Today’s scripture: John 8:39-47
Who’s your father? For many of us this is a simple question we can answer it within our next breath with little or no hesitation. For others this question may strike pain and anger because our father may not have been around or even worse we may wish they weren’t. Either way, having a good father or a rotten one, carries a linage that meets us in our contemporary world. We are the children of our father.
What does that mean exactly? We reflect the experiences and the heritage we were brought up in. I know phycologists will argue with me there, the concept of nature verses nurture quickly comes to mind. But let’s just think about this for a moment, either way you are affected positively or negatively by the experiences of life we live in. A person born into poverty starts life a few steps behind those born into wealth. Those born into wealth may or may not live up to the expectations others hold them too.
The good thing through all of this is we do not have to live in the shadow of our fathers. Our lives are our own we answer not for the actions of our fathers but for the actions of ourselves. Our fathers start us on the paths we face we ourselves mut walk them. Today Jesus speaks about the legacey of our ancestors and how we deal with them. The people of Israel were to be the children of God, sons of Abraham yet they didn’t always follow their father’s ways. Jesus speaks of this. Justice and faith is the ways of God. Those who are children of God follow in these footsteps. If we turn from those ways we are not taking after God but the advisary.
So who’s your father?
My heavenly father loves me and watches over me always. My earthly father tried his best to teach me rightfromwrong and raise me well. Human faults restrict us from being the fathers we all wish we could be. I strive to be a better father to my kids every day.
Posted by steve rice | July 29, 2011, 8:54 AM