“LONELY CHILDREN – LOVING FATHER!”
By J.FARRELL FISHER, JULY 26-27, 2017
I was birthed June 12, 1936. My father and mother divorced when I was three years of age. I was taken by my mother to her parents where I was raised for nine years by my grandparents who still had two daughters at home, one just two years older than me and the other five years older than me, both strong students, pianists, and choir members of the First Baptist Church, Cleveland, Tennessee. In fact, the younger daughter later became pianist for their church for ten to twelve years, an outstanding church pianist there and later, after her marriage, pianist at First Baptist, Harriman, Tennessee. They were central to a ‘lonely child’ finding or being found by the loving, merciful, faithful, “son-seeking Father-God”!
If I saw my father it was because my grandparents in Cleveland would put me on a bus and my Dad’s father would pick me up in Athens where I would stay three or four days, and in all those years I spent one night in the home of my father. If I saw him while in Athens, I usually walked about a mile to his office. There were a few times he came to his parents to see me.
I played all three sports our high school offered: football, basketball, and baseball. When we played his high school in basketball and baseball, I saw him a few times for short minutes viewing baseball and basketball, but never a word of encouragement. My senior year in high school, in football, we were playing Knoxville Central in Knoxville, both teams 7-0; after the first quarter we were leading by a score of 7 to 0, but early in the second quarter I tackled their 230 pound tailback knee high and was knocked unconscious.( Our school lost by about twenty points.) I was taken by ambulance to the Catholic Hospital in Knoxville where eight-nine hours later I awoke, surrounded by all the family, and my Dad and his wife were there. The hospital staff was not sure I was going to survive. I ended up in college at Baylor University where I played offense and defense the sophomore through senior years.
After I married my wife, Sue McNabb, and we were blessed with four children, my father was never in our home – if my children met him or saw him, I had to take them to his office. He was never in my home after I married! To say I was a lonely child, in and of that fact, would not be understood except by those who’ve never known the biblical care and love a father ought to give for his children – oh, some do, and I was blessed by many men in my grand-parents home church who over the years, yes, did their Christ-loving best to nurture me as substitute fathers!
“Loneliness” – especially related to parent-child relationships, is described in Random House Collegiate Dictionary of 1975 as “lone, solitary, without company, companionless, destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship; unfrequented, or ‘standing apart, isolated”! And, I say, without hesitation, “NO CHILD BIRTHED IN THIS WORLD OUGHT TO HAVE TO LIVE WITHOUT HIS/HER FATHER OR MOTHER, OR BOTH!” It IS one of America’s greatest tragedies that has impacted untold millions and millions of children adversely!
It is true that today the marriage-divorce rate is not as high as it once was in the U.S.A., but many who study marriage-divorce rates are saying it’s still near half of all marriages ending in divorce, including some folks with multiple marriages and multiple divorces, while many in marriages live in what some have called as nothing more than “quiet desperation”! And, is that because some have no perception at all of “Christ-centered marriages”? Without a doubt!
Even as God held on to a “very small remnant” in Israel as most there rebelled, becoming corrupt evil-doers, the small remnant eventually birthed the Messiah! And, there is today, a “true remnant” of faithful mates in marriage and a few “faithful partners” who carry, yes, a heavy, burdensome load of frustration, pain, sorrow, and loneliness because the mate forsook the “holy vows”!
When Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 16:9 that a “great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries,” I know he was speaking about ‘adversaries’ against Christ and the Holy Word, but, at the same time, today, there are many “adversaries” opposed to Christ-centered marriages, living with their attitude they have a ‘fleshly right’ to take marriage or leave it!
If the writer of Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life,” could we not also say, “Keep your marriage, for in it there springs the very issues of marital blessing and the God-blessed ministry of child-birthing and child-rearing”?
Do YOU ever consider “pleasant marriages”? In Psalm 16:5-6, as King David reflected upon his blessed position in God’s kingdom-reign, have you ever reflected and rested your marriage under the watchful eye and care of Loving God the Father? “O Lord, You are the portion of my ‘inheritance’ in marriage and my cup of blessing; You maintain my ‘position’ in the marriage. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance.” Do YOU in your marriage? And also related, from my point of view, as helping marriages, what did David say in Psalm 16:7-11?
“I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel; my heart also instructs me in the night seasons (maybe a dark season of the marriage relationship?). I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Does that include “pleasures in your marriage”?).
There is the reality of the need for “caring for your soul – its destiny now and for eternity”, but in life’s journey, including marriage, there must be by both parties a commitment in receiving Christ’s care for marriage maintenance! I read one comment an unknown writer made: “If a child of God marries a child of the devil, said child of God is sure to have some trouble with his father-in-law.”
It was Edmund Burke, in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations” (p.196), who said: “The Christian religion, by confining marriages to pairs, and rendering the relationship indissoluble, has by these two things done more toward the peace, happiness, settlement, and civilization of the world, than by any other part in this whole scheme of divine wisdom.”
There are no doubts about it at all! Holy, sacred, anointed, God-blessed marriages don’t ‘hang on threads’ – they are constructed on the solid foundation of His abiding Presence and faithful intercession! Yet, whether spring or summer storms of heavy winds in the natural world, even so in marriages there can be the ‘upsweep’ of the ‘flesh’ intent on its way or the highway as the ‘storm-clouds of Satan’ seek to destroy God-blessed marriages!
