What is a Father?

What is a Father?

“Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise:
that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”  Ephesians 6:2-3

 Every year when Father’s Day comes around, I think of my father who passed away in 1972.  Although he’s been gone a long time, my memories bring his image to the front of my mind.  He was not the ‘perfect’ father; he had many faults and caused much sadness to my mother, I choose to think of the good times.  He taught me how to swim, showed me how to hunt morel mushrooms, took me fishing in the lake and showed me how to shoot and handle a gun.  I remember the Sunday afternoon drives and picnics at roadside parks.  He was a fur buyer and trapper and he once gave me a pearl-handled jackknife and showed me how to scrape the fat off the inside of a fur pelt.  I was so proud of that job.  I also learned how to sort the furs by size and kinds (muskrat, mink and fox).

This all sound like a great dad, but sadly he never attended church or any school functions; never prayed out loud; didn’t care what grades I got in school, or that I was in all kinds of plays and musicals.  He would leave the house when I practiced piano and refused to pay for more than 9 months of lessons.  He didn’t care when I made cheerleader.  He had little interest in what any of our family did.

Regardless of all of this; I loved my father!  I also knew he loved me, although he never was able to say the words.  It was things he did that let me know how much he loved me.  When my husband and I had to move to Texas for my daughter’s health, he drove all the way there with my mother and little sister to visit us.  Years later when we moved back to my home town, he would stop by several times a week to bring me and my children to their house for lunch with him and my mother.  Many times he just stopped by to see if we were okay.   

Most fathers are not like the old TV show, “Father Knows Best”.  They have faults; some more serious than others.  However, you would not be here today except for your father and mother.  Regardless of how accepted ‘same sex couples’ are, they cannot have children together.  It still takes a sperm and an egg to create a human being.  Yet, that is not to say that stepfathers cannot be great examples. 

 When we look in the Bible and read about fathers like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we see some things in them that don’t make the best fathers.  Read about Joseph and his brothers; Lot and his daughters, or Moses and his relationship with his sons.  It gives you a great deal of thought on what constitutes a ‘Father’.

Abraham sent his first son out of his camp with his Egyptian mother.  Can you imagine how that young boy felt being rejected by his father?  Moses left his boys with their mother and took off for parts unknown.  They really never had a father to raise them as they grew to manhood.  Isaac loved his eldest son, Esau, more than his son Jacob.  Jacob retaliated by robbing his brother of his birthright and his father’s blessing.  Of course he received the consequences of being cheated by his Uncle Laban.  Then Jacob himself had twelve sons, but favored Joseph and the other boys revolted and tried to kill Joseph.  How about Lot who moved into the evil city of Sodom?  God showed him mercy and saved him from death, but his daughters were perverted and had children with their father, who apparently didn’t turn them away. 

These great men of faith certainly weren’t the best of fathers, but God still blessed them and forgave them.  If God can forgive these fathers of the past, why can’t we forgive our fathers at this time of history?

I like to think of the good father whose son left home so he could enjoy the sins of the world.  I have so often marveled that as this young man built up enough courage to come home to ask his father’s forgiveness, his father saw him coming ‘a great way off.’ In my mind, I see the father as a man who loved his son deeply and was so hurt his son left like he did, that he daily stood looking down the road. He obviously longed for his son to return.

I don’t know how old this father was, but it says he was filled with compassion and took off running down the road toward his son. [This is the only time in the Bible that refers to God running to welcome home a lost soul.] Oh, that all parents would react like this father, when their children have been wayward and then come back home.  “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his Father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.”  Luke 15:20.”                                                       

When the father reached his son, he threw his arms around him; hugged him and kissed him. What joy there was in the father’s heart.  Father’s, don’t wait to repair a broken relationship with your son or daughter. Be forgiving and compassionate. Remember, you weren’t perfect either.  Sons and daughters, forgive your fathers for any wrong that was done to you in the past. You can’t force a person to change, but with forgiveness and compassion they can and it also eases your own heart.

God never expected you to carry the burden of un-forgiveness.  It can ruin your life and the enemy of our soul uses it to hold you back from your full potential of living life in freedom.  It doesn’t matter if the other person accepts your forgiveness or not.  When you do what God wants you to do, you will be set free. 

Close your eyes a moment and envision a father (or mother) running down a road towards their lost child and think on this scripture in (Ephesians 5:2-4) "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth”. And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord”

     Forgiveness works both ways, just like love.