June 15 - Twas the night before Father's Day, and all through the house...

1 Kings 14:1-15:24

Acts 10:1-23a

Psalm 133:1-3

Proverbs 17:7-8

Ahead of Father's Day, it is amazing to read how important fathers and their actions are to their children and their descendants.  Jeroboam rejected God, and his son bore the consequences of his actions.  Solomon disobeyed God by taking on foreign wives (seriously: seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines?) and then, perhaps with the best of intentions, permitting and promoting the worship of their foreign gods...and Rehoboam, his son and heir, lost almost all the kingdom he would have otherwise inherited.  But David obeyed God, and because of his obedience, God showed mercy on David's sinful descendants, and restored the throne to one of David's line - our Lord, Jesus.  

On the eve of Father's Day, I find myself reflecting upon the great privilege and responsibility fatherhood is and, however smart, strong or honest one might be, how thoroughly unprepared each of us is for what it represents.  Indeed, often we fathers do not even begin to comprehend the task before us, and what we should aspire to achieve.  Our sinfulness, our selfishness and our pride get in the way of asking even the most basic questions about the task ahead of us.

I've made the joke before, but it is true.  Think about it - you buy anything today, you get a manual.  A computer?  Manual.  A car?  Two manuals.  But you have a child?  All you get is a placenta.  So where does a father turn for guidance?  How wonderful to see we serve a God prepared to be explicitly clear in His instructions, if we are prepared to listen.  "Go to Joppa, talk to Peter - he's at Simon the tanner's house.  No, not Simon the computer repair guy, the tanner.  Yes, Joppa.  Get moving."  Or "Jeroboam's wife is coming to talk to you, pretending she's someone else.  You will tell her this, exactly..." - and then it comes to pass.

On the eve of Father's Day, I am grateful for many things - for the privilege and responsibility God has seen fit to grant me in my three children; for the promise of His guidance so long as I am prepared to listen and obey; and for the example of yet another of God's great blessings to me - a father who seeks to walk in His ways daily.