Heeding Dad

A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not respond to rebukes. (Proverbs 13:1)

When I was ....................................
 4 years old:  My daddy can do anything.
 5 years old:  My daddy knows a whole lot.
 6 years old:  My dad is smarter than your dad.
 8 years old:  My dad doesn't know exactly everything.
10 years old: In the olden days when my dad grew up, things were sure different.
12 years old:  Oh, well, naturally Father doesn't know anything about that. He is too old to remember his childhood.
14 years old:  Don't pay any attention to my father.  He is too old-fashioned!
21 years old:  Him?  My Lord, he's hopelessly out-of-date.
25 years old:  Dad knows a little bit about it, but then he should because he has been around so long.
30 years old:  Maybe we should ask Dad what he thinks.  After all, he's had a lot of experience.
35 years old:  I'm not doing a single thing until I talk to Dad.
40 years old:  I wonder how Dad would have handled it.  He was so wise and had a world of experience.
50 years old:  I'd give anything if Dad were here now so I could talk this over with him. Too bad I didn't appreciate how smart he was. 

          We don’t all go through exactly that list, but I know I spent some time with a number of those thoughts. My father used to be a MacGyver. He could fix things. He was never great with words, and education wasn’t his thing, but he could fix things. Now, I’d love to have that Dad back. But I wonder if he were like he was in his early seventies, whether I would heed his instructions? At issue, not surprisingly, is the definition of heed. My immediate thought was obeying. Do what he says. The dictionary says it means “pay attention to” or “take notice of.” That doesn’t mean that if we decide to do something else (if we’ve actively listened) that we’re wrong. When we’re kids, we may not have a choice, but this passage doesn’t tell us to leave our brains in the garbage and blindly follow everything Dad says to do. 
         The thing about the wise son is that heeding his father’s instructions keeps the relationship functional. Mockers build a wall between themselves and those they mock. It’s a sort of reversal of Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin. In that song, the father is too busy for his son, and when his son grows up, he’s too busy for his dad. Mockers have no time for their fathers, and when the time comes that the mocker needs the father, the father is no longer available. Heed your father. Heed your family. Even if they’re difficult. Keep the lines of communication open.