students of jesus

On the day I graduated from high school, I saw my father for only the third time in four years. That’s what divorce does: my parents separated when I was in eighth grade and divorced a year later. My Dad lived a thousand miles away.

That graduation day I wasn’t even thinking about my Dad, because I was the graduation speaker. It took weeks to write and practice the speech. I stood up that day, wearing a ridiculous robe and a hat that looked like a red aircraft carrier. I was supposed to say something profound, but really–how profound can you be at 17 years old?

What made the day memorable was that my father had come to my graduation. I didn’t know he was there. He and my mother weren’t on speaking terms. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with him, so she intercepted any mail he sent. I hadn’t heard from him in over a year.

The graduating class marched into the gym, crowded with people. Like most high school students I cared only about getting the diploma and getting out of there. I didn’t realize that all those people came to graduation because they love those who are graduating. Sitting somewhere in the back, my father was watching.

After the speech and the endless roll of names, we were ready to leave that old high school building forever, and celebrate. In the confusion of the students and parents and hallways and shouting my father suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He had come to see me graduate. He didn’t know I would be speaking. I was shocked when I saw him.

“Dad!” It was as much a question as a statement.

“Congratulations, son.” He gave me a hug, and looked around quickly. I saw the tears in his eyes when he looked back at me. “You’ve really made something of yourself. I’m so proud.”

And then he left. As quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared.

It’s been a few years since that day. I’m married, and now I have kids of my own. That day sticks in my memory not only because of what my father did, but also because of what it reveals about our Heavenly Father. Here’s what I discovered that day:

Fathers can’t turn it off: Even though my Dad was separated by divorce, years, and distance, he still fought through to show he cared. We place plenty of obstacles in God’s way, but he doesn’t stop being a Father. He fights through our defenses and demonstrates his love. He will never stop.

Fathers don’t have to be perfect: Jesus said, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7:11) Jesus recognized that earthly fathers have flaws. Earthly fathers are not perfect. Jesus still pointed to imperfect men–fathers–and indicated that we can catch a glimpse of the Perfect Father. It’s crazy, but God has chosen to leave the work of parenting to radically flawed people.

The Heavenly Father fills in when earthly fathers let us down: My personal story isn’t just about graduation day. I grew up in a family characterized by bickering and bitterness. No one had a relationship with God. When this flawed family began to break apart, the Heavenly Father was already at work. As a fatherless teenager, a thousand miles away from my Dad, Jesus was drawing me toward the true Father. My first year in high school was also my first year without a father. I was welcomed by a high school ministry called Campus Life. They gave me my first Bible. They gave me friendship and confidence. And most of all, they gave me Jesus when I became a Christian at the end of my freshman year. I may have gone through high school without my Dad, but the Heavenly Father took me in. He accepted me the way I was, and gave me a new family.

If that’s where you are—teenager or full grown, I promise He’ll do the same for you.

Some people are realists, others dream. I want to be both kinds of people: first I want to dream, then I want to bring reality to what I’ve seen. I have a dreambook, more popularly known as the Bible. I go to that book like I go to the bank: it is the source of funding for my heart-dreams.

Jesus understood the power of imagination and dreams. His teaching invited people to combine their thoughts with his words and imagine a world born anew. I believe this is how we should listen to the word of God: combine our imagination with his words, producing Biblical dreams of the way things are in heaven and should be on earth:

Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:27-32)

Can you imagine living a life convinced of the Father’s good intentions toward you? How would such a life differ from one in which we worry about daily needs? It’s like throwing your anchor into the future. With each passing day you are pulled closer to reality, swayed less and less by the currents of this life. But hearing his words requires that we engage our imagination, and see ourselves living such a life right now. It produces hope: Godly hope sprung from a Biblically-informed imagination.

Walter Brueggemann emphasized the idea that our dreams must spring from a source other than our wants and desires. He reminds us we are not free to imagine just anything. We receive the Biblical witness and become invested in the vision. Nor do we do it alone. Brueggemann suggests that the church becomes “a place where people come to receive new materials, or old materials freshly voiced, which will fund, feed, nurture, nourish, legitimate, and authorize a counterimagination of the world.”

The Apostle Peter said it this way: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” (2 Peter 1:3-4) There is enough astonishment in these few words to change your life forever. Can you imagine a life infused with his divine power--a life where he has given us everything we need? Can you imagine the possibility that we can participate in his divine nature--merely by embracing his promises to us? Can you imagine escaping the corruption and decay of everyday life--being freed from evil desires?

The possibility of living into these possibilities begins with our imagination--an imagination funded by God’s words whispered in our ear. Our hearts are lit by our imagination. The source of that imagination makes all the difference.

Both realists and dreamers face the same questions: What is the source of your reality? Who funds your imagination? What is the source of your dreams? What dreams have you derived from God’s promises? How have those promise-dreams changed your life? I’d love to hear your story.

Once there was a wealthy man with a strange illness. Each night he forgot his wealth.

He awoke each morning with the fear and uncertainty of a pauper. When his servants arrived with breakfast, he stuffed his mouth quickly, certain the servants would discover they had served breakfast to the wrong man. Sometimes he would grab a crust of bread and run from his own mansion, hiding in the alleyways of the town. His servants would search him out and return him by force to his home, where he was sure he would be punished for his theft.

Other days the wealthy man would encounter his riches one by one, overwhelmed by his good fortune. Still other days he ignored them completely, believing them to be another’s property. And some days he would settle quickly and comfortably into his role of privilege and power. But each day, asleep by nightfall, the wealthy man forgot his riches by midnight only to awake the next morning unaware.

One night an angel appeared to him in a dream and offered to heal him completely. “I can speak the word,” said the angel, “and you will remember your wealth forever.”

“No,” said the wealthy man. “My best days are when I discover afresh who I am. True--it’s a terrible day when I live in fear and cannot accept the blessings, but the worst days are when I ignore them completely, either because of ignorance or privilege.”

Then he made the angel a counter-offer: “Grant that I will encounter my riches one by one, and that I will learn to stop in each moment and offer thanks afresh. I want each day to be a celebration of my good fortune.”

So the angel spoke the word, and gave him the healing he asked for. Over the years a strange thing happened to the rich man. Slowly, yet surely as the sun would rise, instead of forgetting is wealth each night, he began to remember his blessings from one day to the next, but retained the wonder and amazement of a man who encountered them for the first time. In fact, he discovered he was more than merely a person of wealth. He was, in fact, a son of a king. Day by day he saw the benefits and blessings of his father’s opulent, over-flowing love, and shared them with the certainty that the flow would never end. Whatever treasures were daily lavished at his feet, he both partook with thanks and distributed to others at will.

When he died he left an epitaph, engraved for all to see: “Each day has a thousand treasures--most of which I will forget by midnight. But I can thank him in the moment, and the moment can become a lifetime.”