Walking With Your Father -- Revised

I recently made the determination to do more writing. I have set a modest goal of one chapter or article (approximately) every two weeks. Some of this will include revising things I have written in the past, including re-working sermons and lectures. Here is the first one I've done, which I used during Father's Day weekend of this year.

Update: September 9th. New Man Magazine published this. Here is the link to it on their website: http://www.newmanmag.com/e-magazine/091008/story2.php.

For 18 years I walked with my father. I have vivid memories of walking with him along the beaches of the Oregon coast, the mountains of the Cascade Range, and countless shores of streams, lakes and rivers searching for the best fishing holes. He also walked beside me as I grew up – taking me through serendipitous rites of passage that could only be seen in retrospect.

I remember being four years old and my dad giving me my first bicycle – I felt so grown up. It had a banana seat, tassels on the tips of the handle bars, a chain guard and a kick stand. My world grew bigger with the arrival of that bicycle. In second grade the stakes grew higher when my Father gave me a Daisy single pump BB gun. It was not the most responsible thing for him to do, so he also gave me a life-threatening speech and lessons on how to use it. It was a BIG responsibility. I had been entrusted with something dangerous. At sixteen, I remember my father allowing me to go on my first “road trip” to an out-of-town concert. I felt like I had arrived – the personification of maturity. For a moment, I forgot the fact that the car I was driving was a wood-paneled Ford Pinto wagon.

You may recall the moments in your life when you suddenly realized that you had changed. You had grown up, and it surprised even you. This epiphany may have occurred at your graduation party, or the day your father walked you down the aisle, or the day you became a manager, or the day you retired. Sometimes we wish we could go back to the earlier times, but these landmarks are demarcations; points of no return.

If we were fortunate enough to grow up with a father who was present in our lives, his daily influence stopped when we left home around the age of eighteen. We set off alone with the feeling that it was up to us to make things happen on our own. Others may have been left without a father’s influence at a much younger age – due to tragedy or other factors that were outside of our control. I left my home two days after high school graduation, destined for college in Los Angeles, California. In most respects, I was a naïve kid from a small town, driven by a sense of adventure, calling, and reckless freedom.

Even today, on the outside we may appear to be grown up; but on the inside of our souls, we have room to grow in greater ways than we can imagine. No matter how good or bad, absent or present, our earthly fathers were, when it comes down to it, we are all still unfinished men and women. The absence of our fathers, which is a painful reality for a large percentage of us, may have accentuated this condition.

God desires to be the true Father who will enable us to experience unbroken growth.

God is here, now, as we experience new rights of passage and new transitions. He is present and desires to lead us through this season as only a perfect Father can. Some of us are looking for help in being a better father. Some of us need help as we face career changes, family changes and unexpected challenges.

Philippians 1:6 promises, “Being confident of this, He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” His work in us is a process that stretches into eternity.

What does He desire to do in this season of your life? How does He want to heal the past? Can you allow Him to expand and deepen your life at this present juncture?

Romans 8:14-15
“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

You have received adoption. This means you have been adopted as a son or as a daughter, which is a total break from the old family. You are becoming a part of a new family with all its rights, privileges and responsibilities. Being led now means that God’s current, present leadership in your life puts you in a relationship with Him that is best described as that of a son/daughter.

Trusting God with the leadership of our lives is a process where we allow Him to be the perfect Father to us. We let Him guide us, heal us and help us to not get stuck in a holding pattern of stifled personal growth. The role of the Father is that of guiding His children through the process of growth through the transitions of life.

In an instant culture, we must remember that He starts with a seed when He makes a great tree. He starts with two cells when He forms a human being. That human being grows up with dreams. The dreams grow and change as that person grows up, but His influence is meant to be a daily reality.

Being adopted by the Father is the starting point. There are times when we need to be restored to the Father, like the prodigal son. For all of us, God is inviting us to walk with the Father. To allow Him to be the perfect Father: One who is present, who is healing the past and who is leading us into our future.