Since my college years, Donald Miller has been one of my favorite authors. I was in college when his book Blue Like Jazz really caught fire and like many, this was the book that introduced me to him. Through Blue Like Jazz (and others! My personal favorites are Through Painted Deserts and Searching for God Knows What) Don helped me understand the nature of God and the nature of my relationship with him. He really helped me break God out of the box that I had him in.
I’ve been at Southland for a little over a year now and we’ve had the privilege of hosting Don twice now. This past weekend he joined us for father’s day and spoke at each of our services. He spoke on fatherhood and the role that a father plays in a family. (Something he is learning himself these days as he is engaged to be married.) As usual, I thought that much of what he said was profound and thought provoking but one story he told particularly impacted me based on all that we have been through the past few years.
He told the story (he also tells it in his latest book, Father Fiction) of a moment he shared with John MacMurray. John was a mentor to Don and he lived in the MacMurray household for sometime. This is where Don would say that he really saw a family operate for the first time. John was a landscape photographer and Don joined him on a photography trip once. As they were out in the wild, they were talking about God’s design for family and how God relates to us as a father, a concept that Don struggled with at the time since his father had abandoned him. Don said that at one point, John looked at him and said, “You know the kids aren’t mine, right?” Don says he inserted a joke about the mailman here but John pressed on. “I’m not their real dad”, John said. “God is their real dad. My job is just to love them, care for them, provide for them, and then deliver them to their real dad.”
This is a truth that God had to reteach me after we lost Isaac, both for myself and for Isaac. I had to be reminded of my identity as a child of God, that God is my real father. And I had to be reminded that God is Isaac’s real dad and that God entrusted him to me for a period of time and my job was to love him, care for him, provide for him and then deliver him to his real dad. My prayer is that God found me faithful in that task.
So on father’s day, I spent some time reflecting on my time as a father. I am so grateful that God entrusted Isaac to me, even if it was only for 7 months. Isaac taught me so much about life and love and he continues to teach me everyday. I also spent some time reflecting on Isaac’s real dad, who also happens to be my real dad. How amazing is it that God invites us to be a part of his family? That he calls us a child? For that, I am eternally thankful.
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Romans 8:15-17
