Fatherhood — Sonship
Uranda November 17, 1948 Sunrise Ranch
Only as your hearts are attuned to the Spirit of the Word, and only as the Reality of the Spirit finds expression through my word tonight, can I hope to convey that which is in my heart. I have been meditating upon the significance that may be found directly expressed and implied in the term, Fatherhood. This means, also, in the negative aspect, Motherhood, which most assuredly is not ignored, but my meditations have been with respect to Fatherhood. When the Master stepped from the water upon the banks of the River Jordan, and the Spirit, in the appearance of the form of a dove, rested upon Him, there was a Voice from Heaven, saying: “This is my beloved Son; hear ye him.”
And I draw your attention to the familiar words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” He Who came into the world as the only begotten Son of God was an exemplary Son. He was true to His Father and He glorified His Father, and His Father’s Name, on earth; and, being a true Son, He was also a true Father to those who accepted Him. He has often been spoken of as the Great Shepherd and the Great Physician. We call Him LORD and Master, and we do well, if it is the spirit of our hearts that gives expression to the word—but, on earth, for all those who turn to God, He is the Father of the One Christ Body, Our Father. The perfect Son was, and is, also the perfect Father, and He offers to all the privilege of being reborn through His Spirit, that they may be adopted and receive His Name.
Fatherhood—each parent here knows something of that spirit of longing, of yearning, which desires for one's child only that which is best. Each one longs for the fulfillment of his own child. Each one finds joy as his child grows and develops into that stature of manhood or womanhood by reason of which the fullness of life may be known. I have looked upon you, as I have served you in the Name of our KING, as my children, or the children of my Ministry in the expression of that Spirit which God has seen fit to make manifest through me. There has been a yearning in my heart that each one of you should find and know that fullness of life that God intends for you.
Fatherhood brings responsibilities and privileges which are sacred and holy. There is that responsibility of watching over, protecting and caring for, to the highest degree of one’s ability, that child who is placed in one's care. We know, as parents, that we do not own our children. They do not belong to us, as one might possess some earthly possession. They are given into our care and keeping, that we may influence, guide, care for and assist toward the full potentiality of life; and it is only through the bonds of love engendered by reason of the outpouring love of the parent, or of the Father, that a real influence can be exerted upon our children—and the moment we, as parents, might let selfishness or some other unnatural attitude enter in, so that we might treat our children as if we possessed them and they were created for our own pleasure only, to satisfy our own whims and desires, then we violate the rights of parenthood. We think of ourselves as belonging to God; we think of ourselves as belonging to our Father in Heaven; but that belonging is not on the basis of some selfish, possessive attitude maintained by our Father. That belonging is something that we rejoice in, something that fills us with pleasure and satisfaction; for the Love our Father shows to us is that which engenders that love which we feel for Him.
As He enfolds us close in the Bonds of Love, there is also a freedom, a freedom which we may exercise if we choose; for He does not compel us to take note of His Love. The door is always open, that any may go out—but go out to what? To loveless darkness?—for where God is not made manifest and acknowledged, there darkness is. Nevertheless, those Bonds which hold us close to the Heart of God are there because we want them there, because we have responded to that Love which His Love has engendered in us, not because He has forced us to accept His authority, not because He has compelled us to recognize His Fatherhood, but because we find joy in accepting His Love and letting His Love engender in us the returning cycle of our Love for Him. We belong to Him by reason of His Love, and by reason of our Love for Him. It is said that He has bought us with a price. He did not need to do so because we were His already, insofar as He was concerned, but we were not—to speak for a moment with the voice of the world—aware that we were His, and so He made it possible for us to know Him: He made it possible for us to know His Love; and He opened the Way whereby we might share truly, as children should, in Love for Him, and all who will may recognize His Fatherhood. The Master made reference to these things. He said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:7-11)
In other texts the Master made clear the principles of this asking. I was thinking tonight, as we approached the hour for this Service, that I cannot remember when, in the ordinary sense, I have ever asked God for anything for myself. Within the scope of the years of my Ministry, I cannot recall a single instance in which I have asked God, in the ordinary sense at least, for anything for myself. In the multitudes of blessings and gifts of Love which I have received from God for myself in that period, each one has come as a delightful surprise, often, in one sense, anticipated, but nevertheless something received without any sense of having required it of God, without any sense of having demanded or begged or required of God that it should be so. As I meditated upon this, I could recall countless instances where I have been richly blest, where I have received wonderful gifts from our Father, and they came as just that—gifts, which I received in His Name, and each one brought something indescribable in its own way, because I had not required it of my KING. In all instances where I have asked anything of God, it has been for some other, for someone else, and I have asked many times—and that which has been asked has been given in times without number—but for myself I cannot recall of ever having asked God for anything. But that does not mean that I have not received anything. It has seemed to me that, in this, there might be a lesson for you, whereby you might come to know a greater joy, and a greater satisfaction, and a more wonderful fulfillment than you have known before. I have never felt that, for myself, I had to ask my Father for anything, because I knew His eagerness to give, because I knew how He longed, in the fullness of His Love, to give all good and perfect things to all who are ready and willing and able to receive.
