Happy Father’s Day! Today we gathered with some family for barbecued steak. Eating steak reminds me of a story about my dear old dad. Since it’s Father’s Day, and his birthday is coming up this week, and he is about to retire from his job as college professor for 45 years(!), I will share this memory of him.

When I was 9 years old my family traveled to Massachusetts from upstate New York to celebrate Thanksgiving. I can’t remember exactly what we did on Thanksgiving Day, but it didn’t involve sitting at home eating turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. We spent that week touring Plimoth Plantation and Boston and NYC on the way in or out, or both, I don’t really remember.

What I do distinctly remember about that trip is being in downtown Boston. We toured Lexington and Concord Greens, the Boston aquarium and the Boston Children’s Museum. It was now time for dinner. My dad offered to take the 5 of us children to any restaurant we wanted. I’m sad to say that all we wanted to do was to go to McDonald’s. He was offering us steak, or Chinese food, or fish and chips, or Italian, or whatever else the fine eating establishments of Beantown had to offer. What did we do? We declined any of those wonderful opportunities and instead picked the same fast food that we could have had at home.

It was years later that I realized that we sorely missed out because of our childish immaturity. I’m so sorry about that. I don’t want to ever make the same mistake again. I think that’s how Heavenly Father feels sometimes. Like my dad, he is offering us steak, and we want to settle for chain food hamburgers. He is offering the riches of eternity, and we sometimes turn Him down and settle for less. He offers all that He us, which we can receive if we make and keep covenants with Him through the intermediary power of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. On this Father’s Day, it gives me pause to wonder what I can do differently to receive the best that my Father has to offer.