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God as father is probably the most commonly known metaphor for God…

• Undoubtedly, the most common known metaphor for God is father. When people imagine God as an old man with a long white beard, they are often thinking of God as a father and as a patriarch. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Father! – to God himself we cannot give a holier name. William Wordsworth
• God is the Father of light. Lailah Gifty Akita
• God will not take shelter behind a jugglery of logic or metaphysics. He is neither a schoolman nor theologian, but our Father in Heaven. George MacDonald
• If we will but let our God and Father work His will with us, there can be no limit to His enlargement of our existence. George MacDonald
• O God… make me a child again, even before I die; give me back the simple faith, the clear vision of the child that holds its father’s hand. Israel Zangwill
• Of all your associations, it is your relationship with God, your Heavenly Father, who is the source of your moral power. D. Todd Christofferson
• Our lives are merely strange dark interludes in the electric display of God the Father. Eugene O’Neill
• Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who wipes away the tears. Criss Jami
• Our willingness to be used as God’s vessels can make His Father-heart a reality to our hurting world. Floyd McClung
• The eternal everlasting God has become our Father and the moment we realize that, it transforms everything. David Lloyd-Jones

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…an integral part of Christianity and Judaism

• I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:18)
• Is He not your father, who created you, He made you and established you? Deuteronomy 32
• God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God. Wayne Grudem
• One key and defining attribute of God that does not appear in any other world religion or system is the biblical use of the term “Father.” Over 70 times in the New Testament alone, God is described as “Father” to His children. No major world religion describes the relationship between its creator and its adherents in terms of a father. Ergun Caner
• Peruse the Christian marketplace, and you will find a plethora of books, songs, and paintings that depict God as a loving Father. David Platt
• The notion that we are children of God, his own sons and daughters, lies at the heart of all Christian theology, and is the mainspring of all Christian living. Sinclair B. Ferguson
• What is a Christian? The richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father. J. I. Packer

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Some focus on the patriarchal and authoritarian aspects of God as father

• In a patriarchal household the father figure is the head of the family. He has the power and the authority. He rules the family and everyone else is dependent on him. The father uses his power to regulate the life of the household. He rules directly or through others by dispensing power to them. Flora A. Keshgegian
• In a patriarchal household the patriarch’s will rules everyone and everything. It is not a democracy. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God also maintains order through giving direction and punishing offenses. The will of the patriarch is correct, as well as commanding. Whatever he orders is for everyone else’s good. Flora A. Keshgegian
• The dynamics of the household are focused on the needs and wants of the patriarch. His desires, his requirements, his direction are what count. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Maintaining the given order is paramount in such a household. Whatever disturbs that order and the patriarch at its head is understood to be a threat. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Since the order of a patriarchal household is maintained by keeping everyone and everything else subordinate, that is, under orders, insubordination cannot be tolerated. It is taken as an affront to the will of the patriarch, who knows best.  Flora A. Keshgegian
• In turn the patriarch’s job is to take care of the household by providing for it, as well as directing and commanding it. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Hierarchical structures function to manage conflict and protect against chaos through ordering life on all levels and maintaining a single, central authority. Fathers adjudicate conflicts and maintain peace in the family, often by having the final say. Their word rules. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Such a structure may be comforting to family members, especially in times of uncertainty and change and conflict. Flora A. Keshgegian

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…a father God we must obey

• All we have to do is to go onward and upward, and keep the commandments of our Father and God; and he will confound our enemies. Brigham Young
• He who obeys God’s laws finds him a father. He who disobeys them, finds him a judge. Daniel D. Palmer
• The child that never learns to obey his parents in the home will not obey God or man out of the home. Susanna Wesley
• Despite the fear that the anticipation of judgment and punishment instills in believers, they still maintain that God the father knows best. Whatever punishment they are given, it is their due. The chastising rod of God’s discipline is meant for their own good. God’s justice is expressed through judgment and punishment. The proper relationship to God is one of obedience. Flora A. Keshgegian
• In this metaphor for God, as in the previous ones, all our prayers, whether of repentance or petition, end with the words: “your will be done.” We give ourselves-and our wills-over to God. We submit our wills to his will. Father still knows best. Our obedience seems a fit offering and response for the love and grace that he gives to us. We show our love for God through our obedience. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Many people view God as the stern and distant Father, who richly provides for us but offers little in the way of warmth and closeness. Dave Hintz

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God as patriarch is a God of rules, control and order

• God as patriarch is the ruler of the universe. Everything within that universe is part of God’s household; it is all God’s domain. God directs and controls all that is subordinate to him. Everything is subject to God’s will. Flora A. Keshgegian
• The universe of the patriarchal God is hierarchical. It is a tiered universe with God as father positioned atop that hierarchy. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God as patriarch orders the universe and provides for it and for each of us. From atop the hierarchy God the father directs all beneath him. Hierarchy works from the top down. Everything has its place. Such placement is by design. It is God given. There is nothing arbitrary in God’s ordering. Obedience to God and to those above in the hierarchy is a primary virtue. Such obedience means staying in one’s God-given place and following orders and direction. Challenging the given order or one’s place in it is contrary to God’s will. Flora A. Keshgegian
• We encounter this God and this view of creation at the very first, in the creation stories of the book of Genesis. In Genesis we read that not only does God create the universe and everything in it, but God does so in a particular way. There is a given order. Human beings are placed at the top of the earthly order and, therefore, they have dominion over all the rest of creation. the rest of creation remains somehow subordinated to human life. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God’s intent in creation was for human beings to live in an ordered relationship of obedience to God. From the very first God issued a command that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Within this familiar Genesis story of creation and fall, the various roles of the patriarchal father are narrated: he creates, orders, rules, directs, provides, judges, chastises and punishes, and even exercises mercy. God’s will is operating through each of these roles. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God the patriarch not only orders but also directs and controls through his will. God’s will is the source of everything that happens. God is in charge; nothing escapes God’s notice. The patriarchal God is not an uninvolved father. He is fully engaged with all of creation. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God the patriarch is as powerful and all knowing and omnipresent as God the monarch, and his will is as absolute. However, God as father uses his power and knowledge somewhat differently. God the patriarch directs in and through the hierarchical structure that he established. In that way God delegates authority and disperses power to some degree, but only as long as the authority and power stay within the order that God created. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God’s will also provides. In the Genesis story we read that everything that human beings and that the rest of creation need was given to them, in abundance, by God. God the patriarch is thus a good provider. Flora A. Keshgegian
• It is often in such moments of difficulty or acute suffering that the faithful wonder about the providence of the patriarchal God. Their questioning often takes form of asking why?-Why did my young child have to die? Why would God send an earthquake that kills thousands of people? How can we reconcile such events with the providence of God, with God’s promise of care and sustenance? The answer we receive within this metaphor for God affirms that God the father is powerful and good: that father knows best and that what God is doing is ultimately for our own good. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Even in the case of massive natural disasters, such as an earthquake or a hurricane, God’s will is accepted. When people offer responses in the face of disaster and tragedy such as “God will bring a greater good out of the tragedy” or “God has an ultimate purpose that we cannot discern;” they are testifying to the power and goodness of God. These responses are variations of the logic of the patriarchal system: God is in control. God knows best. So, ultimately, this is all for the good, for your good. Thus God’s providence is at work, no matter what evidence there may be to the contrary. God’s providential care remains steadfast, even if cannot be discerned. God is a good provider. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Just as a patriarch has to uphold the family-all of it, with its traditions and honor-God is upholding the order of the universe. He is right to do this; it is just. And it is even necessary, if outright rebellion and chaos are to be avoided. Flora A. Keshgegian
• When a great tragedy befalls us, those we love or the world, we may even raise our fist at God and demand to know why. However, the affirmations that father knows best and that God’s will be done ultimately put an end to such questioning as we submit our wills to God’s. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God is good. God the patriarch wills to take care of us. This too is part of God’s promise and much of what is attractive about this image of God. Not only does God’s providence offer security but also the promise that whatever happens in life will be ultimately for the good, including our good. The belief that God will make a way out of no way or will intervene in due time or will right wrongs whether in this life or in the next can offer comfort and support. When our immediate experience is that life is chaotic or out of control, believing that there is a given order and that God is in control of it and of us can make a significant difference in our ability to persevere, maintain faith, and have hope. Flora A. Keshgegian
• The promise of God the patriarch, indeed of any hierarchical system, is of security and a kind of certainty. God the father is in charge. He rules the household. This strength is similar to the power and might of the God the monarch. In the metaphor of God the father, however, more emphasis is given to God’s will as being for our good. God is not only ruler, but also provider. He is powerful and good. Flora A. Keshgegian
• If order is a high priority for us, if it is what we need to ground us in life, then this metaphor has appeal. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God the father is in total control. We get what we need and want by asking him for these things. In this metaphor for God, the forms and purposes of prayer are similar to those expressed to God the monarch. Prayer is most often in the form of petition. We direct our requests, for ourselves and others, to God and ask him to fulfill them. Flora A. Keshgegian
• We praise God as well. We may even flatter God. When we do so we are letting God know that we understand that he has all the power, that he holds all the cards. We, therefore, tell God how great he is and then humbly present our needs and wants to him. Always, we end our prayer with a recognition that God the father’s will and not our own is what rules and determines the outcome of our prayer. Only God is able to answer our prayers. Flora A. Keshgegian

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God as patriarch is a God of tough love…

• This Tough Love Parent God knows that the child must learn responsibility, and so declares precise rules. The Tough Love Parent will not rescue the child. If the child goofs up, the child suffers the consequences; that is, the child is responsible. However, the Tough Love Parent will always be there, loving, accepting, and naming responsible behavior. Carolyn Jane Bohler

