EVERY morning as I sit in my little garden and ponder on what to write, I look at little blue collapsible stool on which I place my newspapers and remember my father today, on Father’s Day.
I specially thought of him, because it was two days before he died that he sat on the very same stool, after driving with me to all my sites, sitting on the stool at each of my twelve worksites, and telling me how I could better the work my men were doing.
I would listen intently and ever so often, repeat some piece of advice he had given me years before, making him ask, “How do you remember all that Bob?” I would smile and tell him, I remembered everything he had ever told me.
I’m sure mothers and fathers wring their hands helplessly and say their children never listen to what they say, but they do, as I learnt I did.
And today on Father’s Day, more than just remembering our dads, I would like to focus on our responsibilities as fathers.
Not only do sons and daughters remember all the good advice their father has given them, but they also follow all the wrong their dads have done.
Why? Because, at that early age they don’t realize it is wrong, and watching their dads, think that, that is how a problem is sorted out: By lying, little fibs, stealing, cheating and all the other little and big things we dads think we are getting away with.
The little blue stool, makes me remember everything about my dad. Fortunately for me my father was a good man, and except for a few instances were he like all fathers was found wanting, he was quite an example to me.
Preachers in the US found much to their consternation, that very often they could not explain, the concept of God to many children and even grownups, till they realized that most of these were children who had grown up without a father. Not having a father came in the way of understanding the role of God the Father!
They needed an earthly father to understand a heavenly one! Ever thought about that, that your role in the home, is akin to a divine one? That how you act and what you say and do, helps your children know God better or lose any understanding they have of God?
That’s a big responsibility isn’t it? So, on this Father’s Day, even as you think it’s all about being honoured and felicitated as a father, hasten to understand that you either point your child to a Father above, or he or she wanders through life, lost spiritually because of what you lacked in being! Happy Father’s Day..!
