My parents dedicated me to the Lord 75 years ago today. That year, June 13th was a Sunday—and it was Father’s Day. I was dedicated along with another young boy who was the son of my Father’s closest childhood friend, and we were dedicated by a fairly young pastor who had only recently lost what turned out to be his only child during childbirth.
Dedication doesn’t save anyone. The other baby boy who was dedicated that same day was far from the Lord the last I heard. Still dedicating our children to God has a rich biblical history. God told His Old Testament people to bring a sacrifice and come before the Lord as an act of worship to celebrate both the birth of a child and the mother’s cleansing from childbearing (Leviticus 12:6-8). We see this act of dedication illustrated for us in Jesus’ own life when Joseph and Mary brought the baby Jesus to dedicate Him to the Lord in the Temple in Luke 2:22ff. This was the time when first Simeon and then Anna pronounced their blessings on the baby Jesus as the coming Messiah. By this act of dedication, my parents were making a public statement that they were dedicating me to the Lord and trusting Him to be at work in my life. My parents weren’t perfect, but I will always remember my father as a sincere, growing Christian.
The other June 13th experience in my life took place 13 years later, to the very day. That was the day my earthly father died of his second heart attack and went home to be with the Lord. June 13th that year fell on a Tuesday, and I had gone to school that day as a seventh-grade student like usual, totally unaware of what would happen later that day. As the day progressed, my father took a turn for the worse and died not too long after I arrived home from school on the school bus. I never saw my father that time when he had been in the hospital for his final week. The last I had heard was that he seemed to be doing better. But life often has its surprises. I was next door at my grandparents when the news came. I believe death always comes as a surprise—I know it did for me. Apparently, God felt that my father’s work in bringing me up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4) that he had committed himself to 13 years prior on that same calendar day was now complete. That Father’s Day our family pastor deviated from his usual practice of preaching a Father’s Day message at church out of deference to my sister and me. But we still had a Heavenly Father. Growing up, I often reflected on God’s promises to be a “Father of the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5 and elsewhere).
Life doesn’t always work out as we might hope or expect. In hindsight, I believe my life turned out quite differently than it otherwise might have by my growing up without an earthly father. Still, I have come to believe that God does all things well and that He is able to work all things “together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). I know God has been at work in so many ways in my life down through the years, and I believe that at least part of this was due to my parents’ commitment to God and their dedication of me to the Lord so many years ago today. He promises to show His “steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:6). I also have learned God calls us to praise Him even at those times when we don’t understand what He is doing in our lives. He is so often doing something bigger and different in our lives than we might ever expect.