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The Challenge of Fatherhood
by Norman and Ann Bales
All About Families

David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values noticed the phrase "good family man" has almost disappeared from our popular language. For whatever reason, most men seem to concentrate most of their energy somewhere besides the family.

There are many reasons for this, but one of the reasons may have something to do with the fact that many fathers feel inadequate for the task. We've never quite gotten the knack of how to do it. Several years ago a father remarked, "The women have all kinds of classes on how to be better mothers, but no one teaches us how to become better fathers." That's beginning to change. The book market is being glutted right know with books about fatherhood. Seminars and workshops are being conducted around the country dealing with the practical aspects of being a good father and husband.

Where do you go to develop a curriculum for training fathers? After all the father doesn't live who hasn't made mistakes. There's not a one of us who can say, "Do it the way I did."

Sometime ago, I watched a television interview with a man who was reputed to be one of the world's most renowned philosophers. The reporter assigned to conduct the interview with this deep thinking man was probably one of the most inept interviewers I've ever seen. She dared to ask him a question that no thinking person would ever ask. She asked, "What is the most difficult question in philosophy?" You just don't ask a philosopher something like that. His mind isn't geared to comparing philosophy questions, the way you compare the batting averages of baseball players. But he thought about her question for a minute and he said, "Children. How do you raise children? Nobody has the answer."

We beg to differ with the philosopher. We do have a role model for raising children. We have a perfect role model for fathers. The role model has always been right under our noses, but most of us have never seen it. Repeatedly, the Bible tells us that God is our father. Why hasn't it occurred to us that the way to learn how to be a Father is to study the nature of God? In his relationship with his children, we have a gold mine of information about how we ought to function as fathers. Let us share just a few principles that we can learn about fathering from God, our heavenly Father.

In Deuteronomy 4:7, Moses said, " What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?" The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 145:18-19 "The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. "

The writer of Hebrews gave us this assurance in Hebrews 4:16 "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." In 1 Peter 3:12, the apostle of the Lord wrote, " For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer."

The overwhelming testimony of scripture is that God, as our heavenly Father is available to us. He's near us to us. He allows us to approach him with boldness and confidence. Doesn't that tell us something about the kind of fathers you and I should be?

Unfortunately, we have not learned that lesson very well. It is estimated that twenty to thirty per cent of the boys in America grow up without a father being present in the home. Some people are even questioning whether the father is needed in the home. The research data suggests otherwise.

A lot of folks want to blame the troubles of the home on working wives and mothers. That may well put some strain on marriage, but it does not absolve fathers from their responsibility to be available for their children.

For one thing, the boys need to learn masculinity from the fathers. They can't learn that from their mothers, no matter how much time mothers spend with their sons. Some solid research indicates that in a lot of cases, working mothers are doing a pretty good job of taking care of the needs of their children. Often it's the Dads who aren't holding up their end of things.

We need to go back and restudy God's availability to us and ask, "Am I learning anything from my Heavenly Father about being a father to my children in terms of availability."

Sometime we don't seem to be aware of the fact that God is actively involved in our lives. In Acts 17:27, Paul said that it is possible to "reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us." Yet, many of us live our lives as if God were on a distant planet, detached and disinterested in everything that goes on here. We base our daily decisions on what seems practical to us, what other people will cooperate with, on the basis of our natural strengths and abilities. We don't even stop to think that God participates in our day-to-day living. Yet the overwhelming testimony of Scripture suggests that God is active even in the minor details of our lives. In Isaiah 57:15, God said, "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit." The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 145:15-16 "The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing." In Isaiah 40:11 the prophet said, "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."

He wasn't talking about sheep. He was talking about people.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:29-30 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." God is even actively involved in the lives of people who don't serve him and honor him. When Paul spoke to the pagan people of Lystra, he said, in Acts 14:17, "He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."

But here we are in the twenty-first century with a detached view of God. Where did that come from? Take a careful look at church membership. In most churches, the majority of the adult membership is female. You can look at the church's level of involvement and you'll soon discover that the women are doing most of the work. What are the men doing? Spiritually, many men tend to be passive and inactive if they are involved at all in church life. Many come to church, but they're not really there. They may listen to the sermon. They may shake hands with the people. They may even get involved in some of the physical activities of the church. They may even want to participate in some of the policy making, especially when it comes to spending money, but they're not fully involved with their hearts, minds and souls. They don't really feel a connection with God and thus they feel inadequate to lead the church. God seems distant, even unreal. What's real is what's on the golf course. What's real is sitting in the boat fishing for bass. What's real is the engine under the hood of the car. Tiger Woods is real. Making the grass grow on your lawn is real and so is getting your house painted, calculating the fuel mileage of your automobile and knowing the location of the best restaurants.

Praying to an unseen God doesn't seem as real. Wrestling with the text of a book written two thousand years go, which claims to be inspired by God doesn't seem real either. Denying yourself and taking up the cross seems like an off-the-wall kind of philosophy of people who aren't in touch with the real world.

Again, we ask, where do our men get that kind of world view? We're not sure you want to know the answer. There's a great deal of evidence which would suggest that your personal view of God tends to be very much like your personal view of your earthly father. If your earthy father is a detached, distant, uninvolved kind of person, who never spent much time with you, never seemed to really care about your problems, never showed much affection and warmth, then it is quite possible that you will view your heavenly Father exactly the same way. It's hard to connect with a God who is not far from us, if the man we look up to as Father always kept us at arm's length.

The only way we know to break that cycle is to get involved with the word, find out about the compassionate, caring and involved God and let him remake you as a father to your children.

There's much more that we can learn from God about being a father, but the major thought that we want to leave with you today is that from God fathers learn the necessity of being involved with their children. I don't know how you define success, but any definition of success that leaves out a man's relationship with his family is a poor definition. The children of America, the children of the church desperately need fathers, who are available and involved.

If we have lost the phrase, "good family man," then we need to get it back. Children need a father and a mother. Dads need to know that they are important. It's more important to be a successful Dad than it is to make a lot of money. It's more important than running a large company. It's more important than catching a trophy bass or making a hole in one on the golf course.

Children need fathers. God calls on us to be involved fathers and He gives us the most workable model for doing that in the way He treats us.