A Healing Moment - The Perfect Father by Donna L. Watkins - The Herbs Place

The Perfect Father
by Donna L. Watkins

With Father’s Day just having passed, I know many hearts and minds have been focused on their fathers of this world. For some that is a joyous event, but for many it’s a very heartbreaking and soul-stirring time.

We have many promises in The Word. They are there to guide us, give us hope, and give us direction in how to attain them. There are many "if" clauses in the Bible. If you do this … you get this. Sometimes we claim a Scripture but fail to read the "if clause" before it.

I love the Psalms of David. Psalms offers a lot of comfort because David went through some pretty tough times in his life and yet he kept his heart close to God and God was close to him. Read the following from Psalm 112. Feel and experience the promise and hope in them.

"Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in His commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: he is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." (Psalms 112:1-7)

I want my heart fixed. I want those promises for my seed and I definitely need that light in the dark areas of my life. So I seek to understand what "feareth the Lord" means. I want to know Him. I want to delight in His commandments because they are life.

Strong’s Concordance says the definition of this Hebrew word, feareth, means: "to fear, to revere, be afraid, reverence.

Many people don’t want to think of God with fear. They think of their earthly fathers and some people lived in fear their whole childhood, so they want to see a loving God. That’s understandable, but a perfect Father would be one with love but also one you would fear/reverence so that you would do the right thing.

Personally I grew up with a Daddy that had nothing but love for me [he happened to be my grandfather]. My mother [grandmother] had to handle the discipline because there was not a cross word from my father no matter what I did. That may sound delightful to those who grew up with a mean father, but out of balance, is out of balance either way. I have had a struggle seeing God as God because I look at fathers as somebody to give me anything I want and to fix every problem I have.

That lack of balance is definitely in my face the past couple of weeks since we have discovered that we will not be moving into the house we’ve been building since November and we won’t be moving onto the land that we’ve loved since last June. It’s a tragic story but I know God uses all for good and rather than fixing this just the way I want it, we are promised God’s best if we love Him. The hardest part is having to finish the project and get it sold before we can move on to another piece of land? another house building project? another house already built? Unanswered questions with much time to wait offers many opportunities for us to Trust and have Faith in our Father.

Our God is an awesome God and He is everything to us, but we have to know that His commandments are just that. We are commanded to follow them. Those with mean fathers generally want no more commands in their lives. Those with fathers like I had tend to whine and dwell in self-pity when we find that the problems of life aren’t being instantly fixed by God.

Proverbs says, "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. (Proverbs 3:5-9)

The navel is defined in Strong’s Concordance as "the center of strength." Marrow is defined as "moisture, drink, refreshment." There are many diseases affecting the bones and there is certainly a lack of strength and energy in so much of the population. Even children.

Stay in the Word! That’s where we find the true picture of who God is and who we are to become through Him. We need a picture and feel of the really perfect Father and that will get us through anything we face in this life. His Word and our application of it can truly bring health to our bodies and minds.