“You can be anything you want to be, just try your best and you will do it.” These are the words my father spoke into my life time after time as I was growing up. I am thankful for the father God placed in my life. I am thankful I still have him to call and ask him all the questions I have about my gardening and how to take care of my car properly. I have so many memories with him, and I get to sit and watch my kids make memories with him now. Even though I now live 6 hours away from him and only get to see him every other month or so, I think about him every day and I look forward to the next time we will get to visit. There is a time in life when you have to leave home, the comfort of your space, your parents, your family and begin a new chapter, a chapter of new things, new experiences, a chapter of adulthood. This chapter for some can look like college, dorm living, buying ramen noodles and taco bell every night in order to stay awake and alive for that next exam. For some, this next chapter looks like getting married, moving in with your new husband/wife, making new traditions together, memories, getting to know one another, figuring out life together. For some, this next chapter looks like having a child, working long hours to make ends meet while also studying in order to get that degree. Our lives can all look very different during that next chapter. But there’s something that we all can share if we choose and that is a Father that goes with us into that next chapter of our lives. God travels with us whether it be to college, a new home, a scary situation, an unknown future; God is there.
God is the father that we never have to leave, not for any chapter of our lives. Our earthly fathers our given to us to raise us, teach us, and love us, but when it’s time for us to leave our earthly fathers and to begin a journey into the unknown on our own, we don’t have to be alone. There’s a story that always comes to mind every year for Father’s Day and that is the story of the Prodigal Son. You can find this story in Luke 15:11-32. You will read that there was a father who had two sons. The one son asked his father for all of his money that he had the right to and he left his father’s house and began his chapter on his own. But he chose not to have God in this new chapter of his life and so he strayed away from the truths he had been taught. He got into all the wrong things life had to offer him. Eventually, he was out of money, food and had nothing to his name. He ended up in a pigs pen, eating what the pigs ate. He then has a realization, the servants who work for his father are given more than he was receiving, so he would go home and ask his father if he could work for him to earn a living. As he returns home, his father meets him, hugs him, places a beautiful garment on him and begins planning a feast at his sons return. The son didn’t know what to do, he was shocked, stunned and thankful. This story comes to mind each year on Father’s Day because it is there to remind us that though we may stray in our lives, though we may choose not to follow God every day, we may lose our way, we may try things we shouldn’t, we may lose sight of what truly matters when life is opening up to us, no matter what we do or where we go, God is waiting for our return. He is here for us, ready to give all of his love to us, ready to get us back on track, ready to place that beautiful robe on us and to feed us with his word and truth. It is never too late to find your way back to God and to run into his embrace.
This Father’s Day let us thank our father’s. Let us give them gifts of love and hugs and make more memories with them. Let us laugh over past memories and remember all that they have taught us. Then, let us take time and think on God and how he is here for us every day, everywhere, no matter what. Let us thank him for all he is in our lives. Let us remember all HE has brought us through and think on how beautiful our future will be with him in it. We are blessed to have a father here on earth and one to spend every day with and all of eternity with. God is good. Don’t forget that truth.
Psalm 34:8 : O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Psalm 100:5 : For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
He gives us Roots so we can Fly. Roots and Wings.
