Good, Good Father is the title of a Chris Tomlin song. I first heard it when my grandson Andrew James Chase went to be with Jesus after 4 ½ days of earthly life. The song was a musical Good Samaritan to our family as we lay bleeding on the Jericho Road of grief.

The song’s refrain is the best Father’s Day card I’ve ever read. Tomlin tells the heavenly Father, “You’re a good, good Father / It’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are / And I’m loved by you / It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am.”

If you asked me to boil down to a single truth the reason we ought to live as Grace-Focused Optimists I’d say without hesitation “We ought to live as Grace-Focused Optimists because God’s our good, good Father—it’s who he is. And we’re loved by him—it’s who we are.” In other words, being a child of the good, good Father is being a child of the best Father there is. And, since God’s the best Father there is, and you’re his child, then you ought to be a Grace-Focused Optimist!

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The Best Father There Is

This Sunday’s Father’s Day. The day we tell our fathers how grateful we are for them. That makes this a good time to pause and praise our heavenly Father for being our good, good Father.

Here are five ways our good, good heavenly Father is the best Father there is

1. Our good, good heavenly Father is the best Father there is because he always keeps his promises.

In spite of my best efforts, my promises to my children were sometimes as easy to burst as soap bubbles. I’d wave a beautiful bubble from my promise wand only to have the wind of forgetfulness pop it or the finger of some unexpected difficulty stick a finger in it and dissolve it. But our heavenly Father hasn’t made a single fragile promise. None of them can be broken any more than Jesus could have been kept in the tomb. Through Jesus, he has done, is doing, and will do everything he promises us (2 Corinthians 1:20).

And this makes our good, good Father the best Father there is.

2. Our good, good heavenly Father is the best Father there is because all of his decisions about us are wise.

I have been anything but Solomon-smart in the decisions I’ve made with my children. I’ve often thought I was investing in a decisional Bull Market only to find it turn out a Bear for them. But this never happens to our heavenly Father. He is the “only wise God” (the God who does only that which is wise all the time, Romans 16:27). He knows what’s best for us, wants what’s best for us, and does what’s best for us—all the time.

And this makes our good, good Father the best Father there is.

3. Our good, good heavenly Father is the best Father there is because he can help us handle whatever we face.

Sooner or later every earthly father is brought to his knees by some kryptonite difficulty their children face. What’s worse, every earthly father has the Achilles heel of mortality and sooner or later will be fatally felled by an arrow from death’s quiver. But our heavenly Father is the able I AM. He is the living God for whom nothing is impossible. He is always “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

And this makes our good, good Father the best Father there is.

4. Our good, good heavenly Father is the best Father there is because he always deals with us in love.

The best human father sometimes deals with his children in a way that no more resembles the halo love of 1 Corinthians 13 than Satan resembles Jesus. I bear no false witness when I say we sometimes allow our words and actions to be sabotaged by stress or bad moods or distractions. But no moon eclipses the sun of our heavenly Father’s love. It’s always shining on our lives with noonday brightness. From choosing us before the foundation of the world to sending Jesus to live and die for us, to his moment by moment government of our lives, he is always dealing with us in love (Romans 8:29; Ephesians 1:4; 1 John 4:10; Hebrews 12:6).

And this makes our good, good Father the best Father there is.

5. Our good, good heavenly Father is the best Father there is because he is going to bring us to a fairy tale ending that’s no fairy tale.

He is going to make us live happily ever after by making us perfectly and permanently like Jesus. By making us like Jesus, he will wipe away all our tears and lavish on us the best spiritual, emotional, physical, social, environmental, and relational good that his infinite imagination and glorious love can produce (1 John 3:1; Revelation 21:4.

And this makes our good, good Father the best Father there is.

Make Every Day Father’s Day

How do you show your heavenly Father that you believe he is the best Father there is? By making every day Father’s Day for him. How do you do that? By living as a Grace-Focused Optimist. Living as a Grace-Focused Optimist tells him, “You’re a good, good Father / It’s who you are, it’s who you are, it’s who you are / And I’m loved by you / It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am.”

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