Sunday, June 20, 2010

Father's Day Week - Day One

BENSALEM, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.  Today is the official calendar day in the United States for Father's Day.  Some of us may make it into a Father's Day Week. This is because some of us are great prograstinators and we wait until the very last day, the Saturday just past, to get a card and get it in the mail. Of course the card will never get there on time. So we change it all into a week of celebration so that we still have enough time to mail off the appropriate Hallmark card.

That is one of the wrong reasons for making it into a week. Maybe a better reason is so that for each day, for seven days, we can think about what the name Father means to us and then share that with others. Here is an example of what could be appropriate for the first day.

Our Father Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into tempation.
But deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom,
And the power,
And the glory,
Forever, Amen.

I think about those words. Many of us have said them before for one reason or another, in one setting or another.  We learned them in church, or from our parents, or maybe our grandparents, or someone else who has been very influential in our lives.  They thought the Lord's Prayer was an important thing for us to learn, maybe because it had been taught to them by someone important in their lives.  It is something that could be called a Generational Truth, something that is just right and true and needs to be passed from generation to generation.

But...what about our Father in Heaven?  Do we say thank you to Him on Father's Day as well? 

I do not see my Father in Heaven as my Dad...like a grandfather perhaps, but not a Dad. There is just a line of higher than normal respect that has been drawn and you do not cross that line. Does that explain it well enough to where the respect we may have for our Dads is not diminished at all as well?

Of course there may be some who do not have any respect for their Dad and circumstances may cause them to believe that that is okay.  But our Father in Heaven...um...I do not think so.  So, for this first day of Father's Days Week, let's think about Him...Who really did create us you know, right? :-)

Oh yes...I thought the following YouTube link might help us to think about Him today.  It is Andrea Bocelli, singing the Lord's Prayer with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City.

The Lord's Prayer - Andrea Bocelli

Happy Father's Day :-)

ALW