Dad Archives - call me pasturescott

Gospel Power For (Weak) Dads

[This is from a talk I was blessed to offer to some really great (weak) Dads at 6:30 yesterday morning…]

After the talk a guy walks up to me, wiping away tears, and sits down. He says "I'll be your son." We hugged, wept, and I learned his own story of addiction and recovery. He pulled out his 5-year sobriety chip and handed it to me. "I want you to have this," he said. "It'll remind you that your son's struggle is over and his chains are gone." I humbly received this amazing gift and told him, "5 years sober? Do you know how the ancient followers of God saw the number 5? They said it represented grace and redemption." This is our hope, our message, our undying belief: what the enemy means for evil, God turns it for good. — After the talk a guy walks up to me, wiping away tears, and sits down. He says “I’ll be your son.” We hugged, wept, and I learned his own story of addiction and recovery. He pulled out his 5-year sobriety chip and handed it to me. “I want you to have this,” he said. “It’ll remind you that your son’s struggle is over and his chains are gone.” I humbly received this amazing gift and told him, “5 years sober? Do you know how the ancient followers of God saw the number 5? They said it represented grace and redemption.” This is our hope, our message, our undying belief: what the enemy means for evil, God turns it for good.

I have the distinction of being a dad though childless. I had one son and I lost him to heroin. If ever you’ve known a weak, helpless dad, I’m one. Believe me. However,

“I am not ashamed (the Greek includes having no fear of it letting me down, no embarrassment in its being insufficient, or no guilt of my being unable to merit its blessings) of the gospel for it is the power of God to salvation…”

I had a pastor friend who consoled me years ago – at the apex of my son’s rebellion – by reminding me God had His own prodigal *children* – not just a prodigal child. His whole family was profligate!

God laments that in Isa 1:2:

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken:
“Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me…”

David, too, had a pretty rough go at being a dad – some say he was too lenient because his dad was too hard on him and aloof because he was often overlooked. I was struck recently by the unfulfilled ‘dad-dream’ of David in 1Chron 29:19 –

“Grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes…”

But this is what he got –

1 Kings 11:4
“For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God…”

He wanted a son who would expand the kingdom, establish peace throughout the realm, and, chiefly, have a WHOLE HEART for God. Instead, the kingdom divided, unholy rulers would reign from Jerusalem for many generations, and the nation would always stray, come home, get restless, and leave home again.

This was pretty much the staus quo of Israel because his son couldn’t keep it in his pants. Oh, that, and Solomon became an enabler for child-sacrifice (a nation’s most heinous sin, hint, hint), plus the fact he couldn’t nurture a WHOLE HEART for God, but a HELL HEART, an EMPTY HEART due to rebellion and chasing after wind.

I remember holding my newborn adopted son alongside my wife in front of Mountain View Church in 1989 as we dedicated Graham (namesake of the great evangelist) to the Lord. If you’d told us at Sunday dinner afterward how it would turn out, I’d have taken issue.

He was a miracle.
He was a joy.
We could take him everywhere.
He was raised in church.
He loved being a PK.
He was fiercely protective of his disabled dad.
He volunteered for mission trips.
He gave his only pair of shoes on one trip to a kid in Honduras.
He always gravitated to the most outcast kid in the room.
His heart was so big, so generous, so fierce, and so alive in the moment.

But our son battled unknown, untold demons.

So…

Graham chose a harder path, one steeped in rebellion and addiction, spending the lion’s share of his youth and young adulthood in the far country of Fool’s Folly – all uphill and adventure on the ascent with the slippery slope of guilt, shame, and death on the backside.

He was found in December all alone in an abandoned parking lot, frozen, with a heroin needle in his arm. His mates had put a portable heater in the car, shut the door behind them, got another ride and left him alone there in the night. They did care enough to call 911 after they were long gone and, while there were no vitals at the scene, the doctors put him on a vascular by-pass machine in hopes to ‘jump-start’ him by warming him up, he was so cold. None of the doctors gave much chance of that happening, however.

When Sandy and I (1,123 miles away) got the news (she at work, me at home), we immediately sought the Lord.

Will our boy live?
If he dies, will he be with You?
How will we know?
Lord, HAVE MERCY!
Christ, HAVE MERCY!

I have to admit, my theology would’ve struggled to put Graham anywhere else but hell right then. It’s horrible to admit, I know. My own son! Oh Absalom, my Absalom!

God knew that, and He met my unbending dogma with – what else? – the Gospel (not easy-believism, mind you; remember, God acted in mercy to discipline my son so dramatically; Graham always had a place for Christ in his heart, no matter how covered over with sin it was). I needed the Gospel more than anything. I needed His Good News to break into my world of bad news.

