“A father to the fatherless…is God in his holy dwelling.” 

Remember when you were little, and you would hold your hand up to your father’s, palm to palm?  Remember how big and meaty his hand was compared to yours?  And how your dad could wrap his hand around yours and almost make it disappear?  If you don’t remember that, you might have seen him do that with the hand of a younger sibling.  On one Father’s Day one of my daughters gave me a card which, when speaking of this, said, “I couldn’t help but marvel at the difference.  To me, they [Dad’s hands] were so big, so strong.  How could a daughter feel anything but safe with hands like that to guide her?  Today I see that my dad’s hands hold more than I ever imagined—an openness of spirit, a generosity of heart, a father’s timeless love and loyalty.”  What powerful words!  What an image.  And what a card to receive painting her thoughts of me.  On just word choice alone, I couldn’t have said it better myself!

This is what comes to mind when we read that God is a father to the fatherless in Psalm 68:5.  While this psalm has Messianic and futuristic overtones, it also describes some of the historical accounts of God fighting and doing wonders for his people.  “When you went out before your people, O God, when you marched through the wasteland, the earth shook (vs. 7-8), and “…the Almighty scattered the kings in the land” (v. 14) serve as examples.  Even the opening starts with a similar appeal: “May God arise, may his enemies be scattered…may you blow them away (vs.1-2).  This gave the writer hope for the future: “Surely God will crush the heads of his enemies” (v. 21).

But sandwiched in between these more majestic portions of conquest and power we find something much more gentle about God worth remembering: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land” (vs. 5-6).  As formidable as God is compared to his enemies, God is primarily a God of relationship, and one who heals broken relationships.  What, after all, is more heart wrenching than a destitute orphan or a deprived widow living in deplorable conditions only because the father is gone?  No provider, no security, no stability, and no model of God the Father acting in their lives to make and develop their lives into what God desires.  And because it’s not supposed to be this way, God brings corrective action to many of those experiencing such brokenness.  I know.  My wife was widowed early while she was pregnant with her first husband’s child.  He was killed in the line of missionary work.  When we got married these were her two verses, because God did set “the lonely” in a family by creating a new one.

However, it doesn’t work like that for everyone.  Verse 5 says that God is a father to the fatherless “in his holy dwelling,” or heaven.  In other words, he makes up for the absence of a father in the home.  How does this happen?  Not easily, but it is not impossible either.

In Proverbs 17:6 we read, “…the glory of children is their father” (NKJV).  Since God becomes the father of the fatherless, the mother must make a special effort to insure that the children know their Heavenly Father.  In Exodus 33 Moses made a very simple but dangerous request: “Now show me your glory” (v. 18).  Simple because it is direct and reflects what each of us really wants.  Dangerous because it can be deadly (v. 20).  God partially accommodates Moses’ request by showing him his back.  The primary point is that the back of God’s glory is surely far greater than all of mankind’s glory put together.  God’s glory is untouchable, indescribable, unapproachable, unstoppable and undefilable.  Widows with fatherless children must communicate this glory to her children.  Children tend to imitate their father.  Mothers who create an environment of praise, adoration, worship and cultivate a “gentle and quiet spirit” will point to the Father’s glory and give their children their best shot at life, by discovering their Heavenly Father for themselves.

In the final analysis, all of us were born fatherless — spiritually fatherless.  When we were born physically none of us was a member of God’s family.  We were “the lonely,” spiritually alienated from everything that God was and had for us.  Yet Christ came and set “the lonely in families,” specifically his!  Have you thanked your Heavenly Father lately for your membership in the family of God?