Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4 NLT).It is Father’s Day. It was started in 1910 by Sonora Dodd from Spokane, WA. President Lyndon Johnson set it into practice in 1966. And it is a day we honor fathers.
But what exactly does a father do?
There is a national campaign to denigrate fathers that has gone on for several years now. It started with the feminism of the late 1960’s and 1970’s and continues pretty strongly. The idea of a father as nothing more than a sperm donor has gotten stronger.
On TV and in movies, fathers are portrayed as idiots, people who are barely functional themselves, held together in life only by the strong intellect and ability of their wives.
But what does a father do?
Fathers are different from mothers. A mother loves her children automatically. She bears them and then loves them. It is called maternal love. She cannot help loving her children. God made her that way.
But a father chooses to love his children. Unlike a mother who has her children in pain, the husband is a spectator. He sees the children, accepts them and decides to love them.
Throughout history, it has been his job to care for the children by supporting them and teaching them. The family has always been held together by the fact that the mother cared for the children while the father supported them. It worked great for since the beginning of the world.
A father’s job is to train, while a mother’s job is to nurture. A father doesn’t train through beatings or humiliation or any other negative thing. It is through love, a firm guiding, enabling love that leads them to God and his love.
That is why God compared himself to a father, one who loved his children by choice, and who teaches and cares for them, provides for them, instructs them.
Fathers are the bedrock of a healthy society. Without them, the family is rootless. They are the head of the family, and the authority figure the children grow up under.
They are also their children’s first picture of God.
God calls himself a Father. If a child’s father are good and loving, the children see God as good and loving. If they are abusive or absent or uncaring, children see God as this way, too.
When we as fathers take up that office and position and love our children as God loves us, we not only help our families, we give our children that solid picture of God.
Any fool can be a sperm donor. But it takes a special man to be a father to his children.
I am grateful for the father in my life that showed me love and caring and showed me God.
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