Many fathers don't deserve the honor that God calls his children to give them. However, consider this short story I found on another site this morning:Every Father's Day, my husband and I attend church with my parents. During these services, the pastor always asks if anyone would like to stand and pay tribute to his or her father. One by one, people share their memories, and each year without fail, a frail little woman, looking weary from a hard life, stands.
Everyone patiently watches as she rises slowly and confesses in a tired trembling voice, "My daddy was a drinking man. He wasn't there much, but when he wasn't drinking, he was a good man…I loved my daddy." The tears well up in her eyes as she makes her way back down to the pew.
She never says much; there isn't much to say. But she faithfully and sincerely obeys the fifth commandment…even if her father didn't deserve it. FamilyLife Today®
Who knows what abuse this little lady might have suffered growing up? Maybe she had gone through the pain of reconciling her own pain with a dad that didn't deserve being honored.
The fact is that even the best dad in the world is undeserving of the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And even so is that true for all of humanity. Whether we have been good or bad parents.
True forgiveness towards a parent or for anyone for that matter
is the first step in healing our own pain. Not forgiving someone doesn't hurt them so much as it does us. It leaves deep wounds and scars that never heals if we continue to let it fester inside of us.
It sometimes is never easy. It may take a long time to get to it. But in the long run, it is worth it if we can realize that I have no right to not forgive my father (or whoever) when Jesus forgave me.
Thanks for coming by today, Friends. Until next time, God bless!
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