Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)
Father's Day
The third Sunday in June is the day we celebrate Father's Day. The idea for having a special day for dad came out of Mother's Day. Soon after Mother's Day became a national holiday, a woman by the name of Sonora Dodd petitioned the local ministers association to start a Father's Day celebration in the churches. Mrs. Dodd had been raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after his wife died leaving the farmer to raise his young children the best he could. So in May of 1909 when the pastor gave the Mother's Day sermon, Sonora Dodd felt that the church should also recognize fathers and brought her petition for Father's Day to the minister's association. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910. 1
It took many years for Father's Day to become a national holiday. Finally, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers on the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Then six years later, President Richard Nixon made Father's Day a permanent national holiday when he signed it into law in 1972.
God wants us to honor our fathers. As Solomon wrote three thousand years ago. "Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father,And give attention that you may gain understanding (Proverbs 4:1)."2
God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle's flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so, He called it ... Dad
Author is unknown3
May God bless all the Father's on their special day,
Pastor Steve
Footnotes
1Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays, by Leigh Eric Schmidt, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 276.
2Mark 7:6-9, NASB (New American Standard Bible). Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.
Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. One of Jesus' techniques was to relate spiritual ideas to common everyday life. Pensamientos (afterthought) is an attempt to follow Jesus' method of teaching. Its title is in Spanish because we recognize the importance of multi-culturalism. We hope to translate some of these messages into Spanish soon.
Find more afterthoughts at Pensamientos (afterthoughts).
You can read recent sermons by Pastor Lorenz at Featured Sermon.