Father's Day
Mothering Sunday came and went and I breathed a sigh of relief that we were in lockdown. ‘Why?’ you might ask, ‘It’s a lovely opportunity to celebrate mothers.’ Yes it is, and yes I do, but I also feel the pain of never having been a mother, of being single and no longer having my own mother alive, as well as other feelings that bubble up when platitudes are expressed and I am forcibly reminded of my status.
Some reading this don’t know me, and will have limited understanding of what I have shared. Others will have some understanding perhaps because they know I am a female of a certain age or know me well enough to have listened to my words before, and all will have their own thoughts on the subject as well as my reactions.
My musings can also be an expression of other differences we recognise like status, gender, race, ethnicity, age, or health that are so pertinent in our current world climate. Some can be seen, others not but nevertheless affect the unique person we are.
We are about to celebrate Father’s Day – a day I have less emotion about, even though I have no living dad to celebrate with.
It is not hard to think of our personal perspective of fatherhood. Our experiences with our earthly father most certainly inform our view of our Heavenly Father.
We have personal images intricately tied to the word father. For some, the visualization of father is the smiling, tender man who holds you and promotes feelings of care, love, fun, acceptance. Others remember the generous hand that supplied sweets and presents. There are also those who hear the word father and conjure up images of a scowling brow and disappointed frown that seemed to cut the heart of a child desperately longing for expressions of approval. For others, they may simply draw a blank when they try to visualize a father. An empty book no matter how many pages are turned, full of empty memories. No calls, no visits, no talks - a dad who may never have been on the scene or one who was emotionally distant.
No matter what impression the word father has left upon our heart, we are reminded of its significant presence in the pages of Scripture. We are exhorted to honour our Father in heaven and fathers on this earth (Deuteronomy 5:16). But how do we honour our father?
We are commanded by the Lord to honour our father and mother. Honouring your father includes fathers of all kinds: the attentive and neglectful, the kind and the abusive, the believers and the nonbelievers. The command is not conditional. I suggest honouring your father requires faith to walk through the process of honouring, uncertain of our earthly father’s response but confident in our heavenly Father’s pleasure.
Honouring our fathers requires intimacy with God. Fulfilling His command to honour is possible not in our own strength, but as we yield to the Holy Spirit to help us.
The question ‘why should we honour our father?’ needs to be answered before looking at how.
As a disciple I desire to live my life based on the truth of God’s word that reveals Him as totally loving. Honouring the real God helps us honour our earthly dads, and that happens when we find the true God without a corrupt vision of a finger-pointing, demanding, distant, score-settling (add your own description) God, and see His unconditional loving character. This gives us freedom as we look at our fathers, and indeed all those around us. We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
Jesus illustrated the picture of God as a good father, loving and attentive (Matthew 7:9-11) patient and compassionate (Luke 15:11ff) whatever the need or folly we find ourselves in. We all need to encounter God like that, not just with our minds but our heart, and help others to do so to.
“What does it do to your heart to imagine a God who can’t wait to be with you?”
Pause for a moment and imagine the scene of the story, but this time, imagine Jesus running out to meet you. He is filled with love and compassion. He runs to you and embraces you because His heart is thrilled to call you His child. What does it do to your heart to imagine a God who can’t wait to be with you?
And don’t think I write only of fathers - it extends to our neighbour, as Paul writes:
‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, (Honour your father and mother?) are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore, love is the fulfilment of the law.’ (Romans 13:8-10)
What kind of gifts might our heavenly Father provide to His children?
The Father’s gifts include the meeting of our physical needs, spiritual needs, and the relational needs of our lives. God provides His children gifts of acceptance, approval, appreciation, respect, comfort, security, support, attention, affection, and encouragement. The Father gives us all of these through the abundance of His multifaceted grace (1 Peter 4:10). God’s love for us as our heavenly Father and our perspective of Him as a good, gift-giving dad prepares us to be restored. As our hearts are healed of pain through the love of God our Father, we can honour our natural father however imperfect, and our neighbours whoever they are, because it is a choice.
Yet He is prepared to help even with that. He promises to give us a softened, loving heart if we receive by faith, saying, ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh’ (Ezekiel 36:26).
I pray that that verse might become a reality, and that each of us can become His instrument to all as we hear and accept the hurt in our neighbours however much it is discordant in our own experience, and help them experience the comfort of our loving God.
I urge us all to be bold, to exemplify love and take a step of faith.
Sue Clegg