As you read this piece we will have elected a new president, here in the United States of America. At least I hope we have. I don’t think any of us wants to spend another three months agonizing about voting machines and dangling chads. Both major party candidates have written best selling biographies. Both are very well written, thoughtful, surprisingly honest self-assessments. I hope you have the chance to read them if you haven’t already. John McCain’s biography, titled Faith of My Fathers, appeared before his 2000 presidential run. Barak Obama’s Dreams of My Father, was published prior to his 2004 senatorial campaign. I find it interesting that these two men, who are so different in so many ways, made their fathers the focus of their respective biographies.
Both men are profoundly shaped by father issues. Obama’s Kenyan father was completely absent after his second year, except for one boyhood visit. McCain’s father was often absent serving our nation in the U.S. Navy. In some ways McCain’s burden was heavier – notice he writes about “Fathers,” plural. His father and grandfather were admirals, and the men in his family have a history of distinguished military service to our nation all the way back to the Revolutionary war. In their youth, both men rebelled against their father-burden with destructive behavior and substance abuse. Both men made peace with their father-burden, and went on to success and service. I find all this quite interesting.
It is interesting that nearly all the men I have voted for for president, and all the ones elected since I have been voting have had well known father issues. Reagan’s father was a lovable alcoholic and poor provider. The difficult dynamic that strings together Prescott, George Herbert Walker, and George W. Bush has been much discussed and analyzed. Bill Clinton’s relationship with his alcoholic and abusive step-father was, early on, a well known part of his public narrative. I surmise from the little I know about FDR, TR, Garfield, McKinley, Lincoln and some others that most of our presidents have had dad issues all the way back to John Q. Adams. It is all very interesting….
-But not really surprising.
A boy’s father (and a girl’s): present or absent, saint or scoundrel, encouraging or abusive, looms large. Whether we are faced with living up to the standard set by a successful dad, are trying to avoid the destructive path of a father failure, longing to fill the void left by an absent father, or are trying to handle some mixture of these - most of us have to make some sort of peace with our dads. It is this tension that drives the oldest and greatest works of literature. It has driven men to acquire and then to abuse power. If Clara Polz Hitler had found a good stepfather for her son Adolph how different would our world be today?
I had a difficult relationship with my own dad until I was grown. The older I get the more I appreciate how much he accomplished as a man and as a father, coming from the home dynamic he experienced. The older I get the more I realize the many ways I will never measure up to him. But that’s okay. When he died a few years back we had no unfinished business – we were not Willy and Biff, nor were we Ozzy and Ricky – just a couple of guys who loved each other without having to say so, and who were proud of each other.
I was blessed as a young man by a godly grandfather who made it his business to teach my about my heavenly Father and seemed as benevolent and nearly as omnipresent in my life as Him. But it is Him – our heavenly father, who allows us to transcend any dad issues we have – because He is the father of us all, and the one who is father before all.
The Bible reinforces this point frequently. God is the source of each child born (Psalm 127.3). God forms us in the womb (Psalm 139.13), and knows us intimately before anyone else (Jeremiah 1.5). God creates us, names us, pays for us, and looks forward to the day he calls us home (Isaiah 43.1-7). In giving Jesus’ genealogy, Luke (3.38) traces Jesus all the way back to God – not through Mary, but through “Adam, the son of God.” This is why the moment of life we experience through “the water and Spirit” is called rebirth, being “born again” (John 3.5). The blood of Jesus gives us new birth, and so God, again is our source – our Father: See the love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God – and that is who we are (I John 3.1).
What is even more important to our discussion is the way God compares himself as father to our less than perfect earthly fathers (Matthew 7.7-11, Hebrews 12.7-11). Even at their best, our earthly fathers are flawed. Not so God. His gifts and his discipline are perfect, and express a love that is perfect.
My point is that all fathers good/bad, great/awful, and in between are human. As the Hebrew writer says (12.9-10), we had them “for a short time,” and they generally did “what seemed best” to them. Given. But some people go to the grave empty, or angry, or lost because they haven’t ever dealt with that fact. God is our primary Father. He is our Father first, and he will be our Father eternally. He is never absent, unfair, self-centered, or abusive. This is why our faith is in Him.
And that faith will never be disappointed.
