Sunday is Father’s Day and what a blessing it is to both be a father and to have had such an outstanding one. God is so very good to me.
Only Adam and Jesus entered this world without earthly fathers so God’s design in providing us with dads is so very crucial. It’s sad and sinful that many factors have removed fathers from their children’s lives today. Study after study underscores the vital role fatherhood plays in reducing crime, addiction, and abuse. I’m praying that our society might rediscover the value of this important person in the lives of children, families, and societies.
All of us fathers, however, fall short of the perfect example provided for us by our Heavenly Father. Nevertheless, we can and should consistently strive to be more like Him as we care for and raise our own children.
In Deuteronomy 1:31, God reminds His people how He transported them out of Egypt, through the desert, and to the doorstep of the Promised Land. He indicates that He did so “as a father carries His son.” This imagery is both powerful and comforting.
This past weekend Nancy and I became grandparents again. As little Faith entered the world, she was welcomed by her mother, father, and big sister. In the coming months and years, she will be carried by all of them from time to time as well as by her beaming grandparents.
This is the picture that God paints of Himself carrying His people. In his Book of Mysteries, Jonathan Cahn reminds us that fathers carry their children at various occasions in life. In addition to carrying an infant that cannot yet walk, a father also carries older children when they become very tired. I remember carrying Faith’s father on hikes when his little legs had tuckered out even as I was carried by my dad years before. So too, our ever mightier Heavenly Father always has the strength to heft us up on His broad shoulders and tote us through our weary stretches of life.
We also see fathers carrying children when they are injured in some way. Perhaps during a soccer game when an ankle twisted or a knee was scraped, we see dad scooping up his son and carrying him out of the fray to a safe place where his wound can be examined and tended to. In just such a fashion, God gathers our wounded souls up from life’s battlefields and transports us to places of refuge where we can recover.
Fathers also carry their sons and daughters when they can’t keep up. Sometimes at an amusement park or parade the little tyke’s legs just can’t match the strides of grownups even though they are moving much faster. A loving fatherly lift enables the child to maintain the needed speed in spite of his or her limitations, just as God’s assistance enables us to attend to the many demands that sometimes seem impossible for us to keep up with.
Fathers also hoist their children onto their shoulders in order to see something. Because others block the child’s view, dad boosts the child to behold the ball game or sunset that everyone is raving about. God, too, raises us above our own heights to see magnificent spiritual insights that we are unable to comprehend and enjoy otherwise.
Finally, fathers often carry their youngsters just to be near them. Just to hug and love on them a while and to be loved on by them. This imagery reminds us of how the Good Shepherd that Isaiah describes holds the lambs close to His heart just because He wants to.
Lest you think the privilege of being held by the Heavenly Father is only for minors, consider His promise in Isaiah 46:4 where He says, “Even to your old age and gray hairs… I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
As we thank God for our earthly fathers, let’s remember and appreciate all the ways our Heavenly Father has carried and is carrying us now.
Blessings, George