Eternally, he is our father

It's always Father's Day in Heaven! Its citizens understand what we often forget -- that we have a father who deserves adulation and celebration because he blesses us day after blessed day.

Clouds that drop rain to provide life-giving moisture, cattle munching contentedly on green-growing hillside pastures, bees buzzing blooms in the pollination process, parent birds hauling worms to their nestlings, chlorophyll and sunlight, moonlight and rest, lightning and rainbows speak of the power, regeneration, and generous goodness of our loving father. All of nature articulates his abundance.

In the book of Exodus, the Bible recounts how God blessed his wandering children with bread from heaven. For 40 years the children of Israel gathered one omer of bread, a day's supply, every day except the day before the Sabbath when they gathered two days' supply since they rested on the Sabbath.

The Hebrew word give in Exodus used for God's provision is a palindrome. That means it's spelled the same forward and backward (like madam or kayak in English). The Hebrew word for give is spelled with the Hebrew letters Nun, Tav, Nun. Forward and backward, backward and forward, our father's giving never ends. His love and mercy never end, never run dry. They're eternal, like him. Any way you look at him, he's giving -- past, present, future, forward and backward.

God wanted his people who left Egypt to recognize their dependency on him so they had to live from hand-to-mouth -- his hand, their mouth -- each day. After 40 years of going out each morning and stooping down to pick up heaven's gifts, they should have known that God was their only source of life.

The palindrome was demonstrated years later by Jesus, the Bread of Life who, like manna, descended from heaven to be born in Bethlehem, meaning "the House of Bread." He multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed 5,000 men and their families. The provisions overflowed -- there were 12 baskets left over! If there'd been millions of starving folks on the hillside that day, there'd still have been leftovers! Then Jesus went to the cross to give himself, a ransom for many, broken bread to fill our hungry emptiness. God's giving love is a palindrome that never ends. There was, is and always will be enough to satisfy the hunger of our hearts and meet our spiritual needs.

Our father is the life-giver who gave, gives and will give throughout eternity. He's the All-You-Need, your Source, your Supply. He's the Gift and the Eternal Giver wrapped up as one God. He's El Shaddai, More Than Enough!

Just like the children of Israel who had nothing in the pantry and had to rely totally on God's sit-down dinners, it's usually when we get desperate that we turn from self-reliance to God-reliance. Then we see that only God can fulfill and fill us with himself -- the Bread of Life. As we learn to give up "self" in a constant state of palindrome giving and dependence, then we receive the endless giving and forgiving of God. We have to get on our knees in humility, though, to gather the Bread of Life just as God's children had to stoop down daily to gather his life-sustaining manna.

It's Father's Day weekend, and so I wish a happy Father's Day to all fathers. I pray that you are the strong men of God that he designed you to be. And God, with all my heart, I thank you for being my father, for fathering me, and for pouring out your never-ending gifts of mercy and grace. I love you, father, today and throughout eternity.

June Seabaugh is a member of Christ Church of the Heartland in Cape Girardeau.