When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God...
~Romans 8:15c-16 (NRSV).
If we cannot at first identify with God as our "daddy" - our Abba, Father - we cannot believe in the remaining aspects of the character of God. From this basis, our Eternal Father, we have life.
AN IMAGE OF FATHERHOOD ALL HUMANITY NEEDS
From this basis - a "fatherly" Eternal Father - we have bearing and derive meaning. From the vibrant image of God the course to fatherhood is set, and the drive to complete that course is engendered.
From this image, also, we have the wherewithal to believe that life is good because we have a God who loves us. Though many unbelieving kin may underestimate the value of this perspective, it is irrefutable - by the very nature and need of family that we all have - that God has created an indelible model for us to follow.
We were all once children; at that time we all needed responsible parents. It is only the rogue that never had this; never did they rely on worthy parents, for they never had them. There are many such unfortunates in this world. Why is it that they say they don't need good parents (or the Eternal Father)? It is only because it hurts to go there.
Nonetheless, we were all born to have an intimate relationship with our Eternal Father; the consummate Responsible Parent.
FATHERHOOD - INHERENT TO RELATIONSHIP
When we consider the innateness of intimacy between God as Father and us as his children we can see a connection, relationally, that bears primary consideration to all of life.
As the Eternal Father is inherently and magnanimously relational, so are we to be.
We can soon see that there is value in being a father and a human being to be relied upon, whilst there is little value in constantly disappointing the people who must rely on us. We're inextricably linked with the rest of humanity in deeply interdependent ways.
MIMICKING THE PERFECT MORALITY OF THE ETERNAL FATHER
Not far from knowing the cataclysmic difference between the morality of Divinity and that of humankind, we still have the power in the Spirit to draw upon in our decision-making.
We are, after all, children of the Most High God. We're nothing less than Divinity's kin - heirs to eternal fortune.
These facts are good both ways. Perfection is not required of us, yet we have opportunities every day, indeed every moment, to reach the heights of God - our eternal model of fatherhood.
Selasa, 25 Juli 2017
Senin, 10 Juli 2017
Fatherhood - Children View the World Through Their Fathers
At a movie theater, a little girl had difficulty seeing the movie screen. She pointed to the man in front of her and whispered, "Mommy, I can't see through that man."
A nine-year-old boy asked his father a geography question while the room was full of a group of PTA parents. The father was embarrassed because he could not answer the question. No one knew that this incident shut down that dad, and the window through which his children view the world was closed.
Can your children see through you? Children see the world through your eyes. They have a view of the vast universe through your transparency. However, if that window closes because dad is absent, emotionally or physically, or because he has been embarrassed, you lose your superman status. I have taken a survey and dads agree: dads start to lose their wisdom at about the child's age ten or eleven and they don't regain it until the kids have a child of their own. By the time a dad has been put down a few times, depending on his relationship with his own dad, deep wounds of self-esteem start to become too painful. Often fathers cannot risk being upstaged by his own children therefore, he clams up.
It could be a sport that he boy enjoys, but that dad was not very good at when he was young, or maybe the child wants to play clarinet, whereas the dad was a basketball buff. Whatever it is, it can cause a rift that only time and maturity will heal. Fathers and feel put down, even if the child did not really mean it that way, and the transparency window is closed. The child can no longer see through dad to the world outside. If that window stays closed, dad will be put aside and the child starts to seek a window to the world somewhere else. Guess where he goes. You're right! He goes to his friends. Her peers, whose dads have also recently become stupid, become her new view of the world.
At first glance, this might seem trivial but look again. This is where youth in the western countries is much different from in eastern cultures. The independent attitudes of teens in the USA, Great Britain, and Germany for instance can be rebellious, angry and hungry for affection and acceptance. That is why many kids band together to make new heroes out of shirtless, long-haired, dirty, drug-logged rock stars. It makes sense. That is the farthest they can get from hard working, stone-hearted dad, who has gone to the garage to ease his own pain, to experience his own kind of rebellion.