In those moments – as Sandy raced through the warehouse and parking lot of UPS to her car, and as I sat in a stupor at our dining room table – with an open Bible – God preached the gospel tenderly to us in the only ways our agonized hearts would both get it. He cued a worship song on her car radio, and to me He gave a pointed scripture. Tomlin’s “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)” was the first thing my wife heard as her car roared to life. Psalm 85:2,3,8-10 was my portion in the exact moment He was singing over Sandy on Fulton Industrial.

“You forgave the iniquity of your people; you covered all their sin. Selah You withdrew all your wrath;
you turned from your hot anger…

Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

We got our answer immediately, even independently. “Graham is here with Me.”

Four years earlier, God told us to stop fretting, toiling, enabling, bearing guilt, hearing the accuser say “if you had only…if you didn’t…if you never…if you hadn’t” and trying to “fix” our son. I was tired of failing as a Dad. Harsh words and illogical punishments were clearly not working. I was weak, helpless, and totally out of options. Hope was elusive. My wife pulled away from life and cried, prayed, pled, and begged. We were both at a loss.

LORD, SAVE US!
REDEEM THIS!

The Father asked us to do a very hard thing: let go. To do this was to admit we couldn’t. We were ‘failures’ at parenting. While learning to trust God to parent our boy was humbling, sure, but it was also one of the most freeing things we ever imagined. So we did, and that mercy gave my wife and I four whole years to heal and prepare for December 16, 2013. It was during this time God spoke clearly to my broken-down Dad heart: “from now on, when your son calls for money, give it to him – NO QUESTIONS ASKED. When he needs an emergency place to crash, you are not to refuse him. Kill him with kindness.”

On the last night we ever saw him, because the next day he would move to Minnesota to live with his birth-mom and get away from the mean streets of Atlanta, my wife took him shopping and bought him a whole new “Minnesota wardrobe.” Her only child, whom she was sending to live with the mother who didn’t raise him – with no guarantees she’d ever see him again – she took him out and spoiled her boy one last time. She mercifully killed him with kindness.

In the end, it was the Gospel that saved our family. And it was the Gospel that rescued my son from his hell on earth.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation…”

The Gospel that got us through was:

“I am for you.”
“I will not leave you alone in this mess.”
“Trust Me to redeem this and bring you through.”

Paul, a weak, suffering apostle, said:

“The Gospel is the POWER – the δυναμις – of God for salvation…”

Then he proceeds to develop what salvation is throughout his long letter. He says it’s sufficient to forgive, cleanse, and justify us before a holy and vengeful God. He further says it brings us into Life with God, not only saving us from sin and hell, but empowering us for holy living and fitting us for glory. Finally, he blows us away with the future hope of our ultimate glorification and eternal joy as “sons of God”!

Paul says it’s all predicated on the Gospel.
Paul says our daily survival is grounded in the Gospel.
Paul said our only power comes from the Gospel
Paul says our only hope is…the Gospel.

Scott Sauls wrote “the gospel isn’t merely a message but a power because it’ll change you.”

Of the 6 words for power, Paul chose the one that best describes divine energy. He says the Gospel is “dynamic”! (Dynamite comes from this word – Rome, you know, was all about power – Paul said the Gospel was more powerful still!)

Dictionary.com:
1. pertaining to or characterized by energy or effective action; vigorously active or forceful; energetic.

What does the Gospel mean for weak, helpless Dads?

The Gospel is our daily power:

as men in this culture,
husbands to our wives,
and dads to our kids!

What does the Gospel tell us?

• How lost we are.
• How loved we are.

(“You’re a good, good Father,
that’s who You are
And I’m loved by You
that’s who I am”)

It also tells us:

• How weak and helpless we are.
• How strong and capable He is.

Tell me something: is the Gospel only useful and powerful to get us to heaven? Or is it the power of God to get us through this life?
This day?
This trial?
This heartache?
This situation?

Take it from me:
GOD IS GOOD.
Take it from me:
GOD LOVES WEAK DADS
Take it from me:
HE STILL WORKS EVERYTHING – EVERYTHING! – TOGETHER FOR OUR GOOD AND HIS GLORY
Take it from me:
HE’S STILL MAKING ALL THINGS – YOUR THINGS, MY THINGS – NEW
Take it from me:
THE GOSPEL IS STILL GOOD NEWS
Take it from me:
THE GOSPEL IS STILL THE POWER OF GOD – THE δυναμις – FOR SALVATION OF ANY AND EVERY SITUATION

So Let’s light this candle. How can we see Gospel power move in us, through us, for us?

Three words:

LIGHT.

THE.

FUSE.

