In our lesson from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus describes to his listeners the kingdom of God: “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how . . .”
Last Sunday, we celebrated Father’s Day. I know this parable of Jesus does not talk about fatherhood, but I believe this is the very first area where fathers can participate in helping bring about God’s reign in this world.
Raising good children is like scattering seed upon the ground and helping them grow as you nurture them.
Author Ken Canfield
This is also true in raising children. Some of us have learned the hard way that there are no guarantees. But generally, if we have done the best we can in planting and nurturing our children, we are rewarded with children we can be proud of.
First of all, we need fathers who can be role models. Some years ago, South Africa’s game managers had to figure out what to do about the elephant herd at Kruger National Park. It was growing well beyond the ability of the park to sustain it. And so they decided to transport some of the herd to a nearby game park.
A dozen years later, however, several of the young male elephants (now teenagers) that had been transported to the game park began attacking the park‘s herd of white rhinos, an endangered species.
Park managers decided they had no choice but to kill some of the worst juvenile offenders.
However, someone came up with another bright idea. They brought in some of the mature male elephants still residing in the Kruger Park and hoped that the bigger, stronger males could bring the adolescents under control. To the delight of the park officials, it worked. The big bulls quickly established the natural hierarchy and controlled the young elephants. According to Raspberry, “The young bulls actually started following the Big Daddies around, yielding to their authority and learning from them proper elephant conduct. The assaults on the white rhinos ended abruptly.”
Whether they are wild animals or human beings, we need fathers who can be role models. Those of us who grew up in families in which our father is a positive influence will quickly agree.
It does not always work out like that, of course. There are some families in which the father is absent, and it cannot be helped. There are other families in which fathers do more harm than good. Fortunately, that is true in only a minority of families. Most fathers do the best they can. And we are proud to be able to honor them.
We know that fathers are important. Of course, mothers play an important role. Still, it is true that a conscientious father can do wonders in the lives of the children. There are no guarantees, but when a conscientious man or woman plants a seed and takes the necessary steps to nurture that seed, miracles can occur.
As that old saying has it, “No matter how you teach a child, he insists on behaving like his parents.”
Parents, observe your children. You will notice there are times when they talk like you, walk like you, behave like you. Children are smart. If they sense that the Bible is not a vitally-important book in one’s life, chances are that it won’t be in theirs. If they seldom see you pray, except a perfunctory prayer at meal-time, they will not take prayer seriously. If children sense that Sunday worship is just something to be done grudgingly rather than a treasured privilege, they will stop coming to church as soon as they get a chance. It is an awesome responsibility to be a parent.
Secondly, we need fathers who can help children understand God by the way they relate to their children.
Of course, the love of any parent is but a pale reflection of the love of God. We would not even know how to love if God had not first loved us. Nevertheless, we try our best to reflect the love of God in our lives.
In his book, Disappointment with God
Yancey writes, “My mother explained to me that she had kept the photo as a memento because during my father’s illness, it had been fastened to his iron lung.”
During the last four months of his life, Yancey’s father lay on his back, completely paralyzed by polio at the age of 24, encased from the neck down in a huge, cylindrical breathing unit. With his two young sons banned from the hospital due to the severity of his illness, he had asked his wife for pictures of her and their two boys. Because he was unable to move even his head, the photos had to be jammed between metal knobs so that they hung within view above him — the only thing he could see. The last four months of his life were spent looking at the faces he loved.
Philip Yancey writes, “I have often thought of that crumpled photo, for it is one of the few links connecting me to the stranger who was my father. Someone I have no memory of, no sensory knowledge of, had spent all day, every day thinking of me, devoting himself to me, loving me . . . The emotions I felt when my mother showed me the crumpled photo were the very same emotions I felt that February night in a college dorm room when I first believed in a God of love. Someone is there, I realized. Someone is there who loves me. It was a startling feeling of wild hope, a feeling so new and overwhelming that it seemed fully worth risking my life on.”
Philip Yancey is one of the most important Christian writers living today. Obviously, his mother’s influence was powerful. But his father’s love, even though he cannot even remember him, helped get him off to a good start.
A study of church attendance sometime back showed that if both mother and father attended church regularly, 72 percent of their children remain faithful to the church. If only the mother attended regularly, only 15 percent remained faithful. It is an awesome responsibility to raise and nurture children. But it can also be rewarding.
Thus, let us honor the fathers. But above all, let us praise our Heavenly Father who is the source of all life and love.