I love what Donald T. Kauffman wrote in “Gist of the Lesson”, speaking about marriage: “A good marriage is not a contract between two persons but a sacred covenant between three. Too often Christ is never invited to the wedding and finds no room in the home. Why? Is it because we have misrepresented Him and forgotten His joyful outlook on life?”
Holy God “created” our world with planet Earth and literally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of stars roaming in the galaxies of His grace, never colliding, but soaring under His sacred supervision! But the Creator doesn’t know or provide sacred supervision for lives, marriages, businesses, callings, ministries, or oversight for sons and daughters of faith in their journeys?
It was William Wordsworth, in his writing “Excursion”, (Bk.VI), who wrote: “Why do not words and kiss, and solemn pledge, and nature that is kind in woman’s breast, And reason that in man is wise and good, And fear of Him who is a righteous Judge – Why do not these prevail for human life, To keep two hearts together, that began their spring-time with one love.”
Dare I tell you ‘why’ some choose divorce over honoring Holy God in sacred marriage? Because too many, whether guilty or not in even considering divorce or not, do not see ‘marriage’ as under the Sovereignty of God – for them, “It’s our business what we choose to do!” Even within a ‘so-called’ “Christian marriage there ARE two individuals with an inclination, a disposition, yes, an ‘attitude’ toward the sin-nature they leave ‘alive in them’ though Christ Jesus crucified it on Calvary’s Cross! There is little, if any, of divine discernment in husband-wife relations. Disillusionment becomes the ‘discipline’ and “mutual trust and reverence” goes out the front door of many hearts and homes!
Disillusionment WILL birth cynicism while trust breeds confidence and assurance in one another’s promises and vows! James 1:4 really nails it for a believer’s marriage relationship as well as one’s individual journey of the faith-pilgrimage. James said: “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Yet many enter the marriage relationship without a single ‘ounce’ of patience, indicating a more upsetting concept in themselves than in a chosen mate! At the same time, one can, should, and WILL fight for the marriage ‘healing’ if needed, while some are determined to show their ‘mate’ the door because they will no longer “put up” with her or him.
Maimed marriages usually have one or both with no solid foundation of faith. Maimed marriages are often ‘bankrupt’ of any spiritual understanding related to “what the will of the Lord is.” Ephesians 5:21, speaking, I believe of both “body life in the church” AND “body life in the marriage,” with Paul saying, “submitting to one another in the fear of God.” [Tell me, how many times in your inner personal relationships with friends, family, or church members, have you heard a discussion about “mutual submission to one another in the fear of God”?
Follow carefully Ephesians 5:22-33!! “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; AND He is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, JUST AS Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her with the washing of water by the word, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
So, the husband is ‘head’ over the wife? Does that mean the husband rules and reigns with a big stick? Is it “Shut up, woman, and do what I tell you to do?” That’s nowhere in the Word of God or the intent of demeaning wives to a “slave status”? Absolutely not! Come to Matthew 20:25-28!! Jesus had just called His disciples to Himself for a vital reason as in the infancy of their faith they were willing to fight for key positions and placements in Christ’s administration. But notice what the Lord Jesus Christ said!
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them (the people), and those who are great exercise authority over them. YET IT SHALL NOT BE SO AMONG YOU; but whoever desires to become great among you, LET HIM BE YOUR SERVANT. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave (or servant) – JUST AS the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Discipleship “in Christ” is not a “lording one’s self over others in the church”, but a laying down of one’s life of faith in Christ of ‘serving, blessing, and meeting one another’s needs’! Is that the picture you see in modern churches today? Examine what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6! Paul said: “For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your BONDSERVANTS for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Consider this statement in the marriage relationship and awesome ministry of ‘child-rearing’! “And ourselves (husbands, wives, moms, dads) your BONDSERVANTS for Jesus’ sake.” So, quarreling in marriages honors Christ? Looking out for one’s self with no concern about examples to the birthed children of “laid-down lives” that want them to witness Christ Jesus in their parents? Have you heard it: “Christ Jesus may be Lord in your marriage, but I have a right to feel and do as I please; that wife (or husband) has no right to treat me as he (she) does – if I want to ‘play around’, I will,” revealing the ‘I will’ as the destructive enemy of all marriage relationships!
How many, in counseling situations, have you witnessed who only consider their love for and honoring of Christ Jesus as the foundation stone of holding on to and blessing their marriage relationship? It’s time, when marriage disagreements erupt, to consider: “Who is in control? Him, me, or Christ Jesus?” “ Me, her, or Christ Jesus?” Is it right, honorable, justifiable, sacred, redemptive to examine in ourselves as a marriage partner: “How far did Christ Jesus go to save me from Hell and meaninglessness and godlessness as I served myself, my selfishness, my sin, as I shut Him out as a wife/husband?” If so, and sacred sincerity reigns, then all our ‘fleshliness’ trying to ruin our marriage will not rule our minds and hearts, but we will turn from our self-centeredness to God’s Sovereign reign for the honor of Christ alone and the “rescue” of the love-relationship in my marriage! Amen?
Matthew 19:6 says, “Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” In my New King James Version of the Bible, the comment below this verse is vital! “Since God ordained marriage, human efforts to dissolve it constitute an attack on God’s own work.” True? Holy matrimony must pass away but find renewal day by day as men and women lean not to their own understanding but give God His rightful place as Sovereign in their marriage, life, and business and ministry relationships!