I don't think much about Father's Day, to be perfectly honest. I usually take it for granted because I've been blessed. I loved my dad, and I know he loved me. I love my girls, and I know they love me. More important than the cards, I have the words spoken and the memories of those words between us. That might seem like a small, insignificant thing, but I know that some people never get to experience that; and for me, it's been the only thing that's ever really mattered about Father's Day. But after half a century on this planet and half of that time spent as a dad, I'm probably wrong about that and a few other things too.
Our fathers, and our relationships with them, are complicated, which makes the day we've set aside to acknowledge their parentage a little complicated too. For many, celebrating this particular dad day is difficult, if not impossible, to celebrate. Relationships can be strained; old wounds remain unhealed, and fresh loss or continuing grief are all pieces of the same puzzle of fatherhood. A complicated relationship with your father makes all those greeting cards feel hollow and utterly miss the mark. And they don't make cards for those complex relationships, just try and find one with the words "To An Almost Adequate Father" in beautiful cursive script at Hallmark.
When you do think about it a little more, like when your wife asks you to write a post about Father's Day, you start to realize that Father's Day is kind of a weird celebration in our culture. The entry-level qualifier is a chromosome. There are no quality standards. Even "happy," which precedes the customary greeting, isn't a requirement. We should probably set up an alternate holiday for "Loving, Attentive, Supportive Dad's Day, maybe some Wednesday in July? So, what, then, can we learn from this arbitrary celebration of chromosomal lending each June? With a slightly different perspective, I think we can learn a lot.
Imperfection Illuminates Perfection
We are created with a need for perfection within us; it's the thing that gnaws inside us when we see and experience imperfection. None of us got a perfect dad. That's not a bad thing or a reason to cancel the holiday or ban greeting cards; it's just a fact. As believers, we are all created in the image of the Father, not in the image of our Father. Your dad was also created in the image of the Father. The imperfections in our fathers, the imperfections in me as the dad of my girls, all serve to point to something perfect, the only perfect thing available to each of us.
My wife and I teach have been teaching a parenting class for a few years, and we hope that the biggest takeaway for moms and dads is that you don't need to aspire to perfection. You are going to fall short. But the best thing we can do for our children is to point them to true perfection. And if you've been listening in church or online the past few weeks, we know that you have direct access to perfection in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. That one thing can make a greater impact on eternity for your child than anything else. Let them know you aren't perfect and point them to perfection. They'll figure it out on their own someday, might as well start deflecting today.
Reflecting the Attributes of a Father
So, what do you do if you're an imperfect dad but want to try and be the dad that God intended you to be? It's actually a pretty simple answer. As the theologian Yoda once said, "There is no try, only do." The more you reflect Christ to your kids, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the more likely your dad-ness will provide the kind of love and support and forgiveness and wisdom and guidance they will need to grow into who they will become. The one thing we all need is Christ's love, and once we experience that love, it should become our primary reflection of the world. As a dad, your primary place to reflect that love starts at home. It's the one thing we have that's truly worth sharing or giving.
It might take more than a paragraph to flesh all that out for you, but I tell you what… why don't you start by coming to church, being open to Jesus' transforming presence within you (again, it's right there through the Holy Spirit, you just gotta let him work…) reading through God's Field Manual for Dads (and technically, for all of humanity)… or grab somebody in the foyer and say, 'hey, tell me some more about the love of Jesus'
Limitless Opportunities for Grace and Forgiveness
Being a dad, a daughter, or a son comes with abundant opportunities to experience and extend grace and forgiveness. It's a two-way street, and we all need it. We will fail our kids. We will fail our parents. It's certainly not something we want to just keep piling up, but it requires an abundant supply of grace and often a perpetual stream of forgiveness. My wife and I have told our girls since they were little to write down things in their therapy notebooks because we knew, despite our best efforts, we were going to screw them up a little with our imperfect parenting. We agreed to cover the cost of any future therapy if it could be demonstrated as a claim in said therapy notebook.
Dads… The point is to extend grace and to forgive as we have been forgiven. Sons and Daughters… The point is to extend grace and to forgive as we have been forgiven. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Gifts and Presence
This last little point to ponder is about presence and gifts. It's a little hypocritical because I love presents, and all I really wanted was a blue 12' Hobie ProAngler 360 kayak. But other than a kayak or something directly off a very specific list, I'd encourage you to think about presence as a gift. Dad's presence is the only real present that will last in the memories of your kids. Kids, unless you're getting him a blue 12' Hobie Pro Angler 360 kayak, your presence is the one thing he'll treasure. After my dad passed away in 2016, Father's Day does make me pause for a moment and think about my dad and how much he meant to me, and how he shaped a lot of what I am today. I don't have many of the presents he gave me as a kid, but his presence in my life then still means a lot to me today.
In the end, it all comes down to presence. Presence here requires person and place. Our place now is here, wherever here might be. Here is the carpool, the backyard, the kitchen table, a tee ball field, or a gymnastics floor. You can't be everywhere, but you can be here now. But, as dads, we can't be everywhere, always for our kids. That's not the job, and that's OK…we can point them to the God who can be here with us, not just today but forever.
Our eternal presence is with God. While I'm thankful for my dad's presence in our home growing up, I'm actually more thankful for his presence with Jesus today. I'm thankful for a heavenly Father that loved His son and loved me enough to establish a path to an eternal presence with Him. Good dad's like that…
Happy (or Insert Other Appropriate Adjective) Father's Day!
Shawn Henderson
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