KNOWING WHO OUR FATHER IS [Sat, 5-30-20]

“DAILY” DEVOTIONAL-Growing in the Spirit

KNOWING WHO OUR FATHER IS    [Sat, 5-30-20]

Pepper Rodgers died last week. He was a highly successful but much traveled football coach, in both college and professional ranks. Despite all his accomplishments, this is the story I remember about him…

When he became coach at UCLA, his little boy was very proud, and went around their new Westwood neighborhood in Los Angeles bragging to all the other kids, “My dad is the new football coach at UCLA!”

His mother was embarrassed. “You’ve got to stop telling people that,” she said.

Then the Rodgers family went to church. Shaking hands at the door after the service, the preacher leaned down and asked the boy, “And who is your father?” He replied, “Well, I thought it was Pepper Rodgers, the new football coach at UCLA, but my mother says it isn’t.”

There are times—and this is one of them--when there is a lot of confusion about our family relationships. I think that’s why Jesus told us to start our prayers with “Our father…” Reminds us, every one, Republican or Democrat, black or white, male or female, that we all have the same family. Never any confusion about who “our father” is.

JRMcF

BORING EXPLANATION YOU’VE PROBABLY READ BEFORE: As we began to “shelter in place,” some folks spoke of the need in this pandemic time for an online “daily devotional,” some spark to light the spirit. [“It only takes a spark to get a fire going…” One of the favorite camp songs of the teens in my church in the 1990s.]

 So, in addition to writing a 500 word column two or three times a week for Christ In Winter, I started writing a short, 200 word, “devotional” on the in-between days. Nothing fancy, just words to try to help us hear the Word in these strange and frightening times.