Father’s Day 2016

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise: that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Ephesians 6:1-3

I read those verses today – Father’s Day here in America. I was pretty young when my earthly father died. It came as quite a shock to me when it occurred. I thought things like that always happened to someone else’s family, not ours.

My dad really loved trees. Each year he’d get some from the state natural resource agency and we planted hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of them together on his beloved 40 acres of farmland. For many years after he died, I’d plant a tree somewhere in his honor on the anniversary of his death. I’ve lived lots of places since, and there may be a few trees growing right now in different parts of the world because of my desire to honor my dad. I guess I was doing what the above Scripture says without even knowing that it was spoken about in the Bible.

I know many people who had a rough time with their earthly fathers and understandably have a difficult time honoring them. I am very fortunate that for me, honoring my dad was not an issue, it was something I wanted to do. But wherever we may fall on the spectrum of our relationship with our earthly father, the Lord still tells us to honor him. If it is still possible, today would be a good day to try to start a long overdue conversation with the one who is your earthly father.

Fortunately for us all, there is a heavenly Father Who loves us so much that He gave His only Son to die for us so that we might live with Him forever in paradise. He’s just waiting for the chance to show you how much He loves you (see Got God?  ).

Have a great day.