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…a God that regularly disciplines His children…

• To deny the force of divine judgment, then, is to make God less than God, and to make us less than His children. For every father must discipline His children, and paternal discipline is itself a mercy, a fatherly expression of love. Scott Hahn
• God never punishes his children in the sense of avenging justice. He chastens as a father does his child, but he never punishes his redeemed as a judge does a criminal. It is unjust to exact punishment from redeemed souls since Christ has been punished in their place. How shall the Lord punish twice for one offense? Charles Spurgeon
• God strikes not as an enemy, to destroy; but as a father, to correct. John H Aughey
• It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, jin which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits land live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.  Hebrews 12:7–11
• We have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! (Hebrews 12:9)
• God the father is a strict disciplinarian. God’s care is not without judgment. God the patriarch is also God the judge. Many of us imagine God in this way, as the one who judges us. He is the old man with the white beard who sits on a throne of justice where he weighs our lives on his scales of justice. God pronounces judgment: whether we will be eternally rewarded or punished. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God as judge evokes our fear. We obey him out of fear. We live our lives in anticipation of the moment of judgment to come. Just as a mother’s threat-wait until your father gets home-is meant to frighten children into behaving better, the prospect of a final judgment casts it shadow upon our behavior throughout our lives. Flora A. Keshgegian
• We know that God disciplines His children, and that testing, suffering, and persecution come to us from Heaven to stretch, grow, and mature us into the men and women God intends to make us… If we keep this in mind when hard times fall, it can be a real source of joy in the fire. Kirk Cameron

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…for our own good…

• God does not discipline us to subdue us, but to condition us for a life of usefulness and blessedness. Billy Graham
• God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us. Richard J. Foster
• God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, spend our time wisely, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in time of sorrow, increase faith, and strengthen character. Joni Eareckson Tada
• God’s loving discipline brings us face-to-face with our pride. Max Anders
• If your life consistently bears no fruit, God will intervene to discipline you. If your life bears some fruit, God will intervene to prune you. If your life bears a lot of fruit, God will invite you to abide more deeply with Him. Bruce Wilkinson
• No matter how dear you are to God, if pride is harboured in your spirit, He will whip it out of you. They that go up in their own estimation must come down again by His discipline. Charles Spurgeon
  The purpose of God’s discipline is not to punish us but to transform us. Jerry Bridges
• God will never disappoint us… If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline. …To the unbeliever the fact of suffering only convinces him that God is not to be trusted, does not love us. To the believer, the opposite is true. Elisabeth Elliot
• God is interested in developing your character. At times He lets you proceed, but He will never let you go too far without discipline to bring you back. In your relationship with God, He may let you make a wrong decision. Then the Spirit of God causes you to recognize that it is not God’s will. He guides you back to the right path. Henry Blackaby
• To live a disciplined life, and to accept the result of that discipline as the will of God – that is the mark of a man.  Tom Landry

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…all part of keeping order and control

• Fundamentally, in the logic of this view, God’s motivation is not so much to punish, as to uphold God’s order. God’s will is expressed in and through that order, which sin disrupts. Restoration and redemption must offer a remedy for the disruption caused by sin. The debt must be paid, not simply forgiven. Punishment is due; there can be no general amnesty. Justice, the righting of wrongs, demands it. The righteousness of God’s will requires it. It is necessary to preserve order. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God’s actions are not arbitrary or capricious. They are, however, directed not by our needs but by his needs and desires and the purposes and ends of the order he established. Just as in a patriarchal family where the father determines the needs of the family, so it is with God. Father knows best. Flora A. Keshgegian

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God as patriarch has its limitations as a metaphor

• The right relationship we have with God is a formal one, of a subordinate to a superior, of a child to a formidable parent. God provides and we accept, gratefully and humbly. There is no room for reciprocity or mutuality or even closeness in such a relationship. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Functionally, a major limitation of this metaphor-as was the case with God as monarch-is that many people no longer live in the type of patriarchal world the metaphor assumes. Many religions, especially in their more conservative modes, may assert that God’s world is hierarchical and patriarchal and even try to establish such social and political structures in the world, as well as in their religious communities. However, such hierarchical structures are antithetical to the practice of freedom and democracy that are central values of our society. In our world, a hierarchical model, ruled by an all powerful patriarch, is at best one type of social structure and one model of religious ordering among many. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Patriarchal structures also lend themselves to abuses. The concentration of power at the top makes it difficult to hold those with power accountable. When power is understood as control over others, the danger of the powerful using their power against the less powerful is ever present. Husbands abuse wives, parents abuse children, clergy abuse laity, and humans abuse nature. Flora A. Keshgegian
• If God is the ultimate authority, if all power is derived from God, if God’s will is always good and right, then how do we account for the ways that people are abused and injured? The only way to answer such questions within this metaphor is to submit to God’s will as right and good, whatever happens. But such submission may further intensify the harm of abuse.
• This metaphor both reflects and produces a static universe. Change is seen as challenge and threat. Stability, with everything and everyone in its proper place, is highly valued. In an ever-changing world, God the patriarch can only be positioned over against the world, in judgment. God’s will is to oppose most of the changes happening in the world and in society and to see them as dangerous and threatening. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Finally, this metaphor for God is problematic because the patriarchal God is necessarily male. Females can neither image God nor are they supposed to act like God by exercising will and power. Women are, by nature, subordinate to and dependent on men. At best, they are limited to their separate sphere, traditionally defined by motherhood and household duties. This is the way God intended things to be. It is God’s will. And father knows best. Flora A. Keshgegian

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Most of all, belief in a patriarchal God upholds patriarchy in society

• By asserting the creation myth, in which God is a man over ealier creation myths in which God was viewed as a woman, men hoped to prove that the position of supremacy that they had assumed was Divine Law. Frederick Lenz
• Although the notion of one god may give comfort to those in need of a daddy, it reminds the rest of us that the totalitarian society is grounded upon the concept of God the father. One paternal god, one paternal leader. Authority is absolute. Gore Vidal
• Feminist theologians pointed out that the images used for God tended to serve the interests of males who were dominant in the social order. Those images reinforced patriarchal social patterns. If God was a patriarch in a hierarchically ordered universe, which was created and sanctioned by God, then, feminist theologians pointed out, it was difficult ficult to argue for more egalitarian perspectives, especially for women and others not at the top of the hierarchy. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God was “Father;” a patriarch at the top of a hierarchical archical universe, created and directed by God. This God was powerful and in charge of everything. Flora A. Keshgegian
• I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages. And that persecution still goes on today all over the world. Amanda Donohoe
• The theology written by men has been written from the perspective of male questions, male concerns, male priorities, male pressures. What interests men, troubles men, affects men, concerns men has dominated religious thought and practice since the beginning Christianity. Joan D. Chittister
• Two thousand years ago, we lived in a world of Gods and Goddesses. Today, we live in a world solely of Gods. Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power. Dan Brown
• Using the Father-Son metaphor in the formula is not adequate to the task of summarizing Christian faith. Speaking of God in masculine but not in feminine terms, it reinforces patriarchal patterns of valuing the male and devaluing the female. Moreover, ‘Father’ has unfortunate associations for many in North American society, in which patriarchal values condone the abuse of children by their fathers. Further, ‘Father’ has been used so incessantly as a metaphor for God that for many people it has lost its metaphoric power to evoke wonder and reflection; seeming to be a literal statement about God, it may also become an idol. Ruth C. Duck
• I always say it was great for God to send his only son, but I’m waiting for him to send his only daughter. Then things will really be great. Candace Pert
• I think the myths are keeping us limited to, and tied to, what I would call the hyper-masculine tradition. All the major religions in the world have been founded by men and propagated by men. Arjuna Ardagh
• If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination. Mary Daly
• Life wasn’t about freeing up human souls. It was about creating obedient slaves in the hierarchical construction of the society – with God at the top, then the king and then the father. Ingmar Bergman
• The use of male language for God is neither accidental nor a choice of convenience. Male language reflects a world that privileges and values males. In such a word power and authority are associated with maleness. Our religious language reinforces these associations. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Thus, after a period of about two thousand years the greatest crime became to worship a god other than the God of Moses, whereas injustice became a minor sin. I began to ask myself how this change had come about. Was it linked to a new order in which the female goddesses had been replaced by one male god? Nawal El Saadawi

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Some focus more on the merciful aspects of God, the father…

