Daily Lesson for June 3, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 14 verses 28 through 33:

28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Yesterday I was talking with a friend about parenthood.  He told me about a prior conversation he had with a mutual mentor of ours where he was lamenting his failures as a father and our mentor said he was a good thing he knew how imperfect of a father he was because it would be a terrible burden for his children to try to live up to being as perfect a father as he wanted to be. 

That got me thinking about something that happened a couple years ago.  When I was a boy growing up there was a painting on my grandparents' mantle of my granddad Bill at a rodeo in his mid-fifties sitting astride his galloping horse, roping a bolting calf. He looks every bit the Marlboro Man.  Two years ago after church a woman came up to me and told me her father was cleaning out his attic and stumbled upon some photos of my grandad he thought I should have. I opened the folder and there was the photo which I knew immediately had obviously been used for the painting. Then there was another photo, taken right after the first and as I looked closely I could tell that the horse my granddad sat astride on was just beginning to stumble. And then there was a third photo, taken in the same sequence.  And when I saw it so couldn't believe my eyes. The horse had stumbled head first end over end and was on his back, his legs sticking straight up out of a huge cloud of dust. My granddad was somewhere indistinctly hidden inside the cloud of dust, his neck and head jammed to the ground.

I have thought a lot about those photos of my grandad and think they say a lot about him and granddads and dads and all families in general. 

Don't be fooled by the painting on the mantle; reality is a lot less perfect.

Thank the LORD.