Knowing My Father

KNOWING MY FATHER

 

We were on Facebook earlier this particular day and caught Pastor Bob and Molly and Roxanne singing “The Goodness of God.”  There is one line in that song that always takes me back fifty years (the song isn’t that old, I am).  That line says, “I’ve known Him as a Father, I’ve known Him as a Friend.”  That never fails to touch my heart.

The back story is that I grew up in a single-parent home.  It was just my Mom, my sister and I until my older sister moved out to go to school, then just Mom and I through high school.  My dad was a pretty hardcore alcoholic.  Mom divorced him when I was five years old, and it was pretty tough in our town to be the child of a divorced couple.  To be absolutely honest, there were times when I felt pretty jealous of the guys in our school who had both parents at home.  I had male role-models, but they were sort of part-time, since I didn’t really see them at their homes or know how they related to their families.  I was on my own most of the time.

Sounds like a pity-party so far, but it wasn’t all bad.  I got into a good church fellowship that was very good at trying to help a young guy grow into a Christian man.  Still, I knew I was missing some information and training about how a man related to a wife and family.  When I got to the Christian college I attended and met my future wife, I was rather jealous that she had both parents at home with four siblings to boot.  I tried to learn by watching her dad, but that wasn’t often enough to help out very much.

So I was sort of complaining to God about it.  Often. 

The church we attended in Nampa, ID., hired me as “outside custodian.”  I would water, mow, sweep, pull weeds, and lots of “etcetera” to make the outside of the building look as good as it could.  I was a school teacher by then, and in those days we needed to supplement our income however we could.  I enjoyed mowing whatever lawn there was, because I could sing loud and not be heard over the noise of the lawn mower.

On one special Saturday, as I was mowing and telling God how unfair it was for me not to have had a dad to teach me things that a guy needed to know, I began singing a hymn we had sung recently in a worship service.  It was “This Is My Father’s World.”  I haven’t often heard God speak to me audibly, but I’m pretty sure I heard Him say, “Listen!”  He let me know through that song that I did have a Father – not just any old guy, either, but the heavenly Father Himself.  I don’t know if anyone driving by heard me singing at the top of my lungs, “This is MY FATHER’S world, and to my listening ear all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.”  I only know that there were tear stains through the dust on my cheeks and a joy that filled my heart as I realized that the Great God of the universe had come to meet me in the need of my heart and to let me know that, not only did He know my name, but He CARED. 

That was a major turning point for me.  I soon answered His call to preach and pastor and moved to Kansas City to attend seminary with my wife and two-month old son.  I have been seeking my Father’s Presence ever since, not always as deeply as I could have or should have, but seeking none the less.

It has been over the last twenty years that I have come to the realization that I spent a lot of time learning about God without learning to know Him as intimately as He wanted me to.  Or as deeply as I needed to.  But I can honestly say over these last years that I have and do know Him “as a Father” and “a Friend.”  That relationship is getting deeper and better all the time.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

 

Gladly, Dr. Moose