• God is full of mercy for everyone, as He has been towards you. He is a father before He is a judge. Alexandre Dumas
• God is the Father who is full of mercy. God is the Father who is full of comfort. That is the kind of relationship he offers to you. Rick Warren
• In this metaphor for God, the will of God, as loving father, is for mercy. God wants to forgive us and receive us back into his loving arms. No matter what we have done, or how far we have strayed, God will forgive us and restore us. He is ever ready to welcome our return. The supreme witness to such eagerness is the belief that God the father gave his own Son to die “for us.” Flora A. Keshgegian
• Such mercy does not diminish or change God’s power. This God of mercy is still totally in charge. He continues to be a patriarch whose will is supreme. The hierarchy, with God at the top, remains intact. However, in the tension between God’s wrath and mercy, power and love, judgment and forgiveness, God tips the balance toward mercy, love, and forgiveness. The tension is not resolved; it persists. What is different is that God responds more from the side of mercy rather than wrath. Flora A. Keshgegian
• This patriarchal God is still in control of all. He continues to know best, but that knowledge is directed more by mercy and love. God is also more patient and even more willing to wait for us to come to him. He is more inclined toward our personal well-being. This seems to be a chief appeal of this metaphor. Flora A. Keshgegian
• In our psychologically oriented society, with its concerns for self-actualization and personal development, the metaphor of God as a merciful and loving father seems more fitting than that of the distant, patriarchal father. A fatherly focus on children also makes sense in this child-centered culture. We are able to relate better to God the loving father. This is one reason the parable of the prodigal son, or as some prefer to call it, the merciful father, is so popular. Flora A. Keshgegian
• This portrait of a loving father balances the internalized judgment and condemnation that many people carry around with them. Young children who are neglected or harmed by their parents and caretakers tend to feel that they are unlovable. Those who have internalized such judgments and views might eagerly find the message of God’s acceptance as healing and life-giving. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God’s mercy is indeed grace for those who experience their own wills as captive to sin, who are unable to direct those wills toward the good and their own well-being. God’s will turns toward them in grace, comes out to meet them, and frees them from captivity. This willing mercy of God is a theme that runs through the great theologians of grace: St. Paul, St. Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Calvin.
• The appeal of God as a merciful and loving father is not only to those who are great sinners and addicts. It is also an attractive and powerful image for those who have not known love, especially parental love, in their own lives. Such persons find, in the story of the prodigal son, the loving father they never knew. God’s desire to be in loving relationship compensates us for what our own parents were not able to provide. God is the reliable, loving, ever-present parent. God is the parent upon whom we can depend. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God sees us with the eyes of a Father. He sees our defects, errors and blemishes. But He also sees our value. Max Lucado

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…a father always ready to forgive us if we repent and mend our ways

• This image of God is especially powerful for those who need and seek mercy, those who, as the words of the prodigal son seem to suggest, are aware of their sin and are asking for forgiveness. The promise of this metaphor is that such sinners will be met not by the harsh judgment and punishment they may deserve, but by a merciful father. This is blessed assurance for those who feel lost or convicted of their wrongdoing, as well as those who believe themselves to be living contrary to God’s will. It is balm for the souls of sinners who might well fear the wrath of God and This image of God, as a loving and merciful father, offers more than constancy of presence and power. The merciful father is also generous in his forgiveness. In this way, too, the story of the prodigal son is very appealing, even more so than the God of the prophets. In the prophetic literature God has mercy and restores Israel, but only after anger, judgment, and punishment. Flora A. Keshgegian
• No child of God sins to that degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness. John Bunyan
• God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness. Henry Ward Beecher
• God’s judgment. Flora A. Keshgegian
• This understanding of God’s will, as forgiving, merciful, loving, and even educating, fits better with our contemporary sensibilities. God the merciful father is more like the fathers who raised us or whom we wish had raised us. He is a family man who wants to keep his family together and in harmony. The togetherness of the family, the return of the prodigal son, is more important than the honor due the patriarch. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God wills to forgive us. God’s will is directed toward our good, but differently than it is in the metaphor of the patriarchal father who knows best. God the patriarch declares that whatever God metes out to us is for our own good, including punishment and chastisement. God the merciful father may also sometimes judge and punish, but he seems to care more about what is truly good for us, truly for our own good, and not just for the patriarchal order. So we experience God’s will as merciful and loving, not just as demanding and full of judgment. Flora A. Keshgegian

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Some focus most on God as a loving, nurturing parent

• As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. Psalm 103.13
• God loves his children more than any earthly parent, so think what your kindness to his children means to him. Henry B. Eyring
• If we act like children of God, knowing that he loves us, our lives will be made new, filled with serenity and joy. Pope Francis
• Parental love is unconditional, and so is God’s love. No matter what a child of God has done against Him, or feels he or she has done that cannot be forgiven, God still loves that wondering soul. David Jeremiah
• God’s care for us is more watchful and more tender than the care of any human father could possibly be. Hannah Whitall Smith
• As children of God, knowing of His great love and His ultimate knowledge of what is best for our eternal welfare, we trust in Him. Dallin H. Oaks
• God loves us more than a father, mother, friend, or any else could love, and even more than we are able to love ourselves. Saint John Chrysostom
• To live as God’s child is to know that you are loved by your Maker not because you try to please him and succeed, or fail to please him and apologize, but because he wants to be your Father. Nothing more. Max Lucado
• Who? God. What? He loves you. Where? Everywhere. When? Always, forever, without ceasing. How? Totally, completely. Why? Because you are His child! Monica Denise Brown
• Because God loves us, he gives us practical teaching and boundaries to protect our hearts. The whole thing is one big expression of a father’s love for his children. Jennifer Rothschild
• Biblical passages utilize the metaphor of God as father in order to call attention to different associated commonplaces and different facets of the divine-human relationship. For example, some texts speak of God as a father in order to portray God’s love and compassion (Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 63:16) or God’s disciplinary role (Proverbs 3:12). Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss
• God, the very creative power at the center of the universe, is loving and caring like a truly devoted parent. This love is not one aspect of God….but the very organizing reality at the heart of things. God is love. Morton T. Kelsey
• God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible. Pope Benedict XVI
• God the Father lives. He hears and answers our prayers in love. Henry B. Eyring
• God is our loving Father who loves his children perfectly. So, every part of his Word is an expression of his love to us. Jennifer Rothschild
• Every human being is loved by God the Father. No one need feel forgotten, for every name is written in the Lord’s loving heart. Pope Benedict XVI
• For a mother’s love is fashioned, After God’s enduring love, It is endless and unfailing, Like the love of Him above. Helen Steiner Rice
• For love is of God. He is the fountain, author, parent, and commander of love; it is the sum of his law and gospel. Matthew Henry
• For many people, God is a frightening idea. Asking God for help doesn’t seem very comforting if we think of Him as something outside ourselves, or capricious, or judgmental. But God is love and He dwells within us. We are created in His image, or mind, which means that we are extensions of His love, or Sons and Daughters of God. Marianne Williamson
• God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget. Why should I worry? Oswald Chambers
• God is so much nicer than you can imagine. I know “nice” is an odd word, but He loved you enough to die for you. And if you think of a great parent, then you got a glimpse of God, a great father, a great mother, and how they look at their children. How you, if you’re a parent, you look at your children. Mark Lowry
• Love masters agony; the soul that seemed Forsaken feels her present God again And in her Father’s arms Contented dies away. John Keble
• This loving father is not only there and available, waiting for us to turn to him, he even searches for us. This loving God seeks us out, knows us and accepts us, just as the father in the story of prodigal son goes out to meet and embrace the returning son. Flora A. Keshgegian

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…a parent with whom we can have an intimate and loving relationship…

• When I say God is Father– or as Spirit challenges us, Abba– I enjoy the intimate nature of that metaphor. There is an affection, unconditional love and nurturing that comes with the metaphor for me. My dad used to walk with us for hours when we would cry as little babies. He would support us in any way he could as we grew. These are things I believe I can attribute to God. I am aware, however, that this metaphor will not work for people who have abusive fathers, or fathers who have abandoned them. And I believe that God has feminine qualities, too, and is also my Mother. Ellie Roscher
• God wants us…to talk to him as to a friend or father-authentically, reverently, personally, earnestly. Bill Hybels
• He [God] wants us to talk to him as to a friend or father – authentically, reverently, personally, earnestly. Bill Hybels
• Christianity is a daily supernatural experience with your Father God, not a set of rules. Robin Bremer
• Every time you get on your knees and pray to God, ‘Holy’ keeps the respect and reverence while ‘Father’ brings Him close and intimate. Ravi Zacharias
• The greatest tragedy is a life lived and died without knowing Father God intimately and experiencing His love personally. Bob Parr
• The people who related to God best–Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah–treated him with startling familiarity. They talked to God as if he were sitting in a chair beside them, as one might talk to a counselor, a boss, a parent, or a lover. They treated him like a person. Philip Yancey
• Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It’s important because it’s the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you ‘my beloved daughter,’ ‘my beloved son,’ ‘my beloved child.’ To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. Henri Nouwen
• Prayer in secret is life finding expression in the realized Presence of God our Father. Samuel Chadwick
• God has proven himself as a faithful father. Now it falls to us to be trusting children. Max Lucado
• We can have more of a relationship with this God. He is not distant, but comes down from his throne to meet us where we are. He gathers us into his embrace. His care is directed toward us. Especially for those whose view of God is as punitive or unavailable, God the merciful father offers a desirable alternative. This God is someone we want to be close to and love, not out of fear or duty but with gratitude and affection. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God wants to be in relationship with the world he created and, as in all healthy and vital relationships, there needs to be some reciprocity. There needs to be freedom, not compulsion. Flora A. Keshgegian
• To be friends with God means to pray with simplicity, like children talking to their parents. Pope Francis
• When the perceptive child of God stops to weigh the meaning of these words, then notes the connection in which they are found, he or she is driven to say, I must pray, pray, pray. I must put all my energy and heart into prayer. Whatever else I do, I must pray. R. A. Torrey
• When we call on God, he bends down His ear to listen, as a father bends down to listen to his little child. Elizabeth Charles
• When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)
• God loves us. He is good, He is our Father, and He expects us to pray, and to trust and be believing, and not give up, and not panic, and not retreat, when something doesn’t seem to be going just right. Jeffrey R. Holland
• Two other values of this metaphor are relationship and process. At the heart of God the nurturing parent is relationship. God wants to be in relationship and enters so fully into relationship with us that God is willing to be persuaded by us and to change. God in relationship includes a type of vulnerability. Flora A. Keshgegian

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…a parent who always has our back and is there to support and encourage…