Many men and women go through life emotionally looking for their missing father, desperately seeking dad! Even if dad is at home, he often is not emotionally involved in the child's life. Men, in general have only recently begun to play an active role in the child-rearing part of home life. Dads march off to work as they have marched off to war, and come home tired and beaten. Budding young men and women, needing the dad God intended, tromp around the house looking for a father's blessing like searching for a lost toy. Dad is nearby, but oblivious. The hole in his heart is just as big as the one his child is beginning to experience. He never got a blessing from his dad, so he has none to give. He knows something is missing, but he does not know what it is. He reaches for his hip pocket and offers what society has demanded he master in. However, material things, without father's blessing, without his love, without the transparency that every child (boy or girl) desperately needs, are ungratefully consumed. The dad window is closed. Yet work-robot, oblivious dad continues to provide more of what the child needs least. All through the children's growing years, they have been prevented from seeing life through the man intended to be their window to the world. They go out looking for love in all the wrong places. Life for most boys and for many grown men and women is a frustrating search for their lost father who did not give them protection, provision, nurture or a role model.
A nine-year-old boy asked his father a geography question while the room was full of a group of PTA parents. The father was embarrassed because he could not answer the question. No one knew that this incident shut down that dad, and the window through which his children view the world was closed.
Can your children see through you? Children see the world through your eyes. They have a view of the vast universe through your transparency. However, if that window closes because dad is absent, emotionally or physically, or because he has been embarrassed, you lose your superman status. I have taken a survey and dads agree: dads start to lose their wisdom at about the child's age ten or eleven and they don't regain it until the kids have a child of their own. By the time a dad has been put down a few times, depending on his relationship with his own dad, deep wounds of self-esteem start to become too painful. Often fathers cannot risk being upstaged by his own children therefore, he clams up.
It could be a sport that he boy enjoys, but that dad was not very good at when he was young, or maybe the child wants to play clarinet, whereas the dad was a basketball buff. Whatever it is, it can cause a rift that only time and maturity will heal. Fathers and feel put down, even if the child did not really mean it that way, and the transparency window is closed. The child can no longer see through dad to the world outside. If that window stays closed, dad will be put aside and the child starts to seek a window to the world somewhere else. Guess where he goes. You're right! He goes to his friends. Her peers, whose dads have also recently become stupid, become her new view of the world.
At first glance, this might seem trivial but look again. This is where youth in the western countries is much different from in eastern cultures. The independent attitudes of teens in the USA, Great Britain, and Germany for instance can be rebellious, angry and hungry for affection and acceptance. That is why many kids band together to make new heroes out of shirtless, long-haired, dirty, drug-logged rock stars. It makes sense. That is the farthest they can get from hard working, stone-hearted dad, who has gone to the garage to ease his own pain, to experience his own kind of rebellion.
Many men and women go through life emotionally looking for their missing father, desperately seeking dad! Even if dad is at home, he often is not emotionally involved in the child's life. Men, in general have only recently begun to play an active role in the child-rearing part of home life. Dads march off to work as they have marched off to war, and come home tired and beaten. Budding young men and women, needing the dad God intended, tromp around the house looking for a father's blessing like searching for a lost toy. Dad is nearby, but oblivious. The hole in his heart is just as big as the one his child is beginning to experience. He never got a blessing from his dad, so he has none to give. He knows something is missing, but he does not know what it is. He reaches for his hip pocket and offers what society has demanded he master in. However, material things, without father's blessing, without his love, without the transparency that every child (boy or girl) desperately needs, are ungratefully consumed. The dad window is closed. Yet work-robot, oblivious dad continues to provide more of what the child needs least. All through the children's growing years, they have been prevented from seeing life through the man intended to be their window to the world. They go out looking for love in all the wrong places. Life for most boys and for many grown men and women is a frustrating search for their lost father who did not give them protection, provision, nurture or a role model.
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