LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY FATHER … there is NO one like HIM! Lots more about Him, though, in a minute or
two! So, I actually have two other
fathers who are now in Heaven, and I loved calling them “Dad” while they were
here on earth with me. They taught me
life-lessons by their example, and I still remember what I’ve learned from
them. I was born to my first dad, the
first of our family’s four children, and I adored him. He was my hero, my teacher, my best
friend. He was soft-spoken and gentle,
fun-loving with a twinkle in his eye, as honest as any man could be. Yet he commanded respect, and when he spoke
with expectation, he did not need ever to repeat himself. We knew he was serious, and we did not want
to disappoint our dad – nor did we want to experience the consequences of
disobedience. We knew without a doubt
that he meant what he said. Our growing
up years on the farm gifted us with rich, valuable experiences. Not rich in the financial sense, but God
always provided everything we needed.
And Dad taught us the value of hard-earned money, the dangers of
indebtedness, and how to budget what we earned on the farm as young
children. If a man could get to heaven
by his own goodness and integrity, my dad would have been the one! But, God’s Word tells us there is only one
way to have eternal life: through
acceptance of Jesus and the gift of His shed blood for the forgiveness of our
sins. And so we prayed. We prayed up a storm for our daddy – because
while he was the most wonderful man ever, he had not yet felt the need for a
personal relationship with Christ.
Unfortunately, he had witnessed the behavior of too many hypocrites and
had allowed their lack of genuine Christ-like living to sour his sense of true
Christianity. But it’s like I would
often remind our youngest son as he was growing up in the church: “Please don’t judge God by people, son … He
is not judgmental and cruel and negative.
He loves you unconditionally, and will always be more than enough your
whole life long!” I’m so glad that our
son was able to differentiate between the two, and made that choice to pursue
God rather then blame Him for man’s failures.
And I can say the same for my Dad, who one day made the choice to follow
God, no matter how people acted. To this
day, I do not know who was instrumental in his change of heart. But God answered our prayers, and when He
called our dad home at age 48 with a massive cardiac arrest, we were crushed
with the incredible loss of the dad we loved so very much – but comforted and
held by the assurance that Dad was Home with Jesus and we would see him again
some day!
My second earthly father became my “dad” a few years after my
birth dad had died; never to replace him but to add to the richness of my
life. Dad Jones was also a gentle,
loving man who fully loved and devoted himself to God, and I loved having his
presence in my life until God called him home at an elderly age, following
several health issues and several ensuing miracles that testified to the
healing power of the Lord Jesus Christ!
In this season of my life, I am so grateful to my God for the
gift of all the dads God continues to bless me with from generation to
generation: my husband and sons and
grandsons – each amazing dads in their own right! I see Jesus in them as they walk out their
faith in life-lessons taught with unconditional love to their own
children. And I am moved to tears at the
faithfulness of God! While none of us as
parents get it right all the time, even though we know the Lord; He continues
to be gracious to answer our prayers! And truly, our deepest heart’s cry is
this: that one day EACH one of us will
be together to share eternity with our Father in heaven . . . forever and ever
and ever!!
Back to MY Father, the One who deserves way more words than I
have space for here … HE is the most amazing, indescribable Father of all! Often when in prayer, I find myself calling
Him by Name – His many Names, from A to Z. I challenge you to do that, as well; it
brings us to the place of remembering that He is our Everything, though our
human limitation to describe Who He is, falls far short of covering His limitless
attributes! He speaks every life-lesson
I could ever learn; if I will only listen.
Sitting in His presence, soaking in His presence … I know there is no
place I would rather be! No where at
all. In His presence, I am loved,
healed, taught, put back together again, empowered, led, strengthened, helped,
called, gifted, anointed … and so much more.
And when I ask what’s on HIS heart and when He wants me to know, He
reveals things to me. You see, He WANTS
us to be a part of what He is doing on this earth! He invites us to be actively engaged in His
Kingdom work on this earth in these present days. His plan was not that He would create us only
to have us sit on the sidelines and just be a passive observer. His joy is for us to jump in along side Him
wherever He is working – and He uses us, imperfect as we are. He understands we are His work in progress,
and if we will choose to be yielded to our Father, He will pour into us
anything and everything we need to be used for His glory and His honor! God our Father would have never given Jesus, His
only Son, as a sacrifice on Calvary for us … to just leave us lost, broken, and
unusable. When a Father pays that kind
of a price … He will go to the ends of the earth to save us, rescue us,
transform us, renew us, and revive us to be ALL that He planned before the
beginning of time that we could be! What
a Father we have that we can call Him “Abba, Daddy” and crawl up in His lap and
be held as little children, even though we are adults. We will always be His children if we have
asked Him to be our Savior! That’s one
prayer that gets instant response – and it is always a loving, resounding
“yes”! Of course, God our Father, like
any good father, can and will use tough love when He knows it is what we need
to get us back on the right path. When
He knows it will clear our vision. When
He knows it will help us hear His heartbeat for us – and for the crazed,
out-of-control world around us.
Speaking of the crazed, out-of-control world we live in … Dads
and everyone else, I just want to share this challenge with you in closing.
While it is easy to feel that there is nothing we can do to make a difference
with everything that we hear on the news, there actually is. We need to be listening to God’s heart, so we
can hear what He is asking us to do. He
would not give us His promises and assurances if He did not mean for us to be
engaged … either in loving response to those affected by the evil tragedies
that come because of hate-filled hearts – or in intercessory prayer for
repentance of sin and rebellion so hearts will be changed before they
perpetrate the evils we are seeing everywhere we look. It’s not too late – yet. Jesus IS coming again, and our passion should
be not just that we escape hell, but that we take as many people to heaven with
us as we can! That is the heartbeat of
our Father in heaven, and He wants us to make it our heartbeat, as well! Here is His promise to us!
REMEMBER . . .
“I have told
you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence.
In the world
you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration;
but be of
good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]!
For I have
overcome the world.
[I have
deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]
~ John 16:33
Joyfully Serving Christ . . .
Pastor Doug and Debbie
