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I am the father of a wonderful seven year-old boy. I figured I was a pretty good father, since I provided for my family as best I could. But then, all of a sudden, I found out that I had been making an awful mistake all these years—and what a failure as a father I had been.

I had been working on the second shift in a large factory for nine years. Every afternoon at 3:15, I would leave the house, walk the long hill down to the corner, and then slip into the bar for a quick drink. Just one, you understand, or maybe two, once in a while. Never any more. Sort of “set me up” for the job in a way.

Well, it started the same way that particular afternoon. It had been snowing, and when I opened the door, it lay there, crisp, heavy and white. The sound of my boots biting through it sounded like firecrackers. About halfway down the hill I heard my son call to me. He had just gotten home from school. Turning around I saw him there in the snow, trying to put his feet into the tracks I made. It looked so funny I started to laugh. He waved his hands and yelled, “Watch me, Dad! I’m following right in your tracks!”

I don’t know just what it was but those words hit me like a truck. All at once I saw a picture of myself sneaking around for that “set me up,” and I felt sick and ashamed deep inside. You see, my boy knew nothing about that. And now, he never would—never! Right then and there I said to myself, “No, my boy, no! You’re not going to follow me at all.” And from that moment I haven’t touched the stuff.

I told some of the boys about it during our supper break. I felt kind of proud of myself, too! And I could see they looked up to me for it. It was just about time to get back on the job, when one of them took me aside. He said something to me that I’ll never forget. It got me thinking real hard. Let me give it to you just as he said it.

He said, “You were wrong, friend. Very wrong. You have only given that boy of yours half an example of what a father should be. You have shown him what not to do, but that will never be enough. You have to show him what to do—the right thing to do. That comes when you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour and become a new person. Becoming a born again Christian is the most important thing for this world and for the next. Give that son of yours the sight of a real Christian father and example!”

All at once I saw it like a flash. Now I know it came from the Lord, whom I have trusted as my personal Saviour. The Bible says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Now, I am a complete father.

Why don’t you consider Christ? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31). Then you will be able to fulfil this responsibility given to fathers: “Provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). —John R. Anderson

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