Honor Thy Father

 

 

Honor Thy Father

What are you doing to honor your father this Father’s Day?  Scrambling to find the appropriate gift or card?  Trying to find time in your schedule to visit your father?  Perhaps you and your father never speak to nor see each other.  Maybe you never knew your father or possibly do not even know who your father is and you’re thinking, “I’m off the hook.” 

Not so fast, my friend.

Fatherhood can be the best experience of a man’s life and fathers are extraordinarily important to the family.  Of course they must be loving and giving for this to work out the way God intended and when men accept the role as dedicated father to their biological or adopted children, they make a world of difference in the lives of their children.  Even God gave Mary her beloved spouse Joseph to look after her and to be the earthly guardian of Jesus.  That’s a pretty strong testament to the importance of fathers.

If your father has been loving and loyal try to honor him on his special day, even if it interferes with your busy schedule.  A good father should be recognized and praised for his dedication, hard work and perseverance in raising you trouble makers (you know who you are).  Stopping by, if at all possible, and spending time with him will probably mean more to most fathers than the fanciest gift.  If you cannot be with him, remember him in some way that will stay with him.  He’s always been there for you.

Unfortunately, there are many people who grew up with bad fathers.  They may have been abusive, substance abusers or just not selfless enough to be the father they were called to be.  Then there are the absent fathers, those who have abandoned the family.  There is often anger, even hatred, towards such men by their own offspring.

When people have serious issues when their children are born, they are often not ready to be parents.  It is very hard to be as self-giving as we need to be in order to be good parents when we are burdened with problems that sometimes result from our own poor choices or for no fault of our own.  Some fathers even honestly believe that the family will be better off without them and so they are absent, not because they wish to forget about their children, but because they actually believe they are more of a burden than a blessing.  But how can this be?  Don’t they understand they are needed in the family?  The idea that fathers are not important has been long in the making.

Since the Women’s Movement in the sixties, women have been praised, encouraged, hired for important positions that some were not well qualified for.  Women are granted leave from their jobs to have children and they have been given victim status for many things.  It’s gotten so outrageous that a woman only need claim she’s been hit or raped and the man she has accused is arrested with no questions asked.  Women complained that it wasn’t fair they could not be firefighters even while most do not have the physical strength to carry out the job as well as most men, so criteria was lowered in order for women to pass the physical test.  The same goes for the military, police work and most other jobs that require a lot of physical strength.  Single moms have been praised by the media for having “courage” for years.

 

At the same time, men have been given a bad rap.  They are constantly seen as buffoons who can’t fold a shirt to save their lives on sitcoms.  Joke after joke is told about men that would not only be seen as unfunny if a man told the same joke about a woman, but people would be outraged.  There’s an entire industry dedicated to slogans such as “girls rule,” girls can do anything boys can do, only better”, etc.  Imagine men with similar slogans.  They would be called sexist by most of the media, held up as women-haters and some would have to take “sensitivity training” at their place of employment.  These constant hits can’t help but eventually have an impact on the way men see themselves and their roles in everything, including fatherhood.

Not all men are deeply faithful to God.  Those who are realize it is what God thinks that is important, not women, the media, etc.  But even the deeply faithful are surrounded by this negative talk about men on such a regular basis that some of them even begin to doubt their own abilities and their place in society and the family.  This is not an excuse for a man to abandon his family, nor is it a get-out-of-jail-free card.  It’s simply an explanation.

If you grew up with a loving, dedicated father in the midst of all this, count yourself truly blessed.  Men who are loyal to their families are much harder to come by today than they were before the age of feminism.  Thank God for blessing you with such an amazing father.  But if you have had an absent or abusive father and you still feel anger or resentment in your heart, you must forgive him.  There may have been no excuse for his behavior and you may believe your life would have been galaxies better with a loving, supportive father, but as a Christian you are obligated to forgive him.  It doesn’t matter what your mom says about him, either.  Some women have forgiven the men who abandoned them and their children, but there are others who take their downright hatred of these men to the grave.  Your life will be much lighter, happier and pleasing to God if you forgive and forget, just as our Lord Jesus Christ forgives us when we repent.

Let us also remember that the Lord commands us to honor our father and our mother.  It does not say in the bible that we are to honor them unless they were absent, workaholics, alcoholics or abusive.  Through all their faults, fathers were chosen by God to be a part of the miracle that is you.

This Father’s Day, give our Heavenly Father a real gift.  Forgive your father for anyway in which he has hurt or harmed you, offer it up to the Lord and get on with what it is you are here to do.  We never know how much time we have left regardless of our age.  Don’t waste another second on carrying a grudge, self-pity or hatred.  Wrap your mind around the imperfections of the human race and on Father’s Day formally forgive your father, offer your past and present suffering up to the Lord and praise Him.  He will smile upon you.

So Happy Father’s Day to all the awesome dads on earth!  And especially, Happy Father’s Day to Our Heavenly Father.   

Judge not and you will not be judged;

Condemn not and you will not be condemned;

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Luke 6:37