Thank You Heavenly Father for My Earthly Father

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4

Thinking about my dad is often difficult. I am inclined to focus on all the ways I don't feel like he was the father I needed him to be during my years growing up. So it is no surprise for me to walk into the store to look for a father's day card and feel like all of the cards I browse through would be nothing more than cheap sentimentality as pertaining to my relationship with my dad.

But that's because the vast majority of the cards in the store don't highlight what the most important duty is for a father. They often describe the ideal father in terms that make him look like the best father in the world. But that's not how the Bible describes the ideal father. I now know that the most important role a man can play in his son's or daughter's life isn't to try to be the best father in the world to them, but rather to try to point them to the One who is the greatest Father in the world, the only perfect Father: our heavenly Father. In both cases, the best a human dad can do is try. Because in both cases he will always fail to do so successfully.

So I was more thankful for my sinful, imperfect earthly father on this father's day than ever for the ways that he tried to live as a pointer to my heavenly Father all of my years growing up.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father never spared me punishment when I broke the laws he set before me because now I know that there is a punishment from my heavenly Father that I dare not doubt the severity of.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father exerted authority over me and demanded respect from me so that I feared him because now I fear nothing more than disobeying my heavenly Father's will or trifling with Him as though He were someone I could talk to as a peer.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father never gave me a reason to doubt his strength or that I was protected in his presence because now I know that my heavenly Father is the ever-present, unfailing, unshakable Rock who upholds me with the saving might of His infinitely strong right hand.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father worked unceasingly so as to provide for my every need because now I know that my heavenly Father works for me so that I will never go without.

My earthly father fell short in more ways than I could count. But by God's grace, as He so loves to do, my dad's meager five loaves and two fish were used to produce an immeasurable result in my life. I don't doubt for one second that I know who my heavenly Father is today because of the fact that I was given an earthly father who would show me something, albeit imperfect, of who He is. I wonder how many of my friends don't know God as their heavenly Father because they never heard their earthly father tell them "no". I wonder how many of my friends don't know God as their heavenly Father because their earthly father spared them the rod every time. I wonder how many of my friends don't know God as their heavenly Father because their earthly father gave them little by which to recognize Him. Oh, how good my heavenly Father was to me in giving me the earthly father that He did! Were I to have had what at times growing up would have been my own choice of an earthly father, I probably wouldn't know God as my Father today.

Thank You heavenly Father for Your immeasurable mercies that are poured out in every millisecond of my life in ways I can't comprehend. I tremble at such grace.