THE FATHER DIED by George Prins

Frederick Buechner tells a story about a boy of twelve or thirteen who, in a fit of anger and depression, got hold of a gun and fired it at his father, who died shortly afterwards. When the authorities asked the boy why he had done it, he said that it was because he hated his father who demanded too much of him. And then later on, after he had been placed in a house of detention, a guard was walking down the corridor late one night when he heard sounds from the boy's room, and he stopped to listen. The words that he heard the boy sobbing out in the dark were, "I want my father, I want my father."

Reading this story reminded me of how society has tried to kill off God, the Father. Faith in Him has become so meager as "enlightened" people contemplate the "fallacy" of God's existence. "Where is God?" we ask as the killings in Kosovo continue, as children are forced into drugs and prostitution at an early age, and as terrorists find nuclear toys to tinker with. The weeping of society does not abate and the media noisemakers darken the whereabouts of a God, saying we perhaps have outgrown Him.

And yet, within each of us, there is a deep longing to find fulfillment. We are given the freedom to find gratification in anything we desire, only to discover that only God satisfies our hunger. As Augustine aptly wrote: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Likewise, Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher wrote: "There is in each of us a God-shaped vacuum that only God can fill."

A suggested prayer:

"God, my heart and mind are restless, ever racing against time and place.Where do I find satisfaction? How can faith in you relax me and give me hope and peace? God, I often think that I have outgrown you. Forgive my failures, my doubts and my meager faith in You. I ask you to take my vacuum, my void, my aching, and fill it with Your
presence. Thank You for taking my burdens when You died on the cross and rose
again. You knew myname already then! So You investigate my life and get all the facts straight. Let me be an open book to You for I am never out of Your sight.

You know me inside and out and know every bone of my body. I thank You,Father, that You are not dead but let Your Son die to give me a future. Amen!"