Father of the Year

The Arkansas Baptist News, a bi-monthly paper with all the news that's fit to print and some that's not, holds a contest every year around Fathers Day. The paper invites readers to write a brief essay and enter their good old dad in the "Father of the Year" contest.

So I was thinking that if the Bible had a "Father of the Year" contest, who would win the prize? You know, really good fathers, as we Americans romanticize them to be, are pretty hard to find in the Bible.

Adam could have won the award for several years in a row, I guess, but the man had no competition. And was he really all that great of a dad. Didn't one of his boys murder the other?

Noah did all right for the most part. He was a blameless man, most righteous man on earth at the time, so Noah and his family were the only ones God saw fit to save from the great flood. But after the flood, there was this strange episode about Noah getting drunk and falling asleep buck naked in his tent. His son Ham found him that way and went and told his two brothers, Shem and Japheth. Those two found a blanket, backed into the tent, and covered their father. When Noah slept off his drunk and learned what happened, he cursed his son Ham for looking on his nakedness. Ham became the father of the Canaanites, not exactly a very high class breed of people back in the day.

Abraham was pretty good, I think—at least with Isaac. Except for that little episode where Abraham almost slit Isaac's throat and burned him in sacrifice to God (a test at God's bidding, mind you), Abraham was probably a bit over-protective with this child of promise.

Isaac didn't do so well with his boys, Jacob and Esau. He played favorites with Esau and got played for chump by his other son Jacob.

And Jacob, a chip off the old block, wound up with twelve sons, playing favorites with two of them, Joseph and Benjamin, and sort of alienating the others in the process. Jacob did offer individual blessings for each of his boys though. A lot of us dads could sure do a better job of blessing our children, don't you think?

Moses is one of the three dominant figures in the Old Testament but we know virtually nothing of his kids or his fathering.

And while David was a great king, he didn't do so well at fatherhood. One of his sons raped one of his daughters. Another son killed the brother who raped their sister, and that same son later orchestrated a coup against his father—a coup he came within an inch of pulling off. And when that no good son was killed in the battle, David grieved and grieved and grieved.

Job was probably a pretty good dad. He provided well for his children and they apparently got along well with one another because they were eating together when a tornado crushed the house in which they were gathered and killed them all.

And we've got to at least tip our hats to Hosea. God told him to marry a whore as a stark example of God's opinion of His people Israel who were whoring after other gods. Hosea did what he was told. His wife Gomer bore him three children then left the family in a lurch and went right back to her whoring ways. I guess Hosea had to raise those kids on his on. And when God told Hosea to take Gomer back a few years later, he did so, setting quite an example of forgiving love for his kids.

Jump from the Old to the New Testament, and there's not many dads in there to enter in the contest. There was Joseph who more or less adopted Jesus and, except for the time he accidentally left 12-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem, apparently did well with him. But honestly, who couldn't do well with Jesus?

There's also Zebedee. He was the father of James and John. He taught them the fishing business and apparently let them go without much of a fight when Jesus called his sons to follow Him. But then again, James and John were known as "the sons of thunder." Was this a nickname about the boys or about their dad? Did their dad, perhaps, have a little temper problem he passed on to the boys? Who knows?

And there was also a dad here and there in the Gospels who brought sick children to Jesus, in hopes that Jesus would make them well. But we know so little about them it's hard to make a judgment as to the quality of their fathering.

Oh, and in Acts there was the Philippian jailer. No sooner did God save him than he invited Paul and Silas to his house in the hopes that his whole family would be saved. The Bible says they were. And really, that's about it for fathers in the New Testament.

I've got to tell you, the Bible doesn't appear to be all that interested in parading excellent fathers before our eyes. You'll not find many father role models in the pages of the Scripture. You'll find some fatherly counsel there: like, how dads are supposed to teach their kids day in and day out to love God, and like Paul's counsel for fathers not to breed rebellion in their kids but to raise them in the nurture and admonition of Christ. And, of course, Proverbs dishes out a little fatherly wisdom about disciplining the kids—"spare the rod, spoil the child" and all of that. Actually, when it comes to fathers, the Bible has more advice than role models. Most of the dads we see in the Scripture aren't all that different from most dads I know today: they are a mixture of the holy and the profane, they have their good moments and their bad moments, but mostly they just try to do the best they can with what they've got to work with in themselves and what they've got to work with in their children. So if you had a bad childhood and a father that wasn't so hot, why don't you cut him some slack and even forgive him if that's needed. And if you are a father who feels like you just haven't done enough, why don't you cut yourself some slack and just try to do a little better. I wish I could hold up a couple of fatherly models from the Bible and say, "Do it like these guys did it," but I really can't. Like or not, there just aren't many great father-figures in the Bible.

