God of Our Fathers

Happy Father's Day!

You could say that I'm a bit of a daddy's girl. Named after my father, I suppose you could say that to some degree he dotes on me. But truthfully, my father dotes on all three of his daughters. We're very dear to his heart as are (were) my three brothers. We are the reason my father rose up very early every morning (around 4 or 5 a.m.) for about 30 years to go to jobs he didn't really enjoy so that we could have food, proper clothing and a nice home. We are also the reason he spent much time on his knees in prayer before God—even until the early hours of the morning just in time to go to work.

My father had a difficult life growing up, and he wanted better for his children. He was born in a small, rural town in Alabama just a few years before the Great Depression to a family of tenant farmers. One of 15 or so children born to my grandmother (one of 26 and still counting sired by grandfather—turns out grandpa was a rolling stone), my father started working at age eleven to help out his family. When my father talks about having to walk 15 plus miles to school barefoot or having to put up with racial slurs to his face to preserve his life, he isn't exaggerating. He endured racism and segregation, poverty, World War II, and an absentee father. He could easily have given up and followed in my grandfather's footsteps, but he found a better example to lead him into manhood and then fatherhood.

Ordained as a minister in 1950 (just before my oldest brother was born), my father's deepest desire has always been (and still is) to live a life that honors God, which includes being a good father. I recall my father once saying in a sermon that any man can provide seed to make a baby, but a true father, a real father, follows the example set by God, the perfect Father. He loves and encourages his children. He leads and teaches them. He protects and provides for them. He chastens them when necessary and he also comforts them. But most importantly, he prays for them to help establish their destiny.

To be a Godly father—that is the call my father aspired to. Has he always hit the mark? No. He will tell you himself that he's made countless mistakes in his life as a husband, as a father, as a minister, as a person. He will also tell you that every success he's ever achieved as a father and as a man, he owes to his perfect Father, God. My father has tried (and still does) to be the best father he can be and to demonstrate God's love for us. And whenever he missed it, he went to God for forgiveness and answers.

I'm very thankful for my father. Besides giving me my name, he taught me the value of education, hard work, and perseverance.  Above all else, he taught me how important it is to trust Father God. He never abandons or neglects His children, and He can love me in a way that my natural father cannot. Psalm 149 says that God delights in me (I take His word very personally).

My prayers for fathers on this day and every day is that they will be all God created them to be— leaders, providers, protectors and priests of their households—for their sakes and the sakes of their children. The world needs good fathers.

"The righteous who walks in his integrity–blessed are his children after him!" - Proverbs 20:7 ESV