Know Jack #493 Lessons My Father Taught

I come from a bygone era in which fathers and sons were not talkative, demonstrative, or buddies. At least, that was my experience. My relationship with my father was more along the lines of master and student.

Maybe that’s why, unlike Progressive Insurance customers, I want to turn into my parents. Of course, my father never acted like the characters in the commercial. His words of wisdom and instruction were very private. I don’t remember ever being reprimanded or verbally corrected within the hearing of others.

His lessons were quiet, often unspoken, private, and introduced beforehand by example. He taught me to pay tribute to those to whom tribute was due, honor to whom honor was due, give every man the respect due him, and to do it without drawing attention to myself. Perfect service to what was right was his ideal. It didn’t matter if it was unobtainable. The real goal was the pursuit.

I have no idea what my father’s spiritual background was like. It was one of those things we never discussed until he was dying and then only tangentially. That it was a rocky relationship was evident by his prohibition against attending church.

It took breaking that rule, becoming a Christian, and subsequent Bible study to give me real insight into the man. Everything that mattered to him, all he valued in a man, was there in scripture. In discovering that I learn right is right, truth is truth, good is good, no matter where you find it. And when he found peace with God in his last days, I discovered these things always lead back home to the Creator who embodies them.