As a father ... You are a pillar of society
“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”
Ephesians 6:4
One thing I’ve learned about fatherhood is that children really should come with an instruction manual.
Regardless of age, children seem to possess a God-given ability to create new and unpredictable conundrums for parents to solve. Perhaps this is why it’s so easy to want to quote God’s command that children honor their fathers, almost as a form of self-defense.
Yet I believe it’s far too easy for us to ignore the companion command God gives to fathers for earning that honor.
God has tasked us with providing godly training for our children. God has a plan for our children that includes spiritual work to uplift others; they can’t do this work if they aren’t trained.
Without a father it is much more difficult for them to find that training. Sadly, we find great statistical evidence of this in our modern society. As the amount of absent fathers in households increases, so, too, do juvenile crime rates and adolescent pregnancies.
Studies even show that adolescent girls are seven times more likely to become pregnant if their home is absent of a father figure.
I think we’re all fairly guilty of complaining about the state of the world these days. We talk about how much more respectful, moral, and ethical people were in our generation. We talk about how unmotivated, ignorant, and rude the younger generations are.
Who trained those generations?
As a father. you are a pillar of society. God has given you the task of building the moral fiber of tomorrow’s leaders by training the children of today.
It’s a daunting task to raise a child, to train a soul in the ways of God. Thankfully it isn’t a task we have to do alone. The same God we are training our children to follow is the same God leading us.
As we accept God’s loving teaching in our own lives, we can also share this teaching with our children.
To help build a better world, just remember this simple message: Be there, be fair, be loving.
