A Father's Story

Posted by: Anonymous father - 11/04/2008

A Father's Story

This is a father's story of moral failure and blindness that I tell today in the hopes that those who read it will find peace and grace and renewed hope.

It is the story of a young man who came to know Jesus as his Savior one night in a revival meeting as he stood with his father who had brought him to hear the Word of God preached. The young man was fourteen years old that night ……..The night he gave his heart and soul to Jesus......the night he became a new creature because of Christ's sacrifice for him.

He was an average student but in the months that followed, he was sure that God was calling him into ministry of some kind; to share his new found love with others. Imagine how special it would be to tell others that God loves them; for them to hear "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

For five or six years this young man grew to know Jesus and to love Him. But shortly after his first year in college he became sexually involved with a young woman who told him she was pregnant with his child. Both of their lives were changed forever. They eloped and started a new life together. As it turned out the young wife was not pregnant but within the next year she was and a young son was born to this family and to this troubled marriage. Many counselors were consulted as this marriage struggled and struggled and struggled. The young man who was so earnest about ministry and, who had actually found work in a Christian organization by this time, lost his bearings in his Savior and entered into reprehensible moral failure and quietly walked away from his marriage and his children.

"Our enemy is a roaring lion who paces up and down seeking whom he may devour." It seemed that seven people were, if not devoured badly mauled in the process. It was shameful.

The prodigal's son was on the run. Searching for meaning, touched by riotous living, immersed in grief, shame and loneliness. God had said "I will never leave you or forsake you", and He meant it! This father of five had said the same things and he grieved because of his failure, particularly toward his children. It is quite likely that he experienced a nervous breakdown as he tried to immerse himself in survey work among Christians in other countries. When he wasn't working eighteen hours a day, he walked the streets to dull the pain. His loneliness was a bottomless pit and he made choices with that in mind. For almost two years he wandered, and ever so quietly God wandered with him and was ahead of him heading off disastrous decisions that he would have made. What a Father.and what a promise keeper He is.

God used two men to bring him home. One, the earnest brother in Christ who gave him the job to do survey work with Christians and the other a former employer who asked him to run a sales division in his new company in the area where his children were. And God said again, "I will never leave you or forsake you". And, I won't leave your children either, and I was started on my journey home.

There was a young woman who was searching for God and was drawn to the faith of this father when they worked together for a short time where the former employer (and now current employer) and he had worked.

They had talked of the Gospel and of the Savior years before and when he left that company he bought her a Bible and urged her to read a chapter each day. Now these six or seven years later on a night in the late summer, this young woman had broken up with an earnest suitor who was not a believer. She wasn't a believer either but there was this yearning in her soul. She prayed on the porch of her summer home, "O Lord, why isn't there a man for me like my friend of years ago?"

In the days just before this, the father's employer, mentioned this young woman and told the father where she was. The next day he called her. Who said God doesn't answer prayer!! This young woman had a 3-1/2 year old son and a continuing longing for Jesus.

The father arranged a visit with the young woman and her son and a week later proposed marriage on the telephone and she said yes. Three months later they were in their moving van headed toward home for him and a new home for her and her son.

Within weeks, one son moved in with them and, within months, the four joined them and within a year a new baby was added. His, her's and ours! And Jesus was working and the young bride fell deeply in love with Him. Praise God!

The pastor of the family's church paid a visit and indicated that the session of the church felt strongly that the father needed to make public confession of sin in a Sunday church service.

He asked his new wife and their two children, the baby and four year old he had adopted, to stay home and he took the older children to the service of confession.

The place was packed, the confession was offered in some detail and most, including the father, were in tears. As he came down from the pulpit to join his children in the rear of the church, a young man named Al got up in the back and came down the center aisle and threw his arms around the father and held him as they cried together. It was Jesus saying "come home. I've missed you so."

In a few months the ministry invited the father to come back to his original ministry. He was home, his children all confessed their faith in Christ.

God gave him the wife of his dreams and gave her eternal life. He gave them a ministry too as well as the children. As He promised in Joel 2:28 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten." O, what a faithful and loving Savior who has told us, "I will never leave you or forsake you and I will remove your sins as far as the east is from the west, and I will
remember them no more."

Several years ago, God led them to a son his new wife had been forced to give up at birth. He is not yet a believer, but they pray earnestly for him to understand they thank God that his wife is a Bible Study Fellowship girl who knows Christ and shares that with their two young daughters.

Dad now has five sons and three daughters, all precious to him and all precious to Jesus. And the promise, "my sheep hear my voice and I know them and no one shall pluck them out of my Father's hand."

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Dads, as you read this, perhaps you need that encounter with Christ yourself and the confession that goes with it. God will do that for you if you ask Him.

If you are like the father of this story, one who ran away, you need to confess that to the Lord and head back to the family and make it right by confessing it to them and asking for their forgiveness too.

All of God's promises indicate that He loves you and your family and that He can make it, not just right again, but gloriously new.

Please come home Dad!!

If this does not represent you……why not become a surrogate dad for a boy whose dad will not be home again. You can learn more by getting in touch with Fathers in the Field at fathersinthefield.com.

Anonymous

Creation Date:

09/06/2010

Name:

Email:

Your Thoughts (do not use HTML code, plain text only):

 

Please enter the text in the image exactly as you see it.