A Father Celebrates

Because I want this exploration of loving and hating like God to be practical, not just  theoretical, I am going to take this week’s article in a different direction, and reflect on recent events in my life.

In the last 5 months I have given both of my daughters in marriage. I have known that these days were coming since the girls were little. In anticipation of this time, I have observed many other Fathers-of-the-Bride, both in popular culture, and in real-life, and concluded that my expected role was to keep the cost to an absolute minimum. From offering their daughters money to elope, to insisting that they only look on the sale rack for their wedding gown, it seems that the driving principle for the Father-of-the-Bride must always be, “spend as little as possible.” I even had one Father-of-the-Bride tell me, “You can get out of this pretty reasonably if you can avoid feeding the guests.” The logic seems to be that weddings are un-necessarily expensive, and that the success of the union is unrelated to the cost of the wedding. So, since it won’t affect the longevity of the union we should spend as little as possible. And this has bothered me, because I don’t think it reflects God’s heart.
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Fulfillment

God gives us many gifts to make our lives full and rich – the enjoyment of a well prepared meal, a glass of wine or a mug of beer; being awed by the splendor of nature, thrilled by an experience of adventure; or bonded in the depth of relationship. Unfortunately, we mistakenly view these gifts as the source of life, not conduits through which God gives us morsels of life, and so, we pursue them to addiction.