Memories of my Father
The Westminster Shorter Catechism’s first question is: “What is the chief end of man?” Answer, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.”
Following my father’s death on 6th January 2021, I’ve been thinking about this the last few days, “did my father meet his chief end of glorifying God and enjoying him?”
As I have reflected, there are three big things that come to mind about my father.
First, he loved the Bible
I don’t know any other man that knew the scripture like my dad. He spent more time studying, translating, exegeting, praying through and applying the Word of God than anything else in life. We have many Bibles around the house that have been marked up, cover to cover. We have stacks of 3x5 cards, we have files, piles of paper, sermons, crammed floor to ceiling bookshelves that are the output of a life of living in the Word. That was the foundation and bedrock of his life, his outlook and the means by which he communicated with God. He lived his life around God’s Word. Through it God spoke to him. He listened and he followed.
Second, he loved his family and many others
Jesus says in Luke 7 that “whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
My father had been forgiven greatly and loved greatly.
Many of you may not know that my father did not have an easy upbringing on wrong side of Amarillo. Born in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression, his father was a migrant farm worker who travelled to California for work. His mom struggled as his dad was away. He did very poorly in school — felt stupid and had low self confidence. He was a directionless young man, hopeless, who was drafted to fight in Korea and he hated what he saw there in the post war chaos. He saw humanity at its worst and became gravely ill with polio. But miraculously he came to a saving faith in Christ through the ministry of Amarillo Bible Church on his return to the US.
In spite of the embedded fears, youthful bad habits and anger injected into his veins, Christ gave dad victory. Our family rarely saw the old Bud. We experienced a father who loved us, cherished us, intentionally parented us and gave us his wisdom. He did not transmit the pain of his past — he was a firewall. By daily being immersed in the Word of God, dad was transformed by the Holy Spirit and was able to live out the beauty of faith.
My dad also loved a prank — having a good time.
One time on my grandfather’s small ranch, 75 miles east of Amarillo, my dad had us three boys out working for my grandfather digging post holes and ditches and putting up a corrugated steel fence. My two brothers had wandered off for some reason and I was working with my dad when we spotted a fat bull snake in the brush. My dad and I killed it with a hoe and he suggested that we scare my brothers with it. So when they returned and were working on other side of the fence which couldn’t be seen through, my Dad stood at the end so he could see it all play out, he gave me a signal and I threw a headless, bleeding, by then flying, snake over the fence. The snake thudded to the ground and my brothers screamed and ran for cover. Seeing the resulting chaos, my dad almost broke a rib laughing and crying so hard.
Through his relationships, dad embodied the converging of gospel doctrine and gospel culture. His life was about applying his faith through relationships and building them across cultural divides. A couple years ago my brother and I met an Amish Bishop in Wisconsin who was a friend of dad’s. Bishop Noah Schwartz stood barefoot in front of his farm with us on a hot day, wearing his homemade overalls, a wispy grey beard, with his son plowing fields with horses across the way and his daughter, head covered, painting the clapboard house. We spoke about the hardship that my father had been going through with his illness. Noah spoke about the adversity and tragedy his family had faced and he concluded the conversation in his German accented English by saying that the most important thing for him, his family and his community was to just be “faithful”. Faithful to our Lord.
And that’s the last lesson I’ve been thinking about. My dad was faithful. He was faithful to our Lord.
Job 28:28 says: ‘The fear of the Lord is true wisdom; to forsake evil is real understanding.’
The wisdom my father had was to fear the Lord, to live under his sovereignty, under His grace and favour. As a result, my father led a blessed life. God was glorified and now my father is enjoying his Heavenly Father forever.
