THREE TIMES a year my four adult children come to me with moans and groans as they pose the question of “What can we buy for Dad?” Many families, of course, are often faced with the same problem, but in ours there’s a wee bit of a difference…

Of course the three times in each year refer to Christmas, birthday and Fathers’ Day. But the key problem which we, as a family are faced with, isn’t so much trying to come up with an original gift idea. No, it’s trying to dissuade ‘Dad’ away from his weird gift list. You see, most dads are content to suggest socks, a book, chocola-tes or maybe a jumper. Unfortunately, this is not the case with my husband. If I cast my mind back over previous years he has asked for a bike (which he has only ever ridden once), a filing cabinet, a set of steps, an office chair and probably best of all, a nasal hair trimmer!

Sometimes we give in to his bizarre requests and sometimes we don’t, but of course, when it comes to Father’s Day it is purely up to my offspring to decide for themselves whether to humour him or not…

The love which we hold for our own fathers is important and Father’s Day is surely a clear recognition of that fact. Yet if we follow the Lord’s first commandment to love the Lord our God and Father with all our heart, soul and mind, then we should be actually celebrating Fathers’ Day each and every single day of the year. And better still: in celebrating the love of God the Father, we have no need to rack our brains to think of which gifts to give to him.

The reason for this is simple. If we try to follow the path that Christ set out for us, we are then giving the Lord our very best gift.

And that’s not all: we don’t have to find gifts to give to God. We simply have to make good use of the ones which he has gifted us with, for the benefit of others.

So on Fathers’ Day give your dad a treat by all means, because I’m sure he deserves it. But don’t forget to celebrate the Lord’s presence in your life on this day too. And at least in so doing you won’t have to worry about how to wrap up a bike…!

(ENDS – 449 words)