A while back, I saw a facebook post written on Father’s Day. The gentleman who wrote the post said, “I’m going out to buy my mother something for Father’s Day”. That’s comical and sad all in the same breath. It’s strange, but most people (with a few exceptions, of course) have a positive opinion of their mothers. However, the opinions of their fathers are much more diverse, and sometimes much more negative.
The negative opinions of fathers has serious consequences for churches and Christianity, in general. For instance, when I think of the term “Heavenly Father”, I immediately think of the positive attributes of my earthly father. I was blessed with a good earthly father. However, if I’d had bad earthly father, then I would probably project his negative attributes to my Heavenly Father. Unfortunately, there are people whose earthly father was so bad that they can’t possibly comprehend the greatness of their Heavenly Father. As a result, God and Christianity doesn’t have much appeal to them. I believe it is a very effective strategy of the Bad Guy to attack earthly fatherhood because it diminishes the appeal of Heavenly Fatherhood. Tony Evans, Charles Stanley, and others have also spoken about the breakdown of earthly fatherhood (and probably much more eloquently than I).
Fortunately, there are practical solutions to the problem of bad earthly fathers. The first solution is forgiveness of bad earthly fathers. Fatherhood is a hard job. Being a good father is even harder. Cut your earthly father some slack. I’m sure he made poor choices, but maybe he had a bad earthly father as well, and that bad example got passed down the hereditary line to you. The second solution is the obvious, especially if you’re a father…..become a good earthly father. Most of us already know our shortcomings. We just need to have the will and the discipline to change. If you didn’t have an example of a good earthly father, find one. Get with a pastor. He can direct you to Godly men who are also good earthly fathers.
You should also crack open your Bible because the best example of fatherhood can be found there.