“Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Ephesians 6:2-3 (ESV)

Fathers Are Still in Fashion

I have been thinking of my Dad lately and the legacy he left me and I'm thanking God for him. If he were still living he would turn 100 this year. It's come so quickly and it's hard to believe.

Born in 1919, Dad's family relocated from Oklahoma to northern Texas when he was 7. He remembered the move being made in a covered wagon. He mentioned once, “I've lived in the time of covered wagons and into the age of seeing man standing on the moon.”

He was the product of a broken home. My grandfather abandoned the family, taking all the savings, leaving the family destitute at the height of the Great Depression. Dad and his brothers were left with the responsibilities of running the family farm. He was just 13. He became a self-taught mechanic and all-around handyman adept at fixing anything. In 1939 during a severe drought the family pulled up stakes, moving from Texas to Central California and making their living working at farming.

After serving four years in the Army Air Corp during World War II he returned to civilian life in 1945. He came to know Christ during a revival near the Azusa Street Mission in downtown Los Angeles in 1947. The positive change in his life was instantaneous and permanent. He was by no means a perfected saint but remained a committed Christian throughout the rest of his life. In today's vernacular he brought a lot of “baggage” into the family that was still stirred by animosity for his father's betrayal.

Dad and myself at the San Diego Zoo, May 1983, one month before his death.

Even with his issues he remained a positive role model of integrity and uprightness that I have striven to imitate. Looking back on it all he did the best he knew how with the tools he had, even to the forgiving of his father for the harm he did to his family.

Maybe some of you had a father that was verbally or physically abusive or perhaps did not have a father in the family at all and it's difficult to even visualize a father who was a positive role model.

For those of you who may have been abused, I'm sorry that happened to you. Any abuse, physical or verbal, is never right. But let me say right here the abuse you may have suffered was not your fault. It was the work of physical strength beyond yours given over to evil. Even if you had no father in your life you now have a faithful Father in Heaven. His love for you is personal and without condition.

It is a shame radical feminism has so poisoned our culture against men and especially the positive effect fathers have on the nuclear family. Dad's are a needed part of the family both for the growth and maturity of daughters but especially sons.

Yes, it is true that sometimes dads don't act perfectly but their presence and input into a family is essential. God made it that way. I am so thankful to Him for giving me my dad. I pray the legacy he left in my family of years past can be the same for mine when the LORD calls me home.

Thank you Dad. I am truly blessed to have had you in my life. He was taken into the arms of Christ in 1983. I still miss him. But because of Christ's work I know we will be together again in a future day. It will be a great reunion and this time it will be perfect, right-down to hugs and tears of joy. Fathers are indeed still in fashion.

Ken