Calling all Fathers: Come Home

Young men in prison, young women being sexually exploited, suicide, abortion, low self-esteem, lack of personal responsibility, okay I'll stop with the depressing list. It's just that I am continually blown away by the way that people tread so lightly on the subject of fathers, when so many of the aforementioned issues stem from homes where fathers were either absent or simply didn't fulfill their role as God intended. Only now are some in the media beginning to mention that the absence of fathers could have something to do with many of the ills of our society. In her documentary presentation last week, 'Black in America', Soledad O'Brien did a segment in which she touched on the fact that so many black men who end up incarcerated had no father at home. This is not breakthrough news in my book. This is simply another page in the lengthy volume of issues that have come into society as a result of us excluding the God of the Bible and the truth of His word. It's still amazing to me that people are still so oblivious to God's design in which 'father' is essential to family. The greatest reason I see is that when a godly father is present in the home, children are more likely to be pointed to the Heavenly Father because they've seen an earthly example. I know we walk by faith and not by sight, but there is certainly a spiritual impartation that a child receives when a godly father speaks, loves, protects, embraces and sets an example for his or her life.

By no means do I desire to discount the role of mothers. Much of who I am I attribute to my mother's godly teaching and training. Mothers are invaluable to families as nurturers, encouragers, assistants, project managers, accountants, secretaries, creative designers, peacemakers, teachers, this could go on all day so I'll stop now. As you can see I am a huge advocate for mom, but the reality is that she can never be dad. In God's design, the two work hand-in-hand to form a child into the man or woman that God has called them to be. With the absence of one of the two, any child lacks. Unfortunately, the reality of our society, as with many others, is that the absentee in the picture is commonly the father.

At the end of the day, no government program, faith-based program, church outreach or other religious or social remedy will take the place of fathers coming home. Coming home not only to the physical address of their wives and children, although that would be a start, but coming home to the purpose God designed for them: first to know Him, and then to lead their families to do the same. Through this and only this will family be reestablished. Let no one fool you, there is no alternate agenda that will work. Same-sex marriage, cohabitation, government nannying, trying to be 'good people', etc. will all fail in the long run at raising children as God intended. We must be willing to look at the hard facts and realize that as the prophet Isaiah wrote the words of God in relation to us that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9 - NKJV). We can't ever come up with better plans than God has. We would be wise to embrace his design and pray what Malachi declared was God's word to us at the end of the Old Testament: that He would restore the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to their fathers. (Malachi 4 - NKJV).

If you're a father or a father to be, realize your purpose today. If you're not a father, pray that every father would.