The Dad Life

I’m not good enough at blogging to post things on time.  This is about Father’s Day.  That was four days ago.  You’ll forgive me?  Though, perhaps you’ll find this appropriate for the daily-ness that is the Dad life.

Father’s Day is incredibly special to me; more even than Christmas or Easter, more even than my birthday.  Those are important days indeed.  But Father’s day is special.

Father’s Day produces in me a deep sense of honor and humility that no other day can produce in me.  It is not an honor and humility that are born from a “hey, everyone’s focused on me” sort of setting.  That tends to be more my birthday.  Rather the honor and humility come from an introspection that tries to account for the incredible reality that I am a Dad…and a son!  I have offspring that were born from my seed.  I have kids that look like me and act like me because they are in large part, part of me.

Flipping the table around, the same thing works in the other direction.  I look like my Dad and act like my Dad because I am part of my Dad.  It pains me to not have him around.  Now, twenty years after he passed away, it is difficult to imagine who he would be today.  So much could have happened over 20 years to shape him into any number of men.  I suppose I’ll have to wait and see who I become to catch a vision of who he would have become.  I miss him.  But I am here and my kids are all here, and Amy is by my side, and it is my reality that I am a Father.

Mornings are my favorite time of day.  Early mornings.  5:30am early.  The house is still.  The yard is still.  The town of Blaine is still. 

It’s typical of me to ponder over a few Bible verses, journal a few thoughts, then take a walk and prayer.  In recent months, my go-to passages have been in the Minor Prophets.  But often enough I leap from there into passages that are particularly meaningful for the moment. 

On Sunday, since it was Father’s Day, l looked up “Father” in the concordance of my Bible and grinned.  I was pleasantly reminded that “Father” shows up in the context of my favorite prayer; The Lord’s Prayer, in Luke 11.

Jesus is speaking and he’s drawing a contrast; a really wide contrast between our earthly Father’s and our heavenly Father.  His statements are laced with a pretentious duh. 

What Father would give his kid a serpent if he asked for a fish?  What Father would give his kid a scorpion if she asked for an egg?  There’s a footnote in my Bible that adds yet another…  What Father would give his kid a stone if he asked for some bread? 

I’m no fool.  Never one to fall for a rhetorical question, I’m trying to imagine a scenario when I might give my kids something altogether other and ridiculous than what they asked for.

If Josiah came and asked me for new basketball shoes, would there ever be an instance when I might

instead give him an old tire?

Of course the sense in Jesus’ questions is requests of necessity.  So, if Livia asked me to pick up a blanket that fell off her bed because she’s cold, would there ever be an instance when I might instead give her a bucket of ice cubes?  If Hope asked me for wisdom about a friend relationship at school, would there ever be an instance when I might instead give her a formula of how to solve quadratic equations?  (Perhaps only if the relationship involved a boy, and only for diversion purposes.)

The answers are, of course, a well seated and robust no.  There is in me far too much self-respect and love for these kids.  Again, they are part of me.

The context of Jesus’ questions presses on; even leaps forward... 

If no Father among you would stoop to such an insidious low in parenting, how could you even imagine your Heavenly Father as anything less than richly compassionate and generous, particularly with that which is most essentially the fullness of what He gives; the Holy Spirit!?  The question is still rhetorical, but now with a bit of sting.  He is nothing like you and me as Dads.

The Psalmist does a similar thing in chapter 103. 

Verse 11 begins:  “For as high as the heavens are above the earth…”

Think about that.  Ever measured that distance?  Start at your feet and look up.  How far can you see?  Into the wild blue yonder.  But the heavens go further.  The moon.  The sun.  The edge of our galaxy.  Keep going.  How far are the heavens above the earth?  Get the point?

The Psalmist continues, “…so great is God the Father’s steadfast love toward those who fear Him.”

Then verse 12:  “As far as the east is from the west, so far does [the Father] remove our transgressions from us.” 

These are familiar lines, huh?  First off, how far is the north from the south?  I Googled the distance from pole to pole by land:  About 12,500 miles.  (About 7500 miles if you bore through the earth.)  That’s how far you’d travel south before you began traveling north.  Is that how far the Father removes sin from us?  Nope.  Consider the distance from east to west.  How far will I travel east before I begin heading west?  See what the Psalmist did there?  That immeasurable distance is equal to the distance the Father puts between us and our sin. 

Then verse 13, and the tie in to Father’s Day:  “As a Father shows compassion to his children…”

Stop.  Think about it.  The many ways that compassion pours from you to your kids; from me to my kids.  Hugs, kisses, dancing, discipline, playing, food, heat, reading, racing, card games, movies.  My list goes on.  Your list looks different.  Think about the heartfelt smiles and jovial moments of laughter and tender moments of consoling.  The list deepens here and draws more emotion for me. 

My Dad showed up at games with ice cream, drove a rocket ship to grandpas, flew like Superman around the house, built fortresses in the woods, spanked me for carelessly breaking a window, taught me to swing an axe, took me hiking to an old gold mine, paid my bills when I was at school, held my hand as his health failed.  All compassion.

“As a Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”

Think about the depth of sense and feel when you knew your Dad’s compassion.  So is the sense and feel when our Father in Heaven shows us His. 

(And here I concede some point to those who had Dad’s that were less than compassionate.  However, consider for a moment…  What if his acts were the best he knew of compassion?  Without excusing his acts or dismissing the damage done, what if you could imagine his acts to be his best effort in compassion?  Could you be that compassionate toward him; even forgive his failing?)

But the thing that strikes me here is that, unlike Luke’s contrast, the Psalmist is drawing comparisons.  We do not see in this text a vast difference between the statements.  We see them placed in tangential appeal to one another.  

The immeasurable space between the heavens and the earth?  Just like that is the immeasurable amount of the Father’s steadfast love for me.

The incalculable distance between the east and the west?  Just like that is the incalculable gap the Father declares between me and my sin against Him.

The grand show of compassion from my Father to me; from me to my kids?  Just like that is the grand show of compassion from our Father in Heaven toward each of us who worship Him.

Are you catching the weight here Dads?  The point begins to feel a bit like catching a medicine ball in elementary gym class when you thought it was a kick ball. 

The compassion you show…  I’ll use first person singular pronouns to lessen the blow.  The compassion I show to my kids is akin to that which they’ll experience of my Heavenly Father!  My acts of selfless concern, kindness, consideration, and so on toward my kids will transfer into their imaginations as the compassion God has for them!

Thus, though our Heavenly Father is nothing like you and me as Dads, like many biblical paradoxes, He is something like you and me as Dads.

WOW!  The call is high Dads.  The task is long and arduous.  The mission is humbling and honorable.  It makes sense to set a day aside to celebrate the Dad life…so long as every day we Dads are living it out.