Sons, Fathers, and Our Heavenly Father
A Fatherless Son Finds God’s Love and Learns to Impart that Love to Others
By David Davis with Ben Cox
Partners in Christ: David and Freida Davis enjoying each other’s company at a Thanksgiving outing. The two have been married and strengthening their relationship in the Lord since 1981.
Malachi 4:5-6 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
Born in 1955, I grew up believing the definition of manhood included strength, dependability, courage, and authority, as focused on the purpose of opposing the unjust. Fatherhood was such a man governing the family. I saw this defined by stories on TV and the big screen, in a patriarchal tradition reaching back to the colonies, and of course, the Judeo-Christian experience of church-going folks.
WWII both substantiated and shook these traditions. This definition was carried by many men who were veterans of that war and who controlled that dominant culture. Yet, the veteran fathers were often emotionally scarred by the war or living out false assumptions embedded in these traditions. My dad was such a man. He was alcoholic, abusive, coarse, and at one time, he selfishly abandoned our family for three months to be with another woman. Though Mom took him back, he remained a painful picture of manhood who did little to no actual fathering.
Mom finally divorced my dad when I was twelve and remarried soon after. My step-dad was gentle, but he married my mom and had no other children. I was a bit of an add on for him, and we never connected.
As a result of that marriage, I turned thirteen and entered high school in a new community. Within a year, I followed a few friends to church and within another year, I committed to Christ at a summer church camp. It was a mountain top experience as is said, but no effort toward direct discipleship followed.
I finished high school without any secret explorations of alcohol, marijuana or sexuality. I identified with the “good kids” and envied their home lives, especially their dads, who appeared markedly different from my biological dad. I now know, my experience of being essentially fatherless was more common than I knew then.
As a high school senior, I won a drama scholarship competition that paid for the first year of college at a private, Christian college in north Georgia. Attending there, I spent time with Christians at a nightly event called Vespers, and I took a world religion course which examined Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. I decided all world religions carried a common theme—the Golden Rule. I looked in my still sinful heart and decided Christianity’s teaching was too narrow. I needed to be a kind person, but I was otherwise free to do as I pleased.
By my second year at college, I hung out regularly with my drama department friends and took devil’s advocate positions in classroom discussions, picking at my Christian classmates’ values. Near the end of that second year, I couldn’t pay tuition for another quarter.
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out
With my grades showing the effect of not caring about much of anything, I dropped out of school and took off for Wyoming. Three months there, then on to San Francisco; and five months later, I moved again, this time to New York City. From dropping out early in 1975 through half of 1979, I never stayed any one place longer than a few months. I would get a job, get a few hundred dollars ahead, then move on. There wasn’t an answer to my snarling questions anywhere I went. I started reading the Bible again in January of 1979 in the midst of a growing fear and anxiety over life. I sought solace. I had tried escaping and it wasn’t working.
A friend along the way had mentioned once that Boone was a beautiful place. Nearly out of money again and not working, I looked at a map to find Boone. I liked the location and bought a bus ticket to North Carolina. The Greyhound bus stop was the parking lot of the Long Vue Motel in June of 1979 (about where the Holiday Inn is located.) I stepped off the bus and noticed a huge windmill on top of a nearby mountain. I started walking in the direction of that windmill. Everything I owned in life was in a backpack, and my wallet held $65.00. I told myself if I didn’t get a job within a week, I would head to Asheville since it was a bigger town. I found work my first full day in Boone, in a restaurant kitchen.
Big things ahead: a young David in front of the Golden Gate Bridge with his mother. San Francisco would become one of the places David turned to as he searched for answers after dropping out college.
I hung out for the summer not sure I would stay in Boone. In August, I ended up going to a Christian concert held in I. G. Greer at ASU, put on by a small independent, non-denominational church. The first person greeting me on the steps as I entered the concert met my eyes and something in my heart stirred. I could not remember ever seeing such stability and peace in a person’s eyes. The songs these people sang awoke inside me a desire to be with God.
An altar call at the end created a huge conflict in my heart; and I resisted the call to the front strongly. However, I did not want to resist my curiosity about this group. A deep feeling that God was my only hope and these people knew the way to Him pushed me to meet them on their turf and experience more of what I had seen and heard at ASU. A week later on Sunday morning, I hitch-hiked 421 East toward Winston-Salem. I decided that was the correct direction and figured, I’d find it. I did, because a young man picked me up as he headed there for worship! The building where the church met back then is located where the Seventh Day Adventist building is now on Old Hwy 421.
That first time I walked in, I was amazed! This church proved to be a passionate, dedicated, and lively group of about 25 young married couples, some with small children, a smattering of middle-aged couples, and a bunch of college students. When they worshiped, the radiance on their up-turned faces competed with the sun streaming in through the big, plate glass windows of the converted pool hall.
They called the church Watauga Christian Center back in that day. When they moved locations, they changed the name of the church to Living Water Christian Fellowship. In 2014 the church beside the bowling alley in Boone changed its name to Harvest House.
Beginning Again in God
For two weeks after I found this church in 1979, I attended every meeting these people had, and totally immersed myself in the culture. On my third Sunday when the pastor gave the altar call, I faced my first quandary. Was I saved in that Methodist church at fifteen? Did I need to respond to the altar call?
