This Sunday is Father's Day, a theme which took me to thinking about not only what it means to be a Father, but what it means to have one.  I recognise that not everyone's experience of these things is the same - so I can only offer thoughts on my own experiences.

Looking at this week's readings (2 Corinthians 5.6–17 and Mark 4.26–34) I found myself taken back to my childhood - to sitting in assemblies at school.  The vicar who used to come in and lead them (who happened to be my father) used to bring in his guitar (which I'm not sure he ever actually learned to play), and would strum us through the sort of singing of which only primary school children are capable - in which enthusiasm runs inverse to musicality.... It's one of those songs that comes to mind - 'I'm not a grasshopper!'.  The lyrics, as I remember them anyway, are:

  You may think I'm so young,  too young to understand,

  don't forget in God's eyes he looks on me as grand.

  He never, never limits the giant that's in me,

  he leads me through my childhood supernatural-ly-y-y-y!

  I'm not a grasshopper - I'm a giant in the Lord!

It seems to me that looking on their children as grand is part of the role of good father - of seeing not only what they are, but what they can be; and through a deliberate confidence in their capacities, even (particularly) when they lack that confidence in themselves, helping them to reach them.  At least that's a gift I think my father gave me, and it's one I hope in turn to pass on to my kids.

And it's an idea - of seeing not what is *now* but what will be when it comes to fruition - that we find at the heart of God's Kingdom in the parables from the gospels this week. The Kingdom of God is like... a mustard seed!  The smallest of them all, a nothing, something so easy to overlook, but...  with the greatest of potential of all the seeds!  And it is from the Father's - God's - confidence and belief in it that it gains its potential, and reaches its fulfilment.

When we take the step of moving into that Kingdom - of deliberately placing ourselves into the will and purpose of God - we find that we become more aware of the growth that's at work in us too.  A growth into the people we are created to be that is drawn out of us by the faith that the creator has in us.  Because when we come to trust that God our Father knows what we're capable of, we begin to recognise through the eyes of faith how our life, the world, and the people around us are all a part of his purposes for shaping us into our fullest potential.  Alongside that, of course, we also begin to recognise that part of that potential is being the same shaping, guiding, developing force for others.  To give of ourselves that they may grow alongside us.

If we take the time to deliberately recognise this at work in us, and to watch the results, we can find that our own belief in who and what we are begins to expand to match God's vision of us (even as we are aware that we don't always live up to it).  Perhaps that's the point Paul has reached that enables him to say that he, and his fellow ambassadors for Christ, 'are always confident' - confident in the continued presence of God, confident of the saving power of God, and confident of the transforming effect it has in their lives.

What I'm saying, really is this - your Father loves you, thinks you're great, and thinks you can do amazing things in his Kingdom - is it time to start believing wih him?