"Kindergarteners Drawing Their Fathers" 7/7/26

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

My children drew pictures of Super Dad for Father's Day. They are objectively bad art, but I love them, for they communicate the love and creativity of my children. 

I think of how our Father in Heaven looks at our attempts to paint His likeness in word and deed. Are we not all like kindergarteners trying to convey what is beyond our skill? Yet still he loves our attempts to honor Him. 

I do not say this to excuse misrepresentations of the Almighty God. We must always be careful not to depart from the revelation we have been given in the holy scriptures breathed out by God, his very words sufficient and complete (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Rather, my point is that even with orthodox teaching, even with the right doctrine of God, we are still finite minds trying to convey something of the infinite God to other finite minds. This is what Christians mean when we talk about the "mystery of the Trinity" for example. We do not mean that God's revelation of Himself is irrational or inconsistent or unclear, but rather that there are aspects of who God is that are simply beyond us.** The holiness of God is first of all the reality that God is utterly unlike us.

As I was mulling over some of these thoughts I wrote the following prayer:

"I try to capture your essence Lord and my words are like the kindergarteners drawing of his father; well meant but not always on the mark. I've come to know You through Your Word, Your perfect revelation of Yourself, but still my brushstrokes fail to do You justice. So I go back to paint between the lines and color by the numbers. This I know(for the Bible tells me so) in Christ You are perfectly and completely made known... There I see Him who is unseen. There in Him is invisible made visible, incomprehensible made known, omnipresent and transcendent have here come near in Jesus."

Now may you come to know God through Christ more and more each day and find that you are able (by the grace of God) to convey something of His glory to those around us who remain in darkness, Amen.

In Christ's Service, 

Matt

**I want to acknowledge my debt to Christian Apologist James White for clarifying this point in his book The Forgotten Trinity.