Fill your personal universe with the gospel (Rom 1:16,17)
Unilaterally surrender to the kind demands of the gospel (Rom 4:13-26; 6:1-4)
Stand in His gospel grace that equips you for everything…and anything (Rom 5:1-4)
Encourage yourself in the gospel promise He works everything together for our good and His glory (Rom 8:28,29)

Picturing Graham (A Father’s Day Lamentation)

It’s my second Father’s Day without our child.

First off, let me say, Bless the name of the Lord.

And then, thank You, God, for the memory of my only son.

Which leads to: the ‘could have beens’ are still so hard to let go of.

I always felt our child would one day – eventually – shake the demons of addiction and land upright, untethered, healed, and whole. It wasn’t to be on this earth, but he’s found it in the Land beyond this globe, the estate of transcendent Love Himself. And there my son waits for us. Fully restored and, yes, safe.

Early on, a friend lamented, “I don’t want to be remembering Graham, I want to [still] be knowing him.”

Especially on days like today, that’d be pretty cool. I’d imagine us taking in a ballgame – him, typically interacting with his disabled dad unashamedly and eyeballing any he caught staring; ever protective, ever proud to be seen with me. Or carving into the biggest steaks together, quietly talking life stuff amid the melange of taste, aroma and good company.

Maybe he’d tell me about the sweet girl he thinks is the one. How she makes him feel like he’s better than he’s ever believed before. She knows his past, and doesn’t let him go there. She challenges him to rise above poor living and break free from his old life, reborn and new.

She’s just the cutest, Dad; and she’s strong! The girl doesn’t take nothing off me. I’m better when I’m around her. Oh! And you’ll like this Dad – I mean, if we end up together, which I hope we do – she wants to have four girls and a son some day – just like you wanted! Isn’t that awesome? Can you see yourself spoiling all those grandkids? I mean, if she’s the one – and’ll have me…which is what I hope happens…

Here’s where I cry.

And the questions: Lord, did it have to end like that? Was there some alternative ending we could’ve opted for with the mere click of a button?

What would his life have looked like…if he’d somehow overcome?

I know. The outcome is what it is, and I accept it with the comfort of knowing You always know what’s best, and joyfully knowing our precious boy is with You. He’s not relegated to some half-class citizenship as one who barely got in by the skin of his teeth, and Your having a last-minute change of mind. No, not that. Thank You, Father, for receiving him from this hard plane as a full-grown son of glory, a co-heir of Heaven’s King with all the beauties and privileges that go with that, no holds barred. It’s joy for us to imagine his tattooed skin now gleaming to high heavens and like all get out.

My buddy Tom will never know how his vision of ‘future Graham’ has been my go-to reminder when I catch myself in lament-mode. If anyone knows, Tom does; he himself cast soil on the casket of a son not too long before my own was put in the ground.

Tom saw Graham – which is remarkable, as he is also a disabled dad, his being blindness – running to his mom and me on that Future Day, with “skin gleaming white.” Such would be his stunning state now, he’d be someone, as Lewis observes in Weight Of Glory, “if [we] saw it now, [we] would be strongly tempted to worship.”

Now that’s a scene I can get excited about!

My son. In glory.

Still, I wish like anything we were flesh-on-flesh hanging with each other today talking about seeing the new Jurassic movie together, or taking him in the backyard and showing with pride my bird-feeder that actually does as advertised: it discourages squirrels and attracts the sweetest and most colorful of the bird kingdom.

I’d love to show him my new hobby. Dad, you’re into photography now? I never knew you were interested in cameras…

Then I’d trouble him to pose while I figure out some settings that would better catch the burst of late-afternoon sunlight leaking through the trees and settling on his left shoulder…

It’d be our kind of day. Quietly grand. Uneventfully memorable.

And somewhere in there, sometime before the old man retires and I leave my son in the living room to watch some TV on his own, not worrying he’s planning some hook-up with friends and drugs – but being assured he’s safe and utterly content – our conversation will invariably turn to the Gospel. And Graham would turn it there, not his preacher dad.

We’d talk at length about how watered-down it’s become, then he’d stun me with his insightful comments and queries (this isn’t dream-think, he often did this), and he’d listen to me and respect me and quote me and tell me I was his favorite preacher. And I’d be in heaven.

Not long after I’d gotten in my bedside apparatus that transports me from wheelchair to bed, he’d walk down the hall and peek his head in the doorway.

“Do you need anything Dad?”

“No thank you, Gra-Gra. I’m good. G’night, son. I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad. Happy Father’s Day.”

Then, sometime before I drift off, I hear the television abruptly cut out and Graham shuffle on the hall tiles to his bedroom. And then, in the postscript of a perfect day, the greatest sound of all: the masterful playing of my son’s fingertips on the strings of his guitar. Melodies that would make angels bend close and lean in drift down the hallway and into my heart. I hold the sacred moment for a breathless moment, not wanting to release it, ever. Here is where I smile.

