Letters to my Dad

Randy Klassen

Dear Dad,

This past week, I've been thinking a lot about the place you've had in my life. It's been good to sit down and recall my growing up yearstrips to the pet and garden shop, the weekly ritual of polishing our shoes together, sitting beside you in the choir loft. I treasure these memories. It's a gift from God to be able to look back and give thanks for the caring, stable Christian home that I grew up in.

I've also been thinking about the question: How does a father communicate affection to his kids? It's something that I think a lot of fathers struggle with. I've seen it between us: When I'm saying goodbye after a visit home, there's that awkward split-second as each of us thinks: Do we hug or just shake hands? I think we've worked out in the last few years that hugging is okay. I remember that August a few years ago when I was returning from Vancouver to Fresno. I think I hurt you by choosing to carry my own luggage, rather than letting you carry it for me as you offered. It was a small thing. I thought I was doing you a favour. But I wasn't sensitive to what you were trying to communicate to me: that you still wanted to be useful in my life, that you still wanted me to need you.

Why is it so hard for men to express themselves in their relationships? It seems we have a natural tendency to distance ourselves. Men have been raising their families this way for a long time. In the last few decades, there's been a bit of a turnaround, but it's come with a fair bit of confusion because most of our role models were raised with the "distance" ideal. Part of it, I think, is that we assume it's hard to be a strong disciplinarian and stay relationally close. Probably that's why there's the stereotype of "Wait till Father gets home." Moms were the ones who spent all day with the kids, dealing with their hurts and happiness, building relationships, but dads were expected to do the hard business of discipline when they got home from work.

I think this issue of distance or intimacy with our kids is crucial. Whatever patterns we learned from our dads, we unconsciously repeat with our kids, unless we work hard to become aware of them and overcome the negatives. For most of us, those patterns reinforce distance, rather than intimacy. I think, too, that's why it's so hard for a lot of us to learn intimacy with God.

This week I'm going to be preaching on Romans 8. Paul talks about two ways of relating to God. The one he calls a "spirit of servitude" is based on distance, on control, on domineering. It's one person talking down to another, telling another what to do. There's no give and take, no sharing of what's going on in your heart. Unfortunately, there are a lot of fathers who think that's the only way to relate to their kids (or their wives or co-workers). And that's all they expect from God--a lot of dos and don'ts, challenges that they need to measure up to. You see a lot of religion, even a lot of Christianity, that reflects this way of viewing God.

But Romans 8 says there's another way that God has chosen. That is the "spirit of adoption". This means being a child, not a servant; relating on the basis of intimacy, not power; sharing common goals and hopes. I'm trying to take this to heart as I work at developing my own parenting skills. But it blows me away to think that God stepped out of His comfortable throne in heaven to demonstrate this kind of intimate relationship with us mortals. Why wouldn't He be satisfied to keep us as His servants? Surely that would have been good enough. But it seems that God wanted to share more of Himself with us than just His power, His "almighty-ness". He wanted to share His love, the love that binds Him and Jesus together in complete unity, with us. That's why the Holy Spirit is at work in us, so that we can come to God with as much intimacy and dependence as Jesus did.

A lot of people say, "I didn't get much intimacy from my parents, and because of that I have a hard time developing intimacy with God." There's a lot of truth in that, but don't you think that we should also turn this around? As we work on developing intimacy with God, it deepens our ability to open up to our parents and our kids.

Dad, I'm glad that we're learning to be more open with each other--even if it happens in writing more than in direct speech.

Sincerely,
Randy

Dear Dad,

But there's the other side of gardening: Whenever I work in the garden, I realize how far we've fallen from the Garden of Eden. The extent of God's curse in Genesis 3 really strikes home. God wasn't kidding when He blew thistle seeds all around the globe. The stubbornness of thistles, quack grass and dandelions is unbelievable. Dad, no wonder one of the main images I have of you is tramping around the yard in your old work clothes, pushing the wheelbarrow or carrying a shovel, trying to keep the surrounding jungle at bay. It really is a never-ending battle. You go into the garden and dig up every thistle you can find, only to discover that every one-inch plant already has six-inch roots. It doesn't seem to help that much, does it? Is it really possible to get those weeds under control?

This battle with weeds points to something profound that Paul says. He calls the present state of the world "bondage to decay and degeneration". Another phrase he uses is "under the influence of futility". There is nothing new under the sun, and it's all meaningless. Life is just chasing the wind. Weeds are unavoidable. Struggle is necessary. Frustration is inevitable. Suffering is inescapable.

