My Father’s Shadow - from Philip
Most of us spend our days trying to get out of someone's shadow - I long to walk in the shadow of another.
It was a cool summer night some 12 years ago but it will be forever etched in my mind as the moment when I stepped into my Dad's shadow. I was 20 years old and had just recently accepted a call that had forever been on my heart and finally had taken hold of my spirit, a call to serve.
That night so many years ago I had rooted out an issue that was distracting the fellowship of the youth I was leading. The issue long since lost in time was not the reason that night meant what it did for me, nor the response or restoration that followed. No, the heart of that night rested in the four words my father uttered after we had stepped outside afterwards.
Four words that even now choke me up - "I'm proud of you."
Now to many who would hear those words pride would come, knowing that you are living up to the expectation of your dad - making him proud. To be fair, this was not the first time I had head those fateful words nor would it be the last. But here unlike other times, it was speaking to something far greater than a father's simple pride in his son. In this moment something other worldly has passed between us that has since marked me as the man I am.
As Timothy walked in the shadow of Paul, so too do I walk in the shadow of my father. Not as one seeking the accolade of flesh and blood but rather as a young minister yearning for the approval of the call he felt on his life.
In that moment those words echoed across the un-dawned years of my life to spring up within me a fire to continue the legacy of this man, not a legacy built of human design but one formed in the very Spirit of God. Understand, this man is my goal, not because he has value within his own members but rather because throughout my whole life I have never met a more Godly man.
My Dad has been consumed from my earliest memories with a God far greater than any, even with what I find in our own churches. This God, in His greatness, is at once both power unimagined and love unrestrained. This was and is my Dad’s legacy; his view of the Almighty and it leaves room for nothing else in the life of the believer.
HE truly becomes the very air we breathe, the very beat of our heart.
In the years that have followed, the proudest moments of my life have been those that have identified me with my Dad. From a prayer to a sermon to a look, I spend my life emulating this man as he pursues his, no, our God with total fanatical abandon.
I don't strive to be like my Dad because he's my Dad, no I strive to be like my Dad because his life points me to my God.
This is his legacy.
