Proverbs 17:6; 20:6,7
Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are
their fathers. 6. Most men will proclaim every one his own kindness; but a
faithful man who shall find? 7. The righteous walketh in his integrity: blessed
are his children after him!
General Lee took his 8-year old
son, Custis, out for a walk on a snowy day. Custis soon got got behind because
the snow was so deep. Lee looked back to see how his son was doing and found
Custis struggling to keep up but doing a pretty good job for such a small
boy. What caught Lee’s attention was that Custis was imitating his every
move, placing his little feet in every one of his dad’s footprints in the snow.
Lee later wrote about it: “When I saw this, I said to myself, it behooves me to
walk very straight when this fellow is already following in my tracks.”
Almost every father and man starts out with an awesome
advantage: natural admiration from children. Wise fathers, like General Lee, recognize their privileged
position and build upon it by modeling pious character. They are intentional about making clear
impressions in the snow for admiring youth to follow.
Our Creator instills in
children a natural ability to know right from wrong. And because they’re encouraged to do right, children
swiftly recognize what’s wrong! A
child’s greatest disappointment may come when he or she discovers that a role
model’s integrity has been compromised by sin: lying, stealing,
immorality. The depth of such
wounds may be bottomless. Proverbs says that injuries from a role
model’s broken trust “go down into [a child’s] innermost parts.” If his moral compass isn’t pointing
heavenward, the shining role model, be he father or father figure, becomes a
fallen star. When it comes to
influencing the younger generation, there is no substitute for personal
integrity, honor and character!
Through our integrity, our children -- in fact all youth who
are secretly watching our lives -- gain advantage, empowerment and
inspiration. Instead of curses, we
pass generational blessings! All
Believing men must maintain our witness and Believing values, despite
the culture of moral poverty in which we live for the sake of the generation
that will step into our footprints.
Beliefs vs. Behaviors
Consider our
society. There is very little
correlation between its beliefs and its behaviors. Patrick Morley in Man in the Mirror answers the
question of why society has fallen into such a steep moral decline, despite so
many “Believing” men. He writes –
The sad reality is that claims of
religious commitment run high, but impact is at an all time low. At the very
point when Believers have ‘come out of the closet’ our culture has sunk into a
moral sewer. The unfortunate result of this religious popularity is that
since the mid-seventies a(n) impoverished value has evolved: cultural
Christianity. Cultural
Christianity means to pursue the Elohim we want instead of the Elohim who is …,
wanting Him to be more of a grandfather-type who … lets us have our own way. It
is wanting the Elohim we have underlined in our Bibles without wanting the
rest of Him, too.
Morely goes on to say –
Cultural
Christianity (has) little
or no impact on the values and beliefs of our society. [It} requires Elohim to grant us personal
peace and affluence to prove He loves us.
Like the transformer toys …, we often want Elohim to be adjustable – to
adapt to our whims instead of us adapting to Him.
In a word, we want to remake
Yahweh in our own image. We want Him to be adaptable, conformable,
inconsistent, negotiable. The
qualities we want in a Elohim are the exact qualities that erode others’
confidence in our stability.
But listen to this: in an extensive two-year study,
nearly 80% of students listed parents as their biggest moral influences.
No one else even came close.
Therefore, the re-creation of manhood as a vital social role
is our most urgent domestic challenge. On the parish level, wouldn’t each man do well to intentionally
make greater strides toward the righteous role model our children and young
adults crave and need? Man, your
word, your interaction, sometimes even your look, has a significant
influence upon those young people who look at you. And they are looking.
Dahmer
NBC Nightly News did a story on the brain of
Jeffrey Dahmer, who was convicted in 1992 of unspeakable crimes. He was serving
a 957-year sentence when he was murdered.
Dahmer’s mother wanted Jeffrey’s brain studied to find a biological
predisposed to violence. His father wanted it buried with the rest of the
body. This man had been searching
his soul since the discovery of his son’s crimes. In his book, A Father’s
Story, Lionel Dahmer chose only to include innocent pictures of Jeffrey’s
childhood: photos of the toe-headed little boy doing child-like activities
appears every 30 pages or so.
