What a Son Needs From His Dad by PhD O'Donnell

Author:PhD O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012030, FAM020000, fathers—religious life, fathers and sons, Christian life
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

Helping Your Son to Understand and Experience Worship

Praise, worship, and thanksgiving go together as perfectly as an artist’s palette. Although we will need to talk about them at times as separate and distinct activities, they are really bound together in that one and never-changing purpose of drawing us close to the God of all the universe. What is worship, anyway? We could talk about it in theological terms, but we might miss the whole point and focus of worship—like I once did.

Many years ago, when we were at church for a midweek service, our praise leader helped to focus us away from our world and onto the supernatural kingdom of Christ. Then I got up to speak to the congregation.

About one minute into my talk, my son, Patrick—then only eight years old—got up from the last pew on the left side of the auditorium and walked forward. Quietly, he sat down directly in front of me on the first pew. Our eyes met briefly, and we smiled at each other. I was pleased he wanted to be so close. A few more minutes passed, then Patrick got up and walked toward me, right up to the podium where I was standing.

He startled me a bit. What’s he doing? I thought. But not wanting to miss a beat—I felt I was on a roll—I simply let him stand next to me. In another second he wrapped his little arms around my waist. A tad bit embarrassed, I wrapped one arm around his shoulder. He wasn’t going away. In a moment, I looked down and asked in a whisper, “What is it, son?”

“I just need to be near you,” he said, squeezing me more tightly now.

That’s nice, I thought. Not wanting to disrupt my lesson, I sent him back to his seat. And as he was going, looking dejected, I realized the opportunity I had missed. While I was busy talking about God, a son had wanted to be close to his daddy. This father, too preoccupied with a theological thought, had sent his son back to an empty pew. Why hadn’t I dropped everything and taught the lesson God was trying to teach me—that worship is nothing other than wanting to embrace, and to be embraced by, the Father who is loving in all His ways.

Patrick—totally unconcerned with an entire congregation looking on—braved the long, lonely walk to the front of the auditorium to be near me.

Dads, it is simple enough to make our sons aware of God’s longing for them, His children; simple enough to tell them of Christ’s compassion for them; simple enough to be available to receive them with open hearts and open arms.

Later, I asked Patrick to forgive me. Even in my failure, I could tell him that God desires his adoration and will never turn him away—never! God would stop. He would turn to my son no matter what was happening in heaven. And He would receive Patrick’s whispers of love and his deeply personal need to be near Him.

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