Fatherhood

The subject of fatherhood has come up a lot around me lately. The first instance was while I was reading Jeremiah and considering the attributes of God. I think our culture today focuses on a loving God, but the God I was reading in Jeremiah was a wrathful God. Yes, Jesus's death covered the wrath and allowed the love, but does that mean that attribute of God just disappeared? I don't think so. Therefore, I was considering how to view God not just one attribute at a time, but all together. I also considered why our culture might zoom in on only one side and that's when I came to the issue of fatherhood.

I noted that the father figure has lost a lot of respect in our culture. Generally, he is either absent by one reason or another, or he is spun around a little finger. (Obviously, these are not all the options.) So many people have a hard time thinking of God as their father because the title holds little or negative weight to them. My pastor pointed this out in reference to the Lord's prayer in which Jesus teaches how to pray beginning with "Our Father."

Shortly after I was considering these thoughts, I watched the movie Courageous which is fully devoted to the subject of fatherhood. They emphasize the importance of a father's role, and the importance of a father's relation with the Lord in that role.

I have been struck many time in the past week how lightly our culture takes parenting. Both sexes carry this fault, yet women more often tend to have an innate motherly instinct. And there are a lifetime of repercussions.

I have also been thinking of this issue from the other side. How even those who decide and plan to become fathers struggle with the role once the enter it. Or how when your child becomes a teenager, there are all new requirements. There is no formula to being a good father; it depends so much on your child. And it seems to me as thought fathers of sons have an even greater challenge in breaking the barrier that intimacy is not masculine.

Fatherhood should not be taken lightly. There is a generation being raised up that may not even know what a father should be, and what kind of father's will they be?

Kudos to the fathers out there who are on their knees and putting all they have into this weighty task!
Keep it up!