So is there no "Father of the Year" in the Bible? Well, there is one. In fact, I'm ready to make my nominee for "Father of the Year." I nominate … our Father God. He is the Father who made us, knitting us together in our mother's womb. He is the Father who saves us from our sin and keeps saving us a little more every single day, forgiving and restoring us as we have need. He's the Father who provides for our needs. He is the Father who loves us enough to discipline us when we go astray and get us back on the path that leads to life. And He's the Father who wants to be with His children so much that one day He will take us home to live with Him forever. What a great Father! He is, says the Bible, a Father to the fatherless, and He is a Father who can sympathize with any parent who ever gave up a child to death. If you want a model father to follow in the Bible look no further than to the Lord God himself. You will never live up to His standard, but at least He shows us the way. So praise be to God: the Father of the Year, the Father of All History, and the only perfect Father you'll ever know.

The Hound of Heaven

About 130 years ago Francis Thompson wrote a poem called The Hound of Heaven. Using the hound as a metaphor for God, Thompson writes of God’s loving, yet relentless pursuit of the soul on the run from Him. Some of the language is awkward for modern ears, but it is a powerful poem. Google it some time. Now, let me tell you why this poem came to mind for me.

I was checking my email in between worship services on Sunday when I opened one that just about had me jumping out of my chair with joy. Danny did it. He made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ in front of a Methodist church in Texas. No doubt stuff like that happens every Sunday somewhere, but this is a really big deal. Let me explain.

About four or five years ago a local high school physics teacher named Deborah started visiting our church. She had been out of the church and away from the faith for a very long time. She is married to the Danny I mentioned above, and they have two boys, Thomas and Matthew. Deborah brought her two sons with her; Danny didn’t come and wasn’t interested.

In visiting with Deborah, I learned something of her story. She was raised in the church. Early in her life she made a decision to follow Jesus and be a Christian. But as she grew up into college and adulthood, she grew farther and farther away from her faith. How far? Far enough to consider herself an atheist—and that’s about as far as one can go. She’d been schooled in the classical sciences and in physics. She couldn’t find a place for God in all of that. And that was okay with her husband Danny because he considered himself an atheist too. So they were doing just fine, working at their jobs, raising their two boys.

And that’s when it happened. It happened in a barber shop. It happened with the simple question of a child. Deborah had taken the boys to get a haircut. The oldest boy, Thomas, about six or so at the time, saw a picture of Jesus in the barbershop. It was the face of Jesus, crown of thorns pressed on His head, blood streaking down His cheek. Since Thomas had never heard of Jesus, he asked his mom a simple question: “Who is that man and why is he bleeding?” I think for Deborah those words felt more like a scalpel than a question because the Holy Spirit used those words to open Deborah’s heart to truth she’d known since childhood and had spent years denying.

Ah, the power of the right question at the right time! The Lord kept pressing that question to Deborah well after they’d left the barbershop. It disturbed her … and rightly so. And underneath that question were affirmations the Lord also continued to press upon Deborah: “I love you. Jesus died for you and rose from the dead. Your sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name. Come home, Deborah. Follow me.” The Hound of heaven had tracked down His girl and gently shepherded her back into the fold.

Deborah decided her boys were going to know who that man was and why He was bleeding. She and the boys plugged into the church. Deborah began to grow in her faith by leaps and bounds. She shared her testimony during a musical presentation and many were touched. She spoke freely of her faith to students at school. She did her best to help some who, like her, were skeptics, doubters, at the edge of atheism. And in the church, she worked with children. She got involved in missions. She taught a thing or two. She didn’t put a toe in to see how the water was; she dove right into the deep end. As a pastor, I found myself thinking, “Oh, for a tribe of Deborahs, and this church could turn the world upside down!” She became a franchise player in the church. And her boys were so very much at home among us too.

But her husband Danny wasn’t. He is a good man and was kind to give Deborah freedom to do her thing, but he made no bones about the fact that it was not his thing. And Deborah didn’t press him. She prayed for him. She lived a changed and changing life in front of him. She suggested a book or two if he wanted to know more. And Deborah’s friends in the church joined her in her prayers. Danny wasn’t a stranger to the church. He came once in a while when Deborah or the boys were doing something special. And he even got on one of our softball teams. But that was as far as he was willing to go. What he didn’t know, however, was that the Hound of heaven was hot on his trail. I said about Danny what I’ve said about others in a similar boat, “God is going to get him; Danny just doesn’t know it yet.”

