We think God is a Bad Parent When We Don’t Honor Him

We as born- again believers are children of God and He is our ultimate Parent. Do we ever consider God to be a bad parent? Do we always honor God as our Father like we are commanded to in Deuteronomy 6:13–

^“ Honor the Lord your God, worship only him, and make your promises in his name alone.”

Does the perspective of thinking that God is a bad parent make us feel angry and uncomfortable? After all who would dare say our loving Heavenly Father is a bad parent; how can we call perfection bad? Every time we don’t trust God we are calling Him a bad parent because we think we can work the solution out better than He can. We don’t have confidence in His power or decision making ability. When God tells us to repent of something or go in this direction and we blatantly disregard His voice, we aren’t honoring Him as our parent. We are saying You are a bad parent-God.

Think of it in human terms: Daily we make decisions for our children that influence their lives. We tell them specifically that talking back to us is disrespectful and dishonoring. Instantly they spin off a barrage of curse words and they tell us that we don’t know what we are talking about and they can receive better advice from their friends. They say we are the worst parents a child could have and they wish they were old enough to move out; so they won’t have to listen to our nonsense any longer. How does that make us feel as parents? This interaction makes us feel like we are total failures as parents.

We discipline them to the best of our ability when they exhibit wrong behavior that is not acceptable to us. We correct them to improve their behavior so they will become better human beings and walk closer with the Lord. When the discipline ends and they just disregard our correction and commit worse infractions they are telling us, by their actions, we are bad parents.

“For those  whom the  Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?  For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.  All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” Hebrews 12:6-11

So we know that God disciplines us as well but He does it so we will be more like Him. He is trying to mold us more into the image of Jesus. But when we spurn the Lord’s discipline and carry on the behavior He is trying to change; we dishonor Him and we are saying, ” He is a bad parent. He doesn’t know what He is doing or talking about.” How does that make Him feel as our divine parent?

So let us honor God as our Father obeying His parental commands and correction. We will be better parents to our children and better children for God our Father. Remember His discipline may be uncomfortable for a night but it yields peace in the morning, if we are trained by it.

By our actions or speech have we ever told God that He is a bad Parent?