A Father's Day Conversation with Dr. Harv Powers

A Father's Day Message: Celebrating Our Heavenly Father

Happy Father's Day, Red Rocks! If you've been coming around here, you know that being a dad was one of my biggest dreams in life. I absolutely love Father's Day. But here's what I know—almost every holiday can be really fun and exciting for somebody, and really difficult for somebody else. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day—it's true, isn't it? For some it's an exciting weekend. For others it's a difficult one. And for a lot of us, honestly, it's both.

Maybe you had a great dad and he's still with you, and you get to celebrate him this weekend. Or maybe you have a great relationship with your own kids. But then there's the other side—maybe you didn't have a dad at all, or you had one who was abusive instead of protective, or who left, or who was there physically but not emotionally present. Nobody had a perfect childhood. We all know that.

But here's what we do know: we have a heavenly Father who is worth celebrating and praising this Father's Day weekend.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God—and that is what we are.

No matter what the relationship is between family members, friends, or anyone else, we know we have a heavenly Father. That's what we're celebrating.

If Father's Day weekend is difficult for you for any reason, I want to encourage you to take these truths into your quiet time this week. Pray these verses over yourself and your family. Never forget: you are God's child, and He loves you. You couldn't lose His love if you tried. He is with you right now, and He will give you wisdom and guidance. God's power is perfect in our weakness. He invites us to come to Him for anything—He can do more than we could ever ask, think, or imagine, and with our God, nothing is impossible. As His children, we have a lot to celebrate on Father's Day weekend.

A Conversation on Fatherhood with Dr. Harv Powers

I'm so excited to introduce my friend and counselor of about eight years, Dr. Harv Powers. There's a small group of people in this world that I would honestly tell you—if it weren't for them, I'm probably not even a pastor today. Harv is one of those people.

Starting with Some Honesty (and Some Laughs)

Before getting serious, we wanted to share some "dad fail" moments—not the kind that puts your kids in counseling for 20 years, just the kind you can look back on and laugh about now.

Harv shared a story about his daughter Hannah, who was afraid someone might break into their house at night. He told her, "God gives dads special ears to hear things so they can protect their daughter." She calmed down and went to sleep. About a year and a half later, the smoke alarm went off in the middle of the night, and Harv slept through the entire thing. Hannah's response the next morning: "Dad, so much for special ears."

It's true about being a dad—there are these wonderful moments, and then, as mere mortals, we also fail.

Harv's Story: Fathering Shaped by Absence

All of our story with fathering begins with our own dad. Harv's father was born in 1930, right as the Great Depression was starting. His grandfather was a coal miner in West Virginia who died in a mining accident six days before Harv's dad was born. So Harv's dad grew up hard, without a father, and carried financial stress and anxiety about poverty his whole life—stress he sometimes coped with through alcohol.

"My dad set a great example in some ways," Harv explained, "but in other ways he was kind of absent and didn't give me enough fathering because he didn't have it to give." Harv didn't experience it as an all-or-nothing failure—his dad gave him the best he had, but he simply didn't have much to give. Harv grew up feeling like something was missing that only a dad can give a son, and he had to seek that out elsewhere.

Redemptive Influence: Transforming What We Didn't Receive

One of the central ideas Harv shared was this: what we examine, we can begin to transform.

"We're not bound to repeat what we didn't receive. When we turn to God, He can transform that and it creates a redemptive wisdom."

Dads have a unique gift from God to provide stability and strength in families. Dads and moms bring different, complementary things to parenting—"moms can't do dadness just like dads can't do momness."

Harv encouraged listeners not to be afraid that a lack of a good model means something is broken or missing in them. Instead, what we didn't have often becomes the very passion we bring to the table to give our own kids something different. That's redemptive influence—because of what we experienced, we can offer something transformed rather than transmitted.

Two practical steps to begin this process:

1. Look back with understanding, not blame. Reflect on how your upbringing impacted you—not to blame your parents, but to create awareness.
2. Turn it over to God. As you understand it, you can engage it in a redemptive way rather than unconsciously repeating it.

Fathering Is Bigger Than Biology

For those who are single parents, or who never had children, or who never knew their biological father, Harv offered real hope:

"Fathering is bigger than biology. It's not just bound to a biological relationship."

Harv shared that key men who weren't biologically related to him showed up at the right time in his life and gave him pieces of fathering he needed—for him, it was a scoutmaster who saw something in him and encouraged him. A coach, a teacher, a mentor—these relationships can change someone's trajectory, even if the person offering them never realizes the impact they had.

For anyone raising kids without ever having seen good parenting modeled: "Welcome to the club of messy parents." Even a psychologist sometimes doesn't know how to meet his own kids in a particular moment. Give yourself grace, be present, do your best, and when you get it wrong, acknowledge it and try again.

The Hardest Parts of Parenting

Harv noted that developmental transitions are often the hardest part of parenting—the shift from infant to toddler, then to "tweener," then to teenager, where suddenly your IQ as a parent seems to drop in your child's eyes. Each transition changes the rules, and that's hard to adjust to.

Three Practical Ways to Be a Better Parent

1. Be present. Kids need more than your provision—they need your presence. Being present with your kids, hanging out with them, seeing them and being authentic bonds them to you through every stage of parenting.

2. Ask better questions and listen. Parents tend to talk too much and lecture, causing kids to glaze over. Instead of "How was your day?" try open-ended questions like "What was the best part of your day?" or "Tell me about something that touched your heart today." Resist the urge to give advice or fix things—just listen so they open up more.

3. Have fun with your kids. Enjoying each other's company creates bonding. Be lighthearted, have inside jokes, tease each other, and create experiences that make your kids actually want to be with you—even as adults. If you're not sure how to engage them, be a good observer. Notice what they enjoy, and join them in it, even if it's not naturally your thing.

As for the anxiety of over-instructing our kids as they grow—wanting to warn them one more time before they drive off, for example—Harv reminded us: "We have limited control to protect our kids... when we overstate it, they just roll their eyes and it bounces off of them." Instead of over-lecturing, debrief afterward. Ask, "What did you learn from this? What would you do differently?" That opens a real conversation.

The Closing Thought: Woundedness Can Become Wisdom

Harv left us with this: sometimes because we've been wounded around fathering or parenting, we feel inadequate. But that feeling is a myth that needs to be dispelled.

"Oftentimes our woundedness, when we deal with it in God's hands, gives us an unusual wisdom and compassion and influence that we wouldn't have otherwise. That's the nature of redemptive influence."

Whatever your background, you have something important to bring to the table, empowered by the Father.

Closing Encouragement

If this is a good weekend for you and you have a good relationship with your dad, celebrate him—buy him some shoes, be kind, don't hand him a list of everything he did wrong.

But if this weekend is difficult for you—if you wanted to be a dad and couldn't, if you've lost a father, or if you don't have the relationship with your father that you wish you had—remember that we have a heavenly Father who says:

"I will be a father to the fatherless."

He says He will do more in your life than you could ever ask, think, or imagine. He is still the miracle-working God. He says:

"Step into my throne room of grace with confidence in your time of need, so that you can receive grace and mercy."

So here's the challenge: if this weekend is tough, take these truths, remind yourself of them, pray them over yourself, over your family, over the future family you want to have. Then step into His throne room. Because when you do, there is grace, there is peace, there is joy, there is strength.

Regardless of what your upbringing looked like, you can spend time with your Father this weekend—and He would love to spend time with you.