Teach Your Children Well

A great father's day song.

Honor Thy Father

Exodus 20:12 commands us to "Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." But should I still honor them when they have been dishonorable? The answer is: yes, because by so honoring them, I firstly do so because it is in itself the right thing to do and secondly because it sets a life-long pattern for my children.

At today's service, a preacher said that if you want to be a good father, you must be a godly father, as you fathering qualities will come from your character. I think this is exactly backwards. We are not good fathers because we have good character. We are not good fathers because we believe certain things or are certains things but because we do certain things-- we love, we instruct, we guide, we spend time, we engage, we are not AWOL with our wife and kids, we put the family first, we teach life's lessons with a laugh, a hug, and heart to heart talks.

It is hard to beat the actor James Woods' dad when it comes to a model of good fathering. The following excerpt is from a book that my family got me in 2000: Great Dads: A Celebration of Fatherhood, by Jonathan P. Decker. The Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning film and television actor writes the following:

"I was an army brat, which meant that I grew up all over the place. I lived in Guam, Wisconsin, Illinois, Virginia, Utah, and Colorado-- until we finally settled in Rhode Island.

"Despite my father's military background, he was the opposite of strict. To those he loved, he was very kind and tender. He was also extremely modest about his achievements. He won two Purple Hearts and a presidential citation for braery. He was a great war hero, yet he never talked about what he had experienced.

"Dad was a child of the depression, as was my mom. Consequently, they were very concerned that their children have the things that the never had. What was amazing abut my father was that he rpovided for us and protected us, even though he didnt make that much money in the service. He always put our needs first.

"When I was about 11 years old, I desperately wanted a record player for Christmas. I loved
rock 'n' roll, and all my favorite songs were ocoming out on forty-fives. But I also realized that on his salary, Dad couldn't afford to buy me one. So in his spare time, he got a job in the PX in the Armory. That Christmas he worked one hour a day during lunch for 25 days at $1 an hour. He swallowed his pride and waited on guys that were his subordinates just to buy me that record player.

"A year later, my father needed heart surgery and had a section of his aorta replaced. It was one of the first operations of its kind. He was on the operating table for 17 hours and had to undergo 21 blood transfusions. One of the transfusions didn't match properly and as a result, he had a transfusion reaction. Gradually, one by one, his organs broke down. For five days he knew he was dying.

"On his last day he phone my three-year-old brother to tell him that he had died and gone to heaven. He said, "God let me make a phone call to say good-bye to you. So don't be afraid and don't worry because I am fine. I just wanted you to know that I am thinking of you."

"To me, he wrote a letter. In it, he told me how proud he was of me and my accomplishments in school. He expressed his hope that I would go to M.I.T. someday-- which I eventually did. And he told me that he was certain that I would succeeed in whatever I strived for. Mom handed me this letter on the day I was being honored with some other kids at a honors dinner for seventh and eighth graders. It was a big day for me. What I didn't realize was that as he wrote this letter, he knew he had little time left. When he died in my mother's arms, the last thing he said to her was, "Make sure that Jimmy gets to that dinner and don't tell him about this until after it's over." He wanted to make sure that I enjoyed the ceremony and didn't want to ruin a very special moment for me. He was truely a brave and decent man. He was a hero to me in his everyday life.

"There's a myth that if you lose a parent, it's okay and you can get beyond it. It isn't. It is the most devastating things that can happen to a child. But that said, he gave me values that have never once failed me. He taught me to always give respect to others and to demand it in return. And he taught me to believe in myself and always try to be my very best.

"My mom and dad had only one serious argument-- and it involved money. He wanted to get mortgage insurance on the house.

"He told her, "It's the one investment we have and if anything ever happens to me, you and the kids can keep the house."

"We can't afford it," she said. "It's $14.75 a month."

"Six months after this argument, Dad passed away and my mom thought we'd had to leave the house. But about three weeks later, a man came by and knocked on our door. It was a guy from the insurance company with a check for the entire payment on the house. My father had somehow scraped the money together for mortgage insurance and paid for it himself. Even beyond the grave, he was helping. He was without a doubt the most remarkable man I have ever known. I was absolutely blessed to have had such a wonderful dad."

I believe that love for your family-- not love for abstractions such as "the family of man" or "the corporate family" but for your spouse and children-- is the highest morality and proceeds and enables our personal morality and all morality. To paraphrase I Corinthians 13, everything else fades in the iridescent heiligenschein of love for your family.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love for my family, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love for my family, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love for my family, it profiteth me nothing. Love for my family suffereth long, and is kind; love for my family envieth not; love for my family vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love for my family never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love for my family.