In the course of my Ministry He has given you to me, because He knew that I would not undertake to possess you, because He knew I would not try to force you to be this or that or some other thing, but because He knew that all of that which might be given to me was, by the very fact that it became mine, in that instant, fully, completely, and utterly His, insofar as I am concerned.
All of this, it seems to me, has a bearing upon an understanding of something that needs to be understood with respect to Fatherhood. For the third time in this life, in the personal sense, I became a father last Monday night. Within the scope of my memory, I have never asked God for a son, and yet I knew that some day, at the right time, in the right outworking of things, He would give me a son. When that son was born, he came, not as the answer to a prayer in the sense that I had asked God for a son, but he came as a Gift of Love, freely given from God the Father. There are many things which I might say, but I mention this one at the moment to emphasize the particular point of our consideration.
“But,” you may say, “The Master Himself instructed that we should ask. He said, ‘Ask, and ye shall receive; for everyone that asketh receiveth’.” And again, in the text that I have read to you so often, He said, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do”. When we come to know our Father, we know that we do not have to ask any good or perfect thing for ourselves—for it is His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom—and that He would not withhold any good thing from us.
Suppose we think of the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, and suppose we think for a moment of some higher God, or Focalization of Deity, than He. Could you picture the LORD of Lords, in Whose Name we live and serve, going to some higher Focalization of Deity and asking for Himself anything, no matter what it might be? What would He ask for that He did not already have? What boon could He require? No, if we think truly, we can recognize how out of focus any such idea would be. And so, as we come before our Father, the LORD of Lords and KING of Kings, with any real understanding of Him, with any real awareness of His Presence, with any vital recognition of His Love, or with our own hearts filled to overflowing with Love for Him, what would we demand of Him, what would we require of Him, what could we ask for that He has not already given, or that He is not already longing to give, the very moment that we are in position to receive?
He said, “Ask, and ye shall receive”. This is not a contradiction, but, rather, an opportunity to gain a higher vision. When my little daughter comes to me and asks for something that I would love to give her, I do not withhold it merely because she asks. Within the scope of our social order and good manners, I have to teach her how to ask properly, but those things that she properly asks for I already long to give her. They are already here the moment she is in position, or able, to receive them. Her asking does not cause me to give them one whit more than I already wish to give them. Her asking simply helps her, at her age, with her understanding, with her level of function, to be in position to receive that which I would already give. If she is with me at the table and asks for some food on my plate, I have already anticipated that I would give her that food. I long to give it to her. I am ready, willing and able to give it to her, and yet she must learn how to receive. So it is that, at one level, for those who come as a little child, asking in the right way helps put the individual in position to receive, but asking never causes God to do anything. God never does anything because some human being asks Him to. God, the Father, gives, offers freely, and if the asking has any value it is only that it has helped the individual reach a point of focus and function in life where he could receive that which God already offered, that which God anticipated giving, that which God was longing to give. And then, on a higher level, there comes a consciousness that, for oneself, one never has to ask for anything. Then one’s asking relates to the giving of God into the world. In all of this we see that the Fatherhood of God is filled with the longing to give, the desire to give, every good and perfect gift to His Children; and He would not withhold anything that should be given, but His Children must learn to receive that which He would give.
