Taken for Granted

When you're a kid, you tend to take things for granted. I mean, you just figure that the way your life is going is very likely just the way everyone else's is. It wasn't, for instance, until I visited some people in Mexico who lived in a mud hut with dirt floors and no furniture and no glass in their windows, but were perfectly happy where they were, that I realized that my lot was not the same as everyone else nor was it necessary that I had what others had or that others had what I had to be happy. You get the idea. In comparison, then, we discover that the way things are for us may not be what is true for everyone else.

Take my dad. I grew up taking my father for granted. He was a good enough dad. He didn't get mad much, didn't yell much, that kind of thing. He was kind enough while being sufficiently distant to avoid much emotional conflict. So it was ... okay. It was okay until I became an adult and started telling others -- randomly and in various circumstances -- about my life with my father. What I found ordinary they saw as astounding. Dad loved to travel, so one summer we took a month-long trip around the country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the South up into Canada. Years later we took a trip -- a caravan of vehicles and RVs -- for six weeks going up into Alaska. (The fact that my dad let me, at 17, drive the family motorhome was astounding enough on its own.) Because of his wanderlust, I've visited, I think, 45 of the 50 states as well as Mexico and Canada. Beyond that, he loved to fish, but he didn't like to do it alone. We went to many an opening day in California fishing, just Dad, my brother, and I. Or he would take us down to Ensenada for a weekend deep sea fishing excursion. Sometimes it was the whole family; sometimes it was more than that. But the truth was that when he took us, he spent most of his "fishing" time tending to our needs rather than his pole. Once he took my brother and I with him in a backpacking trip miles into the Sierras with some of his coworkers. Another time he had a friend fly us to a part of Baja California without paved road access to do some fishing on the Bay of California. Then there was the time he arranged with a friend of his to take us out on his sailboat so we could whale watch. Just fun stuff for his family and especially for his sons.

Beyond fun stuff, my father had a passion for the lost. He'd bring them home in need of a meal and the gospel. He took my brother and me to skid row in Los Angeles to help out at the Union Rescue Mission. He took the family on one vacation to deep dark Mexico to visit remote missionaries and minister to them. In the most recent times, he became passionate about the Good Samaritan story and made it his own mission to help out homeless people he came across, often taking them for a meal and the gospel. There are, today, many people off the streets because of his direct ministry and many people out of eternal danger because of his loving and sharing the gospel with them. At one point my mother told me he had spent $10,000 in 3 months on this venture. When I told him, "You know, Dad, you're being taken advantage of." He told me, "I know that, but if Jesus could give His life for them, I can surely surrender some of what He gave me for them if it might bring them to faith." How could I argue with that?

My father passed away on Monday. He was 93 years old. He went quietly in his sleep. He was a faithful follower of Christ, a self-sacrificing husband and father and fellow human being. He was the finest example of a Christian and a father that I have had in my life. And today he is fully healed and happy in the presence of His dear Savior. If "granted" is used to indicate "as a gift," I will continue to take my father for granted -- a wonderful gift from God. I will remember him fondly and thank God for him ... as a gift, granted by God.