There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: "Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father." On Saturday, 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. 

 

So many people are without a good -- or any -- father figure. I bet if you placed any name in a article saying what Paco's dad said, you would get a similar result. Dads are so important and so needed. Godly dads are in short supply. 

 

We have a great amount of really great fathers at Way of Life. I enjoy watching the interactions between dads and their kids. I see the discipline and the love coming from our dads and it is inspiring. I see dads with young babies and dads with grown kids all parenting out of a place of sincerity and love. My hope is that we as dads don’t ever get too proud to tell our kids how much they mean to us or how much we love them. Showing them with our actions is a great thing to do, but telling them, out loud, with words, from your mouth, is just as necessary. 

 

In the same vein, there is always room to ask for forgiveness and offer forgiveness. No matter what the offense, the Lord wants us to be humble, to forgive and seek forgiveness. “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” ~Matthew 6:12. That goes for children and adults alike. I know that if the men of the church acted according to this principal of humbling ourselves and living at peace with everyone around us, especially our children, there would be a generation of strong, healthy, humble believers to lead the world in hope, peace and love. The most loving thing we can do is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39). Showing our families that we hold this level of love and reverence for God is going to do wonders for the health of our families, individually and collectively as a fellowship. 

 

When we all operate out of the unity, humility and love that Jesus demonstrated for us, amazing and beautiful things will happen. Jesus gifted us the Holy Spirit to help us in this endeavor, but we all need help at some point, and we want to be a church that supports each other. If you find yourself in need of mentoring or guidance, please do not hesitate to ask! 

 

Please do not allow disunity in your home to linger for any length of time. Seek help from someone that you know and trust. We all must work together for the good of all of those in this body. God is doing something really great here. Let's keep growing closer together as we grow closer to the Lord! 

 

Love ya, 

Chris