Fathering HeartsSample

A Father’s Impact

My grandfathers, Lawrence and Charles, are the two men who impacted my life by fathering my mom and dad. How they handled my parents’ hearts, how they loved and how they wounded them, has profoundly shaped me. God designed it that way. One of his great intentions for fathers is to pass down life through blessing. Wounding exists only because our enemy has hijacked the importance and beauty of blessing. How we engage our kids with our words brings either life or death. If—and, more likely, when—we look back and see we brought death, the good news is there is resurrection.

The word father means different things to different people. To some, it speaks of passivity, absence, betrayal, demandingness, control, even abuse. To others, it is a term of endearment, a reminder there was, or still is, someone out there looking after us, someone who makes sure we are all right no matter what the cost or inconvenience is to him.

How your kids see and experience you is vitally connected to how they see and experience God because “Father” is the primary way God chooses to be known. No wonder the role of father is under such assault—God created fatherhood to mirror his own identity. The enemy uses father wounds to give both dads and God a bad rap.

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Here’s the problem: wounds in one relationship are guaranteed to hinder other relationships. We can’t help it; we project our past experiences onto our current realities. Only our heavenly Father has the ability to take the father wounds so many of us have borne for decades and, in their place, give us new names, new messages, new seeds of love and life to be sown for generations to come.

God is inviting every father to a heart-shaping assignment that is his alone as he fathers his children. Yet even as I write these words, I feel the weightiness of my own failures.

It’s the enemy’s way—accusation and doubt, the doorways to guilt and shame: “Who are you to write about fatherhood?” As Billy Graham reportedly said, “A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.” If that’s true—and I’m certain it is—then we see why the enemy’s whispers and accusations slither frequently into our thoughts.

Here’s the truth that gives me, and you, hope: the legacy we leave behind isn’t determined by how we started (though that may very well need to be cleaned up) but rather, by how we move forward from here. That’s what will make the difference in how you and I will be known to our grandchildren and even our great-grandchildren. To move consistently in the right direction, we need fathering as we father.

As you ponder all this with God today, consider asking Him:

Father, how has my relationship with my own dad (or lack of relationship) impacted how I see you?

Jesus, what new name, messages, and seeds of love and life do you want to sow into me in this season that will grow into a lasting family legacy in my children and grandchildren?

Holy Spirit, would you open my mind to a fatherhood mess that I’ve created–or received–and how you would like me to move toward gentle repair?