“…you honor your sons more than Me…” (I Samuel 2:29). Eli was an indulgent father, and God held him accountable for it.
“O Absalom, my son. My son, my son Absalom. Would God I had died in your place! O Absalom, my son, my son” (2 Samuel 18:33). David could be a wonderful father at times and an absentee parent at other times. A lot like us.
Often when doing the funeral of an older man, I’ll see adult children showing varying degrees of love and sadness and even anger. So, sometimes in the service I will say, “Fathers are human. Sometimes they get it right and leave great memories and bless their families. And sometimes they get it wrong, just as the rest of us do. May I suggest that you appreciate your dad for what he did right and forgive him for what he failed to get right. Surely, you will want your children to do that with you.”
Love your dad. Appreciate what he got right. Forgive him where he didn’t.
On Facebook yesterday, I wrote of a scary/unforgettable memory concerning our oldest son, Neil. He was three years old and had jumped to me in the swimming pool where I, the pastor, had taken a bunch of teenagers. Keep in mind this was at the deep end of the pool. Eleven feet deep! As I caught him, something unexpected happened. His weight and momentum took us down…and down…and down. It was so frightening. I kept thinking, “I’m drowning my child!” and, “I’m going to have to pump water out of his lungs!” Finally—after what seemed to be minutes—my feet touched the bottom and I sprang up. As we came out of the water and I lifted him onto the side of the pool, he said, “Whew, Dad! That was a long time!” He was fine, but I was a basket case! So scary.
At the conclusion of my post, Neil wrote something to the effect that he always trusted his dad and mentioned a number of instances when he had pushed the envelope and I had been there. And then, his younger brother chimed in.
“Dad, do you remember the first time you took me sledding?”
I did not. “Son, you’ll have to remind me.”
“On a rare snow day” (we lived in Mississippi) “you borrowed a sled and we drove to the Cockrell’s because they had a nice hill. You parked the car at the end of the driveway and told me to go down the hill first—but I was afraid I would crash into the car. You said, ‘Go ahead and I’ll catch you.’ Well, you may have slowed me enough to prevent serious injury but I ended up with my head under the car.” I said, “Wow. I don’t remember that.” He responded, “I can’t believe I trusted you,” and added a smiley-face.
Marty was funning me, but the memory is still alive and well in his heart and mind, and that was surely over 40 years back. (I’m so sorry, my beloved son! Forgive me.)
Love your dad. Appreciate what he got right. Forgive him for the times he didn’t.
Every dad has a spotted record. Sometimes he is a hero, a champion, and sometimes he seems selfish and small-minded. Sometimes he is superman, at other times not just Clark Kent but Lex Luthor maybe.
Father’s Day sermons are a good time to remind people to appreciate their fathers, not because they are perfect but because they got so much of this right. After God took my dad in 2007, the best cure for my grief, which could be overwhelming, was to start giving thanks for all the things he got right. There were so many of those.
