Fatherhood Foremost

As I think and pray more and more about the structure of the family, I have come to realize that the father is the most important person in this unit.  Now, I would not have said this about three months ago. However, as I dig deeper into the Bible and pray that God gives me His perspective on the matter, my impaired vision has been corrected.

Definitely, the women are the ones who seem to "carry" the family in most societies, nonetheless, this was not God's intention.  God's design was that the father would define the family and to a larger extent His world.  In the beginning, Adam was assigned the task of naming the animals and birds.  God then created Eve out of Adam.

The man said,“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; 

she shall be called Woman, 

because she was taken out of Man.”

Genesis 3:23

Adam gave Eve her identity as "woman".  Oh my goodness, this is very difficult for me to write.  I never wanted to think of a man as giving me my identity. Although, it is still very common that the family takes on the father's surname, and when a woman gets married she receives her husband's family name.  I know in our modern culture, many have chosen to deviate from this mode.  In spite of this, the father is key to an emotionally and spiritually healthy family and society.

I know that many fathers are missing or play a minor role in the family.  I believe that this has lead in many ways to the degradation of civilization, which is no longer so civil.  Men are emasculated rather than empowered.  Askmen.com looked at some TV commercials that "bashed " males, which showed them as incompetent morons. The website commented on a commercial writing,  "The moral of this story: Dads are even dumber and more childlike than their own offspring." And yet another is described as, "The cliched message is that women are the civilized voice burdened with managing men and their ingrained frat-boy mindset."

Our pop culture has to start depicting a greater respect for men, or we will continue in a conundrum.  It is innately ingrained in us that a child wants their father's approval and a woman wants to be cherished by her husband.  Yet, we have somehow managed to make the father less of a "man" and malign his role.  We need to decry this deception and trumpet the truth that Fatherhood is Foremost, no matter how unsettling it may seem.  Sometimes the truth hurts, but that does not make it any less the truth.

In the Psalms, David declared God as "Father of the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5).  Our loving God wants us to know that although we may not have a father or a right relationship with a father here on earth, He is our Father.  We can go to Him as our caring Abba (Father).  He has knitted us in our mother's womb and He will not leave us or forsake us. He gives us our identity. 

He (Jesus) said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:15-16

Peter understood who Jesus was - the Son of the living God. But, Jesus was also the Son of Man and the Bible delineates His lineage through Joseph, the man who God chose to be Jesus' earthly father.   God sees the father figure as important and made sure that His Son had one while on earth.

I do not want to end without saying that the mother's role is very significant. She nurtures the child into being who he or she has been created to be.  Her role has become increasing burdensome as she takes on the insurmountable task of being both mother and "father" - a role she was not created for. I applaud mothers for their perseverance in raising their children and ones who are not their own. However, it is hard for a son to learn to be a "real man" from his mother and for a daughter to feel like a "princess" without a "king" in the home.

Due to our lack of fathering, our identities have been lost.  We meander in a quandary trying to "find ourselves" in the maze of life.

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 
Your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 
We are God’s children, since we are children of the resurrection. Jesus gave us the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. “We are not illegitimate children... 
The only Father we have is God himself.”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 

Jason Upton's Father of the Fatherless