We hoped to see that happen right here in Hot Springs. But it didn’t. Family considerations led them to move to Texas. Not long after the move, I got an email from Deborah with this news: “Danny has decided he’s no longer an atheist. He’s now an agnostic.” In other words, Danny was open to the fact that there might be a God but he wasn’t making any commitments. Progress! The Hound of heaven was now nipping at his heels. And then a few months ago, I got another email: “Danny asked Christ into his life today.” Deborah gave praise and the Hound howled and the angels danced and heaven threw a party and those of us who know Danny kicked up our heels in praise and joy too.

The next step was church—getting connected to the body of Christ where they live. Jesus didn’t call us to a solitary life but to a life of community. And that email came yesterday! Deborah and Danny joined a local Methodist church in their town. Danny had spent some time in the Methodist church when he was growing up, and it felt right to him to reconnect. Here’s the way Deborah put it: “The preacher invited us to the Celebration service at 8:30am instead of the main service. We went and it was amazing! It's just like worshipping at a Baptist church with a few of the Methodist rituals …. Danny loves it and so do I. After going there for almost 2 months, I told Danny I was joining and he said he'd join to with me! It was everything I could do not to cry as we were walking down that aisle holding hands with the two boys beside us!” Hallelujah! Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow! Praise the Hound of heaven for loving us, for pursuing us, for finding a way to get our attention, for saving our souls, and for getting us all the way home.

Deborah and Danny still have a lot of growing to do. As Deborah said, “I think Danny is going through the same thing I did where sometimes I have the faith of a thousand people and then other times I wonder if I even believe.” That’s okay. Once He chases them down, the Hound of heaven doesn’t abandon His children. He stands guard over their souls through every valley and mountaintop and plateau that they face. When the Hound finds you, He keeps you. Danny and Deborah are not the first of Jesus’ followers to have seasons of doubt now and then. They are going to be just fine.

In writing of that Hound, Francis Thompson put it this way:

I fled Him down the nights and down the days

I fled Him down the arches of the years

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind,

And in the midst of tears

I hid from him, and under running laughter.

Deborah and Danny fled. Danny and Deborah hid. But the Hound of heaven found a way to get their attention. He pursued them and found them and saved them and will watch over them forever. And one of the interesting things about this story is that the first time they heard the Hound’s voice it didn’t sound like the howling of a dog; it sounded like the voice of a child: “Who is that man and why is He bleeding?”

Small World, Big God

In 1992 my family took our one and only trip to Disney World. Our kids were pretty much the perfect age for it: twelve and ten. And we had a great time—saw some neat stuff, rode some cool rides, ate some incredibly expensive food. (I don’t know what it is that increases the value of a hamburger to 8 bucks just because it’s served in the Magic Kingdom … but I digress.) Anyway, back to the rides. Some were a lot of fun, but one was really annoying. If you’ve been there you may have found it annoying too. I think it’s called “Small World.” It’s just a little boat ride through a meandering stream with small characters hanging out along the route. That part was boring. This part was annoying: over and over and over and over and over and over they played the song, It’s a Small World After All. Talk about engaging lyrics: “It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all.” Profound, huh? Did I mention that they played it over and over and over and over and over? It’s a trick, I think, to drive parents crazy. Not only do they bore you to death, they weld that squirrelly little song to your brain so that it keeps playing there long after you’ve exited the ride. It’s been eighteen years since I heard it and it’s still in my head. Maybe I need medication. Maybe I just need to punch Mickey Mouse in the nose. But the song is still rattling around somewhere in my head. I will say this, however: the message of the song is spot on. It is a small world after all.

That was once again brought home to me a couple of weeks ago. Every year our church holds a mission celebration—five of my favorite days of the year. We invite missionaries from all over the world to join us. We try to encourage them and learn from them. We get them with as many of our people as possible during those days. We mingle them with our young and our old and every age in between. It seems they are all stricken with a serious case of mission fever, so we mingle them with our folks in the hope that we'll catch the fever too. Jesus told the church to go into the world and make disciples of all nations; our church is under the impression that He was talking to us. So we go on lots of mission trips, do a lot of mission work in our own city, and spend some quality time with our missionaries. When you go on mission trips and when you spend time with missionaries the world gets smaller. You can’t hardly look at a map anymore without thinking, “That’s where Rusty and Lori live. And Harriet lives there. And Rodney and Diana live in that country.” It makes the world smaller.