Jeffrey was a handsome boy with a charming smile and shy demeanor, like
thousands of others.
What went wrong? What emerges in A Father’s Story
is neglect and divorce; a wife and mother who struggled with loneliness
and depression; a father consumed with work – too busy
to notice, let alone spend quality time with his son. With no physical affection or verbal affirmation, Jeffrey
began to drift away. Lionel Dahmer writes –
I wasn’t there to see him as he
began to sink into himself. I wasn’t there to sense, even if I could have
sensed it, that he might be drifting toward that unimaginable realm of fantasy
and isolation that would take almost thirty years to recognize.
Hear those haunting words again: “I wasn’t there,” “He
began to sink into himself,” “He might be drifting.” Lionel Dahmer identified the process known already by
psychologists around the world: When a passive father neglects to nurture
and mold his children, they begin to sink into themselves. Children who have been dismissed by
their male role models begin to drift like ships without a guiding star.
Protoplasm
Robert Lewis wrote that the
typical grandparent is a sentimental, fawning, ingratiating mass of elderly
protoplasm! Ooh, that hurts. Victor Hugo wrote that though some fathers
have no honor or affection, “there is no grandfather who does not adore
his grandchildren.” Proverbs 17:6
reflects this truth: “Grandchildren are the crown of old men, and the glory of
sons are their fathers.” I believe
this applies to all the elder men in the church – you and I are ‘church
fathers.’ The Bible here offers us
two sparkling words: “crown” and “glory.”
Our leaders don’t wear crowns anymore, but the idea still holds great
significance. Older men feel a sense
of honor and achievement in the Elohimly behavior of the children they care for:
they are crowned with honor!
The other word, “glory,” shines with beauty, value and
significance. It could also be translated as “boasting.” We men, especially fathers, should be living
reasons for our young people to boast. Shouldn’t we be bragged upon? Sure! Young people find significance in learning that they
are derived from good, noble, honorable stock, both physically and
spiritually. When this is not so,
the damage may be so complete that, even if they do fulfill their life’s goals,
young people still experience a deep sense of purposelessness.
Testimonials
As evidence, consider the testimony of the Bo Jackson,
“My father never seen me play professional baseball or
football…I tried to have a relationship with him, gave him my number, said, ‘Dad,
call me. I’ll fly you in.’ Can you imagine? I’m Bo Jackson, one of the
so-called premier athletes in the country, and I’m sitting in the locker room
and envying every one of my teammates whose Dad would come in and talk to them
after the game. I never experienced that.”
Actress Sophia Loren felt the same way. The subject of her late father came up in an interview and
this is what she said:
"He shaped me as a person more
than any other man. It was the dream of my life to have a father. And that is why
I sought him everywhere. I spent most of my life looking for substitutes for
him. I still wonder what he was thinking as he saw me up there on the movie
screen. With all the grandiose gifts I have received in my life, my most
treasured possession is the only toy my father ever gave me—a little blue car
with my name on it." (Miss Loren only saw her father 6 times in her
life.)
A righteous man will deposit a fund of consistency
and care that young people will reference their entire lives. All men and women look to be approved
by their male elders, even if these men are dead. In fact, there’s a great deal of dependence upon the father-image
even if that person was never even known.
Consider this true story and you’ll understand what I mean:
“My father was killed in WWII when
I was three years old. I knew in my heart that he loved me; my mother told me
that. But I always longed to hear it from him. When my mother and stepfather
retired, I came to help them pack. Mom took an old army photograph of my father
off of her dresser and gave it to me. She said, ‘Here, this is for you. I know
your father would have wanted you to have it.’ It was the same photograph
I had seen for many years. As I took the picture from her, I dropped it;
the cheap metal frame hit the floor and broke, shattering the glass.
Sick at heart, I reached down to salvage what was left. Behind the
photograph I found a letter long since forgotten. It was from my father to his
three-year old son, the last letter he had written before he died. In it he
said he loved me and that he longed to come home and be with me. I had heard
the words I needed from a father who was long since dead.”
