Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. He overlaid it with pure gold, both inside and out, and made a gold molding around it. He cast four gold rings for it and fastened them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then he made poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold. And he inserted the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it.

• Exodus 37:1-5

The angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king.
He told the king, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” So he died, according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken.
Because Ahaziah had no son, Joram succeeded him as king in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. As for all the other events of Ahaziah’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

• 2 Kings 1:15-18

When her husband Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfill his vow, Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.”
“Do what seems best to you,” her husband Elkanah told her. “Stay here until you have weaned him; only may the Lord make good his word.” So the woman stayed at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

• 1 Samuel 1:21-23

As for the Scriptures above, none mention “father”, but Bezalel had so many skills.  I wonder if he calmly, quietly taught his children?  Or did he yell at them for getting it wrong?  I got a little of both, and I did a little of both.

My wife freaked out trying to teach our oldest how to drive.  I had to do the teaching after he wrecked the car and our front yard fence on his first time behind the wheel.  He drove off the road while I was teaching him.  A bridge abutment was getting closer and closer, but I calmly told him to correct his steering.  My wife told me that I had done something she could not do, but she asked why I did not yell?  I said that I suppose I have my teacher persona and my father persona.  Since my Dad mostly yelled at me, I gravitated that way, but when teaching them, I was calm.  My younger son would amend that slightly in that I may not yell as a teacher, but I was demanding.  It had to be done correctly, and that was stressful to him.

The second Scripture talks about King Ahaziah (of Israel, not Judah) who died without a male heir, and someone else had to be crowned king.  My parents put pressure on me to get married, since my older brother’s wife had no male heir.  Well, both things got fixed in a couple of years.

And the last story is about Elkanah and Hannah.  Elkanah was faithful to the Lord.  He held to his word.  Hannah had no children until God answered her prayers, prayers that included a vow to give the child to God.  But she tells Elkanah that she will bring the child once he is weaned.  In this one paragraph, we see a lot of emotions on both sides, if we imagine ourselves in the situation.  But the father, Elkanah, was true to the vow.  Samuel was weaned and given to Eli the priest and judge of all Israel.  But Elkanah listened to his wife.  He loved her.  He loved Samuel.  But he remained the moral head of the household, making sure that the vow was carried out, no matter how much it hurt.

Well, on this day, I remember my father and my grandfathers.  All were stern and strict.  All had their own set of rules that could not be violated.  But all showed love, but in different ways.

My Dad was unable to teach me a lot about baseball, his favorite sport in his youth.  He had a torn rotator cuff from World War II that was not surgically repaired until my Dad was in his sixties.  I came along after my Dad got out of the reserves near the end of the Korean Conflict.  Thus, I missed out on such things as simply pitching and catching with him.  I think that is why the Field of Dreams movie touched my heart near the end.  No Spoiler alert.  But my Dad had his moments, and he was a good teacher.

His father, Granddaddy, was the hardest to find “love” in his makeup.  He was a staunch Southern Baptist who was nearly Puritanical with regard to having twice as many rules as the Bible had.  But he had a biblical answer for each rule.  He would thumb through the Bible and point to why that rule was being enforced.  Legalistic, all the way, but he taught me that I had a long way to go before I could say I had learned the Bible.

My mother’s father, PawPaw, had been in World War I.  He had been gassed.  Most of his medical problems, dying of cancer, were treated at the Veterans Administration hospital in Memphis , TN, since they argued that his wounds and overall health might have stemmed from what he did in Europe.  He even became head of the Veterans Administration in the county where I grew up.  It wasn’t any little first grader or second grader who could walk to the courthouse after school and do homework while his PawPaw filed paperwork.  But PawPaw had been the father figure to my older siblings.  They never really liked him ever since, but when I came along, I was PawPaw’s buddy.  He taught me beekeeping, and honey fresh from the hive was the best honey imaginable.

So, whether you had a great father or one that was not so good, there were probably good times and bad times.  Today is the day to remember those good times.  Being a father is not an easy task.

And remember that the one Father that we have in Heaven is always good.  God the Father looks down on us with love.  And for those who love Him and keep His commandments, all things work for the good.

Happy Father’s Day

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.