Walter Hudson writes that the relationship between a father and son is in some ways similar to our own relationship to God.
Unable to flash our knowledge to our children’s minds, we mete it out over time, drilling through repetition past layers of doubt, pride, and rebellion. Until we succeed, until our children reach a point beyond which they can effectively care for themselves, we act as custodian.
The primary skill which we must engender in our children is the capacity for reason, the ability to make rational decisions which serve their best interest. However, even as reason manifests, its exercise absent knowledge and experience often produces poor outcomes. No doubt, that proves to be the tragedy of teenage years, an emerging capacity for reason eager to self-determine without much knowledge to determine with.
A key difference between the relationship of father to son and that of God to creation is the eternal nature of God. My son will eventually match my capacity, and perhaps even surpass it. I will never match God’s. Therefore, a point will never arrive beyond which I will not require His custody. He will always know more and better. We properly understand humility as the acknowledgement of that fact, not a sanctimonious self-flagellation, but an accurate comparison of our capacity to His.
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