• God fights for us even we are in the wrong and he deals with us afterwards, what a gracious Father. Euginia Herlihy
• God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where he wishes us to be employed. He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough and sense enough for what he wants us to do. John Ruskin
• An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him. Charles Stanley
• God the merciful father seems sympathetic to our situation. He seems to be on our side. The power of God is used to help us. God is our advocate. He is approachable. We do not have to be afraid of him. His will is not arbitrary but rather responsive to our need. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God as a loving parent. This is a God who is intent on our growth and development and the good of the world. He, and perhaps we can even imagine this God as she, truly loves us. She is committed to the world she created. He is fully involved with history, not only in order to make his will manifest but to invite us into relationship and even partnership. Flora A. Keshgegian
• This father God may well want what is best for us. His power is directed toward our good. He is not concerned solely with maintaining his order or asserting his power and will. Flora A. Keshgegian
• A sympathetic parent is one who is ready and eager to listen. Such a parent does not does not judge so much as understand. She seeks to communicate understanding and concern. He truly wants what is best for us but does not presume necessarily to know what that is. She also rejoices in our joys and delights in our lives. He supports us in our bad times and stands by us no matter what. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Most of the attributes they list for God characterize God as warm and caring. The God they imagine is like a loving parent or even a supportive friend. This God fulfills their needs, not as a magician, monarch, or patriarch but as someone devoted to their well-being. Flora A. Keshgegian
• It’s not who you are, but whose you are that counts. Because God is your heavenly Father, doors of opportunity will open for you. Joel Osteen
• I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what their Lord is preparing for them. Samuel Rutherford
• The Father is truly the only Promise Maker who is in earnest a Promise Keeper. A promise from God is a promise kept. Sheila Walsh
• God is honored by large, difficult, and impossible requests when we ask, seek, knock, and trust our loving Father always to answer for our good. Charles Stanley
• God never witholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God’s refusals are always merciful — “severe mercies” at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better. Elisabeth Elliot
• If you’re a child of God, you do not just “go around once” on Earth. You don’t get just one earthly life. You get another-one far better and without end. You’ll inhabit the New Earth! You’ll live with the God you cherish and the people you love as an undying person on an undying Earth. Randy Alcorn
• When I pray, I feel close to my Father in Heaven, and I feel His guiding hand in my life. If there is one thing I have learned, it is this: God knows us, He loves us, and He is waiting to help us. Jane Clayson
• In the roughest moments, remember: God is our Father; God does not abandon his children. Pope Francis
• .. God…dear Father in heaven, I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God… George Bailey
• I think God gives us all that in his Word because he’s a loving Father. Jennifer Rothschild
• If God is really my Father, I have rights, and He has responsibilities. I hereby claim my birthright to be protected, educated, and provided for! Stefan Emunds
• If you are a child of God, know that every promise in the Bible is yours. Lee Roberson
• When we believe that God is Father, we also believe that such a father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear. We may not understand life any better, but we will not resent life any longer. William Barclay

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… a helicopter parent, swooping in to help us when we need it…

• In one sense, I think God is our Helicopter God, in that God does come into all sorts of circumstances, swooping into places it seems no one could go to help. I do believe that God hovers over us, is a presence that reaches us. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• Is God like a helicopter parent? Carolyn Jane Bohler
• However, in the jargon used regarding parenting today, God is not a Black Hawk helicopter! Parents who cross the line from merely having a good deal of zeal in their parenting into what is unethical behavior, such as writing their children’s college admission essays, are called “Black Hawks” because those military helicopters are very powerful and have huge capabilities. Carolyn Jane Bohler

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…but who also provides us with a great deal of freedom

• This metaphor for God also allows a more positive role for human freedom. God gives us freedom, just as the prodigal’s father gave his son his inheritance and let him go. We may misuse our freedom and act irresponsibly, as did the prodigal son. Such behavior is not simply cause for condemnation, however. Mistakes we make and wrongs we commit may be part of a learning and maturing process. God wills us to grow and mature. Flora A. Keshgegian
• This metaphor for God still imagines God in parental terms. God is the parent. We are children. God’s job is to take care of us and make sure we are safe and secure, able to grow toward our intended ends. God continues to try to direct us and exert influence over us. However, God does not exercise control in a way that compromises our own freedom and agency. We do have say and some power in the relationship. We have influence too and can even get God to change his mind. Flora A. Keshgegian
• In the midst of a changing universe, God’s will is committed to being in relationship with us. God joins with us in the process of becoming. In that sense, God’s overall will for the world does not change or waver. God wants the good of all, like a loving, nurturing parent wants her children to have full, healthy, and good lives. But the specific content and direction of God’s will is not set. It changes as new occasions and concerns arise and as God is affected by the life of the world. God’s will takes shape and draws purpose within and through relationship, in the changing circumstances of life. Flora A. Keshgegian
• God’s relationship with us is not then based on control or simple obedience. God does not command or demand. Rather God operates through persuasion, friendly persuasion. God seeks to lure us to the good-our good and the good of the world. God acts through love. God power is expressed as love. God’s love intends our growth and our goodness. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Ever in pursuit of us, God nonetheless leaves us free, both to refuse God and to respond with openness and receptivity. Though God remains the source of power and life and the author of creation-and thus we cannot yet talk about mutuality or full reciprocity-this God is open to our influence. In turn, God influences us. We allow ourselves to be shaped and formed by God. Such a relationship with God might be portrayed in a variety of ways, but most often God is imagined to be a nurturing parent. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Such freedom is not independence, characterized by lack of connection. It is not a severing of ties. On the contrary, it is all about connection. Freedom is relational. Because we are free we are able to be fully in relationship. We are capable of more reciprocity, of choosing to love and be loved. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Freedom also enables us to risk. Our capacity for free action means that we are able to take risks for the sake of creation. Our relationship with God allows such risk taking. God welcomes and encourages our full and free involvement. Flora A. Keshgegian

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Traditionally in Abrahamic religions, God has been seen as masculine

• The term “God” itself is generally understood as masculine. Female deities are referred to as Goddesses. Judaism and Christianity defined themselves over against other religions of the ancient world that honored Goddesses, so they fostered an aversion to female deities as representative of pagan polytheism. Neither Judaism nor Christianity view God and Goddess as equivalent terms, with the only difference being gender. They treat Goddesses as false deities. The one true deity is named God, and God is “he.” Flora A. Keshgegian
• The divine mother of whom believers are born is the one God who is Spirit. Unfortunately, the theological tradition which has controlled the reading of Scripture has insisted on its own male understanding of God to the extent that is has virtually obliterated from the religious imagination this clearly feminine presentation of God the Spirit as mother. S. Schneiders
• In the Christian tradition the metaphorical language used for God employs mostly male images and male pronouns. God is named as king and father not queen and mother. The pronoun used to refer to God is “he” even when the metaphor might not be gendered. For example, the line from psalms is translated: “God is our rock. He is our refuge.” It is not translated: “God is our rock. It is our refuge.” Flora A. Keshgegian
• It turns out the assumption that had been underpinning my use of masculine pronouns—that the church had always, discerningly and univocally, used masculine language for God—was inaccurate. The Syriac church, for example, spoke of the Holy Spirit in the grammatical feminine for four hundred years. Lauren F. Winner
• Linguistically, all the clear and plausible instances of feminine reference to God are imagery or figures of speech: similes, analogies, metaphors, and personification. . . . There are no cases in which feminine terms are used as names, titles, or invocations of God, and thus there are no feminine pronouns for God. There are no instances where God is directly identified by a feminine term, even a metaphorical predicate noun. In other words, God is never directly said to be a mother, mistress, or female bird in the way he is said to be a father, king, judge, or shepherd. John Cooper

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A major reason for this is that women had no real power in the societies where these religions first emerged

• God was described by human authors in terms of their socio-cultural context. In that context God was referred to as protector, provider and care-giver, which was the task of the father in the family. Modise Leepo
• If parent is such an ideal metaphor for God, then the question must be raised, why is not Mother as powerful a metaphor for the Deity as Father? And if King works so well, why not Queen? One would have to point to the preferred characteristics listed above. While mother metaphors invoke nurturance, cultural norms mitigated against mothers providing inheritance, at least in the Jewish world. Mothers lacked the ultimate authority of fathers; the only feminine Biblical metaphor that involves punishment or destruction is the female bear rampaging after her children are killed. Mothers simply lacked the cultural power to map onto God, who has ultimate power.  And why not queens? Again, the answer is cultural. While queens had power, most queens did not possess such power in their own right (see, for instance, Jezebel, or Alexandra).  As Aida Spencer has pointed out, God is not “Father” because God is masculine; rather, “God is Father because ‘father’ in the ancient world was a helpful metaphor to communicate certain aspects of God’s character  Mary Therese DesCamp
• No mothers, at least in that cultural context, had the unassailable power to make judgments, direct armies, or endow heirs. Mary Therese DesCamp
• It is clear that what makes “father” a richer metaphor than “mother” is at least in part the unqualified ability to exercise control, power, authority, and the capacity to provide for heirs. The same arguments hold true for “King” and “Queen.” Mary Therese DesCamp
• If, in our cultural experience, women are never in leadership and are marked as weak and dependent, then it will be difficult to imagine ine God as female or to offer an image of God as mighty as a woman’s arm. Because the cultures of the western world in which Christianity developed have been so androcentric-that is, male-centered-there are few examples of female metaphors for God. Those that do exist are limited ited to attributes and activities culturally identified as feminine, such as giving birth or tending to children. For example, when medieval mystic Julian of Norwich named Jesus as our mother, she was emphasizing the nurturing care of Jesus. Flora A. Keshgegian
• In ancient times, the rise of patriarchy in the society had a great impact on the use of masculinity in the Holy Scripture, since patriarchy was at the order of the day. The writing and understanding of most documents were done within the patriarchal context. Modise Leepo
• If we are to understand the term “Father” in the Bible, we must be willing to explore a different culture than our own. Though twenty-first century America stresses gender equality and the rights of women, this is relatively new. A century ago women couldn’t vote or inherit property in some states. For most of history and in most cultures of the world, fathers have been the primary figure in families. In this study I am not asking you to return to a patriarchal society. What I am asking you to do is to suspend your twenty-first century bias concerning the role of father, so that you can understand what “father” means in the Bible. Only when can we do that, can we appreciate and comprehend what it means to call God our Father. Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
• In the patriarchal societies of antiquity, the father figure is endowed with two particular characteristics. On the one hand, the father rules as head of the household and the person to whom most respect is due, having absolute authority over his family. On the other hand, he has the responsibility of guarding, supporting, and helping the other members. Both these characteristics are also present when a deity is described or addressed as father. Otfried Hofius
• Since the male (father or husband) in the Israelite family was the sole person who controlled, provided, protected and governed everybody he was called ‘baal’ or master, (owner). The proper concept to describe the authority the father held in the family is ‘beth ab’ ‘the house of one’s father’ Thus, from the above argument human authors of the Holy Scriptures used masculine metaphors for God, especially ‘Abba’ or ‘Father’ in an analogical sense, taking into consideration the position of human beings in their own cultural situation. They used masculine metaphors for better understanding and for acceptance of God’s Word as an authoritative message like the words of the master in the family. Modise Leepo