Why
did this older adult yearn to hear his father say, “I love you”? And
why was he so excited to share his discovery? Because, as the wise father of
the Proverbs wrote, “The glory of sons is their fathers.” Why does an unkind word from dad pierce
a young person’s heart? Because
“The glory of sons is their fathers.”
Why does a three-year-old run joyfully into father’s arms at the end of
the day as if the king had come? Because “The glory of sons is their
fathers.” Why does even the famous
ache for the affection of a father figure? Because “The glory of sons is their fathers.”
How to Recapture the Glory of Sons
If you’ve lost them, I’ve got good news for you. Men, it’s not too late to recapture
your crown and glory. Although
some damage may never be undone, it’s not too late to start afresh and get it
right. Paul of the Bible was never
a biological father, but he was the father figure to many adults throughout
Asia. He writes to his “spiritual
children” regarding his fatherly nurture.
Men, here is a first lesson in starting over:
1 Thessalonians 2: 10You
are witnesses, and so is Elohim, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were
among you who believed. 11For you know that we dealt with each of
you as a father deals with his own children, 12encouraging,
comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of Elohim, who calls you into his
kingdom and glory.
He says that, as a father
figure, he has been a blameless caregiver of integrity. He has encouraged and comforted, urging
his “children” to live lives worthy of the Almighty Father in Heaven. He reminds them of their calling into
Yahshua’s Kingdom and persuades them to seek Yahweh’s glory rather than their
own. He admonishes them to follow
his Elohimly example. I’m sure that
he would agree; that:
Each one of us men may begin anew with those who are
watching us, young or old. Men, we
start with ourselves. We choose
Elohimliness over worldliness. We
choose peace instead of conflict.
We choose encouragement rather than detraction. We choose to pray and praise rather
than criticize. We choose to take
more time for others even if it means less for ourselves. We choose to see the young people who
intersect our lives through the eyes of Yahshua rather than through the eyes of
the past. We write them. We talk to them. We correct them in love when
needed. Even if, as adults, they
let us down time after time, we choose to see them again in the
light of their highest potential, just as when they were children.
Urge the young people in your sphere of influence
onward to the same worthiness and righteousness to which you aspire. Sometimes that means abandoning the
role of a “sentimental, fawning,
ingratiating mass of elderly protoplasm” and being tough in our
love. Our loved ones will come to
respect the changes in us, though it may take time, consistency, and
effort.
Make a New Start
Change your image with the others in your world; make
a new start if need be. Yahweh
will forgive your sins against the children and, since he is the Almighty
Father and cares for you, will rewrite history entirely to set all
things aright. If you will forgive,
you will be forgiven. That’s the
Bible promise. The poet Goethe
writes, “The happiest man is he who is able to integrate the end of his life
with it’s beginning.” Through the
Almighty Father, a human father figure can reconcile the faults of his youth
with whatever age or stage he finds himself in today. In committing to reconciliation, he
will regain integrity and become an object of emulation and respect rather than
disdain. Your effort will
certainly pay off, even if payment is received after you are but a fond
memory.
Men, fathers, grandfathers: happy fathers’ day. May each one of you acquire
righteousness and receive accolades.
For
our fathers, who have given us life and love, that we may show them respect and
love, we pray to you, Heavenly Father…
For fathers who have lost a child
through death, that their faith may give them hope, and their family and
friends console them, we pray to you, Heavenly Father…
For men, though without children of their own, who like
fathers have nurtured and cared for us, we pray to you, Heavenly Father…
For
fathers, who have been unable to be a source of strength, who have not
responded to their children and have not sustained their families, we pray to
you, Heavenly Father…
Yahweh our Father, in your wisdom
and love you made all things.
Bless these men, that they may be strengthened as Believing
fathers. Let the example of their
faith and love shine forth. Grant
that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of
profound respect.
Grant this through
Yahshua our
Savior. Amen.