How is or was your relationship with your father? Was your father supportive or was he cruel? Did you have a father who you knew or did you never know your father? Did you know that there is a crisis of fatherlessness in America?
This is somewhat of a difficult blog for me to write because I am not a father and have never been a father though I am a son and have seen how a father affects his sons. But I write this because I recently saw the movie Show Me the Father and for some reason God has placed in my heart a concern for the fatherless long before I saw Show Me the Father. Fathers play an important role according to the Holy Bible. The first is that fathers pass on their identity to their children. Genesis 5:3 says, “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” (ESV)
Fathers are to teach their children about God. “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.” Deuteronomy 4:9 (ESV) and Deuteronomy 6:6-9, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (ESV)
Fathers are to be good to their children because they are an example of the Heavenly Father. “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:9-11 (ESV)
Fathers are to be compassionate. “As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” Psalms 103:13 (ESV)
Fathers are to discipline their children. “Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you.” Deuteronomy 8:5 (ESV)
God also gives fathers a warning on how they treat children. “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” Colossians 3:21 (ESV) Problems occur that may have long term effect on children when the father does not heed this warning. When they abuse their children, they become wounded and these wounds are difficult to fix. God never intended that the home would be a place of abuse. God intended it to be a place of love, growth, encouragement and hope.
The problem I see is that man has often times abdicated their responsibility to being a father. Here are just a few statistics about our fatherless in America:
- 97% of those incarcerated in prison grew up without a father.
- 63% of youth suicides involve a child who was living in a fatherless home when they made their final decision.
- 75% of rapists are motivated by displaced anger that is associated with feelings of abandonment that involves their father.
- 75% of adolescent patients being treated in substance abuse centers are from fatherless homes.
- 73% of adolescent murderers come from fatherless homes.
Now you can see why children need a father. The problem is that they cannot control whether or not they have an earthly father. But they can all have a Heavenly Father. God cares about them. The Holy Bible is full of passages like Psalms 68:5 “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” (ESV) So, there is hope because if you never had a father or your father abused you and harmed you your Heavenly Father wants to replace that father with Himself the perfect Father.
When I put my life into the hands of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to provide all that I need. I knew that when I became a child of God the Father. I now have an Abba, Daddy in heaven. I will be fine and that gives me more hope than anything else in this world. That does not mean that all things will be perfect but it does mean that God my Abba Father will be there to help. If you have not put your life into Jesus’ hands then you can learn how to start here.
So, join me in getting to know the best Father you can have. Build a relationship with your Father God. Acknowledge God as your Father because He will always give us what God knows what we need, He wants to know us personally as your Heavenly Father. When you know God as your Father you will have hope. One day, He will make all things right, give us more than we can imagine, and we live in hope for yourself, then you will also give hope to others by living in God’s provisions. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfied the penalty for my sins and yours as well. It satisfied all my sins from the past, in the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because wisdom shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope and pray that you join me in choosing Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here.
You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here.
eBook or Audiobook versions can be found at Westbow Press or Christianbook.com at Amazon or Google.
Soli Deo Gloria
