Fathers

What is a Father?

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

As I was growing up a father meant three things. First there was the invisible father who had disappeared and I couldn’t remember. This one seemed mysterious and of doubtful character. Then there was the suddenly appearing father. He was always right and quick to correct. He taught me many good things but was fearful to know until the day he also disappeared. Last came a nicer gentler father who was kind to us for a few years. He was interesting and funny however he also followed the others out our door.

Over a lifetime of looking back and remembering those men I realize that in some way each taught me something about God.

God is indeed mysterious and invisible like my real dad seemed. As a young man I was fortunate to finally meet him and we formed a friendship that lasted a lifetime.

My stepfathers both struggled as all of us do with a fatherhood that was suddenly thrust on them. From Arthur I learned the love of music though I hated everything about music lessons. People call it a gift but it is a gift that only grows in the discipline of practice. Last came Rudy the artist who caught us in our angry teenage years and still instilled in my sister and I the amazing idea that we had value beyond our performance.

Last of all came a father who I didn’t realize was pursuing me. My heavenly Father continued to call down through the pathways I ran. He never gave up in search of my heart and never turned away in spite of my sin. He is truly our Heavenly Father and the most wonderful good news is that it is His good pleasure to give us His kingdom. We cannot come by figuring him out. We can never be good enough to win him over by our abilities. We do not have strength great enough to hold on to Him. Our part is only to stop running long enough for Him to catch us on the pathway. Then He will take our hands in an eternal grip and joyfully lead us safely home to Him!

The Everything of Christ

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

During the last week of my Dad’s life I learned more from him than all the years before. That is not to say Dad’s teaching improved so much as that my listening increased. God’s love reflected in his concern for me getting meals while he only received his through a tube. He worried I was missing sleep while he spent the night in a busy ICU unit. But most of all Dad loved having me and his nurse reading the Bible to him. That week he often quoted his favorite verse

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Today when the cold winds of reality slap me in the face and little irritations that feel like hurricanes I remember his verse. Though I wish I could pick up the phone to ask Dad what he thinks I come back to this promise. Every day I am finding more and more that success is not determined by the many things I cannot do but by the everything He can!

What can Separate?

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

When I was just a small child my mother packed her bags and while my father was working she left with me in her arms to live with my grandparents. The separation was devastating to my Dad but as I was only about a year old I had no understanding of what had happened. One day my father had been there. The next I was separated. Between that moment and my middle teen years I only saw my father twice and then for only an hour or so.

When I was fifteen years old my father was finally able to have a custody hearing. That afternoon I entered into the judge’s chambers alone and he asked me a single question, “Do you like your father?”

“I don’t know.” I answered truthfully shrugging my shoulders. I don’t know who he is” I didn’t realize that I had actually passed right by my dad and step-mother on the way in to the court.

“Then I’m going to give you a chance to get to know him.” The judge answered.

In much the same way, our heavenly father is sitting just outside the courtroom of eternity. Because of our sins we have been legally separated from him. Under the cover of night, they have taken us from His house. But when Jesus gave His last drop of blood for us on the cross a cosmic earthquake took place. We were called into court and Heaven’s custody hearing began a single question. “Do you like your father?”

Though it took me a lifetime to build a relationship with my father he made it all possible because nothing was able to separate me from his love. The promise of God is that nothing can separate us from His love and He has planned an eternal relationship for you and I. His Son Jesus Christ suffered and died to buy that opportunity for us, but in order to award custody Heaven’s judge is waiting on our answer.

 

1528364221006_image.jpg