Fathers Who Aren’t TV Dads

As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord 

Joshua 24:15 (NIV)

Who’s up for a challenge? Who are we kidding? We’re always up for the challenge of competition. Name one dad character from mainstream television, movies, or mass media portrayed as a Godly father. Our guess is that you’ll go through a long list of programs where the dad character is portrayed as more of a prop or butt of the joke than the spiritual head of his family. 

Modeling is an important part of the way by which we learn. How’d you learn to throw a ball, cast a line, or grab the last slice of pizza? You saw someone else do it, and you gave it a shot. Maybe it worked or maybe not, but the seed of doing was planted. The next step was to keep imitating what you saw until you became proficient at it, or someone (hopefully your dad) stepped up to teach you the right way. 

God’s design for teaching us how to be a perfect dad is through modeling. We read about God the Father to get to know Him. We watch the way He interacts with His children (us), so we see how He handles the same situations we all encounter as dads. Next, we mirror His ways until they become our ways while the Holy Spirit helps coach you along the way to becoming a Godly dad. 

The problem with the media’s mass appeal of the hapless dad characterization is that it stands in direct defiance to God’s illustration of Father. He leads the way by moving in our lives as the perfect Father. He wrote an incredibly powerful instruction manual (the Bible) on fatherhood and even left a “life coach” in the Holy Spirit to help us see His example and understand His words. 

Dad Action:

If you were the star of a dad TV show, what would be the show's name?