Good Good Father

"You're a good good father. Your perfect in all of your ways to us."

Listen to Christian radio long enough or step inside a church and chances are you will hear these words being sung. They come from a recent song written by Pat Barret and Tony Brown and made famous because it is sung by Chris Tomlin. The song is aptly called Good Good Father.


  I stood in a church this weekend with several hundred students and adults singing this very song at a youth conference. It occurred to me while we were singing, that this, like so many other songs are easy to sing without ever realizing exactly what you are saying. The first line of the chorus is simple enough, God is a good father. That's great, He is, He's always got what is in our best interest in mind for our lives. But,then you get to the bridge 'You're perfect in all of your ways to us.' That sounds awesome and it isn't wrong except there is a catch. If He's perfect in all of His ways that means when things in our life are going smoothly and it also means when nothing is going right and tragedy strikes.

If we are going to sing it you need to mean it. We need to understand that His ways are perfect always because He is a completely sovereign God that works for His glory and our good every moment of every day. We will not stand smiling or weeping at any given moment that He is not aware or in control of everything that is happening. There is an incredibly intimate but simple reason that when bad times come, and they will, you can say even then that He is a good father and is perfect in all of His ways. That reason is a relationship with Him. You can't know that and understand that without knowing Him. You can't have the peace of knowing that everything will be ok even when it feels like anything but without knowing the one who gives that peace.

 He is a good father and perfect in His ways when cancer is the diagnosis at the doctor.
He is a good father and perfect in His ways when we lose someone we love.
He is a good father and perfect in His ways when you lose your job and have no idea how bills will be paid.
He is a good father and perfect in His ways when life-long dreams are shattered in a single moment because they aren't in His will.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."-Romans 8:28

  Our good for His Glory. That means we go through trials and our faith is strengthened. He is glorified by our reactions and  actions. He is glorified as He works in our lives to provide the daily grace we so easily overlook as well as when healing takes place. That good means if it is how He is to be glorified, and how we are made to be more like Him, the life we wouldn't choose is lived in faith that He is working in us.


He is good when things seem hopeless. He is the only good. He is perfect when our lives seem like messes so large they cannot be useful or make a difference. He is good and perfect even when we are in pain. He is there in the midst of it all, we don't always see it, and we certainly do not always understand it, but He does nothing that will not in some way bring Himself glory and grow us in Him.

Good. Perfect. Faithful. Powerful. Love. Gracious. Merciful. Sovereign. Almighty. Lord.

Our God is many things and as the song says He is a good father who does what is best for His children. We might not like what that good is but we can trust Him when it comes. The one who spoke and created the stars and breathed life into dust and man came to be, who brings to life dead men and woman daily, knows what He is doing.

Lest we forget everything was perfect until we screwed it up in Eden. We don't have the best track record when it comes to making decisions for ourselves. There is a reason He is the one in control. Lean into that. Trust Him. Like any good father He works and it is done in love.

What Pet Have I Not Yet Had?

I can't remember a time when I didn't have some species of animal at my house. Normally that was an outside cat and dogs of various breeds. As I write this my bedroom has ten ducks in it. Six of those are ducklings and the other four are in an incubator still developing in their eggs.

"Every boy should have two things, a dog, and a mother who will let him have one."-Anonymous

That is a good quote. It is a true quote as far as I am concerned. Kids need dogs, a home isn't a home without one in my opinion. But, the second thing is quite important. Parents that are willing to allow their children to have pets. Even if the child is older and doesn't forget to walk the dog or feed the cat the children aren't buying food or paying vet bills. I say that because people buy their children pets to teach them responsibility and most do it knowing that at some point they will be the one taking the dog out at 3AM in the rain. Your child won't do that, even if they could, I don't know a parent that is going to want their younger child out in the middle of the night by themselves.

If you follow me on facebook or twitter or instagram you will have seen my numerous posts about the animals at my house and those I want to one day have. I'm no stranger to animals and there hasn't been a time when they didn't fascinate me. I'm the type of person who will probably not bat an eye if a person dies in a movie or book but I don't want to watch a dog die. While I grew up with dogs and cats, I had parents that let me have almost any pet I asked for over the years. Lizards, snakes, gerbils, birds, fish,guinea pigs in fact the only thing I can remember asking for and not being allowed to have was a Killdeer egg I found while fishing. I wanted to take it home and hatch it while in High School and my dad said no. Thus far wild birds are the only thing I've been told I can't have (I've tried with various song bird eggs around the house most every summer). My parents even let me attempt to hatch snake eggs my father found. Those snake eggs actually turned out to be box turtles that we had to let go after they hatched.

There are plenty of children who beg for a pet and never get one. I'm fortunate that I never needed to deal with that. I'm not sure I'd have actually handled that well. I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't have that exposure. Because of the way I grew up I am comfortable with just about everything, though I'm not a fan of tarantulas or mice and rats (they creep me out). It's been interesting over the years at work while talking to the kids about some animal or another and being able to say I used to have one of those. Most of the time they look at me like I'm crazy. More recently as I show them pictures of chickens and duck eggs they laugh and ask if they can come see them.

I realize that my upbringing isn't average, not on that front. Which is why I'm all the more thankful to have had it. Most children do not have such freedom to fulfill their wishes of more exotic pets. Over the years I've basically lived in a zoo and I look forward to being able to continue that tradition. Though I will draw the line at tarantulas and mice, everything else is fair game.

As I plan for the farm I hope to own and the goats,pigs, sheep, and cows I want to fill it with I find reassurance in knowing that God saw to it that I was raised for such a life. He gave me an interest and then put me where I needed to be so that it could be explored. While I've gotten older and no longer seek to make pets of lizards,snakes, or rodents  (still hoping for that wild bird though), the domesticated beats lure me in with the call of those who came before me, a toil that is rewarded with the fruits of hard labor and satisfaction of watching what I raise grow and flourish.

As I start this new adventure with ducks I can't help but be thankful yet again that I'm one step closer to farming and have parents that don't discourage me from seeking a life that is far from monetarily affluent and instead focused on using what I'm learning to send the gospel to the nations where I can't yet go.