High Achieving Fathers!

 A father said to his son, “When Abraham Lincoln was your age, he walked twelve miles to get to school.” The son replied, “Dad, when Abraham Lincoln was your age, he was President.” Very few fathers become President, but every father who has faith in God has potential to be a high achiever. A faithful father is a partner with God in turning little hearts and minds toward God as they “bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4b). This has always been a huge task because the devil always has other designs for the young people among us. That is certainly the case in contemporary American culture. It requires much love, time, patience and effort to be a father.  More than some men who see themselves as fathers are willing to give. According to the U. S. Census Bureau (2021), 18.4 million children, one in four, live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home (enough to fill New York City twice or Los Angeles four times over). This information likely won’t stick in your brain, but each of those numbers represents a real person with a real life and a real need for an involved daddy to teach them things a daddy ought to teach them. Research shows that father’s absence affects children in numerous negative and hurtful ways, while a loving, involved father’s presence makes a powerful and positive difference in the lives of both children and their mothers. There are no perfect fathers or mothers. And there are no iron-clad guarantees that a child / children will “turn out right” even when father and mother faithfully and intentionally play their God-designed and God-assigned, complimentary but not identical, roles in the lives of children under their care. God was a perfect parent to His first two children, and still they chose to disobey. They and their children paid a very high cost. The fact of the matter is, while many children overcome disadvantages and hardships associated with an absent or non-involved father, many don’t. That’s not preacher talk. The proof is in the data if you care and dare to look. Children need a daddy who cares enough to stay connected and present and involved enough to influence and educate them morally and spiritually.

General Douglas McArthur is credited with this prayer – “BUILD ME A SON, O’ LORD, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory. BUILD ME A SON whose wishes will not take the place of deeds, a son who will know THEE – and that to know himself is the fountainhead of knowledge. LEAD HIM, I pray, not in paths of ease and comfort, but under the spur of difficulties and challenges. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail. BUILD ME A SON whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future yet never forget the past. AND AFTER ALL THESE THINGS are his, add, I pray, enough sense of humor that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness; the open mind of true wisdom; the meekness of strength. THEN, I, HIS FATHER, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.’ ” Mark it down – any father who seeks to lead, train, and influence his children to love God IS a high achiever.

By: Dan Gulley, Smithville TN