1. Protect from fighting and provide for peace. I grew up hating my father. Everyone in our town knew about my father’s drinking. When my friends joked about him, I laughed. I hoped my laughing would hide my pain. Hate for my father filled my life and robbed me of peace. Not long after I became a Christian, though, I began to love my father. I helped him trust Christian, salvation. Fourteen months later he died, but I had learned what love can do. Fourteen months of loving my father dud more for me than twenty years of hating him had ever done.