Designed to be Dad

God's creation always amazes me.  The more we get to understand through science, the more I recognize that there has to be wisdom behind our design.

Our Heavenly Father skillfully fashioned each of us for a purpose.  He created males to determine the gender of the fetus.  In essence, the chromosome from our father's sperm makes us either male or female.  From conception our fathers start to configure our identity and thereafter, continue shaping who we become.

Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies. Psalm 58:3

Many father's tend to overlook the developmental stages of the unborn baby while in the womb, and they wait to be a "dad" when the child is born.  However, the environment the father helps to create will have an effect on the fetus, who feeds off the mother.  If the mother is in a stressful situation, the baby will feel the stress too.  I believe that a mother should be careful about what she thinks as she carries her child in the womb, as the unborn baby will also consume what the mother conceives in her mind. Whether negative or positive they will become part of the baby's soul.

As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Luke 1:44

Elizabeth was glad to see her cousin, Mary who was also pregnant, and so was the baby in her womb.  The mother has to keep herself physically healthy during pregnancy.  Furthermore, the father must ensure that the mother and his unborn child feel loved and protected as I believe feelings of rejection can begin in the womb.

Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Psalm 22:9-10

God has called fathers to be like Him - helping to bring the baby from the womb and making their newborn trust them right from the beginning.  They are responsible for their child and their baby should know them as father from in the womb and thereafter.

The father's role becomes so important in the child's formative years. Many studies have proven that if a child is not around a father figure in his or her early years, this could negatively impact the child's life. An article by North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University expounded on these issues while looking at many of these studies.

A boy needs his father to help him develop his identity as a man while a girl needs her father to help her know how to interact with men while developing her femininity. Left without a father figure, children will search to discover their identity and far too often they find a false identity through the wrong person.  

The wounds of a father can be deep and have a lasting effect.  If we don't forgive our fathers and recognize we may have had an unhealthy reaction to being hurt we will be held in bondage by these wounds.  We need to look to our Heavenly father for healing and be ready to face the pain of the past so that we can look to being free and healed in our future. 

Tom Buske wrote Fathers: The Affect of Father Wounds, Fatherlessness, and the value of Fatherneed for the North American Association of Christian Social Workers. He quoted Shawn Johnson, Psychologist:   “The research is absolutely clear the one human being most capable of curbing anti-social aggression of a boy is his biological father.” Mr. Buske went on to write: My work leads me to believe their loss of their father has hurt them deeply be it in a lost sense of belonging, self-esteem, or emotional problems.

A Dad is God's design to help in the development of a child.  Fatherlessness brings about an emotionally crippled child, a cursed community, an identity nescient nation, and thus a wounded world. 

He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” Malachi 4:6

We must build up men so they as fathers will turn their hearts to their children and the children will then be able to look to their fathers.  If not, we will be cursed.  A man has been Designed to be Dad.  We must help each man understand his purpose.

I recently watched the movie The Tentant of Wildfell Hall based on an Anne Bronte novel.  There were some very interesting scenes as they spoke about a little boy and his interaction with his mother and his need for a father to groom him to be a man. The movie is below.