When the Words Just Don't Come

Greetings,

As I look back at my blog activity over the past month I realize just how long it has been since we last shared our time together.  I appreciate your patience and dedication to this site and I hope that you will continue to check it each day for new posts.

After realizing how long it had been since my last post I took an inventory of my life over the past month to somehow find a reason for my absence.  After much thinking, investigating, praying, and self observation I came up with this one conclusion:  I didn't have any words!

I know it may sound strange coming from a pastor but it is the truth.  For an individual who seeks just the right words to share each week I found that I had nothing to share.  I wonder if that ever happens in your lives.  Do you go through dry spells without really knowing why?  Are you ever face with a time in your life when it just seems that you have neither the energy nor the motivation to tackle a new project?  If you know how that feels then you will know my mindset over the past month!  However, since it is father's day today I have found that my heart is filled with words to share.  So, I would like to share a few of those words with you about this day. 

Father's day seems to be a different day than mother's day.  On mother's day we speak of the strength of our mom's, the way they care for their children, and the way in which they support their families.  I suppose you could say the same things about fathers.  Yet, we, as a nation, are faced with countless families which have no father figure in their family dynamics.  Too often we heard about fathers who have abandoned their responsibilities and have left their children to the care of their mothers.  We find ourselves spending more time trying to hunt down deadbeat dads who ignore their support payments.  We spend so much time trying to help the single mother who is raising five children by herself.  And, we spend too much time trying to provide good role models to the children who have no father figure in their daily lives.  We have become a fatherless nation!  That is why it is so encouraging when we see dads doing what dads are suppose to be doing...loving their wives and their children.  We need good role models in the present to show our young men the type of father they should be in the future.  My dad is one of those men.

On this father's day I honor my father and the great lessons he has taught me.  My dad taught me things.  He taught me what it means to be a loving father and that, to be a loving father, you must first love your wife.  He has taught me what it means to be a man and, to be a man, you have to love your family.  Throughout my life he has been my coach on the baseball field and on the field of life.  It makes it so much easier to be a good man, husband, and father when you have watched one for so many years.

I truly believe that I am the man I am today because of what my father showed me in the past.  I feel privileged to call him "My Father".

I think that it is vital to stress the need for good fatherly role models.  I believe that the way that we relate to our earthly fathers plays a major role at how we deal with our heavenly father.  It makes it difficult for people to grasp the concept of a father who loves us more than anything when they have lived with an abusive, or absent, father in their earthly life.  God has called men to be role models not cautionary tales.  He created us to love him and our families.

My prayer would be two fold on this day of remembrance.  First, I give thanks for the father that God has given to me.  Second, that the men of our nation would rise to a higher calling.  That men of our nation would begin to assume the responsibilities of being good role models for their children and that the men of our nation would seek to be Christlike in a country where Christ is beginning to become all but forgotten.

Father's have responsibilities to their wives and to their children.  My dad knew this and he taught it to me!  I truly believe that I can be half the man he is I should be doing alright!

So, on this Father's day I ask a blessing upon all of the Father's of our country.  May we be light that shines in the darkness, the example that teaches others, and the men that God created us to be!

Until next time,


Derek