PASTOR’S CORNER: Like father, like son

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Father’s Day. Like many fathers, I enjoyed the day with my beloved church family and my beloved son. I looked forward to an afternoon of good food at one of my favorite restaurants. I hope all children were kind and loved on their fathers because you only get one.

If you can see him, talk to him, throw your arms around him, then appreciate this man you call your father. Even if in your opinion he may not be a good one, without him, there would be no you! We are honored today by those who appreciate their fathers. I hope that every father stood 10 feet tall when the day was over as a result of what their children did for them on Father’s Day, and all children should have done something.

Fathers shape homes, shape communities and they shape society. As the father goes, so does the world. This is a mark that God placed on him. This is the kind of power that the fathers have. When he is in his place, the whole world is a different place. Oh, how I WISH. I pray, on Father’s Day, recognition day, that fathers will see that we can change a whole generation! Not the mothers, not the orphanage, not the YMCA, not the schoolteachers or politicians; the key is in the father’s hand. They can turn some things completely around.

Community, we know that fathers are getting younger. Unlike generations ago, some fathers are ill-prepared to be fathers. I met a teenager I knew since he was a baby in Walmart, if not mistaken, he was in the 11th grade and he had a baby in his arms. I asked him about the child and he said it was his. He was not even in the 12th grade or finished school and didn’t even have a job or a car; but already he is a father. At 16 or 17 years old, he was still a child himself, so to speak and ill-prepared to be a father. Friends, how can a child raise a child? How can he teach what he doesn’t know?

For some the children are the product of a one-night stand, influenced by Hollywood and what they see on the big screen and television. The music that they listen to that is played, the vulgarity of it, mainly against women, and the promotion of sexual promiscuity have contributed to fathers becoming fathers before they are ready for fatherhood. Hollywood, in order to sell tickets, let them see only what they want them to see. TV for ratings creates a delusion, a façade that makes sin look appealing and that there are no consequences for it and that you just do it and go on your merry way. They don’t show the repercussions or consequences and that a man reaps what he sows (Galatians 6:7).

Our young men and boys buy into it, father a child and leave the young mother holding the bag for the crime that they both committed; but my thing is if it took two to tango and make a child; it ought to take two to raise the child! Absent Fathers, where are you? I need for fathers to embrace the fact that they are influencers and the word “influence” means “the capacity to have an effect.” Fathers, that’s who we are, we fathers who have the capacity to have an effect on our children. As the father goes, so does the family. He sets the tone for the family.

As I have shared, I lost my father at a young age, the age of 4 years old. I grew up without a father. He was a good man and a provider, but I didn’t have the influence of my father growing up; nobody to teach me how to be a man, show me the ropes, teach me how to treat a woman, and how to treat a wife. I didn’t have a father to pull me aside when I did wrong, or to talk to me when I got older. Everything I learned as a Christian father, my Heavenly Father taught me. I was saved when they were born, and as I went, so did my two sons. Now they are both Christians!

Fathers, as influencers, as we go, good or bad, so will our children.

Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa, became king of Judah at the age of 35. He walked in the ways of his good father Asa and did that which was right in the sight of the Lord (1 Kings 22:43). Like father, like son. He watched as his father operated as king, and his father did the right thing before him thus setting him up for success. I wish that I could get fathers, especially young fathers, to see that their children are watching them and that they are being shaped by what their fathers do. If they are abusive to their wives and to them, chances are they will also become abusive.

Ahaziah became king of Israel. And he did evil just like his father Ahab did (1 Kings 22:52). To young fathers still raising your children. You will have only one time to raise your child or children. You won’t get another chance. You will have only one time to steer them in the right direction. You will have only one time to influence your boys and show your daughters what a real man looks like. Remember, fathers, like father like son.