MY Dad is the Greatest! - Father's Day

128 this morning to see the dad that God built:


1. Character
v. 1 First and foremost, a good dad will fear God and walk in old-fashioned character and integrity.

What will your kids remember about you when you¡¦ve left this life? What do some of you remember about your dad?

I wonder what my kids will remember about me? Will they remember the things I bought them? What did your dad buy you on your 12th birthday? Don’t remember do you?

No, they’ll remember our character, whether good or bad. Allow me to read a letter now that I wrote to my dad, and sent to mom to hold and read there on Father’s Day.

"What do I remember about you, dad, from my childhood? Among other things, I actually do remember one of your sermons, because it’s the best one you ever preached. Your first church was also named Grace Baptist, but you didn’t preach it there. You get asked to preach out at other places sometimes, but you never shared this sermon there. You have preached about once a week at your church in NM, despite doctor’s orders not to, and despite the fact that you have full approval to retire because of your health, but you didn’t preach the sermon I’m talking about either of those Sundays...as a matter of fact, it wasn’t a Sunday, it was a Saturday when I heard you preach this sermon to a congregation of 1--me! It wasn’t a long sermon, but boy was it lifechanging! It wasn’t alliterated, but it’s as easy to remember as my ABC’s! It didn’t contain a poem, but as I look back on it, it WAS poetry!
We went bike riding in the mountains, you were on your off-road enduro, the Yamaha IT 175, I was on my first little mini-bike (yes, you raised me right!) I was about 10 years old. We drove as far into the mtns of NM as we could go, many miles from our house, then we unloaded the bikes and kept going. We went forever it seemed until we reached the "end of the road", then we continued, and made our own roads, following game trails, and creeks, climbing hills and conquering difficult terrain--it was the most challenging ride I had ever had. I didn’t know where we were going, or how you could possibly have known. Today I know how. Every time we topped a hill, you could see the big hill in the distance where we were headed. I didn’t know that then.
We came to the foot of that hill--a very steep hill, so steep that you could practically touch the tree tops from the hillside above them, growing almost parallel to the steep hill. Dad, you climbed that hill on your bike. I sat at the bottom in awe! I could never do that! I thought.
You came down the hill and said, wanna climb it?/no way!/jump on and I’ll take you up/ok, I said/what a rush! I’m glad you took me up there, --cuz I couldn’t do it myself. That was fun. We descended and climbed it again, and again. Looking back, you must have known what you were doing, that this was a big challenge for me. You must have known I wanted to climb this mountain. You were right, I did. I wanted to be just like you!
It was my request to try it. I got a run at it, I had my speed up, I had my balance, I hit the bottom of the hill, I shot up the hill, I was doing it! But the bike was slowing, I looked up to the top of the hill, I was only 2/3rd’s of the way there. I panicked, and I hesitated--then I crashed, I fell over, I slid, I tumbled, all the way down the hill¡Kand flat