“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching, for they will be a garland of favor on your head and pendants around your neck.” (CSB Proverbs 1:8-9 – Read the chapter)

Some of the best movies are the ones that create a potent sense of nostalgia around an idyllic childhood. The Sandlot is a classic in this genre. It is ostensibly a movie about baseball (and one of the greatest ever released), but it’s really a movie about nostalgia. It’s about making the viewer feel a certain way. Our culture is enamored with the idea that childhood should unfold in a certain way. It should be carefree and safe and familiar and encouraging and challenging and so on and so forth. It should happen in the context of a family with a mom and dad and a sibling or two. It should be happy and fun. On that score, my childhood was about as idyllic as they come. One of the two main reasons for that turns 70 today. This is for him.

Our culture today is suffering through a profound deficit of good dads. More children are born out of wedlock than in it. Even those who are born with both a mom and a dad in the picture don’t often remain in that relatively stable situation for very long. The reasons for this are manifold and complex, but none of them are any good. That means that to enter this world with a mom and a dad who are together and who stay together throughout your life is a pretty rare gift.

In most cases, when children find themselves living primarily with one parent, it’s their mom who is doing the work. She is the one making the sacrifices, working two jobs, doing everything she can to make ends meet. Single moms like this are heroic in many, many ways. But where our culture has rightly given them praise, it has often forgotten that dads matter too. A lot. In fact, a whole lot more than we’ve typically given them credit for. While dads certainly can’t mom, moms can’t dad either. Kids need both. Together. At the same time.

They don’t just need dads, though. They need good dads. They need dads who set an example of hard work. They need dads who play with them and have fun. They need dads who set firm boundaries and then hold those boundaries with gentleness. They need dads who show up for all the important things (and who do that because they show up for everything so far as it depends on them). They need dads who love their moms and set an example for them of how to date and romance her. They need dads who do unexpectedly fun things with them on occasion. They need dads who are generous with the time, talents, and treasure. They need dads who forgive quickly and easily. They need dads who are faithful and who show them a healthy picture of what faith looks like. They need dads who help them experience the world in appropriately-sized bits for the season they are in.

Kids who get this nearly always thrive in life. Kids who don’t much more frequently don’t. I’ll reserve judgment for whether or not I’m thriving for someone whose opinion is more objective than my own, but I grew up with a dad who did all of those things and more. If I am thriving, he had a great deal to do with it.

My dad taught me how to ride a bike and drive a car. I could count on his showing up when it mattered most. He left work to eat lunch with me when that was still a cool thing to have happen, even though it meant being on the road an hour when he was already busy. He drove me to the bus stop and then to school. He taught me to be proud that he was my dad and never embarrassed of the fact. He was always interested in what I was doing, but he never tried to intrude. I was always glad to have my friends be around him.

He taught me how to play ping pong and helped me get pretty good. He taught me how to make breakfast and run a grill and that doing housework is a very manly thing to do. Dishes were never beneath him. Neither was vacuuming or sweeping or dusting or folding laundry or anything else around the house. He taught me responsibility and held me accountable for the jobs I was to do. He showed me how to have friends, and that having really close friends who weren’t in the same city was okay. I’m glad for that because my closest friend in the world lives several states away.

He forgave me when I messed up and restored me with gentleness, but he also held me accountable for it. He taught me that choices have consequences and bad choices have unfortunate consequences. These weren’t always fun lessons to learn, but I’m sure glad I learned them. They’ve made life so much simpler for me than it might have otherwise been.

My dad taught me to love the Lord and the church. He never forced on me a single thing he believes. Rather, he lived out his faith in meaningful and practical ways and involved me in the process. He took me visiting with him when he saw people in their homes or the hospitals. He brought me along when he picked up the old people in the church van on Sunday mornings. In fact, he taught me to love and respect and honor people who were older than me. I saw him read his Bible. I saw him commit to and fulfill a commitment to pray regularly. I saw him serve in numerous different capacities in the church. When the church turned on him, I saw him join with a group of others to love the church anyway. And when separation became the only solution, I saw him forgive and replant his family in a different church all the while never losing his love for the church.

My dad took me to breakfast almost every Saturday morning for more years than I can even remember. He took me to his office and invited me into his world there. He always introduced me to new people which let me know that he was proud of me simply being his son. In fact, he taught me that I didn’t have to be or do anything in order for him to be proud of me. He just was.

He talked politics with me and taught me how to think for myself about it. Then he gave me the space I needed to figure out what exactly I believed. He taught me to love reading. He didn’t do this by making me read, but by reading all the time in front of me. He never once told me that I needed to get a certain grade, but in being a constant student himself, he taught me to love learning. He showed me that sometimes in life you have to do hard things. That’s never much fun at first, but it is necessary. The best way to get through those times is to just tackle them head on. The quicker you dive all the way in, the quicker you adjust to the cold water.

Through his constant and abiding example, he taught me how to be a dad to my own boys. I’m a long way from perfect as a dad myself, but I’m a whole lot better than I might have been because of his example. As a result, I have three terrific boys who are shaping up to each be remarkable young men.

I never ever even once doubted that my dad loved me. I know it because he told me a lot and he showed me a lot. He took an interest in the things that I was interested in. When I played volleyball, he was at every tournament no matter how far away. When I switched to running cross country, he never missed a meet if he could help it. When music became the primary focus of my attention, he made every single concert. Even when the concerts were three-hours away during college, he made the drive even if it meant leaving work after a long day, driving three hours, and then driving three hours back home. He came to watch terrible football games just so he could see me march around with a bottom base drum strapped to my chest. And it was the same show every week.

My dad always worked hard. There are literally thousands of children who have permanent and stable homes because of him. He served faithfully. He has been a key leader in two different churches for extended periods of time. He gave generously. When he knew of a need, he went above and beyond to meet it. When he had the opportunity to enable fun experiences for others, he took it. He still does. He loved committedly. He’s been married to my mom for almost 45 years.

If you can’t tell, I’m immensely proud of him and grateful for him. My life is unquestionably better than it could have been because God gave me him as a dad. I only hope that when I cross into my seventh decade of life, my boys will say the same about me. He is a dad worth celebrating. Every day is a good day for that, but today is especially appropriate because it’s his birthday. Happy birthday, Dad. I love you. Thanks for being a man I can still aspire to be.