Happy Father’s Day

When I was a little kid, my family took a trip to Washington D.C. One of my few memories from that trip was walking in a park—probably the National Mall—when someone raced past us, running from the police. Before I knew it, my dad took off after the guy and tripped him, allowing the police to catch up and handcuff him. I thought my dad was a superhero! Back at our hotel, my siblings and I all took turns racing our dad to see firsthand how fast he was.

Now that I'm older and can easily outrun my dad, I’ve come to realize that he isn’t quite a superhero. In fact, 35 years and a few heart surgeries later, I doubt he would be much help to the Metropolitan Police Department. When I was young, I thought my dad was unstoppable, but over time I’ve seen that he isn’t perfect—just like anybody else.

In our current sermon series on the Gospel of John, we’ve been exploring whether we can know if God is for us. When we’re up against hard things or suffering, it can be easy to doubt God’s goodness. In the shadows of our hurts and disappointments, it’s easy to see God like we see our own dads: amazing when we’re young, but less capable or even distant and harmful when we’re older. But as we’ve seen, John tells a different story. Jesus enters into our hurts and chooses to be with us in the midst of pain. He is constantly giving and even invites us to test him (like in John 20:26-29), just like we tested my dad at the hotel. The beautiful thing about God is that He holds up, is perfectly good, and is for us.

This Father’s Day, you may be ready to express gratitude to God for being good throughout the hard things in your life. If you aren’t ready for that in this season, it’s okay to let Him know that you have doubts or pain. He can handle it. Our prayer is that, either way, you’ll find that God is with us.