Lessons I Learned From my Dad.

¹ Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ²“Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— ³ “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”^[a]

 ⁴ Fathers,^[b] do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:1-4

Since its FATHER’s DAY, I want to share to you some lessons I learned from my biological father.  I think we first begin to understand life and get our training from our family. And having a father figure is so important. Nowadays, especially here in the US, there is either a low father figure image or none at all. In our country, Philippines, having multiple spouses and family is so rampant that the kids suffer the consequences. And I would like to do some personal reflections today about my father and share lessons I think I have learned from him. I am doing this for many reasons. And I can say to anybody that my father was not definitely an ideal father. He was not a perfect one. We all recognize their imperfections, as every one of us has imperfections. But still, I learned some good lessons from him. And I want to share these with you.

He taught me the importance of family. The first lesson I learned is he valued our family, even though he had several families to support (he had more than 3+ spouses, lol). He made it a point to go home to every single house he had kids. He had special schedule and made it a point to visit us every weekend or a schedule of Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It may sound weird, but I always look forward when he comes home from work or from his other family and drinking/smoking and telling special stories about his work but not his life. Lol…. Both my mother and father made it a point that we have a family meal at dinner and enjoy each other and talk about his business dealings. It is not perfect, but still he made it a point to have everybody during meal time. My father was often gone before breakfast, I don’t know where he goes, to work or to another family, but he has to be up early, probably around 3 or 4 in the morning. Home was very important to him. And there is this thing saying that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. I bet my father loved ALL the mother’s of his children. And up to this date, I still don’t know how many siblings I have…lol…My parents did not have any ideal marriage. They had their own differences. They were constantly fighting, but still, my father kept on supporting and taking care all of his family.

He also taught me the importance of hard work.  The value of hard, physical work and I appreciate it. When he is available and at home, he likes to tinker around the cars and explains me everything about his cars and his truck. He tries to repair all of problems in the house. He will show me how to do it and will eventually trust me to do it. Like for example changing the oil, tuning up the car, changing the tires, replacing the brake pads, bringing down an engine and etcetera…I think today we have a generation that does not think that hard work is important and a father son bonding.

Looking back, we teach our children, either intentionally or accidentally, lessons they will carry for the rest of their lives. I saw my dad smoking and drinking regularly. He didn’t tell me to do it, but accidentally, I was doing it too. I see this in myself too as a parent to my children. I am always grumpy at home and tend to get mad easily, so my kids are like that too. I tend to be mad at little things. I am amazed how often my father smoked, so when I was in HS, I was already imitating and smoking too.

Even when I am in conscious disagreement with something he believed like in his business or in his life, I reason my way through it using the same methods of thought I saw him use a thousand times before. It is important for me to be consciously aware of what I have learned from my dad. Part of that I am sure has to do with a need to know my own thoughts and beliefs, to understand what truth I have adopted for myself.

But part of it grows out of a simple sense of gratitude. He was my first teacher, and his lessons have been the most enduring. Which reveals an interesting twist to all this. Our parents are our first teachers, and their lessons are embedded deep in our souls. They become part of who we are and give shape to the way we think.

But we are not slaves to the lessons of our parents. WE ARE FREE TO MOVE BEYOND OR EVEN CONTRADICT THEIR LESSONS. God gave us the wisdom to know the truth. We are wise to take what is good from their lives and make it our own. But we are also obligated to leave behind what we receive from them that is not good. I like this saying “Do what they say, but don’t do what they do.”

This is hard to do, but it can be done. Whether it is GOOD lesson or BAD lesson. The most important thing is that he taught me something.