Introduction

I was driving home from a friend's house on a Saturday night when the familiar highway I had traveled many times began to remind me of an "old-school" fun house. For the record, a fun house is an ancient carnival attraction that would thrill you with a spooky yet hilarious experience. Walking through the fun house was a journey through a quirky maze of creepy hallways and squeaky floors. Coupled with the crooked twists and turns, you would see crazy distorted images of yourself and others in a sea of contorted mirrors. The optical illusion caused by the mirrors made you look like an elongated piece of taffy stretched in multiple directions.

Unlike the fun house adventure, my drive home was no laughing matter. Clipping along at a speed of sixty-five miles an hour surrounded by fast moving automobiles was radically unnerving. I had no clue if I was going in the right direction or not. I could barely see the lines on the road, the traffic signs looked to me like moving green, and blue blurred shapes with hieroglyphic images. If I ever prayed for direction, it was that night! It was only by the grace of God that I made it home safely.

My drive home that night made two realities implicitly clear. One, my vision had changed and it was time for me to see the optometrist for my first pair of glasses. Two, I realized one's vision has the ability to change so gradually that it is unnoticeable—to the point where what was once so common becomes out of focus and unrecognizable.

Focusing on fatherhood

The ability to see clearly is important. Fatherhood and fatherlessness are issues in our nation that are in desperate need of immediate clarity of focus and our attention.

One critical aspect of fatherhood ...

Mark Strong is the senior pastor of Life Change Christian Center in Portland, Oregon and the author of Church for the Fatherless.