Romans 8:28 A FATHER’S RESPONSIBILITY 15/06/03
1 Timothy 5:8
I read recently of a Christian couple whose two beautiful teenage daughters, ages 19 and 15, were drowned during an outing. What a horrible tragedy. But the father wrote, "Although it has been the most difficult time of our lives, we have seen the Lord work in many ways. In a situation like this, the first question that we have to ask ourselves is: Are we going to put our full trust in the Lord and know beyond all doubts that His Word is infallible and true? The answer has to be an absolute ’yes.’ We know beyond a shadow of doubt that our girls are dynamic Christians and they now have assignments and missions in Heaven. We also know that they are much more in our future than they were in our past. We will all have a glorious reunion in what I believe is the near future. Although we look forward to that great reunion, we must be prepared to accomplish the assignments and missions that the Lord has for us until we all go up."
This father was confident that he had done all he could to prepare his kids for eternity, and that they had responded well. And I don’t mean that he was a perfect dad; perfection only exists in Heaven. But he had modelled Christianity for them, prayed for them, and taught them as well as he knew how, to love God and to obey Him. What a heritage! We say that God is number one in our lives, but how often we allow something else—anything else—to crowd Him out of our decisions and our lives.
As I was preparing for Sunday School, I caught a few minutes of a talk show that was honouring fathers. A young woman was struggling to explain what she thought a father’s job was: meeting needs around the home, doing things, fixing things. The commentator summarized her fuzzy thoughts in one word: providing. She agreed.
Another young fellow, when asked what his dad did, said, “He watches.” It’s from the book, "Do Yourself a Favor: Love Your Wife." The author asked the boy what his father did. The boy replied, "He watches."
"You mean that he is a night watchman?"
"Oh, no," the little boy exclaimed. "He just watches."
"Well, what does he watch?"
"I don’t know if I can tell you everything," the boy continued,
"but I can name a few things." "Well, tell me," the author replied.
"He watches TV, he watches Mom do the housework, he watches for the paperboy, he watches the weather... And I think he watches girls, too," he said, with an impish grin on his face. "He watches the stock market, football games, all the sports,
he watches Mother spank us, and he watches us do our homework.
He watches us leave to go to church and school and shopping.
He watches Mom write letters and me play with my dog.
He watches Mom pay the bills - but mainly he just watches,"
said the little fellow, with a note of sadness in his voice.
Although fathers need to be informed, surely just ‘watching’ isn’t enough. In defense of such fathers, however, I would caution wives: if he tries something, and it turns out a mess, congratulate him for trying. Don’t fix it, unless he asks for your help. It sends a message, “Nothing you do is good enough.” If he hears that message repeatedly, he will withdraw, and become a ‘watcher.’ It may have already happened long before you met him. Men need encouragement, just as ladies and kids do. Even though we try to appear macho and capable, we know there are many areas where we fall down. We just don’t like to admit it.
My dad was a good provider, if we’re only talking about money, but he never knew how to relate to us, or teach us much, and he was seldom around to be a model. He reminds me a little of Jacob. From the start, Jacob was trouble—actually his name means, ‘conniver or schemer’, which gives a little glimpse into the problem. He always had a better way, and he kept pushing the boundaries to see if they would move. He swindled his brother out of their father’s blessing; he swindled his uncle out of flocks and herds. When Jesus said, “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword.”, I wonder if He was thinking about how Jacob was swindled out of a bride. He finally got that one, too, but God had said that one man and one woman should be joined to become “one flesh”, not a man and two women. There was a good reason for that; a man cannot serve two masters. So it was in the house of Jacob.
He had ten sons by the first wife, and two more by the second, his favourite, and of course, her sons became his favourites, too. It doesn’t work, dads. You can’t play favourites in a family and expect them all to get along. Jacob used Joseph, one of the favourites, to spy on his brothers, and that caused a lot of friction in the home, but when he blatantly gave an expensive, multi-coloured coat to Joseph, and nothing to the others, he reached the last straw. Jacob had inadvertently cultivated hatred and jealousy in his family, and that was about to blow up in his face. “If you live by the sword…” He was a good provider, too, of food and shelter, but not of a stable home life that his family, and all families, desperately need. He became the butt of a deadly hoax. The fancy coat became the evidence that his favourite son had gone to lunch with a wild animal.
That reminds me of the Russian parable where the hunter raised his gun to shoot a huge bear. As he was about to pull the trigger, the bear spoke to him in a soft, soothing voice: “Isn’t it better to talk than to shoot? What do you want? Let’s negotiate.”
Lowering his rifle, the hunter replied, “I want a fur coat.”
“Good, that’s no problem,” said the bear. “We can talk about that. That’s negotiable. All I want is a full stomach, so let’s negotiate a compromise.”
They sat down to negotiate, and after a time, the bear got up and walked away, alone. The negotiations had been successful. The bear got his stomach filled and the hunter got his fur coat.
