It’s Father’s Day and with ample
seat time on the tractor yesterday the formulation of this blog has been
rolling around in my head. Today has been a big day, a day we laud fathers for
their formative influences in our lives. For some this day brings sadness, you
see for them to be reminded of their father is to open old wounds. Physical
scars can be traced to specific physical abuses, but emotional scars, though
every bit as real, can be harder to source. Some may not know their father at
all, being abandoned early on.
Today I’ll have celebrated 38
Father’s Days as a father. With five children I rejoice in the profound privilege of being
a father. There is nothing to be compared to it. In being dad to Sarah, Hannah,
Esther, Nathanael, and Lydia I have experienced incomparable joy; five children
and I am rich beyond measure. Each child has brought depth and blessing to my
life, and in many ways I recognize to love them and care for them as a proper father
is way beyond my natural inclination and gifting.
Each Father’s Day has also
brought it’s own sorrow as well. For all of the joy each child brings there is
an awareness of my own failures as a father. Age brings perspective. Painful
memories abound in the recollections of the ‘what actually is v. what should
have been.’ And for each of my children I can recall specific sins and failures
in what I’ve thought of them, what I’ve said to them, and what I’ve done to
them. Far more serious than simple shortcomings, my children have borne with a
sinful father, and yet have done so quite charitably. While my memory is long they’ve graciously
kept short accounts
There are no perfect fathers.
Some might be better than others, but each must own his failings. This Father’s
Day I’m aware of mine. As a Christian I dare not be ashamed to name my
weaknesses, failings, and sins as a father. To recount them is painful, but to
declare them as so is to acknowledge my insufficiency and need, and thereby to
open a channel for grace and help. For the Christian father the confession of
inherent insufficiency is to declare the belief in a two-pronged remedy: One, that God hears my cries for help
in my paternal shortcomings, and, two, God exchanges my imperfections and sins
for His righteousness. By faith and as a father I become the recipient of an
alien (outside of myself) righteousness. An exchange takes place that allows me
to be a father, with all of my sins, and yet not give up in despair. In Christ
all of my fatherly shortcomings have been met. I still move forward in faith to
be the dad I should be, and who God calls me to be, but I’m not lost in a
death-spiral of never-ending torment of those things I should have done. In
this I own my sin without being held captive by it. By faith I trust that I
have been helped, I am being helped, and I will be helped in my
responsibilities as a father (and now as a grandfather), because God has heard
my cry in my weakness and need.
This Father’s Day I’m reminded of
the rich blessing of my five children for which I’m eternally grateful, and
today I’m reminded of fathering grace that God gives to those men that
recognize their all-too-frequent failures and out of that acknowledgement run
to God in repentance and faith. Dads, may we together rejoice in the former and
abound in the latter.
-DJM
Father’s Day 2016