Dad, I think you've heard that this has been a pretty rough week for our church. We laid to rest a friend and brother who (it seems to us) shouldn't have gone yet. It's shaken us up. People are asking the hard questions: Why did Dave have to die? Why was such a loving husband and father taken when there are so many fathers around who don't care about their families at all? Is there any sense to it?

I suppose that this doesn't pose a real problem to non-Christians. They can't honestly have any higher expectations of life. But when you're a believer, this kind of tragedy is difficult to handle. No wonder the Bible talks about the world groaning, and even Christians groaning, under the weight of meaningless pain and tragedy. We live in the tension between the "now" of suffering and the "not yet" of glory.

Romans 8 has been a real encouragement this week, because Paul has such a huge vision of God and the world. Paul knows what the world is like. He knows that suffering and pain are real. He knows that life is full of things that look meaningless. But he also knows that this world is not the end. If we would describe it in terms of punctuation, after God created the world, He didn't write a period, but only a semi-colon. There's more to come, and that "something more" is unimaginably wonderful!

I love this section of Romans because it balances optimism and realism about our world so well. It acknowledges that just as the world of nature was cursed when Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, so the whole world will be affected by the glorious transformation that Christ is bringing.

So often we reduce salvation to something that offers an out from this sinful world--a fire insurance plan. In this minimal view of salvation, death is the escape hatch that releases us from misery and frees us to go to heaven. To be honest, a lot of human experience reinforces these ideas. I think of what you, and so many others, are facing with your cancer. It's natural and normal to think about escaping from this dying body. But the Bible puts it a little differently. Salvation doesn't mean we escape from our bodies. It means that we get them back, refinished, ready for eternal use. It means that God is going to transform them, change them into something new and eternal, something that will be able to live directly in the beautiful, holy presence of God. And according to Romans 8, God's not just going to do this with our bodies. He's going to transform the whole world. The Bible uses lots of wonderful pictures to help us imagine what this will be like. I can't summarize it better than to say: Gardens without thistles.

With much love,
Randy

Dear Dad,

This whole fatherhood thing is quite amazing. A year ago, just before Adam was born, I was still a bit nervous. (OK, maybe that's an understatement.) But month after month his life and growth continues to be a miracle. Of course, it's the same with the girls too; it's just that it slows down as they get older.

One thing I'm learning about parenthood is how parents feel the pain of their kids. When Adam tumbles and bumps his head, I know he'll be fine, but I still feel with him. When one of the girls comes home after a rough day at school and dumps on Darlene or me, it hurts us too. Kids don't usually believe that if you try to tell them. They assume that parents, because they're parents, don't understand. But parents experience a special kind of identity with their kids that brings their kids' experience into their own hearts, both joy and sorrow. I remember quite clearly how much I hated those difficult times in grade 5 when a few of my close friends turned on me, or, even worse, those junior high years. It never occurred to me that you and Mom might also be affected by what I was going through.

To me, this is also how God handles our pain. As His children, we might have a hard time understanding it, but our heavenly Father feels an identity with us that brings our pain right into His own heart. The nerve line that connects our suffering with His sense of feeling is the Holy Spirit. God knows all our hurts and sorrows. Sometimes, when we're in pain, we might think that God has left us behind, that He is away at the office, busy with someone else's problems. But the Holy Spirit reassures us that God is in direct touch with what we're going through.

I don't know what the next few months are going to look like for you and Mom. As we learned again last week, our lives can be turned upside-down in a moment. None of us knows who will be around next year at Father's Day. When I think about our friends here in Coaldale, and realize how many of them have been through difficulty and pain with their parents: strokes, cancer, hospitalization and death; decisions about where to live and what kind of care they should receive. It calls for wisdom and endurance beyond human ability, things that only God can give. And I am seeing over and over again that God is giving, and giving generously.

Dad, my prayer for you is that you will become more and more convinced of your connection to God through the Holy Spirit. When you are enjoying time with your grandchildren, may you know that God is enjoying these little ones with you. When you are admiring the roses blooming in the garden, may you know that God is glad He made them. When you are singing your favourite songs in church, may you know that God is happy, not just because He is being praised, but because one of His children is having a great time. I pray that when there are questions, fears, or uncertainty, you will be convinced that the Spirit brings these feelings directly into the heart of God our Father. He is able to meet your every need.

Your son,
Randy

Randy Klassen is an associate pastor in Coaldale (Alta.) MB Church. These "letters" were originally prepared as a Father's Day sermon, June 18, 1995. Randy's father passed away Jan. 1, 1996.

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