As I tried to start writing this, I stared at that title quite a bit. I know. You’re probably thinking one of two things. “Wow. She must have had a terrible father if it took her so long to come up with something to write.” or “Wow. She must have had an amazing father if it took her so long to decide which aspect of his mad fathering-skillz to write about.” The reality is that, as I thought about ways in which my father pointed me to Christ, I realized that there wasn’t some huge life-altering event on the time-line where I can put a big dot and say, “That right there. That was it.” My father pointed me to Christ by the way he lived his life day-to-day. Actually, let me change the tense on that because that makes it sound like he’s either passed or has stopped fathering me, and neither is true. My father points me to Christ by the way he lives his life day-to-day.
Being a father is hard. I don’t know that from experience, but I do know that being a mother is hard, so I think the transitive property or something tells me that the other is true as well. Every day, I am concerned that I am going to do something to accidentally mis-lead or mess up my kids. And they are only 2 years old and 3 months old, so I would imagine I will only worry about this more the older they get. Please don’t find me at church this Sunday and tell me that worry is a sin. I know it is, and anxiety is one of the biggest things that I struggle with daily. Trust me, Philippians 4:6-7 is on repeat in my head. I was going to say that it’s played so much it’s getting worn out, and I might need a new copy, but I guess with mp3s, that’s an obsolete analogy. And now I feel old.
But back to the point. Being a father is hard. And no earthly father is perfect, including mine. Every dad is going to mess up. No matter how hard they try, every dad is going to do something (most likely lots of somethings) that’s not Christ-like. My dad messed up. And what a relief it was for me to see him mess up. In this small act of transparency, my father showed me that perfection is not attainable for mere mortals. But he put in front of me Jesus as the perfect example of what to strive for, with the understanding that I can never get there, but can only do my best. And when I mess up, my dad loves me through it. And boy, do I mess up. But no matter what decisions I have made, my father has always been supportive of me, tried his best to help me achieve my goals, and loved me whether I succeeded or failed.
Little girls love their daddys. My 2 year old already wants to be just like my husband. She imitates him; she clings to him; her face lights up like at no other time when he walks in the door at the end of the work day. He holds a special place in her heart. I imagine I was probably similar when I was 2. I am a lot like my dad. I even went into the same profession as him, and I still call him to share work stories or get advice. But at no point in my life did my father ever tell me that I should try to be like him. Quite the opposite. When I changed my major in college to graphic design, he tried to talk me out of it because he wanted to make sure it was something I really wanted to do and not just something I was doing because that’s what he did. The only person my dad ever told me I should try to be like is Jesus. And he showed me by trying himself, every day, to be more like Jesus.
My father taught me to think for myself. He has never stopped learning. His bookshelves are full of commentaries, devotionals, and multiple translations of the Bible. On any given day, you can walk into my parents’ house and see books piled at the end of the kitchen table on whatever subject he has most recently been researching. By example he taught me not to blindly follow someone else, not even him, but to think for myself and make sure that my faith is my own. To not just question, but seek answers. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves...” I think this is what my dad tries to model for me.
Finally, I think one of the greatest ways my father points me to Christ is by meeting me where I am. Somewhere in the Bible, Jesus says that church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Just kidding. Actually “Dear Abby” said that, but the idea came from Jesus when He said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17, NIV) Jesus does not expect us to fix ourselves before coming to Him. Mainly because we can’t. In the same way, I’ve always felt that I can come to my father with whatever is going on with me. Don’t get me wrong...if I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to, I was disciplined. But I never felt judged, which is a completely different thing. My dad never made me feel like I was bad or worthless because of the decisions I made. I never felt that he loved me less when I messed up than he did when I was on the right track. In this way, he modeled Christ for me, and showed me how to love others.
As I said in the beginning, my father didn’t point me to Christ in one huge sweeping act. He simply lives his life, constantly learning, loving, and supporting me. So don’t let the pressure of being a parent overwhelm you, and I promise I will work on it too. Don’t try to maintain a facade of perfection. Just live your life, be honest, and point your children and those around you to Jesus, the only one capable of attaining perfection. He is perfect so that we don’t have to be. Phew! Isn’t that a relief?
