture is inspired.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

All Scripture includes biblical passages that highlight God as Father. According to Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, “Father” is used for God fifteen times in the Old Testament. Jesus used the term “Father” for God sixty-five times in the Synoptic Gospels, and over one hundred times in John.

In Knowing God, J. I. Packer explained that:

“You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father…. The revelation to the believer that God is his Father is in a sense the climax of the Bible” (182).

So, clearly, for counselees struggling with the concept of “father,” we would want to explore passages about God the Father. As we do, we can engage in spiritual conversations such as:

• “How does your experience of your father contrast with this passage on God who is your heavenly Father?”

• “How could 2 Corinthians 1:3 about God ‘the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort’ impact your view of God and His relationship to you?”

• “How could the Bible’s teaching about God as your ‘Abba Father’ change the distorted image that developed in your heart as you grew up with your abusive father?”

• “Given your experience with your earthly father, does this passage stir up any difficult emotions for you? Does it create any confusion for you? If so, would you like us to talk about them?” (Note: As Luther explained, and as the Bible portrays in Genesis 3, and with Jesus in the wilderness, Satan attempts to twist scriptural truth about God.)

• “Given your experience with your earthly father, does this passage stir up any healing hope in your heart as you see the truth of your perfect heavenly Father?”

“All Scripture” also includes Scriptures like these:

• “Like the eagle that stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young, God spreads wings to catch you, and carries you on pinions” (Deuteronomy 32:11-12).

• “For a long time I [God] have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:14).

• “Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb” (Isaiah 46:3, Calvin’s Translation from his Commentary on Isaiah).

• “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I [God] will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15).

• “As a mother comforts her child, so will I [God] comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem” (Isaiah 66:13).

• “Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and tear them asunder…” (Hosea 13:8).

• “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34).

These are ALL inspired, inerrant, authoritative, sufficient Scriptures. For the counselee struggling with the concept of “father,” these passages could be among the passages that the Spirit would use in their lives. Surely there are many counselees for whom these inspired Scriptures would be appropriate passages to apply to their lives. In fact, all of us should apply these Scriptures to our lives.

This is the nature of Jesus-like soul care:

Applying pertinent, relevant Scriptures to the specific, unique person sitting in front of us.

Biblical Theology/Theologians and Biblical Counseling 

In addition to passages like those above, we might want to explore with counselees quotes from theologians in church history. Here are a dozen quotes interacting with biblical passages and biblical theology about God.

1. John Calvin on Deuteronomy 32:11-12: “God compares Himself to an eagle, which not only fosters her young ones under her outspread wings, but also indulgently, and with maternal tenderness tempts them to fly. Nor can it be doubted but that Christ, when He compares Himself to a hen, desired to express the same sedulous care” (Commentary on Deuteronomy).

2. John Calvin on Job 22: “True, our Lord for his part becomes more familiar with us than anything else. He is like a nurse, like a mother. He does not just compare himself with fathers, who are kind and good-natured to their children. He says he is more than a mother, or a nurse. He uses such familiarity so that we shall not be like savage beasts anymore” (Sermon on Job 22:1-22).

3. John Calvin on Isaiah 42:14: “For a long time I [God] have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.” “Like a woman in labor. By this metaphor he expresses astonishing warmth of love and tenderness of affection; for he compares himself to a mother who singularly loves her child, though she brought him forth with extreme pain. It may be thought that these things are not applicable to God; but in no other way than by such figures of speech can his ardent love towards us be expressed. He must therefore borrow comparisons from known objects, in order to enable us to understand those which are unknown to us; for God loves very differently from men, that is, more fully and perfectly, and, although he surpasses all human affections, yet nothing that is disorderly belongs to him. Besides, he intended also to intimate that the redemption of his people would be a kind of birth, that the Jews might know that the grave would serve them for a womb, and that thus, in the midst of corruption, they might entertain the hope of salvation. Although he produced a new Church for himself without pain or effort, yet, in order to exhibit more fully the excellence of his grace in this new birth, he not inappropriately attributes to himself the cry of ‘a woman in labor.’” (Commentary on Isaiah 42:14).

