“A young person’s relationship with his father can greatly color his attitude toward God.”

A thought by Lee Strobel (2015-02-24) from his book, The Case for Grace: A Journalist Explores the Evidence of Transformed Lives (Case for ... Series) (p. 18). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

We have just come through the celebration of our mothers. Mother’s Day is a very important time of honoring and thanking our mothers for the major impact they have in our lives but so do our fathers.

I had a very strong relationship with my father. He was my idol. A major part of my beliefs about life come from my father. He was truly a great gift from God and he showed me how to have a strong relationship with my heavenly Father.

Lee said, “I wasn’t aware that many well-known atheists through history — including Friedrich Nietzsche, David Hume, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Baron d’Holbach, Voltaire, H. G. Wells, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and others — had felt abandoned or deeply disappointed with their fathers, making it less likely they would want to know a heavenly Father.”

He then said, “I saw this illustrated later in life when I became friends with Josh McDowell, whose father was a violent alcoholic. ‘I grew up believing fathers hurt,’ Josh said. ‘People would tell me there’s a heavenly Father who loves you. That didn’t bring joy. It brought pain because I could not discern the difference between a heavenly Father and an earthly father.’ Josh became a self-described ‘ornery agnostic’ until his investigation of Christianity convinced him it was true.”

I thank God for the high privileged to be a father and now a grandfather. And I see because of the way my father impacted my life the importance of my living before them what it means to be a true Christ follower. It will have a great impact on who my family follows.

I am so thankful that my son and my son in law both have a real personal relationship with God our Father and it is making a difference in their relationship with their family. And that is making and will make a major difference in their family’s relationship with God.

So father, how is your relationship with God today?

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