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The gender we assign to God has an impact

• How we think about God affects us. For example, the gender we have tucked into our metaphor for God affects not only how we think about God, but also how we think about males and females. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• An unreflective use of solely masculine metaphors for God has resulted in a virtual identification of God with the masculine, to an unfortunate and idolatrous end. Becky Kiser

Many argue that masculine only metaphors for God limit women and entrench sexism

• A cosmology that admits of only one male god limits women’s capacity to envision their full potential as human beings. Layne Redmond
• Because a large percentage of the metaphors named and the images drawn for God in Western culture have been male and white, women and people of other hues have had fewer ways to experience themselves as being “like” God. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• How can women be in the image of God if God cannot be imaged in female form? Marcus Borg
• Sally McFague holds that human images used as God metaphors “gain in stature and take on divine qualities by being placed in interaction with the divine”. The logical conclusion of this argument is the potent and oft-repeated statement by Mary Daly, “If God is male, then the male is God.” Mary Therese DesCamp
• The question of the relevancy of ‘Father’ as a metaphor for God is based on the argument of feminist theologians that priority given to males in the Scripture promotes male – domination, exploitation and oppression of women. As God had revealed God-self in Scripture in the masculine, gender has great influence. This influence contributes to the oppression, exploitation and neglected of women in the Church and society. Modise Leepo
• The religion of the Father, oppressive to women only because of their sex, subjects them from childhood to representational images which, may awake in them feelings of invalidity, inferiority and even of negativity. Ida Raming
• Using masculine-only metaphors for God embeds sexism in the pews, and calls into question the worth of girls and women. On any given Sunday morning around the world, women will walk into a church service where Jesus is Bridegroom, God is Father, and “This Is My Father’s World.” Truly, these metaphors can be found in Scripture. But they are often used to the exclusion of maternal images, metaphors, and language for God—also found in Scripture. Susan Harrison
• God is seen as a male whose first creation was another man, Adam, whom we are told was made in his image and likeness. Frederick Lenz
• God became man, granted. The devil became a woman. Victor Hugo
• Woman does not possess the image of God in herself but only when taken together with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned the role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God. But as far as the man is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of God just as fully and completely as when he and the woman are joined together into one. Saint Augustine

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Solely masculine metaphors greatly limit our conception of God

• Both men and women suffer from excessive use of masculine metaphors for God that suggest dependency upon an almighty being. All of us would benefit from fresh metaphors that imply interdependency between God and humans and get us out of habitual ways of conceiving God. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• ‘Is the metaphor ‘Father’ in the modern context justifiable to refer to God in the world we live in?’ Modise Leepo

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Feminine metaphors for God are just as valid

• If women are created in the image of God, then God can be spoken of in female metaphors in as full and as limited a way as God imaged in male ones, with talk of feminine dimensions reducing the impact of the imagery. Elizabeth Johnson

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In various ways, feminine metaphors for God can have advantages over masculine metaphors

• People will often, almost always, prefer a male God. A male image of God gives them this sense of security, safety, order, no nonsense. So that’s where their psyche is at. Probably it’s something that they’ve got to go through. Not that there isn’t a need for order in the world, but the mystical level seems to be the mature level of religion, and there the question is not order but union – divine union. And so, without some integration of the feminine, usually you never get to the mystical level. Richard Rohr
• Be passive. In your passivity, God comes. Be feminine. In your femininity, God comes. Have you not watched it? Buddha looks very feminine, Krishna looks very feminine. Why? – because it is simply a metaphor. They have been depicted as feminine, graceful, to show that that is their inner quality – receptivity. When you are doing something you are being aggressive. When you are not doing anything you are non-aggressive. And God cannot be conquered; you can only allow him to conquer you. Rajneesh
• The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing. Rainer Maria Rilke
• The energy that moves life is the force of the Feminine. She is unstoppable. She is the source of all life, the mover of blood, the breather of breath, the flow of the river’s water. The Feminine is life. We can feel Her moving and living in any moment we are open to Her, or as Her. David Deida
• The loving care of Mother Earth is in many quarters replacing the former sense of obedience to the Heavenly Father. Lloyd Geering
• When God is a father, he is said to be elsewhere. When God is a mother, she is said to be everywhere. Jenny Offill

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Whether we think of God as masculine or feminine does not really matter

• Over time I have realized that implicit gender in the God metaphor may not be what matters most. Whether our God is Mother or Father in our naming, what affects our beliefs or prayers is how we imagine God to have and use power, how God wills and makes God’s will happen—or not. What matters for our faith is how we, God, and the world relate to each other. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• If we do not mean that God is male when we use masculine pronouns and imagery, then why should there be any objections to using female imagery and pronouns as well? Carol P. Christ
• He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful. Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life.” Thus sang the Rishis of the Vedas. And how to worship Him? Through love. “He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life.” Swami Vivekananda

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Some may continue to prefer masculine metaphors…

• I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say ‘him’ rather than ‘her.’ Maybe it’s because of my generation, but I don’t like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male. Julia Child

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…while others may prefer an experience of God as feminine

• God is not something I think about but something I experience as an energy, a Presence. I do find it easier to pray to a female Presence or an androgynous Presence. Olympia Dukakis
• The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing. Rainer Maria Rilke

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The truth is we need a balance of male and female metaphors for God…

• I think that what we need is a balance between men and women. I don’t believe in the value of the matriarchy as a model for human organizations any more than I believe in the value of patriarchy as a successful model. I think that what we need is a balance of male and female, the yin and the yang, the tantric union of god and goddess, enlightenment of the individual. James Wasserman

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…while keeping in mind the ultimate truth that God is neither male or female

• God has not had a physical body and, therefore, he doesn’t have male features: facial hair, musculature, male genitals, no Y chromosome, no male hormones. Male is a biological word, and God is not a biological being. John Cooper
• God is transcendent, he is beyond the culture, tradition, race and gender. God as Spirit is neither male nor female, but incorporeal, and transcends all creation because is the creator God and cannot be confined to any gender, colour or race. Modise Leepo
• God is your father and your mother and God transcends those categories because God is neither literally male nor female. Adam Ericksen
• Is God a Man or a Woman ? The answer to this question is neither God is That. But if you must give God a gender, God is more female than male, for he is contained in She. Mata Amritanandamayi
• No matter how entrenched in the imagination of the average Christian the image of a male God might be, theological tradition has never assigned sex to God. Sandra Marie Schneiders
• Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God. Mary Baker Eddy
• When Jesus spoke of God as father, he didn’t mean that God is a male. He meant that God is father-like in his love for his children. Jesus also claimed that God is mother-like in her desire to find and care for her children.  Adam Ericksen
• God’s image is the married couple, a man and women, together. Not just the man. Not just the woman. No, both of them. That’s God’s image. Pope Francis
• I began to sense that, just as limiting ourselves to two or three images for God (king, shepherd, and so forth) truncates our imagination of who God is (and who we, as people bearing God’s image and kin to God, are), so too habitually referring to God with masculine pronouns subtly teaches us to imagine the triune God as something God is not—male or exclusively masculine. It thereby distorts our imaginations. And, I began to feel, my distorted imagination was distorting even my prayers. Lauren Winner
• I don’t think God is a gender. He presents himself as a father but he comes to us with the tenderness of a mother. In some of the parables, he is the housewife who cleans the house looking for the lost coin. So I think we can miss the point if we get too concerned about the gender of God. Max Lucado
• I’ll pit my God against your god any day, I say to the Calvinists. It’s not their god I’m praying to…. The God I’m praying to is neither male nor female. My God is the one who exists apart from all of men’s agendas, the God who takes you away when there is no possible place you can go. Brunonia Barry
• In varying degrees and upon different levels all gods and goddesses represent aspects of One God Which is both ‘male’ and ‘female’. Dion Fortune
• Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world? In our tradition God is a male. This male and female differentiation is made, however, within the field of time and space, the field of duality. If God is beyond duality, you cannot say that God is a “He.” You cannot say God is a “She.” You cannot say God is an “It.” Joseph Campbell
• It is idolatrous to make males more ‘like God’ than females. It is blasphemous to use the image and name of the Holy to justify patriarchal domination…The image of God as predominantly male is fundamentally idolatrous.” Ruether
• So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
• The image of God, then, involves gender identity and complementarity. God created gender in duality as male and female. Andrew Comiskey
• Theologians frequently assert that God has no body, no gender, no race and no age. Most people state that God is neither male nor female. Yet most people become flustered, upset or even angry when it is suggested that the God they know as Lord and Father might also be God the Mother, or Goddess. Carol P. Christ
• Though magical communities believe in the God and the Goddess – the equally balanced male and female sides of Spirit – they also believe this equality brings wholeness and creates the One. Silver RavenWolf
• Whoever is so stupid as to imagine God to be either masculine or feminine openly shows that he is as bad a philosopher as a theologian. Marie de Gournay