For a moment I would like to consider my own personal experience within the scope of the past few days. There were many things that may, in the minds of some, be merely coincidence. Perhaps some would say that these things would have been just that way even though a child was not to be born on Sunrise Ranch, but, whatever one may call it, whether coincidence, mere happenstance, or whether significant as a sign or a symbol, the fact remains that there were those things that to me—and I know to certain others of you at least—were signs in the heavens and upon the earth. God, Who causes all things to work out in His great Cosmos, and Who, at the same time, causes all things to function properly in every cell of the tiniest plant or flower, caused, for whatever reason, my son to be born when Orion was high in the heavens overhead. Prior to this there had been many remarkable light formations in the heavens, and last evening there was a rainbow in the sky after the sun had gone down—a rainbow in the sky from the light of the moon, and some of you saw it. Whatever the meaning of these things, whatever their significance, only time can prove, but, in any case, God gave me a son, and he is my only begotten son.
As I have, with the assistance of all of you in your several capacities as you have helped keep things moving along, ministered to his Mother and to the Babe, and as I have given thanks in my heart to God for His rich blessings made manifest, I have thought: Here is a symbol, as it were, an illustration, that human beings can understand and see. Many of you are parents, and even though you may not be a parent in the usual meaning of the word, you have all felt something of that Spirit of God's Love through you, the Spirit of the Fatherhood of God finding expression in its Current of Blessing out to the world—but I am a father, and in my son there is that which, under any case of necessity, would develop, in every fiber of my being, the expression of the protective instinct, as human beings call it. As I look upon my new-born son, there is a yearning in my heart that he should receive all things good and fine, that he should grow into manhood and fulfill his mission on earth, and I think all of you know that which I am seeking to convey in such words. As I think of that, I cannot help but think: This, which is according to my capacity, is but a symbol of that which made possible the revelation of the Way, the Truth and the Life on earth.
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” How could Love be more vibrantly expressed, more vividly described—to give one's only begotten Son? There is no human expression, there is no word, there is no means by which human minds could be more vividly brought to a realization of the Way, the Truth and the Life, of the meaning of God's Gift to man—and in that giving God made it possible for each and everyone, for you and for all who turn to Him, to become Sons and Daughters of God, no longer children of this world, no longer children of darkness, no longer children quarrelling and fighting, no longer children filled with resentment and all ill things, but children adopted and reborn, Children of the Father, in Whose House Love reigns supreme. His Children have no sense of insecurity, no feeling that they are not wanted, no feeling that they have to fight to get the things they ought to have, no feeling that they have to take something away from some brother or sister in order to have it. His Children know that He loves to give, and that He is able to give every good and perfect gift. His Children know that they do not have to overpower one another to build up their possessions. His Children know that it is His good pleasure to give them the Kingdom.
God's Love made manifest—the Love of the Father for you. When I take my son in my arms, even though he be but a babe just born, it seems to me that he finds there a sense of satisfaction, that he has even now a realization that here is a place of peace where he need fear no insecurity that may be in the world—and if that be so, how much more should it be so for each one of us; for if we are enfolded in the Arms of God, if we have truly come near to the Heart of God, then, even though we might be but a babe in Spiritual experience and in understanding, in comprehension of the things of Heaven and earth, still, surely, there, near to the Heart of God, enfolded in the Arms of the Father, there is a sense of peace, of security, of assurance that all is well.
So, as I have meditated upon Fatherhood, inevitably I have considered Sonship—what it means to be a Child of God, a Son of God, a Daughter of God, to live in the House of the Father; and I have sought, in the spirit of these words, to convey something of that which is beyond human utterance, something that must be lived to be known, so that each one may come to that place where he is so close in the Arms of God, living near to the Heart of God, that he finds no need to request or demand or require anything of God, but that he is contented ever to receive that which God would give, and he is contented to wait to the hour of God's giving, or to the hour when he may receive what God has already given. So, there is a higher and more wonderful secret with respect to asking; for when one is living near to the Heart of God one does not ask God for anything, but one lets God ask His Creation to be thus and so. When the Creator speaks, then the Creation is supposed to respond and be obedient.
“Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name”, does not necessarily mean that human beings must be asking of God; for human beings do not know what they should ask for, and when they begin to know what they should ask for, they know they do not need to ask, because it has been already given. But, when they begin to live in the Father, they know the asking is the expression of the Divine into the earth that requires something of the Creation, and when it is in the true Creative Current, that word accomplishes that whereunto it is sent. But this is another subject, something leading on into great and glorious vistas of God's mysterious Way and His wonder-working Power. I only touch upon it tonight that you may lift up your eyes unto the hills from whence cometh your help, and know that he who is a Son of God, and she who is a Daughter of God, lives in the House of God, rejoicing in the Love of God, and letting the Will of God be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
© Emissaries of Divine Light