So we enjoy having the missionaries with us each year. I always get a kick out of listening to them describe crazy things they have had to eat on the mission field. This year one of our missionaries from East Asia talked about being served something kind of nasty. Not wanting to offend his host, he ate it. He said he kept thinking as he was trying to choke it down that it tasted just like poo. Come to find out, he was eating animal rectum. (Pause here while you go throw up.) Another ate this fermented crud (something like rotten potatoes) that these South American Indians bury in a hole in the ground and leave there until it would knock a buzzard off a gut wagon. They call that mess a delicacy, but if you’ve got a delicate stomach, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot fork. Some food, huh? And I’m only scratching the surface here. Many of our missionaries work in impoverished cultures where, unlike we wasteful Americans, the locals won’t waste one thing on any animal they kill for food. How about eating the fat out of a cow’s horn? Yes, they do that too. I’ve been served some interesting things on the mission field, but nothing quite like what I’ve mentioned here. And honestly, I’m not sure I love Jesus enough to eat some of the stuff that our missionaries have forced themselves to chew and swallow. They do it in an effort to gain credibility for them and the gospel. I'm embarrassed to admit it but I don't think I could do that. I’m so picky with American food that I didn’t start eating broccoli till I was 30, and here in my 50s I just started eating mushrooms and asparagus and red peppers. Still, listening to them talk about these crazy foods seems to make the world smaller too. You look at a map and think, “That’s where Jim and Linda eat animal rectum.” Yum, yum! The more we know about cultures the smaller the world becomes.

But while it’s entertaining to hear missionary menus, the most compelling thing we hear is their God and people stories. Let me tell you one that made a deep impression on me. I can’t tell you the real name of the missionary because he serves in a dangerous area. We’ll call him James. Much of James’ job is to develop strategies to reach groups untouched by the gospel. Some of that includes training local believers to reach their own people for Jesus. James was invited to provide this kind of training for a particular group in a particular city. Due to another commitment, James was unable to go. Not wanting to miss the opportunity, however, James sent a couple of local believers who work with him to go in his place and do the training. Somehow word got out about the meeting and when James’ friends arrived there, they were met by a fundamentalist group of the local religion (not Islam by the way). This group brought baseball bats along. They broke up the meeting. They broke up James’ friends too. They clubbed them with baseball bats. They cursed them and spat upon them and dragged them through the streets. Then they separated them, moved them to different parts of the city, stole their cell phones, and abandoned them in those isolated spots beat up, alone, and unable to contact anyone who could help them.

When James heard this story, he was both sad and angry. As James put it, “It’s a hard thing to know you sent someone to take the beating that was meant for you.” When James finally got to speak with one of his friends who had been persecuted (we’ll call him Hadji), James said, “I told him that I was praying that God would drop hellfire and brimstone on those men who brutalized him.” But Hadji didn’t concur. He said, “Remember, James: before Paul was a missionary, he was a persecutor of the church. I’m praying that God would save them and make them followers of Jesus and lovers of the church.” Needless to say, James felt duly put in his place by the trajectory of Hadji’s prayer compared to his own.

Just a couple of weeks before James came back to the States for a break, Hadji gave him a call. It seems that Hadji was going back to the same city where he had been beaten and persecuted. He was going back to offer the training that had been so rudely interrupted the first time he tried it. And guess what Hadji told him. “James,” he said, “I’ll be training one of the men who beat me up.”

For some reason, hearing a story like that makes the world smaller for me. I have read numerous persecution stories but to listen to a man who lives it draws me closer to the action. Now, when I hear other stories of persecution, I’ll think of James and Hadji and pray for all our brothers and sisters who pay a sometimes severe price for following Jesus. See what I mean? It sort of makes the world a little smaller.

But listening to missionaries does something even better: it makes God a lot bigger. What a large God we serve—big enough to work both sides of this story. God gave Hadji the grace to forgive the men who brutalized him. And God gave one of those persecutors the grace to save him from his sins and draw him into faith and life and the very church he tried to destroy. That’s some big God. Small world? Yes. Big God? Absolutely!

It sort of changes that Disney tune rolling around in my head: “He’s a big God after all. He’s a big God after all. He’s a big God after all. He’s a big God after all.” And I don’t know about you, but I like that tune much better.