The righteous lead blameless lives;
blessed are their children after them.
Proverbs 20:7
Fatherlessness is an epidemic in America today as well as in many other countries. I believe that we are only beginning to see the first fruits. The absence of a father in millions of homes has left a relational vacuum that is being filled up with the emotional demons of insecurity, loneliness, resentment, anger, and hostility. This results in a growing host of self-destructive activities like alcohol, drugs, video addiction, sexual perversion, crime, and suicide.
One of the greatest witnesses of the Christian Church down through the centuries has been its witness about fatherhood. The Old Testament not only reveals the true and living God as our Creator, but it also reveals Him as our Father. Jesus not only revealed the Father, He taught His disciples to pray by saying, “Our Father . . . .” That was revolutionary for the first-century world, for much of Judaism, and to hundreds of millions of people in the world today!
Some cultures do not even have a word for this kind of love or grace. Their image of God as Father is either totally unknown or obscured at best. There are also millions of people in the Western world who have heard something about Jesus, but have still grown up fatherless. They are the by-products of divorce, sexual promiscuity, unwed mothers, and abandonment.
The spiritual consequence is that they project upon the heavenly Father their relationship—or lack of a relationship—with their human father. Therefore, if God is anything like their earthly father, they don’t want anything to do with Him. The result is that they grow up with neither a human nor a divine authority figure, which is manifested by a host of rebellious attitudes and actions.
The ancient world was not much different—until Christ came. After His life, death, and resurrection, and as Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, Christian teaching about the role of men as husbands and fathers began to radically improve family relationships. Christian men were challenged to love their wives and be faithful to them for life. Marital faithfulness and sexual purity were a prerequisite for church leadership. Husbands and fathers were taught to nurture and discipline their children.
Everything we do in life has radical, lifelong consequences—especially on our children. The biblical proverb is still true: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Jeremiah 31:29). That simply means if we as fathers develop a taste for the “sour grapes” of this world, rather than the “milk and honey” of the Kingdom of God, our children will also develop our jaded, worldly appetite! We are either passing on a godly inheritance or an ungodly inheritance.
What is your relationship with God like today? Do you know and relate to Him as your heavenly Father who passionately loves you? Maybe you had no father, or the one you had was distant, unavailable, and uninvolved in your life.
God said that He would be a “father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5a). Will you let Him be all that He desires to be as your Father today? Will you let Him begin to heal those broken father images in your life? Let Him embrace you and envelop you in His everlasting, unconditional love right now.