Our Father in Heaven

Some find it interesting that Jesus places a God the Father in a specific location when He teaches His disciples to pray. I think it is noteworthy that Jesus instructs His disciples to pray to the Father, and thus, it is right to have some idea of His location. We are praying to God the Father, in heaven.

In the Old Testament, we read that God, when He spoke to man, called down from heaven. When people cried out to God, they prayed that He would hear from heaven. Heaven most often in Scripture refers to the sky, and it is said to be God's holy dwelling place. There was a heaven, a highest heaven, and a third heaven; the first is our sky, the second outerspace, and the third, God's dwelling place. God is often referred to as the God of heaven.

Nevertheless the wisest man, Solomon, after building the Temple rightly said of God in 1 Kings 8:27, "The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain You." Solomon's father, David, set that God set His glory above the heavens (Psalm 8:1).

What is heaven? Where is heaven? These questions go beyond the scope of today's entry. It was not until the New Testament that we hear of the "kingdom of heaven." So, I appeal simply to Isaiah 57:15, "This is what the high and lofty One says — He who lives forever, whose name is holy: 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'"

God is indeed enthroned in heaven, though His domain is not limited to that location. When Jesus directs us to pray to our Father in Heaven, we are to keep in mind that God is holy and set apart from His creation. He is to be exalted and glorified. We come before Him humbly. We can intimately address Him as Father, or Daddy, but we must acknowledge that we are not coming to Him on His level. Rather He hears us by stooping down to ours. What grace! Ecclesiastes 5:2 grasps this reality: "God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few."