Although the word Father can...
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Although the word "Father" can be problematic if it is too closely associated with a male person, it does, in this great prayer, denote our new close relationship with God in Christ. It is the personal word which transforms our very lives into being the children of the household. It is a prayer which, when uttered from the first, says, "We thank thee that we have a father, and not a maker; that thou hast begotten us, and not molded us as images of clay; that we have come forth of thy heart, and have not been fashioned by thy hands. It must be so. Only the heart of a father (or a mother) is able to create. We rejoice in it, and bless thee that we know it. We thank thee for thyself. Be what thou art --our root and life, our beginning and end, our all in all. Come home to us. Thou livest; therefore we live. In thy light we see. Thou art --that is all our song." George MacDonald, "The Castle: A Parable, The Gifts of the Child Christ, p. 294.
