[ Click here to go back to the main page ]

The Devastation of the Fatherless Home

March 24, 2006
Greetings in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

I know many of you shepherds struggle to disciple your flocks. And it is Jesus command that we “make disciples.” Sometimes it seems that you are preaching to a wall despite the fact that the pews are full. God has a solution for you. It is the well-discipled father with biblical life goals.

Fatherlessness is a plague on our nation and is costing the church its salt and light. My wife and I have felt called to teach members of the body of Christ about relationships. We think the Bible tells us that God is a god of relationships. In fact, we see the scriptures supporting the idea that the very reason God made us was for us to choose to have a relationship with Him.

If we read Matthew 22:36-40, the passage about the two great commandments, we see that Jesus says the entire Old Testament is based on the Two Great Commandments: the first addresses our vertical relationship with God and the second addresses our horizontal relationships. And since Jesus IS the New Testament, this small, profound passage becomes an “executive summary” of the Bible! God is about relationships.

As good parents, we realize that relationships have boundaries and true love deals out consequences for broken relationships. God’s love is the model for this principle. He loved us enough to send Jesus to pay for our sins; but, if we continue in sin, He will punish us for all eternity. What’s sad is that we’ve discovered many Christian folks who don’t think this love-and-relationship stuff is anything more than the fluff of the Bible. They keep looking past Matthew 22 for the “real meat and potatoes” of God’s Word.

Statistics regarding homes that are missing the key relationship ordained by God--a loving father acting as the servant-priest in his home--demonstrate that the Two Great Commandments actually are the meat and potatoes of God’s Word. Read and weep (parentheses indicate the source of the statistic): Translated, these statistics mean the children from a fatherless home are: These kinds of staggering statistics would only be aggravated when present in the church (“How could God love me if he allowed my dad to leave me?” or, “How could my parents call themselves Christians and get divorced?”). Further, they would present no worthwhile witness to a lost and dying world. A church rampant with fatherlessness will not be salt and light to the community around it. As a minimum, we would be so absorbed by dealing with internal problems that we will have no time to help those outside nor disciple those who might have just come into our church for help.

Lest the men in your church get comfortable and think, “I’m still alive, so my kids aren’t fatherless,” please consider that there are at least six different ways a home can be fatherless: 1) the father is dead, 2) the father is alive but absent due to divorce, 3) the father is alive but absent due to his job, 4) the father is alive but absent due to good works, 5) the father might as well be absent due to abuse, and 6) the father is alive but spiritually dead.

Notice that in all six of these fatherless situations, the common thread is lack of time with our children. Even in the abuse situation there is no quality, loving, blessing time spent—it is all wasted, abusive, negative time. And in fact, in five of the six, there may be love, but it is misplaced by bad prioritization of relationships. The result: there is still no time!

Regarding the first situation, only God knows when we will die and for that eventuality we must ask for God’s grace. If our lives have been lived rightly, this absence will cause sadness but our love and right relationships will live on in the hearts of our wives and children.

Regarding the second, divorce, it has been said that the greatest gift a man can give his children is to love their mother. So true and yet seemingly so difficult for some men. How can we conquer this mountain? First, we need to teach our men to remember the Two Great Commandments. If they don’t get the first commandment right, they’ll never understand how to do the second. And they must never forget that their first neighbor to love as themselves is their wife. Their kids come next and the entire rest of the world comes after them. Picture concentric circles: God must be kept in the center circle, their wife in the next circle and their kids in the third. If we keep our relationships in that order, the rest of life will fall into place. Including church life! Second, they must remember that love is a decision and not a feeling. Third, they must learn how to resolve conflict; unresolved conflict kills love. If they come from a divorced home, this task is that much more difficult; they never saw their own parents successfully resolve conflict. We shepherds must teach them how (lead your sheep beside the still waters). Fourth, if they need another word picture to help understand their role in marriage, teach them to picture the sailing ship. Jesus is the captain (not the co-pilot) of their ship (they are not), their wife is the set of sails and the husband is the steady, unseen rudder. As the rudder, they must always be connected to the Captain and never led astray by outside pressures. The line that connects them to the Captain is the Bible. If they don’t know their Bibles, then their connection to Jesus will be lost along with the ship and it’s cargo. Their children are the precious cargo on their sailing ship. Their destination is Heaven. It’s important to note that the rudder always works in combination with the sails to get a sailing ship to its destination. If they work against each other, the ship goes nowhere. Further, this sailing ship is a ship of war, not a pleasure boat. It sails best when it sails in an armada and not alone. Please teach your men that they should encourage their wives to be in communication with other wives (even if part of their communication includes how rigid and unmovable the rudders are). After all, it was the condition of the sails in an armada that were the best indication of the health of all the ships. If every ship had a set of full sails except one, the other ships knew that the lone ship was in trouble and came to its rescue. And let us never forget that ships of war are armed because they have a common enemy. An armada sails in safety only if they stay together, the sails and rudders work harmoniously on direct commands from the Pilot, and they keep their focus on getting the cargo to its Heavenly destination.