4. John Calvin on Isaiah 46:3: “Here the Prophet beautifully points out the vast difference between the true God and idols. He now ascribes a widely different office to the God of Israel, namely, that he ‘carries’ his people, like a mother, who carries the child in her womb, and afterwards carries it in her bosom. He addresses the Jews, that they may return an answer from their experience; for this ought to have powerfully affected them, when they actually felt that he bore them and their burdens” (Commentary on Isaiah 46:3). 

5. John Calvin on Isaiah 49:15: “By an apt comparison he shows how strong is the concern he bears for his own. He compares himself to a mother, whose love for her baby is so engrossed and anxious as to leave a father’s love a long way behind. Thus he was not content with using the example of a father, which he employs frequently elsewhere. To express his burning affection, he preferred to compare himself to a mother, and he does not call them just ‘children’ but his ‘baby.’ since affection for a baby is normally stronger. The affection a mother feels for her baby is amazing. She fondles it in her lap, feeds it at her breast, and watches so anxiously over it that she passes sleepless nights, continually wearing herself out and forgetting herself” (Commentary on Isaiah 49:15).

6. Martin Luther on Isaiah 46:3: God has not spoken “more sweetly than in transferring a mother’s experiences to Himself … God cares for us with an everlasting maternal heart and feeling” (Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 40-66, Luther’s Works, Vol 17, 139, 183).

7. Martin Luther on Isaiah 49:15: Commenting on God’s immanence from Isaiah 49:15, Luther writes, “I will not forsake you, because I am your mother. I cannot desert you” (Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 40-66, Luther’s Works, Vol 17, 410).

8. Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers on Isaiah 66:13: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I [God] comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem” (Isa. 66:13). (13) One whom his mother comforteth . . .—The image of maternal love, with which the prophet’s mind is full, is presented in yet another aspect. The love which Zion gives, the love which her children receive from the nations, are both but shadows of the infinite tenderness of Jehovah. In this instance the object of the mother’s love that comforts is not the child at the breast, but the full-grown man, returning, like the prodigal, to his home after long years of exile. The words are characteristic at once of the special tie which unites the son to the mother, almost more than to the father, in most Eastern nations, and, perhaps also, of the prophet’s personal memories of his own mother’s love.” 

9. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on Hosea 11:4: “I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them” (Hosea 11:4). “When Israel were weak and helpless as children, foolish and froward as children, then God loved them; he bore them as the nurse does the sucking child, nourished them, and suffered their manners. All who are grown up, ought often to reflect upon the goodness of God to them in their childhood. He took care of them, took pains with them, not only as a father, or a tutor, but as a mother, or nurse.”

10. Augustine On the Psalms: “He who has promised us heavenly food has nourished us on milk, having recourse to a mother’s tenderness. For just as a mother, suckling her infant, transfers from her flesh the very same food which otherwise would be unsuited to a babe … so our Lord, in order to convert his wisdom into milk for our benefit, came to us clothed in flesh. It is the Body of Christ, then, which here says: “And thou shalt nourish me” (Augustine, “On the Psalms,” Ancient Christian Writers, No. 30, eds. II,. 20-21). 

11. Richard Sibbes: “As a mother is tenderest to the most diseased and weakest child, so does Christ most mercifully incline to the weakest.” 

12. John Owen: “To secure us hereof, there is not any thing that has a loving and tender nature in the world, and does act suitably whereunto, which God has not compared himself unto…He is as a father, a mother, a shepherd, a hen over chickens, and the like.”

Case Wisdom: The Full Counsel of God for Biblical Counseling 

We need “case wisdom,” as David Powlison used to talk about, or “winsome wisdom,” to use another Powlison term, to discern which biblical passages and theological concepts to explore and apply with which counselee in which order.

What biblical passages and theological concepts about God the Father do we explore together and apply when counseling someone who had a sinfully abusive father?

We avail ourselves of the full counsel of God, of all of God’s inspired Word, as we seek to compassionately, wisely, and idiosyncratically apply scriptural passages and biblical theology to our counselee’s life.

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