Toongabbie Anglican Church Blog

Weekly Blurb

God of my father

Sunday 7 September, 2003 · Posted by Philip Bassett

Back in the 1980�s I was trained in Christian counseling by Dr. Larry Crabb who is perhaps known to you as the author of a number of books on Christian counseling and related issues. I have most of his books in my library and one book which I particularly enjoyed is �God of My Father� subtitled �a son�s reflection on his father�s walk of faith.�

In the book Larry Crabb says, �I am in the dwindling minority of folks who have been drawn to love God by their fathers.� And �For many people, father is a bad word, meaning one who abandons, abuses, demeans, and demands perfection. I hope this book will increase the number of children in the next generation whose fathers reveal God to them, rather than distort or obscure him.�

Some years ago I remember someone saying that Heavenly Father is not a good image of God for many in our society because of their terrible experiences of their earthly fathers. Yet at the same time many of the young people I was meeting in school scripture classes, kids� club and youth club, were saying that one of the strongest things they had against their earthly fathers was that they didn�t measure up to their concept of the perfect fatherhood of God.

For all you fathers who are reading this. Will your sons in the future, or perhaps your grown sons now if you are older, be able to say that it was you and your example of godly manhood that drew them to love God.

In Ephesians 6:4 we read, �Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.� As Christian fathers we cannot and must not abdicate our responsibility of leadership in our families to others. The input of mothers, Sunday School teachers, scripture teachers, youth leaders and even church ministers is important, but the primary example to our sons of godly living is us Dads.

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