Father's - Earthly and Heavenly

Proverbs 20:7 (NET) - The righteous person behaves in integrity; blessed are his children after him.

My father’s birthday was just the other day.

I thought about him a great deal that day and the days since.

I was not yet a man when he died.

It is hard for me to believe that almost 40 years have gone by since the day he died.

I thought about the road I have traveled without him.

I thought of the questions I never got to ask him.

I pondered the fatherly wisdom he never got to give.

I thought of the many Father’s Days, birthdays and Christmases we could not celebrate together.

I reflected on the career I chose which he did not witness.

I thought of my personal successes he could not delight in.

I thought about many other things.

In the grand scheme of things, we did not have as much time together as we would have liked.

One thing is certain, neither of us knew that his last day on earth would be just that.

My father never saw the man I became.

Although I am by no means perfect, I am happy with the man I have become so far.

I give my father a good deal of the credit for that.

In the time we had together, he taught me many things.

He taught me the importance of work.

He taught me the importance of ethics.

He also taught me about the importance of relationships.

He taught me how to establish and nurture relationships with others.

He also taught me the importance of having a relationship with God.

Most importantly, he taught me these things by example.

As a result, I know that my Heavenly Father has shared with me in all the things my father could not.

I also know that I can turn to Him in any situation.

I know that He is an active participant in my life and not merely an observer.

He continues the work He started so many years ago.

Philippian 1:6 (NET) - For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

Look for me at http://faithfulfeetteam.blogspot.com/ on Friday, August 4, 2017.

I will be back here on Friday, August 11, 2017

Old Car Seats

I am likely revealing my age with this piece, but that’s okay.

When I was very young the seats in my parents’ car and other cars were more like benches.

Seat belts were not yet standard equipment.

Child seats had not appeared on the scene either.

It’s a wonder people my age managed to survive childhood, but survive we did.

I remember sitting in the front seat with my parents.

My father drove and was seated to my left.

Mother sat on the passenger side and was seated to my right,

I was not even big enough to see out the windshield.

My view was confined to my parents and the dashboard.

There is one other thing I do recall with great clarity,

Whenever my father would have to brake suddenly to avoid an accident there was one thing I could always count on,

My father’s right arm would immediately shoot out and go across my chest.

At the same instant, my mother’s left arm would shoot out and go across my waist.

This was a perfectly orchestrated maneuver on their part.

It happened without a single word being said between them.

It was automatic.

With their combined strength, they kept me from moving much like seatbelts do today,

Working together, they kept me safe.

In time, I realized that this was just one way in which they demonstrated their love for me.

When I was a bit older, I moved from the front seat of the car to the back seat.

Having grown I was also able to see more of the world outside the car.

One thing I noticed was that very young couples in other vehicles tended to sit right next to each other.

Slightly older couples gave each other a little more space.

Old couples (from the vantage point of a child) tended to sit far apart,

I imagine that there was a time when my own parents sat right next to each other in the car.

When I came along, they made room for me,

Even when I was old enough to sit in the back seat, my parents kept on sitting where they did before.

I was thinking about those old car seats and how parallels can be drawn to our relationship with God.

First, when I was quite young and danger threatened me in the car, my parents tried to protect me as best they could.

They wanted to make sure they did their utmost for me even if it meant a big sacrifice on their part.

God made a huge sacrifice for us when He gave His Son for us.

John 3:16 (NET) -- For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Second, I remembered that when couples first fell in love, it seemed they could not get close enough.

In time, space grew between them.

When we first come to know God, our love is such that we want to get as close to Him as we can.

Perhaps, over time, we may notice that we don’t seem as close as we once were.

One of us has moved,

Care to guess which one of us that was?

Psalm 136:26 (NET) - Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his loyal love endures!

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

Look for me at http://faithfulfeetteam.blogspot.com/ on Friday, July 21, 2017.

I will be back here on Friday, July 28, 2017