And here is where I cry.

Our Dad: He’d Rather Have Jesus

The following are excerpts from an earlier post honoring Dad when he turned 80. It’s five years later now, and Dad continues to live up to these things; and so, for Father’s Day, I’m reposting this tribute that still has yet to go stale…and likely never will.

It is said of only a select few in the scriptures that their names were “esteemed” in heaven. That smallish lot earned such praise because they obeyed God faithfully, served humbly and led principled, exemplary lives. Dad, we’ve no doubt your name is well-spoken of from one end of glory to the other, and this is our attempt to fittingly esteem your life on this side of eternity. And what a life it has been! Like Abraham, Job and David, your days have been full and your years have known the richness of a life greatly lived.

Eighty years ago, you were born beneath the thickening clouds of Great Depression yet the little boy with glacier-blue eyes and a mop of sandy-blonde hair atop his head smiled mischievously in the face of hard times and rose above with l’esprit de la vie beautifully marked by resilience, gusto, grit and the grace of God. The sorrows and difficulties of those early years only emblazoned the stuff of greatness deep in your being and tempered sensitivity and kindness from your heart. How blessed are we to say to the world: this man is our Dad!

You are a man of few words yet your life is a library of reference for splendid living. Not long ago, a man who was gifted with a golden tongue said “I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in fifty years what my father taught by example in one week.” Hear, hear. We have learned much from your life, Dad. You are a living epistle of true wisdom that fits beautifully in your children’s hands. The cover is tenderly worn, the edges have gone from crisp to aged and the pages are dog-eared but only because there is so much of your life that is worth bookmarking. So much legacy to mine and plumb.

The Psalmist says, “The entrance of Thy words giveth light” (Psalm 119:130) to which your life, Dad, eloquently testifies. Each of us kids remember that same early morning liturgy rehearsed again and again across the years and how it has planted in us the hunger to know God more through the sacred scriptures.

There you sit, at the breakfast table, always before the early rays of morning gild the edges of the quiet pre-dawn, your head bowed over the Book of books; black coffee steams in a mug at your elbow but before a spoonful of cereal is raised to your mouth, God gets you first. This is how the morning greeted us! Could any other legacy be more necessary for a child? You read as though you were consuming food, for indeed you were, and your inner life glowed hotter than even the day before and not quite as much as it would the following morning. You read so the words would cleanse your soul and send you into the day with a vitality that was not your own.

Each day, every week, month after month and across the expanding bridge of decades, your life has gone up to God as a sweet savor of incense. It might seem a strange thing to say of a grown man that he is sweet, and yet it so perfectly speaks of you. All who have ever known you, Dad, would agree when the record of your life is tallied, you come up a very sweet man. Sweet, as in, endearing. Winsome. Grace-filled. Affable. Kind.

Dad and my sisters Susan (l), and Karen (r)

Handsome, young and fresh out of the Air Force, it was 1953 and you made an amazing, life-changing discovery. Trapped inside a set of revolving doors at the YMCA of Harvey, Illinois, was a beautiful brunette that caught your eye. You tried to strike up a conversation with her but found her aloof and uninterested. Today, your kids are giddy with delight that you did not let this deter you. You Romancer you! You finally swept her off her feet and barely a year later, you married Mom on a glorious spring day, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death should separate you. A long and lasting home was established, beginning with the arrival of your firstborn, eleven months later.

That home became a little slice of heaven on earth, rooted and grounded in godliness, when you were gloriously reborn! Thank God for that little mission church in Calumet City that you, Mom and your little girl began attending, and thank God for the “angel that led you to the Lord”! That angel, of course, was Pastor Wayne Angel, and he saw you in that pew, trembling there under deep conviction, and he walked back to where you were standing, asked if you were ready to surrender your life to Jesus, and you said yes. Bless you, Dad, for saying yes!

In a society of dysfunctional families, it has been our singular fortune to not only be blessed with a Dad, but a very good Dad, a doting Dad with firm hand and loving heart, a godly Dad who has lived only to see his children say yes to Jesus also and establish their homes in Christ. Thank you, Dad, for caring enough to point out the way to us. We, too, have been led to the Lord by an angel.

And when we’ve heard you sing your testimony with songs like “I’d Rather Have Jesus” or “The Love of God” and “How Great Thou Art” in that deep, rich, bass voice of yours, we’ve heard what angels must sound like when they praise the Lamb who sits on the Throne. We know our Father in glory beams when He hears you sing. We sure do…

Happy [Father’s] Day, Dad.

May You hear the heavens sing over you this day.