Like Father like Son

THE COUNSEL OF A FATHER

by Chaplain R. Lewis

Thirty-eight years left to do in the joint.  A lifetime.  He will die in prison.  This father speaks from the chaplain's office in prison to a son lying in a hospital bed somewhere in the free world shot by a relative.  The son is feeling betrayed, sorry for himself and angry, not understanding how close he came to dying.  Interesting how people skip the obvious to lay blame elsewhere.  The son's rage is apparent from the reaction of the face of the father talking to him.  Lying in a hospital, snatched by the hair from death and yet his sons' only determination is to get well enough to return and wreak vengeance on the man that put him there.  He's sold out, in a trap of his own making, a rationalization, an accepted lifestyle, a downhill spiral in sand too loose to get traction.  It's a decision which will end in emotional, spiritual and eventually physical death.  It almost did this time.  But he's not listening. 

The father pleads with his son to straighten up, take responsibility for his actions and let go of hate.  He continues to speak with his dad, but his physical pain merges with his bitter and vengeful heart.  His father strains to hang on to any thread of influence he has left with his son.  It is a long conversation of a father trying to pour into his son a warning and a lifetime of regrets.  The plea of the father is intense and I see him growing older and hunched as the son responds with accusations and deeper determination to get even with the one who shot him.  His anger is deeply rooted and the pleas of his father bounce off him back into the broken heart of his dad.  The years of living on the precipice, daring death, denying God, flash in the dad's mind as the realization hits him that the sins of the father do impact the son.  He tells his son he loves him and will pray for him.  Pray for him. The phrase seems unfamiliar, the use of which is reaching into a place not visited much himself.  He slowly hangs up the phone.  The phone call has aged him visibly.  He is silent, shoulders slumped, hands clasped, head down.

What do you say in a case like this?  What words of comfort or encouragement will ease the pain of  this father who has wasted his years pretending how he lived was his business.  How does a man who will die in prison reach out to a son he has taught to hate and is now following him down the same road to destruction?  He is imploding right in front of me.  Seems futile.  That's when I realize once again no man comes to God just anytime he wants to.  The more he refuses the call of God, the harder the heart gets.  But God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to know him.  The Holy Spirit can reach into the very pit of a man's hell, melt a hard heart and save his soul from death.  It's that counsel I give this father, who says he has himself in the past months begun responding to the voice of God.  I sense he is not far from the kingdom.  But he does not accept Christ now.  He is again teetering on a precipice of indecision, a position with which he is all too familiar.  He can go either way.  Perhaps God will use the love of this father for his son, to cause him finally to say yes to Christ for himself.  He is beyond human counsel.  He must first practice what he has just preached to his son.  No longer can he hope his son will do as he says, not as he does.  It's far too late for that.  He rises to go and leaves the office without making a decision.  I pray on behalf of the father and son.  The battle for the souls of these men is not over.  It is in God's hands.  It always is.