Father Knows Best

Sunday is Father’s Day.  My ‘children’s message’ for our church worship service is all about godly fathers.  But today I was talking with a friend who did not have a good and godly father growing up.  And, it turns out, his father did not have a good and godly father growing up.  Both were abusive.  Both did not have the skills to raise their children in the fear and love of the Lord because they were not (at the time) loving and fearing the Lord themselves.

But my friend seems to ‘get’ this.  He realizes that while his father did not demonstrate the love and nurturing (and even godly discipline) that God describes in His Word (the Bible,) he was a hurting man and dealing with his own pain while trying to guide the children left in his household and help them manage their pain.  He just didn’t use the best resource he had at his fingertips. . .  

My friend notes that his dad (and siblings) pretty much stopped going to church.  They stopped spending time in God’s Word and with other Christians and tried to make their own way.

Even in godly families, that’s what most children do.  They try to make their own way, when their father (or mother) want to guide them as they know best. 

In church this Sunday we’ll read Job 38: 1-11, God’s response to Job after Job and his friends tried to ‘figure out’ his situation and describe what they think is best.  There is a lot of advice flowing in these chapters.

But God set them straight.  He reminded Job that He was the one in charge. He was the one who had created everything.  He reminded them that He is a Father who truly ‘knows best’ (as in the old TV series, “Father Knows Best”).  

Even if your earthly father is struggling to live a godly life and use the principles in God’s Word to guide his family in love, you can be assured that all who call on the name of Jesus to be saved have a heavenly Father who wants to give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11 and Luke 11:13).  He loves His children with an everlasting love, hears them, sees them and intimately knows them.  Yes, He disciplines His children, but His discipline is good and has eternal ramifications. When it comes to our Heavenly Father, God Almighty, Father definitely knows best.