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In some parts of the bible, God is seen as mother

• But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. Psalm 131:2
• Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and tear them asunder… Hosea 13:8  (God described as a mother bear)
• 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 (God described as a mother eagle)
• You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. Deuteronomy 32:18 (God who gives birth)
• As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem. Isaiah 66:13
• You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. Deuteronomy 32:18
• Jesus: “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 (God as a Mother Hen)
• Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:2–3
• As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. Isaiah 66:13
• I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. Psalm 131:2
• God: “For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept myself still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.” Isaiah 42:14 (God as a woman in labor)
• When all is well with me, what am I but an infant suckling your milk and feeding on you “the food that is incorruptible” (John 6:27)? —Augustine
• God: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” Isaiah 49:15 )God compared to a nursing mother)
• Jesus referred to God as a mother-like figure, just as he referred to God as a father-like figure. He refers to himself, who Christians believe to be the second person of the Trinity, as a mother hen. He also claims God is like a woman in search of her lost coin. Adam Ericksen

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To some Christians, God was seen as father and the church or world was seen as mother

• He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother. Saint Augustine
• He who does not have the church as his mother, does not have God as his father. Saint Augustine
• With the early Christians you couldn’t have God as your father unless you have the church as your mother. This isn’t accepting the church as a perfect thing. Shane Claiborne
• If Nature is our mother, then God is our father. Henry David Thoreau

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In eastern religions, God is often seen as mother

• In India the mother is the center of the family and our highest ideal. She is to us the representative of God, as God is the mother of the universe. It was a female sage who first found the unity of God, and laid down this doctrine in one of the first hymns of the Vedas. Our God is both personal and absolute, the absolute is male, the personal, female. And thus it comes that we now say: ‘The first manifestation of God is the hand that rocks the cradle’. Swami Vivekananda
• The all-pervading energy source of existence or Shakti manifests itself as creation. Shakti is the divine mother who gives birth to and nurtures the newborn-whether it is a newborn babies a brand new relationship, a fresh idea, or a magical manifestation. Although Shakti is beyond the boundaries of gender, form or color, we call It Mother because of its mothering and creative qualities. Deepak Chopra
• The heart of Tao is immortal, the mysterious fertile mother of us all, of heaven and earth, of every thing and not-thing. Lao Tzu

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Some resonate with the God as mother metaphor

• It’s a perfect moment to quietly meditate on the cosmic Great Mother who can inspire us all; the divine, feminine Spirit of nurturance known as The Goddess, so revered in ancient times and being rediscovered by women today. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• God: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” Isaiah 66:13 (God as a comforting mother)
• As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother. Julian of Norwich
• As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed he in all, and especially in these sweet words where he saith: I it am… the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I it am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love; I it am, the Trinity…I it am, the endless fulfilling of all true desires. Julian of Norwich
• God is our father, but even more is God our mother. Pope John Paul I
• At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. The mothers show us that it is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change. Jim Wallis
• God is not only a Father of all good things, as being their First Cause and Creator, but He is also their Mother, since He remains with the creatures which have from Him their being and existence, and maintains them continually in their being. If God did not abide with and in the creatures, they must necessarily have fallen back, so soon as they were created, into the nothingness out of which they were created. All creatures are a pure nothing. I don’t say they are insignificant or a something: they are absolute nothing. Whatever hasn’t essence does not exist. No creature has essence, because the essence of all is in the presence of God. If God withdrew from the creatures for just one moment, they would disappear to nothing. Meister Eckhart
• Here below, 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 the babe . . . so our Lord, in order to convert His wisdom into milk for our benefit, came to us clothed in flesh. Augustine
• If God is Mother, then we need only gather together with people and adore her through rituals intended to satisfy the female soul, ritual involving dance, fire, water, air, earth, songs, music, flowers, and beauty. Paulo Coelho
• You women are daughters of God. You are precious. You are made in the image of our Heavenly Mother. Spencer W. Kimball
• God was a Nursing Mother who would feed me and give me sustenance at the very same time that I held our daughter in my arms, feeding her. While my womb had held the growing fetus, I had imagined being in the Womb of God. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• God is our Mother as truly as God is our Father. We come from the Womb of the Eternal. We are not simply made by God, we are made of God. Julian of Norwich

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God as mother can create a more nurturing image of God

• God has always been to me not so much like a father as like a dear and tender mother. Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Given that traditionally women have more often cared for-rather than provided for-the family, it seems easier to image a nurturing God as a mother. This God’s parenting style is child centered. Her focus is on the well-being of her children. She wants us to grow into maturity. This God acts through persuasion and leaves us free to respond creatively. A proper response to God does not mean that we come up with the right answer but that we use our God given capabilities and engage God in and through relationship. Flora A. Keshgegian
• Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. William Makepeace Thackeray

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God as mother better denotes the process of birthing the world

• Elizabeth Achtemeier argues that the use of a feminine image for God immediately involves the process of birthing. If God gives birth to the world, then the world must partake in God’s substance, which makes one using a feminine image a pantheist. Mary Therese DesCamp
• For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant. Isaiah 42
• The mother who bore me labored for perhaps a day to give me birth, or for a night, while you, lovely, sweet lord, suffered pain because of me not for a night or a day, but rather were in labor for more than thirty years. Ah, love, sweet lord how you must have suffered, your labor was so painful that your holy sweat was like drops of blood which ran over your body and down to the ground. Margureite D’Oignt
• Let us then understand the Father saying unto the Son, “From my womb before the morning star I have brought thee forth.” Augustine

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God as parent is more personal than God as monarch

• God doth not govern the world only by his will as an absolute monarch, but by his wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not his greatest pleasure to show his sovereign power, or his inconceivable wisdom, but his immense goodness, to which he makes the other attributes subservient. Stephen Charnock

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One of the shortcomings of the God as father metaphor is that it is often literalised…

• Even though the metaphor of God as Father holds much relevance for us, I personally, with the weekly exception of leading the Lord’s Prayer in church, do not use this metaphor very often because it is the one that leads to the greatest confusion. Instead of being a metaphor that points toward a set of characteristics we believe God to have, this metaphor often becomes who God is. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• Father sometimes becomes God’s name, even who God is. Father is not the name for God, neither is God a father. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• Instead of God practically having the name Father—so much so that we barely think of what that means. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• The metaphor of “Parent” speaks to an experience of returning home, of coming back to That which loves and accepts us. As with any metaphors, we need to remember that these are not definitions of God; they are poetic entryways into an experience of Something both within and around us. Rabbi Toba Spitzer

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…and in so doing, can greatly limit our conception of God

• I struggled, before and after that experience, with the image of God as father, the patriarchal head of a universe that “he” creates and governs. My problems with this image were several. I had difficulty enough with an image of God as male. It seemed too narrow and exclusionary to me. Flora A. Keshgegia
• If God is not a personal being for me like my earthly father, He is infinitely more. Mahatma Gandhi
• If you only think of God as your ‘father,’ you shrink your experience of the Divine. No wonder you are having the anxiety you are. If God really is a father, then we have to be honest, he’s not a very good one! He stands by while people get cancer, get shot, lose their children, and worse. Horrible things happen every day, and our Father in Heaven just lets them happen. Doug Hammack
• Let’s set the ‘our-Father’ image of God aside for a bit and give ourselves some creative latitude in how we think of God. Doug Hammack
• Most of the myths that we carry about spirituality are because we have been dominated by this hyper-masculine trance. Arjuna Ardagh
• The God understood as a father figure, who guided ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to call anyone into maturity. John Shelby Spong
• The twentieth-century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with such problems. He wrote about the world “coming of age” in modernity, which meant that human beings had entered into adulthood. The God who takes care of his creation as a parent and meets the needs of children who cannot do things for themselves no longer seemed appropriate in this world come of age. Bonhoeffer suggested that we needed to find new ways to imagine God’s relationship with the world. The “God of the gaps;’ as he referred to it, who filled in the holes in our knowledge, who provided explanations for what could not be explained and who took up the slack in our responsibility for the world, was destined to become obsolete, especially as human knowledge expanded and science provided more of the answers for what had once been perceived as “God’s will.” Flora A. Keshgegian
• The metaphor of God as a patriarchal father seems too narrow and limiting. It defines God’s will as an instrument of God’s power and that power is understood to be controlling and dominating. It is power over. In the logic of this metaphor, God’s justice is reduced to judgment and God’s love to mercy. Flora A. Keshgegian

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God as parent taps into primal parent-child archetypes

• At best, God can be viewed as nothing more than an uncaring incompetent father-figure. George Carlin
• At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father. Sigmund Freud
• Parents are like God because you wanna know they’re out there, and you want them to think well of you, but you really only call when you need something. Chuck Palahniuk

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For example, God as parent can tap into our primal need for approval…