That was the story Joseph’s brothers told their dad as they presented him with the multi-coloured coat all covered with blood. And they’d have killed him if a band of merchants hadn’t passed by at just the right moment. One of them saw an opportunity to get rid of the spoiled kid without getting their hands dirty, and making a few bucks on the side. So Joseph went to Egypt as a slave, and Jacob suffered many years of pain for his poor parenting. Although God worked everything out for the best in the end, much of the pain could have been avoided if Joseph had been a better provider of security for his kids—if he had spent as much time and effort on the others as he did on Joseph.
A more modern son had this to say about a similar situation:
“I am still waiting for my father to talk to me about sex and success, money and marriage, religion and raising kids. Since he died in 1991, I guess I don’t have much chance of ever benefiting from all of the lessons he learned in life. It’s not that he was a bad dad; he was just a quiet one.” Even in the best father-son relationships, there’s an uncomfortable familiarity that inhibits us from talking like friends.
Fathers have so much to share, but often don’t know how. Some of them fought the Nazis and struggled through the Depression. They loved women, lost women, raised difficult kids, met every manner of person, good and bad. They watched their own careers and lots of others, rise and fall; watched heroes, fads, and politicians come and go; learned what’s important and what’s not. They’ve been so many places we have yet to travel.
”But since neither father nor son knows where or how to start these conversations, we talk about cars, sports, or the weather instead. The shame of it is, I don’t know a man my age who doesn’t feel that he’s navigating his life without a map. Our fathers may not have all the directions, but they sure know where a lot of the potholes and detours lie. There’s a lot of wisdom out there, if only we could get it out of them..”
Providing for a family means far more than putting food on the table, and a roof over their heads. It means sharing their lives, and sharing our lives with them. It means talking to them about how to avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve fallen into. It means taking an equal interest in all of them—no favourites---and doing it in a non-threatening way, for they are even more vulnerable than we are.
Michael W. Smith, a very popular contemporary Christian soloist, had this to say about his father. "When my dad comes up missing at a dinner party, I always know where to find him: in the kitchen. He’ll be in there, apron around his waist, washing dishes. That’s just one example of his servant’s heart. Serving seems to come naturally and effortlessly for my father. I remember one time he was working in the garage and he saw an elderly lady carrying a bag of groceries by our house. He immediately went out to help her. Time and again, I’ve watched him drop whatever he was doing to help someone carry a bag of groceries, fix a car, or repair a broken appliance. I hope someday I’ll be as good at serving others as he is. If that happens, I’ll have to say, ‘I learned it from my dad.’" There’s security in that, knowing that dad’s actions are worthy of being copied, and doing it. Nothing could make a dad happier than seeing his kids follow in the places where he did things right.
Face it. We can’t do much that’s right on our own. We need the guidance and strength of our Heavenly Father to make a difference in this messed-up world, but he has promised that “everything will work together for the good of those who love Him, and are called according to his purpose for them." (Rom 8:28) Do you love him today? Are you called according to His purpose for you? Then, take heart; like the father of the two girls, you can trust Him to help you, and your kids, be the best that you can be.
MY FATHER’S HANDS by Carrie Bobb
We often hear parents say how proud they are of their children, but I am one daughter who is proud of her dad. My father is an orthopedic hand surgeon. But it wasn’t until I grew up that I began to realize what he really did for a living; as a kid, all I knew was that Dad left in the morning to go to work as every grown-up had to.
To me he was cool because he taught me how to ride my bike and he would put a Band-Aid on my skinned knee when I fell. Dad barbecued the best hamburgers and cheered the loudest at my volleyball games. He also helped me study for biology tests and brought home donuts on Sunday mornings. He’d even get up early just to wash my car before I woke up. Sometimes before school, I’d peek through the crack of his office door and find him buried in his Bible. Every time I see the coffee rings on his desk blotter, I picture him during his early morning devotions.
Mom says that as people get older they become more of who they truly are. That’s true for my dad. And now that I am older, I have a deeper appreciation not only for what he does but for the man he is. His depth of character and gentle heart have only grown stronger through the years.
When I went away to college, our relationship became more of what it already was. I sent postcards to his office, and he flew out on weekends to watch me play volleyball. I so enjoyed getting his e-mails with motivational quotes at the bottom that I saved them. It’s funny: You can live with a person all your life and begin to see who that person truly is only when you move a thousand miles away.
Dad has let me make mistakes in life, but he has loved me regardless of my bumps and bruises. In his own subtle way, he has guided me in my relationship with God, encouraging me to develop faith as something that is mine, not something merely given me by my parents.
It seems almost ironic to me that he is an orthopedic hand surgeon. The steady hands that held the back of my bicycle seat and washed my car are the same hands that fix other people’s hands. People’s lives are different — they can again play the piano and paint and build sandcastles and take pictures — all because of my dad. God uses my father’s hands to create miracles.
Yet all of his awards and accomplishments seem more significant to me because he was a father first and a doctor second. I take delight in what he does, but he’s what makes my heart swell with pride.
You see, everyone else calls him Doctor. But I get to call him Dad.
