Father’s are important
Where are the dads? I’m not talking about men that are just the biological father or live-in boyfriends. I’m talking ‘Dad’! Why am I asking this question? If you’ve known me for any time, you know that I believe that the number one issue in America today is the absentee father. So, what is this based on? The Lord led me to start teaching in prisons about 50 years ago. I have done this weekly for the most part. The last seven years has been specifically for the purpose of equipping men to help them understand their role as a father so that they may fulfill it. What I have experienced in prisons, juvenile detention centers and homeless shelters, has made it abundantly clear that the majority, vast majority, of these men and boys are there due to the lack of a father in their life.
What we are now witnessing in our streets is, in my opinion, the same issue. While it appears on the surface that there is a moral uprising against acts of police brutality. What we don’t understand and do not hear, are the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children that police save from death or injury, physical or emotional, every year in our nation. The uncontrolled rage and rioting goes much deeper than certain real evidences of police brutality. This rage down deep in the soul and psyche of these boys and girls, men and women, is due to the lack of the presence of a father in their lives.
Role
God ordained marriage in Genesis. The purpose was to create a family, to enjoy each other and the relationship with God. He did not mince his words. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2. 24) Hold fast is many times translated ‘cleave to’. One flesh. To accomplish all of that, the dad has to be present and engaged. He is primarily the one who administers discipline in the children, with the blessing of the mother. What we are seeing is a total lack of discipline and when that happens, people strike out at others, most times not understanding why they are even doing it.
When I was teaching for several years in the Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center, we were addressing 24 boys ages 11 to 17. I tried to impart to them, among other things, that God places young children in the care and discipline of loving parents. If the child does not receive that or chooses to rebel, then there are other means of discipline in the public arena. School principals, teachers, truant officers and then of course police if things get out of control. These are God’s discipline agents. Should they continue to resist and rebel against proper discipline, there’s always jail, then a prison and quite frankly, death. That is the last means of discipline in God’s arsenal.
Responsibility
Dads of today, look at what is being produced in our children. Examine your heart, your availability, your purpose. Seek God’s help through the power and the presence of his Holy Spirit. He most of all wants you to succeed. These are his creations that he has placed in your care, to love and discipline for their good and the good of his kingdom and society. Left unattended, your children are easy prey by an evil world. They want and need that love, attention and discipline. God designed us that way.
God could not be more clear. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6.4). If you don’t, you are promoting undisciplined and angry behavior that will be acted out during their lifetime. Do you really want this on your hands?
