Standing the Watch

Last updated on: June 20, 2026 at 2:46 pm by Mark Williams

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Standing the Watch 2026-06-20T14:46:24-07:00 Mark Williams

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Fathers Day

age of men

STANDING THE WATCH

Father’s Day can be sad. For many, it can raise anger, frustration, anxiousness. It can be the antithesis of what it should be. The celebration of the hardest job on the planet. I’m no scientist or researcher. I don’t spend my time in the lab or in my grandmother’s basement being an “influencer” twisting statistics to meet my needs. But I do observe and I am observing the job of fatherhood from the inside-as a dad, but also as a son. I am talking about dads ‘standing the watch’ which, like it or not, they are truly gifted for. I don’t think I would be too far off to say many of the issues we have as families or a family unit and expand out from there to the community, both good and not so good, I can lay at the feet of the father.

Fathers, as well as mothers, need to be raised up and honored. But it’s miserable to do so just based on the label. If that individual was absent, abusive, unforgiving, hateful, unsupportive, and I am sure your list can expand from there, it is hard if not understandable to not bother. Why should I care out him? He never cared about me. How many times have we heard that line. And it’s true. And what we, as fathers forget to understand, or not care to understand, or are a product of, when these events happen to them, is we are planting the seed in the next generation to repeat it. Worse, the malady is compounded. I will be a compounded reflection of what my father was to me https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%206%3A4&version=NIV.

My faith….

My coping skills as a kid reflected what I had to learn to cope with. Faith, if it was not part of many of us as a child, our rudder during life was bent, or not working at all.

And Satan smiles.

So, maybe this Father’s Day, this should be a calling to ourselves-dads. We few, we happy few. We band of brothers as the old line goes. Maybe we should look inside and ask ourselves about ourselves. The role of father is costly. Our own dad was put on a cross for it, sacrificial love. If we do it right or anywhere close to right, it will be expensive and I don’t necessarily mean with money. But that too. It will tax our body. It will challenge our soul. All we want to do is not go to the second—or third job and just watch the ball game. We don’t want to talk about kid’s school plays, or anniversary dinners. Even spend time with the pretty co-worker who thinks ‘we’re funny.’

No, we’re not.

We look down range….

Frankly, we don’t see an end in sight. We look down range in our lives and see no immediate end to the drama life is. Satan is a pro at that distraction. The mother-in-law is moving in! The car needs new tires.

It was written and claimed by many—to know courage, you must intimately know fear. And fear comes in many examples. There are many like these which can apply to fathers. If we know mercy, we must know persecution. All, are foundational to Love—sacrificial love. The kind of love that could cost you everything you thought you wanted. Like I said. Being a father is expensive.

Dads don’t have to hit homeruns or have a job on the fifteenth floor. They have to be in the game. Once a father, once that child and wife turn to you, they need to see and know you are in it until the death do you part thing. Oh, and by the way, there will be many times when you want to quit. Like walk away kind of quit, maybe with that co-worker who thinks you’re funny. Come on, do you think you’re funny? That’s okay. It’s okay to think that and feel that. That’s Satan again and he will probably show up about 1:32 am and start messing with your brain. At least that’s the favorite time that bastard shows up in my head.

This is a celebration….

So, a long tale for dads. This is a celebration for you, me, us. Frankly, we have to earn that honor of dying ten to fifteen years in front of our wives because we are simply worn out! Look at our hands! If we do it right, we leave it all on the field, my coach used to say. Of course, those were the days we took our water break, in Phoenix, in the hip months of summer, at the drinking fountain by the history building in high school-it was outside.

Every moment is shown in those hands. Maybe you were one that walked away. But maybe you can walk back? Maybe not. But maybe you can start over. How about those kids down the street? They need someone to play catch with or ask about their spring concert where he/she is playing the violin. Maybe you go to that. Wherever you show up, you represent a player in the hardest game. You, wherever you are, right now, is where the fight starts. Be a man to a kid. A good man. Not the poor one you saw or were, but one you dreamed about.

I love quotes….

I love quotes and as I type this, I am sure I will screw it up, but on D-Day, there was a General Roosevelt, Teddy’s kid maybe for you historians. Anyway, they landed on the wrong beach. Hundreds of men on the wrong beach. The thought was they go back out and land on the right beach. He looked at his map and said something like ‘No, we will enter the war here, where we are.’

Enter the war for your children, your neighbor’s children right here, right now. In your faith, either discovered when you were a child or discovered right now, the war has already been won. We are fragile and prone to error. So? Your measurement of worth as a man is not based on your fifteenth-floor office or that fancy car. It is measured by what you do when you think you fell and crashed in a failure. Git up and let your kids see you get up! How will they learn about failure and recovering from failure unless you, Dad, teach them what it looks like to face that failure and rise from it? To give mercy, you need to know persecution. Being empathetic, you must know judgement. To know how to love, you must allow yourself to be loved.

It will be about then you will notice it. Sometime around that moment you make that decision, you will get a feeling something changed—

God is smiling at you.

http://www.markjwilliams.com/

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About Mark Williams

Mark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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