daily java

Daily Java:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

Today is Father’s Day. I guess one of the sad things about today is that if you forget about it, it doesn’t count as much as if you had forgotten about Mother’s Day.

But it shouldn’t be that way. Being a mother is great (not that I have ever been one, of course) but there is no single force on a child that is quite like a father.

When God likened himself to someone, it was to a father. He called himself a Father, and the Bible calls him that over and over. There is only a couple of places that he likens himself to a mother and both are commenting on his natural love.

But a Father? He calls himself that again and again. Why? I believe the reason is simple.

A mother has to love her child. She birthed the child, she nurtured it and most of the time even fed it from her own body. She has to love the kid. That is why mothers will lie through their teeth on the witness stands for their children, why they will excuse almost any behavior, why they will defend their children against overwhelming evidence.

A father, on the other hand, chooses to love his children. He is the instructor, the guide, the authority figure that God gave to each family of humanity. A family without that father figure is hurt by the absence.

You can look at any reputable study and see that families with strong father figures have much less chance of children getting into trouble than those without. That is not to say a mother cannot lead her family, but she was never made to do so by God. The father was.

That is why it is so pathetic to see the number of young men who feel it is their privilege to impregnate as many women as they can with no responsibility. They are denying what God wanted them to do and have become foolish.

I enjoyed a strong father figure in my life as did my wife. I tried to be a strong father figure and both my kids turned out good. I enjoy seeing my son be a father to his son. It is the natural order of things.

Fathers teach, they protect, they provide, they train, they discipline and above all they give strong love, not based on the fact that they have to, but because they choose to. That is why men can raise children they know are not theirs. They have chosen. It is the natural order of things.

Part of our society’s problems has been a war on fathers and it has damaged our children as well as our culture.

It can change with you, if you are a father. It can also change with you if you are a wife and mother. Love your husband enough to give him the chance to lead your family and love your children.

daily java

Daily Java:

(Tomorrow is Father's Day. It has been over a year since my father died. This is a letter I wrote him just before he died. His Alzheimer’s was far enough along, he couldn’t understand it, but my mother said he kept it with him in his bed.)

An open letter to my Dad (written February 15, 2011)

Dear Dad:

I was thinking about you just now and wanted to tell you hi and to give you a get-well letter.

I came across a picture the other day that really hit me. It is in Freeport, TX, in the 1950’s. we were at a gathering of some kind, I believe at Howard and Linda Dickson’s house, probably after Sunday night church at the Freeport Church of Christ. We met a lot after church and sang. Then we would eat stuff and have a good time.

You worked for Houston Lighting and Power as a lineman at the time. You were a strong man, one that I stood in awe of. You were healthy and sun burned. In the picture you are looking at your sons, Gerald, your youngest, and me, Johnny, your oldest. I don’t know what we were doing, but whatever it was, we were doing it knowing that a lot of people loved us and that you were watching.

You were a good leader in the church. If I am not mistaken, you were even a deacon in the Freeport Church of Christ. And you were an elder in churches later.

You led singing and preached and taught and led by example. In general you did whatever you could do to make the church better and to advance the cause of the Lord. There was nothing you wouldn’t do for the church or for others. I have seen you work hard all week and then go help someone in their garden or building something or working on their car. You were always there for people.

You were a good man. You were honest and ethical and tried your best to teach your boys and you little daughter, Nancy Lea, who is eleven years younger than I am, all of those things.

Last night while I was praying in our Monday night prayer meeting, I thanked God for the influence you had on our lives as children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

That influence is what kept me strong all the years I was in the army and before I became a minister of the gospel in 1974.

I do what I do today in large part because of that influence.

I pray that the Lord heal you. But above all, I pray that the will of the Lord be done in your life. You are a godly man, even though you have trouble remembering things now. Your life has been exceptional in that regard. You loved your Lord, you loved your wife and you loved you children and would do anything for them.

My prayers are also with Mom that she be the kind of person she wants to be. She too is a godly woman and I love her.

I love you. And may God bless you

daily java

Daily Java:

My children, listen when your father corrects you. Pay attention and learn good judgment. (Proverbs 4:1 NLT)

Father’s Day is tomorrow. As I have mentioned before, my father passed away last February. And I miss him.

There are things that I would love to ask him. There are times when I would just like to talk to him.

He and I were of different eras. We were of completely different mindsets and perspectives and viewpoints. Yet we loved each other.

He was disappointed in things I did that I could really do nothing about. When I left his denomination, it hurt him. There was nothing I could do about it, but there was that separation.

There were brief times when we were somewhat alike. For about a year, we were both construction linemen. He worked all his life as a lineman for the Light Company in Houston, TX. I worked for about a year as a lineman for Bell Telephone in Houston.

For about a year we had the same basic job. And he liked that. We had something in common for just about the first and last times in our lives.

I kept falling off poles and decided that there were better way to earn a living. He stayed on the poles for 30 years, and did well. And again, he couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like it.

There was a short time we went to a Bible school in the Houston area together. That was a good time. There were times we would be together. I would go with him on a job or he would come with me to a ministers’ meeting in Houston.

But the one thing I never did enough of was to listen to him. He knew a lot, even though he was not an educated person.

Of course, he had three years in Sam Houston State College in Huntsville, TX, and was the first in his family to go to college, the first to have an inside job wearing a tie (in the very first part of his marriage to my mom), the tallest in his family – all things that caused his family to be both proud of him and unable to relate to him. He moved beyond the East Texas mindset and tried to make something better of himself.

He had the phenomenal ability to remember everyone’s name. In fact, that was one thing that so stood out when he contracted  Alzheimer’s. He began to forget things and one thing he forgot was people’s names.

But even then, he was of such a character that people related to him well. People liked him automatically.

I just wish I had paid more attention to him and learned more good judgment.