• As a servant desireth the approval of his master, and a son the approval of his father, so should we desire the approval of God and our own conscience. Ambrose
• What matters most is not what I think I am or am not. What matters is what my Father sees in me and what He says about me. Steven Furtick
• God wants to father all of us until we’re dead sure of his approval, his guiding power and his promise of heaven. Bill Hybels
• My father was my god. His approval was so valuable to me. Votes: Walter Smith
• God was treated like this powerful, erratic, rather punitive father who has to be pacified and praised. You know, flattered. John Cleese
• We are all God’s children. But world-peace-dreamers, world-peace-lovers and world-peace-servers are undoubtedly God’s choicest children. Sri Chinmoy

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…and the fear of disappointing

• Godly sorrow is a gift of the Spirit. It is a deep realization that our actions have offended our Father and our God. Ezra Taft Benson
• I imagine that it saddens the heart of God when we murmur and complain, instead of being thankful after He’s been so good to us. Joyce Meyer
• As the perfect parent, God suffers emotional pain when his creatures, created in his own image and likeness, rebel against him and do evil instead of good. Roger E. Olson

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God as parent is a metaphor that is powerful and helpful to many

• The fact that so many people pray to Father implies that much about this metaphor for God is helpful; it evokes the experience of the Spiritual Presence. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• There is no wonder more supernatural and divine in the life of a believer than the mystery and ministry of prayer…the hand of the child touching the arm of the Father and moving the wheel of the universe. B. Simpson
• Given the contrast between this image of God and many people’s experiences with their own parents or with what they have been taught about a punitive God, it is easy to understand how powerful and attractive this metaphor might be. The yearning for a loving and merciful father finds resonance in many of us. Even if our own fathers were good and kind, loving and present, would we want God to be any less? Flora A. Keshgegian

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God as parent indicates we are all part of God’s family and should therefore respect and love each other…

• All God’s creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God’s creatures. Abdul Kalam
• God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of humankind is not in its will to power but in its power of compassion. Abraham Joshua Heschel
• God is everywhere! the God who framed Mankind to be one, mighty family, Himself our Father, and the world our home. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• The children of God should not have any other country here below but the universe itself, with the totality of all the reasoning creatures it ever has contained, contains, or ever will contain. That is the native city to which we owe our love. Simone Weil
• We’re all sons and daughters of God, and therefore in a very literal sense, brothers and sisters. And we ought to treat each other that way. Gordon B. Hinckley
• This mortal life is our playing field. Our goal is to learn to love God and to extend that same love toward our fellowman. We are here to build, uplift, treat fairly, and encourage all of Heavenly Father’s children. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• Man, man, is thy brother, and thy father is God. Alphonse de Lamartine
• Through the practice of devotion to God, I was coming to learn that preserving loving relations in this world required much forgiveness, tolerance, patience, gratitude, and humility. An essential virtue of humility is to accept others for what they are, despite differences. I contemplated again how the tendency to judge others is often a symptom of insecurity, immaturity, or selfishness, and I yearned to rise above it. Everyone is a child of God. God loves all of His children. If I wish to love God, I must learn to love those whom He loves. Radhanath Swami
• In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, liberal Protestant theologians put a great deal of emphasis on “the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” God was father of all and Jesus, as God’s son, was our brother and companion. He was there beside us, as an elder brother and a mentor. All of humanity was then united under the umbrella of God the father’s universal care. We were all one big family, the family of “man.” Flora A. Keshgegian
• You are God’s child. His creation. Destined for heaven. You are a part of his family. Max Lucado
• Regardless of nationality, all men are brothers. God is “our Father who art in heaven.” The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is unconditional and inexorable. … Ben Salmon
• I feel that the same God-force that is the mother and father of the Pope is also the mother and father of the loneliest wino on the planet. Dick Gregory
• I’m convinced that I’m a child of God. That’s wonderful, exhilarating, liberating, full of promise. But the burden which goes along with that is, I’m convinced that everybody is a child of God. . . . I weep a lot. I thank God I laugh a lot, too. The main thing in one’s own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry. Maya Angelou
• If God is thy father, human beings are thy brothers and sisters. Alphonse de Lamartine
• If we call ourselves children of God, then others are also children of God. Sri Chinmoy
• The children of God have more in common then they have differences. Henry B. Eyring

…for we are all worthy of love

• Every child is a deliberate, passionate creation of God. If you doubt that, just look into their eyes. You will find a gentle little spirit who hungers for life – and for your love. Gary Holland
• Every country I love and I am a child of God to love the humans. Mother Teresa
• I want to love all the children of God – Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist – everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians. Anne Rice
• It seems to me people tend to forget that we are to love our enemies, not to satisfy some standard of righteousness but because God their Father loves them. Marilynne Robinson
• Pure love is a willingness to give, without a thought of receiving anything in return. Love can save the world from nuclear destruction. Love God: turn to God with receptiveness and responsiveness. Love your fellow human beings: turn to them with friendliness and givingness. Make yourself fit to be called a child of God by living the way of love. Peace Pilgrim
• To live as true children of God means to love our neighbour and to be close to those who are lonely and in difficulty. Pope Francis

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God as parent means we are all children of God…

• A child of God should be a visible beatitude for joy and happiness, and a living doxology for gratitude and adoration. Charles Spurgeon
• Among other things, I’m thinking “I’m a child of God.” That’s amazing. And “I’m not only a child of God, but God loves me.” The hardest part for me is to realize that while God loves me, and I am a child of God, I have to see the bigot and the brute and the rapist, and whether he or she knows it or not, I have to know that that person is a child of God. That is part of the responsibility – and it’s hard. Maya Angelou
• As daughters of God we are each unique and different in our circumstances and experiences. And yet our part matters—because we matter. Elaine S. Dalton
• As God’s chosen, blessed sons and daughters, we are expected to attempt something large enough that failure is guaranteed…unless God steps in. Bruce Wilkinson
• As you pray and serve others, your knowledge that you are a child of God and your feelings about Him will grow. Henry B. Eyring
• Being born again happens in an instant. Learning to live as a child of God takes a lifetime. Derwin L. Gray
• You are who God says you are. Spiritually alive. Heavenly positioned. Connected to the Father. A billboard of mercy. An honored child. Max Lucado
• You are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. You divinities on earth. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; you are not matter, you are not bodies; matter is your servant,not you the servant of matter. Swami Vivekananda
• Each child is sent into this world by God with a “Unique Message” to deliver, a new personal act of love to bestow John Powell
• You are an incredible child of God having a dream that you are a human being on a tiny planet in the middle of nowhere. Drunvalo Melchizedek
• Each of you is a unique child of God. God knows you individually. He sends messages of encouragement, correction, and direction fitted to you and to your needs. Henry B. Eyring
• Everyone is a son or daughter of god. David Icke
• The Apostle John said, ” Beloved, now we are the sons of God.” He didn’t say by and by we are going to become sons of God. He said we are that now, today, this moment. ” Now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” Ernest Holmes
• How often we forget to dedicate ourselves to that which truly matters! We forget that we are children of God. Pope Francis
• In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer. Richard J. Foster
• Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity and power is a false identity- an illusion! Loudly and clearly he says: ‘You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God. Henri Nouwen
• The second most important belief is who we are as children of God, because we cannot consistently behave in a way that is inconsistent with how we perceive ourselves. Neil T Anderson
• To call yourself a child of God is one thing. To be called a child of God by those who watch your life is another thing altogether. Max Lucado
• Which would you prefer? To be king of the mountain for a day? Or to be a child of God for eternity? Max Lucado
• Who are we? We are children of God. Our potential is unlimited. Our inheritance is sacred. May we always honor that heritage – in every thought and deed. Russell M. Nelson
• You are a child of God. He is father of your spirit. Spiritually you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it. However many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God! Boyd K. Packer

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…made in the image and likeness of God…

• We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love – it is part of our spiritual heritage. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• We/I am a son/daughter of God. In fact, we are all expressions/projections of the Infinite Conciousness, which is love, that is what I mean when I say “I am a son of god “GOD”!” David Icke
• Beloved is man, for he was created in the image of God. Beloved are Israel, for they were called children of God. Beloved are Israel, for unto them was given the desirable Torah Rabbi Akiva
• God truly is our Father, the Father of the spirits of all mankind. We are his literal offspring and are formed in his image. We have inherited divine characteristics from him. Joseph B. Wirthlin
• I discovered who I was when I discovered God. You are just like your father God. Myles Munroe
• It’s not convincing to say you are a child of God if you have none of the characteristics of your Father. Kevin DeYoung
• We are made by God and we are of God. We are sons and daughters of the Divine. Doug Hammack
• We are sons and daughters of a living God in whose image we have been created. Think of that truth: ‘Created in the image of God!’ We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power, even the strength to live the commandments of God, the power to resist the temptations of Satan. Thomas S. Monson

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…and this, for many, creates a sense of great comfort and self-worth

