The Faith of a Father: A Profound Impact

This post comes at a unique time considering Father’s Day was only yesterday. In some ways, I hesitate to publish this now on account of the fact that I do not want it to be construed as just something that I have written in light of Father’s Day. These thoughts actually flow from a question that I have been pondering for a number of days. The question: who has had the single greatest impact upon your spiritual life and walk? As I pondered that question, I thought of a number of different people that have greatly impacted my thinking but when I narrowed it down to one single person, my father stood out as the single most influential.

To give a little background, my father is pastor so I was raised knowing nothing else. Through the years of sitting under his teaching I always respected him and what he taught, but I never really applied myself to learning the things that he was teaching. I believe that part of my attitude had to do with the fact that people always told me that I was going to end up being a pastor like my dad. Though I had a tremendous appreciation for my dad’s ministry, I did not want follow in his footsteps having seen firsthand the hardship and difficulty that comes with such a position. To make a long story short, the Lord ended up bringing me to see my own selfishness and through His leading I feel that God is calling me to pastoral ministry. In hindsight, I have realized how much I shortchanged myself by not paying attention to the teaching that was right in front of me. Nevertheless, the one truth I did not miss was how my dad always elevated Scripture as being the only absolute and source of truth.

That principle, though seemingly rudimentary, has been all but forgotten in the modern realm of ministry. As I have started to iron out various doctrinal issues and philosophies of ministry, I have tried very hard to study in a manner that is honest to Scripture and biased by nothing other than what is found in the text. I have always tried to ensure that my faith was not inherited, not built upon my father’s faith. At the same time, I recognize that such thinking has been the result of my dad’s influence in faithfully upholding Scripture as the only God-given standard for truth and conduct.

As I pondered my dad’s influence, I began to realize that he could not have given me anything of greater value. To instill in me anything more would have been to give me a foundation and a set of rules that was not my own and would have resulted in blind legalism, to instill in me any less would have been to leave me without bearing in a dangerous sea of conflicting and often Godless worldviews. As I have begun to come to some of my own convictions, I am starting to see what my dad has given me cannot led me astray because it always leads me back to the feet of my Lord. It is for that single principle that I will never be able to thank my father enough. It is now my goal to simply follow the challenge of II Tim. 3:14-15, “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”