From the banks of Burcham Creek…
Father’s Day Edition 2026
- Hayden Childs, Editor
***
Father’s Day began in America around 1910.
Most credit “Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane,
Washington, whose father, a Civil War veteran,
raised her and her five siblings after their mother
died in childbirth” for beginning its observance
“Father’s Day,” (History.com)
It became a national holiday in 1966, and in 1972
The third Sunday of June was officially designated
Father’s Day.
President Richard M. Nixon made Father’s Day a
Federal holiday in 1972.
In the official proclamation, he wrote,
“Let each American make this Father's Day an
occasion for renewal of the love and gratitude we
bear to our fathers, increasing and enduring through
all the years."
Sonora Smart Dodd, who passed away in 1978 at
age 96, lived to see her dream become a
national reality.
(Reference.com)
A day when we honor those men who helped give us
life and have nurtured us through life.
***
The best way to be a good father
To your children is to be a
Good husband to their mother.
- Jay Adams
***
The common denominator between successes
And failure seems to be the spiritual depth
And sincerity of the parents, especially the
Spiritual depth and sincerity of the father.
There seems to be a strong correlation
Between faith, commitment, and sincerity
Of the family’s head and the spiritual vitality
Of His adult children.
- William Farley
***
Some fathers exasperate their children
By being overly strict and controlling.
They need to remember that rearing children
Is like holding a wet bar of soap…
Too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand,
Too loose a grip and it slides away.
A gentle but firm hold keeps you in control…
We ought to begin our fatherhood by holding
The tiny helpless bar snugly, but as it grows,
Gradually and wisely loosen our grip.
- Kent Hughes
***
If you fail, father, to teach your son to
Fear God,
The devil will teach him to hate God.
If you fail to teach your son to guard
His mind,
The devil will gladly teach him to have an
Open mind.
If you fail to teach your son to obey his parents,
The devil will teach him to rebel and break
His parents’ heart.
If you fail to teach your son to select his
Companions,
The devil will gladly choose them for him.
If you fail to teach your son to control his body,
The devil will teach him to give it over completely
To lust.
If you fail to teach your son to enjoy the
Marriage partner that God has given him,
The devil will teach him to destroy the marriage.
If you fail to teach your son to watch his words,
The devil will fill his mouth with filth.
If you fail to teach your son to pursue his work,
The devil will make his laziness a tool of Hell.
If you fail to teach your son to manage his money,
The devil will teach him to waste it on riotous living.
And if you fail to teach your son to love his neighbor,
The devil will gladly teach him to love only himself.
- John MacArthur
***
A famous cigarette billboard pictures
A curly-headed, bronze-faced,
Muscular macho with a cigarette
Hanging out the side of his mouth.
The sign says,
“Where a man belongs.”
That is a lie.
Where a man belongs is at the bedside
Of his children,
Leading in devotion and prayer.
Where a man belongs is leading his family
To the house of God.
Where a man belongs is up early and alone
With God seeking vision and direction for
The family.
- John Piper
***
Every father should remember
that one day his son will follow
his example rather than his advice.
Charles F. Kettering
***
The finest gentleman I have ever known,
and the most heroic soul, was my father.
Daniel Webster
***
A dad is someone who holds you
when you cry,
Scolds you when you break the rules,
Shines with pride when you succeed,
And has faith in you even when you fail.
- Nishan Panwar
***
My father used to play with my brother
and me in the yard.
Mother would come out and say,
"You're tearing up
the grass."
"We're not raising grass,"
Dad would reply.
"We're raising
boys."
- Harmon Killebrew
***
My father gave me the
greatest gift anyone could
give another person,
he believed in me.
Coach
Jim Valvano
***
The old saying has in it a marvelous truth
‘Like father, like family.’
Too often the father is willing to abdicate
his responsibility for the rearing of the
children and to roll that back on their mother,
while he himself is away at the club or lodge.
The Bible constantly emphasizes the
responsibility of the father.
There is a sentence recurring repeatedly
in the Bible...
‘He walked in the way of his father.’
1 Kgs.15:25-27
25 Now Nadab the son of Jeroboam became
king over Israel in the second year of Asa
king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel
two years.
26 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord,
and walked in the way of his father,
and in his sin by which he had made Israel sin.
The father beat out a path with his steps,
and the child walked in the ways of his father.