• A conviction that you are a daughter of God gives you a feeling of comfort in your self-worth. It means that you can find strength in the balm of Christ. It will help you meet the heartaches and challenges with faith and serenity. … A woman can and must have an identity and feel useful, valued, and needed whether she is single or married. She must feel that she can do something for someone else that no one else ever born can do. James E. Faust
• As a child of God, I am greater than anything that can happen to me. Abdul Kalam
• As children of God we are somebody. He will build us, mold us, and magnify us if we will but hold our heads up, our arms out, and walk with him. What a great blessing to be created in his image and know of our true potential in and through him! What a great blessing to know that in his strength we can do all things! Marvin J. Ashton
• Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight. Maya Angelou
• As with the bud, so with the blossom. A boy is the only thing known from which a man can be made. I hope that we as parents are teaching our children that they are the sons and daughters of God, and that they have the capacity to become like him. It was the old Edinburgh weaver who prayed, ‘O God, help me to hold a high opinion of myself.’ Likewise I would counsel young people to hold a high opinion of themselves, to remember who they really are, and to put their faith in their Heavenly Father. Paul H. Dunn
• Be strong and of good courage. You are truly royal spirit daughters of Almighty God. You are princesses, destined to become queens. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your “once upon a time” is now. Dieter F. Uchtdorf
• Be demanding of the world around you; be demanding first of all with yourselves. Be children of God; take pride in it! Pope John Paul II
• Being a child of God means confidence, but it never means complacency. Kevin DeYoung
• Do you know who you are? God made you a woman. Accept His gift. Don’t be afraid to be feminine and to add physical and spiritual loveliness to the setting where He has placed you. You are a child of God. Nancy Leigh DeMoss
• Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Every single human being is created in the image of God; created for dignity, created for the Father’s love, created for kindness, created for mercy. Heidi Baker
• God wants your ministry to flow from the realization that you are a beloved child of God. In that place you don’t worry too much about how people see you. You don’t worry too much about whether they’re nice or mean. You don’t even worry about whether they love you or hate you. You don’t worry because you’re simply going to love them and love Him. This comes from knowing who He is and what He thinks of you. This is what it means to grasp you are a child of God. Heidi Baker
• Know that success and inner peace are your birthright, that you are a child of God and as such that you’re entitled to a life filled with joy, love and happiness. Wayne Dyer
• Nature always takes you at your own valuation. Believe you are the child of God-really believe it. Believe that you express Divine Life, Divine Truth, and Divine Love. Believe that Divine Wisdom guides you. Believe that God is your supply. Believe that God is helping and blessing humanity through you. Believe that you are a special enterprise on the part of God and that he is opening your way-and what you really believe, that you will demonstrate. Emmet Fox
• You are more than human. You are a child of God. Lawrence E. Corbridge
• Never forget that you are a [child] of God. He loves you. Live by your standards. Stand up for what you believe in. W. Craig Zwick
• Stand up straight and realize who you are, that you tower over your circumstances. You are a child of God. Stand up straight. Maya Angelou
• Know that success and inner peace are your birthright, that you are a child of God and as such that you’re entitled to a life filled with joy, love and happiness. Wayne Dyer
• The Relation we bear to the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of His Love, gives us indeed a dignity which otherwise we have no pretence to. It makes us something, something considerable even in God’s Eyes. Mary Astell
• To be called a child of God – there is no greater distinction. I love the final sentence of that Scripture with that emphatic exclamation mark. What a powerful assurance. Right here, right now, in this very moment, no matter how good or bad you feel about yourself, you’re a beloved child of God. Throughout Scripture, God is conveying this message. He made you, he loves you, he pursues you, he’s not done with you, and he’s called you his child. Matthew West
• Good things don’t happen to the child of God; the child of God brings forth good things out of him. Chris Oyakhilome
• I am a child of God. I always carry that with me. Maya Angelou
• I am a glorious child of God. I am joyful, serene, positive, and loving. Marianne Williamson
• I believe that I am a child of God, endowed with a divine birthright. I believe that there is something of divinity within me and within each of you. I believe that we have a godly inheritance and that it is our responsibility, our obligation, and our opportunity to cultivate and nurture the very best of these qualities within us. Gordon B. Hinckley
• If you are a child of God, you don’t lose your status if you have a bad week. Timothy Keller
• The most difficult thing in the world, it seems to me, is to realize that I am a child of God; to keep that in my mind all the time. Maya Angelou
• We are born to soar. We are children of God. Robert H. Schuller
• We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure about you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. Marianne Williamson
• As a child of God, you must realize that you are on the winning side of prophecy; until you win it is not over! Chris Oyakhilome
• Avoid trivial pursuits. You are a child of God, destined for glory, and called to do great things in His Name. Paul Washer
• I believed that there was a God because I was told it by my grandmother and later by other adults. But when I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous. Maya Angelou

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God as parent indicates we can ask God for what we want…

• God loves it when His children pray BIG, BOLD PRAYERS. Don’t be afraid to ask your Father for anything! Christine Caine

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…not that we’ll always get it

• If God, like a father, denies us what we want now it is in order to give us some far better thing later on. The will of God, we can rest assured, is invariably a better thing. Elisabeth Elliot
• If we had everything we wanted and needed without asking of Heavenly Father, we would lose sight of the hand of God in our lives. Elaine A. Cannon

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The effectiveness of the “God as parent” metaphor can be influenced by our relationships with our own parents

• A child identifies his parents with God, whether or not the adults want that role. Most children ‘see’ God the way they perceive their earthly fathers. James Dobson
• A lot of people reject the idea of God as Father if they’ve had a competitive relationship with their own father. Justin Welby
• Dad, because you are my father it’s been easy to believe in God. John Walter Bratton
• For some, the word “father” can carry negative connotations. Thinking of God as one’s Heavenly Father can be complicated by hurtful experiences with a human father. Emily Hall
• Many struggle with the concept of God as father. Earthly fathers fail their children. Even those who are good by human standards are not perfect. Sadly, there are many fathers who are abusive and neglectful. These men are not a reflection of who God is as Father. God is the perfect Father. He does not disappoint like our earthly fathers do. He does not abuse or shame. He disciplines in love (Hebrews 12:7-11). He deserves, and even demands, respect. He is also incredibly loving and intimately personal. He knows our needs, and He supplies them (Matthew 6:31-33). Biblia
• My father was always talking about God, and I idolized my father, so I’d spend hours trying to have mental telepathy with God. Patti Smith
• Looking back on the God my friend believed in, he seems a little erratic, not entirely unlike her father – God as borderline personality. Anne Lamott
• I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. Yehuda Berg
• You may be struggling just now. Your relationship with your own father may have been distant, perhaps non-existent. Worse, your own father may have sinned against you through harshness, lovelessness, abandonment, or perhaps even physical or sexual abuse. For sons as well as daughters, coming to terms with our own fathers is essential to our psychological health and maturity, but is sometimes oh so hard, sometimes nearly impossible from a human standpoint. Ralph F. Wilson
• What you have to understand, is your father was your model for God. Chuck Palahniuk
• Over the past years of ministry, I have heard people say that they have such a wonderful earthly father that they did not need a fatherly God. I have heard others say that they have such a negative father image that they do not want a Father God. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• When one uses any metaphor to speak of God (and one cannot speak of God without using metaphor), the structure of the source domain is used to reason about God. Hence, these metaphors actually constitute our relationship with God in crucial ways. When one calls God “Father,” one projects, for instance, both trust and rebellion, love and resentment from the parent child space into the God-human space. This is neither conscious nor intentional. Theologians should be concerned, at the very least, that persons with abusive or absent father relationships may find “Father God” language counterproductive to spiritual health. Mary Therese DesCamp
• I have patterned myself after my father and God. Adam Petty
• I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. Yehuda Berg
• When I became a father, my experience of God was deepened by my visceral experience of parental love. Once I experienced fatherly love, I was able to project that experience onto the Divine. I learned experientially what people had been talking about when they said that God’s love was deep and unconditional. Again, this was very helpful. Doug Hammack

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The God as parent metaphor can affect how we perceive and relate to our human parents…

• God is the mother and father of the world. Our parents are the mother and father of this body. Sathya Sai Baba
• To you your father should be as a god. William Shakespeare
• What God is to the world, that parents are to their children. Philo
• When it comes to little girls, God the father has nothing on father, the god. It’s an awesome responsibility. Frank Pittman
• When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It’s not enough, but it helps. Dick Gregory
• Philosopher and theologian Mary Daly pointed out in Beyond God the Father that once we make God into the image of the Father, fathers are made into the image of God. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• Fathers are the first image of who God is! Bo Sanchez
• If you’re male, and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And sometimes you find your father in your career. Chuck Palahniuk
• After one is right with God and pleases God, the next most important thing in all the world is to be right with one’s own father and mother. John R. Rice

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…as well as the kind of parent we will be

• Being a godly father requires much perseverance and prayer as we seek God’s guidance in being the types of fathers He wants us to be. Jonathan Falwell
• A mother is God’s deputy on earth. Rahel Varnhagen

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The metaphor of God as loving parent has some limitations

• Ultimately, this metaphor continues to imagine God’s will as directing. At the same time, because God’s power is not fully in charge, it leaves God’s will too vague. In the interest of foregrounding God’s love and goodness, God’s power and ours are left to drift. God is expected to be a good parent, meeting the needs of his/her children. What happens then if God does not seem to be coming through? Does it mean God does not care or that God is not able? If God is leaving things up to us, what is the source of our power? Flora A. Keshgegian
• This view puts more responsibility on us but does not empower us sufficiently. For example, if the suffering that befalls us is a necessary part of the process of growth, then are we not to resist suffering or help someone else who is suffering? Or, is there suffering that helps us grow and suffering that does not? If so, how do we discern between them and who is responsible for the suffering that does not? While this metaphor does not see God as the cause of the evil that befalls us, it begs the question of what the cause of the evil is. If God wills the good for us, are we then responsible for our suffering? Flora A. Keshgegian

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• I believe in God, I just give him more credit than being a single parent and an author. Bill Maher
• I can still hear my mother wailing over some new kitchen crisis, “Oh God,” and my father answering cozily from the silo, “Were you calling me, dear? Peter De Vries
• I have three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan. Jack White
• If you can’t keep your hands off your girlfriend, then keep your hands off of God’s daughter. Kimberly Hahn