Father's Day, 2019

Father's Day always falls on Sunday. So what are doing about Father's Day on Sunday? Father's Day can be tough. On Mother's Day we take our mom's out to eat; on Father's Day we make our dad's barbecue for everyone. At church on Mother's Day the sermon is typically in praise of mothers; on Father's Day they about how father's need to do a better job. In general there can be a tendency to think of interrupting worship of the Father to thank the fathers. It all seems a bit ... off.

I don't suppose anyone would buy it, but I'd like a Father's Day that would focus on the Father. What could be a better focus on a day named after Him? Well, okay, that's not accurate, but we are so easily distracted from the Father that I'd love to take every opportunity to focus on Him.

Mind you, for me it wouldn't be a problem. I would experience no collision of interests. My father has been a man after God's own heart as long as I've known him ... and I've known him for most of my life. He has been a man who has sought to conform his life to Christ's. I've seen him weep tears of repentance while admitting to his kids that he was in sin in certain areas of life. How many fathers would do that? But Dad's primary concern was to be right with God and, as a consequence, right with those around him. A model of "conformed to the image of Christ."

For me, then, I can begin Father's Day praising the Father and end Father's Day praising the Father and still spend time thanking the Father for my father. Thanking God for the example my father has been. Thanking God for my father's heart to follow Him. Thanking God for my dad's lifelong example of being a loving husband. Thanking the Father for the provision He gave in my father -- provision for living and for spiritual needs and all. God is above and beyond and the father He gave me is above and beyond, a shining reflection of my Father in heaven.

So, happy Father's Day, beginning with the Father and moving on to His gift of the father He gave me and the father He gave you. Designed just for me and you. Dad, I echo Paul's words when I say, "I thank my God in my every remembrance of you" (Php 1:3).