Some men ruin the fine relationship they’d otherwise enjoy with their wives because they don’t fully understand their God given role. They think that as “head of the house” they get to be the dictator. Remember the sailing ship men! All really great leaders are not dictators (think of Hitler, Hussein, Stalin) but servants to their people (think of Washington, Lincoln and Jesus). It is the same way with husbands. And most badly behaving husbands have a totally incorrect view of submission. Submission is not something the husband makes the wife do. Submission is something the wife does to the husband voluntarily, for the godly order of the family, in obedience to God’s command. Please teach your men that if they ever quote any of the scriptures regarding submission to their wives, that they are wrong before the words leave their mouths. Submission is never forced. Rather, it is a command to be obeyed by wives and a respect that must be earned by husbands.

Perhaps one more word picture will help: the cowboy and his horse. Folks who’ve studied the American move westward will tell you that it couldn’t have been done without the cowboy and his horse. And if they know anything about horses, they know that there are two basic ways to break in a horse so that it can be ridden for useful purposes: they can either beat it into submission or they can gently persuade it that cooperation will be mutually beneficial. Students of the West will tell you that a horse trained by beating will submit. However, it will only work for its master to achieve the minimum required and will always be looking for a chance to escape (such as dumping its ruthless master over a cliff in a panic stop). On the other hand, stories of the relationship between a horse and its loving cowboy are legendary. My favorite (I usually have to get a tissue out when I read about it) is the cowboy that was caught in a mountain fire storm. The updraft of wind on the hills and the drought-dried evergreens combined to form a wall of fire that neither man nor beast could outrun. And this particular fire was so wide that the cowboy could not avoid it by turning either left or right. His only hope was to reach a deep creek that lay a little too far ahead. However, this cowboy loved his horse and the horse loved his master. That horse ran for the creek knowing it was their only hope. The fire swept over top of the cowboy as he and the horse tumbled into the water. The horse had died just before they reached the creek. He gave his life getting his master to safety. For love. Which kind of relationship do your men want? The kind that’s looking to dump them over a cliff or the kind that gives their very lives in love? And no offence to the ladies. I’m not comparing you to horses here; only illustrating a truth on your behalf. However, at the risk of digging my hole deeper, I think horses are the most beautiful of all the animals that God created.

Third, regarding work, if we have kept God in the center circle through faithful prayer and Bible reading, we will realize the God is Jehovah Jireh, our Provider. The Bible also says the promotion comes from God. So, we need not get so busy at work that we neglect our wives, then our kids (usually rationalizing that we are providing for our families). God is our Provider! And let’s not hide at work to stay away from the wife with whom we have not resolved a conflict! Be a man. Go home and fix it!

Fourth, absence due to good works is the Devil’s most viable temptation in church. And how hard for the pastor to avoid. What pastor doesn’t enjoy the zealous lay volunteer who is extremely talented in everything they do? However, keeping the concentric circles in mind, we pastors must make sure that no man is so busy helping us at church (doing good works) that he neglects his first three priorities at home: his relationship with God through personal devotions, his relationship with his wife and raising his children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” The funny thing is that if we will make our men follow this discipline, then each will feel a calling to one thing that they do well and all church bases will be covered by God Himself.

Fifth, the abusive father is a tough one and unfortunately occurs in the church setting as it does in the world. It is so easy lately to point our finger at the abusive dad, throw him in jail, pat ourselves on the back and say what a great job we’ve done saving the abused family. However, this approach never acknowledges the root of the problem. The pattern in Scripture about the sins of the father visiting subsequent generations and my own experience in positions of leadership (over as many as 500 men in the workplace at one time) would indicate that the abusive father learned his behavior from his father. Bullies at school are nearly always bullied at home by their dads.

Shepherds, please don’t fall prey to the “throw ‘em in jail, get a divorce and we’re done” syndrome. Prayer and your direction to a church man to seek professional, Christian counseling will work miracles. Three of the four gospels say that things which appear impossible to man are NOT with God. Nothing is impossible for God! Seeing how important it is for kids to have a dad, please do all you can to reconnect these kinds of men to their Pilot.

Finally, regarding the spiritually dead dad, this ought to be a list of men provided to your Women’s Ministries leadership. They should be asked to make those men (who’s wives bring their kids to church alone) a matter of fasting and prayer. Who better to understand the worth of a good man, than women who have one and can have a heart of Jesus’ compassion for those who suffer without?

Shepherds, please make this whole issue of fathers a matter of concerted prayer and fasting. Ask God for wisdom on how to multiply the fruit of a few good men in your church body and turn it into an overflowing orchard of outstanding husbands and fathers. If you need motivation, you need only refer back to the staggering statistics listed above. God will help you if you’ll but ask Him! Colossians 2:8-10 says, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.” God is over ALL and He is able!

For the Gospel’s Sake,

Brother Mike

[ Click here to go back to the main page ]

 Counter