God's Gender

In the Bible, God reveals Himself as a He. I trust that He knows what His own gender is. I am aware that not everyone agrees. I have met people who are recovering from abuse who try to think of God as a she or as a neutral it. Their reasoning is that a he of the human race abused them and so they can't relate to any God who would be known as He.

I feel the pain that leads to such reasoning. I was abused by several males. I too struggled with God's maleness for awhile. I had some negative associations with the word father. I wanted to believe that my heavenly Father was different, but I felt fear and doubt. Yet, our Heavenly Father helped me to walk through my associations and feelings and He redeemed His name for me step by step.

I learned that my Heavenly Father is good, kind, and patient. He is honest and just. He cares deeply about our best welfare. He is loving. I learned by reading and believing the Bible. I learned from personal experiences of God's faithfulness and love. Over and over, God showed me how good He is.

One evening almost twenty years ago, I had an amazing experience that added another layer of understanding who God is. I was grieving and I curled up in my ottoman chair and wept quietly. I asked God to help me feel His comforting presence and the next thing I knew I could feel Him literally holding me as if I were a small child on his lap. It was a supernatural experience. I knew I was being held by my Heavenly Father and it was deeply comforting.

I am convinced that accepting God's Word as true and allowing Him to heal our broken hearts and spirits is far more productive than trying to change God's revealed identity to our own liking. Remember Readers, the gender of our abuser(s) is not what led to our abuse. Non-repented sin is the culprit, and sin knows no distinction between the genders.