The music played softly; the pastor beckoned for decisions for Christ, and my thoughts deepened into a theological musing over what “salvation” is. He moved on to an invitation to be water baptized. My hand shot up! “This is where I start again,” I thought to myself, little realizing how this simple step of obedience would be my first step in my journey of walking out life in submission to the loving Spirit of God.
Once that decision was made, I was ready to consider a future with Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life. As a 24 year old I began to ponder the idea of the possibility of marriage and family. Through my study of Scripture, I began to consider living a celibate life so that I could devote my life more fully to the Lord’s service. 1st Corinthians 7:1-7 prescribes that as a possibility for whom God has given the grace to remain single. However, as I grew in my relationship with my Heavenly Father, I realized marriage was an option I should consider.
“The process of overcoming is the process of learning how to abide in the Spirit of Jesus”
A year later in August of 1980 I met Freida Evans and shortly thereafter, before we even dated, we both felt the Lord had led us to one another. Seven months later we married and my life as part of a family began. I had a goal and faith that I would be a better husband and father than I had known.
The Lord is faithful, so very faithful. He redeems, guides and comforts. Yet, we are responsible to process our overcoming of the natural, sinful man in rebellion against God. This rebellion is written on our souls by both birth as that natural, sinful human and the marks of our upbringing. The birth in the Spirit, which occurs at the moment of our moving in faith to accept the atonement of Jesus, is the beginning of the process.
As I walked through the deepening of my love for my wife, as we had children—five in seven years!—I did as most do, I suppose. I loved them, but I sometimes reacted from my old nature instead of my new nature in Christ.
A Lifelong Journey with Jesus
I would ask forgiveness for my impatience, my anger, my lack of understanding, and so on, then move on. I couldn’t put my finger on why I behaved as I did. I just understood it as my sinful nature. The process of overcoming is the process of learning how to abide in the Spirit of Jesus over and above and beyond what our natural feelings are. Maturing at this takes a lifetime.
I enjoyed being a dad and was more than my dad had been. I never cussed, never sought intimacy outside of marriage, never abandoned the family. Nor did I smash furniture in drunken rages or degrade my wife in front of our children as modeled for me.
I did trip over stumbling blocks though, and one in particular I didn’t see. I wrapped myself up in church work and assumed my children would mature into adults who loved God and served Him as long as I continually pointed to Him in all things, exposed them to much talk over the scripture, and prayed for them and with them. All these things I did. However, I didn’t do what I might have to strengthen them emotionally. That is, I did not actively develop a deep heart to heart relationship with each one.
New priorities: David’s five children on the first day of school in 1994, from left to right: (back) Emma Beth, Jesse, Josiah, (front) Jacob, and Anna.
Did I love them deeply? Yes. Did they know I was always for them? No, because I so frequently made the issue of why and how I parented them by addressing whether or not their actions were obedience. I made their sinful nature the rationale for my interaction with them often. I did not often seek to equip them through love to love others sacrificially.
That may not seem like a big issue to some, but by reducing the Gospel to obedience first, as proof of love, the point is missed that a developed love motivates a person to obedience as a choice. Obedience chosen out of authentic love is the goal. Obedience simply expected or demanded based on fear of consequences is not really obedience at all. It is perfunctory performance in front of the authority figure which is easily abandoned when one desires and thinks authority can be deceived or ignored.
A Rude, But Much Needed Awakening
In February of 1997, I had this point driven home to me when my oldest son, Josiah, was 14 years old. Freida and I agreed to let him stay home alone while we attended a Christian School conference. We saw this as an opportunity for Josiah to demonstrate responsibility. He saw it as an opportunity to have a party at our house, which, long story short, landed him in jail.
I would like to report that this was a wakeup call for Josiah, but it wasn’t. It was just the beginning of a 4 year rebellion against God. But it was a wakeup call to me, as I realized, with God’s help, some of the impact of my parenting style: I was distant emotionally but close by with correction. The Lord guided me clearly to an understanding that I had not helped win Josiah’s heart, nor any of his siblings’ hearts, into a submission and dedication to loving God and others. Though, I had taught this verbally as the essence of the Gospel.
The remaining three years of his high school years were difficult. Much happened. At one point, I came home from work, and Josiah had packed a bag and planned on leaving home. The following year, I suggested that maybe his moving out was needed since he could not honor our restrictions on some of his behavior. We had long talks about how rules were limits on him for his overall safety, not simply a need he perceived I had to be controlling. I had helped build that perception, and I had to help deconstruct it.
“I realized, with God’s help, some of the impact of my parenting style: I was distant emotionally but close by with correction”
Of course, the most beneficial thing I did was pray and wait on God. In the summer after graduating high school, he came to me one day with tears in his eyes,
“Dad,” he said, “I get it.”
“Get what, Son?
“God gets joy out of giving to His children.”
I rejoiced, and he has never turned from the course of love and obedience he chose that summer. I will never turn from praising God and blessing His name for His redemption of us fallen humans and for the opportunity to be a father to my wonderful son and his siblings. I will continue to turn and look for ever increasing maturity in the spirit of Christ. I believe, so will Josiah.
This article was originally written for the Summer 2020 Edition of The Journey magazine.