- Anonymous
***
General Douglas MacArthur put fatherhood
in further perspective when he confessed,
“By profession I am a soldier and take pride
in that fact.
But I am prouder…
infinitely prouder…
to be a father.
A soldier destroys in order to build;
the father only builds,
never destroys.
The one has the potentiality of death;
The other embodies creation and life.
And while hordes of death are mighty,
the battalions of life are mightier still.”
***
The concept we have of our Heavenly Father
is the concept we have of our earthly father.
This is why it is vitally important for a father
to demonstrate to his children what God is
really like, for the father is God’s representative
here on earth.
"I believe in the heart of the
Heavenly Father is reflected
in the heart of the earthly father."
- Nathan Lorick
If a father is good, kind, loving, forgiving, and just,
a child will perceive God to be the same.
However, if the earthly father is unkind, cruel,
and unloving, the child will perceive the
Heavenly Father in the same manner.
***
The Olympian from Great Britain, Derek Redmond,
was forced out of the 1988 Olympics due to
tendon injuries, but vowed that the next time he
would finish the race.
Four years later, in the 1992 Olympics in
Barcelona, Spain, Derek fell to the track in the
400-meter semifinal after about 175 meters,
with a pulled hamstring.
Waving off those who offered a stretcher,
He painfully began to limp around the remainder
of the course.
Suddenly, his dad, watching from the bleachers,
dashed onto the track, put his shoulder under
his son’s arm, and together they finished the race,
long after the other runners had crossed the finish
line. Both father and son received a standing ovation
from the crowd. Derek Redmond needed his
father’s help, and he got it.
***
Gen. 18:19
19 For I have known him, in order that he may
command his children and his household after him,
that they keep the way of the Lord,
to do righteousness and justice, …”
In Prov. 4:1, the writer said,
1 Hear, my children, the instruction of a
father,
And give attention to know understanding;
Eph. 6:1-4 we are told,
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord,
for this is right.
2 “Honor your father and mother,”
which is the first commandment with promise:
3 “that it may be well with you and you may
live long on the earth.”
4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your
children to wrath, but bring them up in
the training and admonition of the Lord.
Prov. 22:6
6 Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.
Deut. 5:29
29 Oh, that they had such a heart in them
that they would fear Me and always keep
all My commandments, that it might be
well with them and with their children forever!
The writer of Hebrews in 12:5-11 says . . .
5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which
speaks to you as to sons:
“My son,
do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you
as with sons; for what son is there whom a
father does not chasten?
8 But if you are without chastening,
of which all have become partakers,
then you are illegitimate and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers
who corrected us, and we paid them respect.
Shall we not much more readily be in subjection
to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us
as seemed best to them, but He for our profit,
that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful
for the present, but painful; nevertheless,
afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
(Psa. 103:8, 13)
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
13 As a
father pities his children,
So
the Lord pities those who fear Him.
***
Gen. William Nelson,
a Union general in the Civil War,
was consumed with the battles in Kentucky
when a brawl ended up in his being shot,
mortally, in the chest.
He had faced many battles,
but the fatal blow came while he was relaxing
with his men.
As such, he was caught fully unprepared.
As men ran up the stairs to help him,
The general had just one phrase,
"Send for a clergyman; I wish to be baptized."
He never had time as an adolescent or young man.
He never had time as a private or after he became
a general.
And his wound did not stop or slow down the war.
Everything around him was left virtually unchanged…
except for the general's priorities.
With only minutes left before he entered eternity,
The one thing he cared about was preparing for eternity.
He wanted to be baptized.
Thirty minutes later he was dead.
- Christian Times, October 3, 1994, p. 26.
***
The Last Call…
Life
at best is very brief,
Like the falling of a leaf,
Like the binding of a sheaf,
Be in time!
Fleeting days are telling fast
That the die will soon be cast,
And the fatal line be passed,
Be in time!
Fairest flowers soon decay,
Youth and beauty pass away;
O you have not long to stay,
Be in time!
While God’s Spirit bids you come,
Sinner, do not longer roam,
Lest you seal your hopeless doom,
Be in time!
– Charles Harrison Mason
***
When Christ calls a man,
He bids him come and die.
There are different kinds of dying,
It is true;
But the essence of discipleship is
Contained in these words.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
