Great Job Dad!

Description: La Junta Nazarene June 2023 - Pastor Mark Callister

Great Job Dad!

My dad wasn't perfect, but I didn't need him to be perfect, I just needed him to be present.

Here is what I needed from my dad. I needed him to be there for me. I needed him to take me fishing and give me chores. I needed him to love my mom and spank my rear. I needed him to make me laugh and carry me to bed. I needed him to teach me how to plant a bean and how to hoe a row. I needed him to show me how a man gets up every morning and goes off to work. I needed him to listen to my questions, no matter how crazy they might be, and speak with gentleness and insight to my young and growing mind. I needed to see him laugh and joke and get angry and love and cry and say, "I'm sorry." And he did all of that, and I am a better person today because of him.

Ephesians 6:4 says, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." The word exasperate means to "irritate or frustrate intensely." I think the only times in my young life when I was exasperated by my dad were those rare moments when he was not there. In my book the word "exasperate" and the word "absent might be the exact same word. If I were to paraphrase Ephesians 6:4 using my word it might read something like this: "Fathers, do not be absent from the lives of your children; instead, pour yourselves into them to help shape them into better people."

My dad wasn't perfect, but I didn't need him to be perfect, I just needed him to be present. And he was! Great Job Dad!

Pastor Mark

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