Now What Am I Supposed To Do, Dad?

Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22

Looking back on my days when I was growing up now I realize how ingrained it was in my life, daily working with my Dad. This was emphasized even more living on a small dairy farm. One of many fond memories I have was at night as I was going to bed something I would often say to my Dad was, "See you in the morning." His reply? "Not if I see you first." Living on a dairy farm and as a boy learning to work and be a part of the farm meant very early mornings. On a dairy farm, a small family owned and worked dairy farm, usually the only ones working there are your family, only those living in your house. And the cows need to be consistently milked morning and evening every day of the year, no vacations, work every holiday, every day without fail. And you start in the morning at five to five thirty depending on the time of year. So getting out in the barn to get ready to milk the cows there were times my Dad and I would try to get out in the barn fbefore the other one. But even if I realized I wasn't out in the barn first I would be as quiet as can be knowing Dad was already there somewhere. And I remember that often being the case as quiet as I had been Dad would stand up from between the cows and said, "Saw you first!"

Those times working with my Dad were times I hope never to forget. For that hour or more of being in the barn morning and evening going up and down the aisle milking each cow individually we had time to talk. We would talk about plans for the day, work that needed to be done. In the Midwest of the United States in the state of Michigan work on a day on the farm changed with the daily weather. We would talk of matters of the family, things at the church, or talk about sports, usually whatever high school sports that were taking place that time of year, football or basketball. Spring, summer, and fall the focus was on farm work. When I went off to college and then times returning home, and later when married coming home to the farm often meant trying to get there in time to be able to work with my father milking the cows in the evening, a time to talk with my Dad.

When my health failed and I was forced out of college now some fourteen years after going off to college there was a huge question, Now what am I supposed to do, Dad? Yes, I had been praying. My wife and I had been praying. At the Bible college there were no answers, except "Get better and finish college." Still , I needed to talk with my Dad. No one knows you like true, real family. Though I didn't see it back then to articulate it, looking back at that time no one really knew me there at college, even after being there more than ten years. And so these later days years past as I began trying to navigate not only the loss of my wife, but new also life free of migraines the similar thoughts returned, there's no one at a church of six or seven hundred that even knows me, that is outside of the times of the church services and church activities. There was no sense of real family. In different churches I hear that “we truly are a family in this body of Christ”.But so easy to distinguish as did the people listening as Jesus preaches the sermon on the mount. They were able to distinguish the deep purpose and true care of the one who was speaking.

[28] And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these words, the people were astonished at his doctrine. [29] For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes.

Matthew 7:28-29 GNV

When we first joined to be part of the church soon we taught a fifth grade Sunday School class and I was part of a Spanish church ministry then. Since my wife sat alone in church there were those who didn't even know she had a husband. We had to stop teaching Sunday School as my migraine symptoms worsened, then eventually I couldn't attend church services or activities at all. Again, my wife was mostly there alone.

My Dad passed away twelve years ago in a little over a month from now. Those days of talking with him are now long past. With my wife gone I really began even more earnest prayer of, "Now what am I supposed to do, Father?" No answer. Of course I was still thinking of God's will in terms much like when someone enters college, What is your college major going to be? What do you hope to do with your life? What has God called you to do? And I answer, I now have no clue. I don't know what God wants me to do. For four years I have been asking, God, what is it that you want me to do?

Of course there's the ever present and very true, "Be still, and know I am God." (Psalms 46:10) And there's the so easy to quote, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run, and not be weary. They shall walk, and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:31) Then there's the quote that so often hurts the person grieving of the death of a very close loved one, "And we know that all rhings work together for good, to them that live God; to them who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28) All these verses and more are and have powerful truths about God and His desire for each person's life. O the desire to have someone who truly knows and cares for you like family to wisely is careful what you are encountering in your life. But often not taught even in Bible college are these simple truths pointed out from The Fool's Prayer (by Edward Rowland Sill):

"The ill timed truth we might have kept--

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?

The word we had not sense to say--

Who knows how grandly it had rung?

And in the end like the king there is needed the time to seek our gardens cool, and walk apart, and murmur low, "Be merciful to me, a fool!" Yes, the timing of sharing truths about God's working in our lives requires wise timing, but more than that a true sense of knowing each other face to face even as was said of Moses with God. (Deuteronomy 34:10)

And so too I seek the solice of time alone with God, to see myself for what I am at this moment.

For the better part of four years I have been asking God, my Father, now what am I supposed to do? In all my meditation times, those I have shared, those I have not, I take as an example now of two of the most critical times of prayer of Jesus, that direct powerful communion with His Father. The first is rereading John 17, only recorded by John. But then recorded in the gospels, "Abba, Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless not my will but thine be done." (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; Though Jesus knew His Father's will from before the foundation of the world was laid, yet as fully man He faced the need to loose His own human will for His Father's will.

Lord, help me remember you as I continue to seek your will for my life.

And Dad. I love you. I miss you.

And if you wish you may