Our Daddy on Earth, Our Father in Heaven

Today I’d like to talk about daddies. Earthly human fathers and how they mirror the love of God. Fathers provide their children with the earliest glimpse of how very much they are loved by their Father in heaven.

I married a ball player. It was baseball throughout his teens and into college. Later, our little girls and I followed their daddy every Tuesday and Friday night for town team fast pitch softball just like he had followed his daddy when he was growing up. Weekends were spent traveling to tournaments. Ball games were our entertainment and vacation for a long time.

Often this meant late nights and little girls falling asleep on the way home. My tough ball player and I each carried a small sun tanned, bug bitten girl to the house. We tenderly lifted them from the back seat of the yellow station wagon and tucked them into bed in the room they shared in our little farmhouse. Years later the older one admitted she often faked being asleep just because it felt so wonderful being in her daddy’s arms.

Isn’t that the most delicious place to be? Safely in our father’s arms? On this Father’s Day I want to honor all good daddies everywhere. They provide children with the first taste of what it is to trust completely on the provision and protection of a father. Children never give a thought to how it all works, they just know he is always there and instinctively know that they can run to their father for safety, for answers and for fixing whatever hurts. What a blissful thing that is.

Good daddies teach children they can trust. The little boy in the picture below is crazy with joy and totally fearless! He begs “more!” and “higher!” because he knows he can trust the strong arms of his young dad without a bit of hesitation.

Our Heavenly Father loves us unconditionally and gives us the natural instincts to do for our children as he does for us. Good  fathers, even though imperfect and flawed, want only good things for their children. Christian fathers have the opportunity to be one of the first teachers to their sons and daughters. By their example, they can demonstrate the way we can always run to our Heavenly Father for anything we need knowing he will never forsake us.

On this Father’s day I pray that I  will always trust in the provision and protection of my Heavenly Father with the complete innocence of a child. It is promised that he will never leave us or forsake us for his love is eternal. Joshua 1:9 teaches us, “Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be you dismayed: for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”