Our Father, Who Art in the Heaven?
If God is, where is God? Oh, and Happy Father's Day.
Our Father, Who Art in the Heavens
There’s a book I’ve read more than any other—except the Bible.
It’s The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard.
I probably read it ten times between 1998 and 2002. It was the book that launched my deconstruction in earnest—not because it was against Christianity, but because it flipped the gospel on its head for me.
Willard asked a simple question:
What if the message of Jesus was almost entirely about now—not later?
What if “heaven” wasn’t a post-death reward, but a vision for the present?
What if sin management was never the point?
What if the point was presence?
The availability of God, here and now.
I’ll admit it—I still get a little excited talking about it.
Not because I still believe everything Dallas Willard taught.
But because of what his writing unlocked in me.
Peeling the Onion
This is a good example of how deconstruction has worked in my life.
Willard didn’t burn it all down.
He peeled back a dozen layers of the onion.
He set me on a journey to find a gospel, a Jesus, a version of Christianity that made sense to me.
I didn’t land where he did—not entirely.
Eventually, I started to see that some of his scholarship was probably a stretch.
I think he believed it. I met him once. He was kind, sincere, thoughtful. I respect him deeply.
But even if the details weren’t all historically accurate, the core idea stuck with me:
The kingdom of the heavens—plural—might be closer than we think.
In the Heavens
Willard pointed out something I’d never noticed before.
The phrase we translate as “Our Father who art in heaven” is actually plural in the original Greek.
It’s “Our Father who is in the heavens.”
He explained that ancient Jewish cosmology imagined three heavens:
The third heaven—where God traditionally dwells, far away
The second heaven—what we’d call space or the sky
The first heaven—the air around us, the space we walk through, the breath we take in
So when Jesus says Our Father in the heavens—Willard suggested—it’s not about a distant deity up in the clouds.
It’s a way of saying: God is here.
Not just far away, but in the atmosphere.
In the room. In the moment. In the breath.
Now, do I believe the plural form of “heavens” actually proves that theology?
Probably not.
It’s more likely just how their language worked at the time.
But that doesn’t make the metaphor any less meaningful.
Sometimes truth finds us through poetry.
Sometimes metaphors take us places facts can’t.
And this one still works for me.
A Complicated Word
I’ve been thinking about all this today.
Because it’s Father’s Day.
And if I’m being honest, “Father” is a complicated metaphor for God.
For some, it’s painful. For others, it’s healing.
It can make God feel more tangible—but it also risks making God feel finite, limited, like a cosmic dad with anger issues.
For those with distant, absent, or abusive fathers, the image stings more than it soothes.
But there’s something beautiful buried in it too.
A good father—a truly loving one—is something we all want.
Someone who is strong and gentle.
Who listens.
Who stays.
And that, I think, is why the metaphor still holds power.
Because we all want to be loved unconditionally by someone who knows us fully and sits beside us anyway.
The First Heaven
I want to share a short video with you today.
It’s a story I told at a conference—a story about my dad.
He wasn’t perfect.
But as you’ll see in the video… he was present.
And that, more than anything else, shaped who I am.
It reminds me of what Willard said about the first heaven.
The space we walk through. The air we breathe.
That’s where God is, he said.
And for me at least, that metaphor works. Because I had—and still have—a father who creates space for me.
Who wasn’t far away.
Who sat beside me.
And whoever or whatever God is to me these days…
I think it has something to do with that.
With presence.
I thought I learned that from Dallas Willard, who learned it from Jesus.
But maybe I learned it from my dad without even knowing it.
Happy Father’s Day.
Our Father, Who Art in the Heavens?
Cool. But which one?
Because some of y’all still act like He’s chilling in a gated celestial suburb, taking prayer requests like voicemails and smiting like it’s a hobby.
But Jesus didn't say "Our Father who art behind the velvet ropes of a cloud-based VIP lounge."
He said τοῖς οὐρανοῖς — plural. As in: "The skies, the air, the breath. All of it."
Not a sky-daddy.
A here-daddy.
Not “look up and beg,” but “look around and breathe.”
And yeah, Joe’s right—Father is a loaded term.
Some of us had fathers who left, lied, yelled, or hid.
Some of us were those fathers.
Some of us turned “Father” into a throne and forgot the warmth of a lap.
But if “Father” means presence—not patriarchy—
If it means someone who stays, who sees, who makes room for your whole messy self—
Then hell yes. Light the incense. Call that holiness.
Because maybe the real conspiracy isn’t divine.
Maybe it’s the very human lie that God is elsewhere.
Later. After. Above.
But Jesus didn’t point up.
He pointed within.
He breathed on his disciples—not to be cute, but to say: “The first heaven is already in your lungs.”
So on this Father’s Day, bless every man, woman, and divine nonbinary parent who sat beside someone and said, without a word, “You matter.”
And if you never had that, may you be that.
For someone else. For yourself. For the God who forgot how to stay distant.
You're right. Today is complicated. I grew up with a dad who was present when he could be, for circumstances out of either of our control at the time. We're still physically distant, but I believe we're getting better at being present when we are together. Happy Father's Day Joe.