Father’s Day
As I write this, it is the day before Father’s Day, on a day when I attended our Church’s Men’s Breakfast, and several thoughts keep running through my head. But first, I want to talk about the Men’s Breakfast. I was going to write this as women should skip a couple of paragraphs but I think my comments are for everyone.
I know that God made men and women with different skills and focuses on the average. By that, I believe that men, on average, are more concerned about providing for their family while women are more nurturing. I know that doesn’t apply in every situation and certainly there are single parents who successfully raise children providing both roles but I believe my thoughts of differences apply.
That brings me to the men’s breakfast. Men, in my opinion, have a harder time sharing their emotions and concerns compared to women. I believe we are more comfortable discussing sports or politics than challenges we have in our family relationships or our faith walk. It is a huge advantage to get together with other Christian men to establish friendships to get comfortable with each other enough that we can share relationship or faith walk issues. Today, one of the men opened up to share his story of God being with him and his family during a financially difficult period to show us how God is with us every day. If this sounds like an endorsement and encouragement for other men to join us in our monthly meeting, it certainly is.
Secondly, my dad certainly fit my stereotype of the typical man in that he was always striving to provide more for his family. While I was growing up, he worked a full time job, managed a herd of sheep, farmed 4 acres (and sometimes more when it was available) and bought wool as an intermediary for a wool company. I have described him many times as a workaholic. He married my mom when he was 22 and they were married for 33 years before he passed away at the age of 55. I have some fond (and some not so fond) memories of helping him around the farm. I never once doubted that he truly loved me.
Third, I mowed this afternoon (remember - don’t tell my wife that I enjoy mowing). It takes me several hours to mow and I enjoy listening to Christian radio. Today, they were broadcasting a live recorded show in TN with 3 artists (I’ve already forgot their names). One of them was a young lady who recently married an NBA player but that wasn’t what caught my interest. She introduced a new song written in honor of her great aunt who lived to be 103 years old. The story was that when this woman was 40, she found out that she was losing her sight and determined to memorize the Bible. The artist spoke with her before she passed and felt that she had successfully memorized about 90% of the Bible. This reminded me of the story my mom taught us regarding how surviving Jews from concentration camps described how they felt that verses memorized from the Bible enabled them to survive the holocaust.
“Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.” - Titus 2:2-8 ESV
“Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments! His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.” - Psalm 112:1-4
“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” - Psalm 103:13
“But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’” - Mark 10:6-9
Men - we don’t have it easy but then God never promised us that we would. The closer you draw to God, the closer he’ll pull you to him. Maybe that is the best Father’s Day present.
