I am careful to check my heart in my dogmatism about the Lord’s Day, recognizing that it may be the fact that I am not a father, nor is my wife a mother, that is influencing me. God never blessed us with children. We are not bitter, nor are we heartbroken. We recognized early in our marriage that God was giving us a stewardship of time and resources that couples with children do not have.
On those two Lord’s Days, because we are old enough to be grandparents, people naturally assume that my wife and I have a passel of children and grandchildren somewhere, and greet us with a beaming, “Happy Mother’s Day” or “Happy Father’s Day.” We take it in stride and thank them for their kindness, for certainly children are a blessing from God.
Others who know that we are childless and want to encourage us will remind us that we have been spiritual parents to countless people, old and young. By God’s grace we have played a role in the spiritual growth of many. We regard that role as part of the stewardship of time and resources God has granted to us, investing ourselves in the lives of others for their spiritual welfare.
It was our all-wise God who, in his final act of creation, created a man and a woman in his image and likeness and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Clearly, they did, for from them has come the entire human race.
Early in that creation account, the dynamics of the family are prescribed, “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” A couple gets married, by God’s grace, has children that they nurture into adulthood, who one day leave father and mother and, by God’s grace, find a mate, marry, and have children of their own. That prescription, Christ taught, is when God established the bond of marriage, intending for it to be an inviolable bond. God also required in his law that children honor their father and mother. So, we are on good ground when we seek to honor fathers and mothers.
Fathers, I pray that your family especially honors you on this coming Lord’s Day and every day. Know that it is an essential and honorable responsibility God has given you. Honor God, your Father, in it.
