[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 22/June/2021]
This year my daughter said how good it is that we can meet up with her family to celebrate Father’s Day together, and I guess that many others feel the same way. I was thinking back to when I was boy. I used to buy my dad a card and present, but sadly it wasn’t a day I used to celebrate. He used to verbally and emotionally abuse my mum and me by losing his temper, shouting at us and belittling us, and as result I grew up to lack confidence and feel deeply shy. This lasted for many years long after Barbara and I had married.
When he was a widower, and he was alone in his eighties, he read through the New Testament and believed that Jesus died for him and he trusted in Him as his Saviour. Over the next few years, he gradually changed and told me that he loved me, and thanked me and Barbara for all that we had done for him. When we were going on a holiday to Scotland, he wished us a happy holiday for the first time ever. On our return we found that he had died and had gone to be with the Saviour he had met so late in life.
Because of my resulting shyness from childhood, if I have done anything to serve the Lord in my life, it was solely because I believed that Christ Jesus our Lord has given me strength (1 Tim 1:12) and as God said to Paul “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness“. (2 Cor 12:9). I have the weakness but God has all the power.
I don’t hold anything against my dad for the years of unhappiness he gave us, and though it may not be to the same extent as him we fathers have to admit that we are not perfect in every way. Even in the Bible I can’t think of any father who was perfect. Only one. And that is our Father God. It is our Heavenly Father who gave us life and truly loves us. He carries us when we are weak and provides everything that we need. He even disciplines us when we need it. The most amazing thing is that He gave us Jesus as our brother, who sacrificed Himself to accept us into a new perfect family.
“Father God I wonder how I managed to exist,
without the knowledge of your parenthood and your loving care.
But now I am your son, I am adopted in your family,
And I can never be alone, ’cause Father God, you’re there beside me.”
Today we can celebrate Father’s Day with our perfect Heavenly Father.”
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Contributed by Michael Goble; © the Author
