Becoming Fathers

It's time for our annual "Guest Blogger Month"! Once again we have some amazing authors and ministry leaders from all over the nation sharing their wisdom and hearts when it comes to single parenting and fatherhood. Leading off this week is my good friend Misty Honnold of The Single Mom KC. For more information on Misty and the ministry, please visit http://www.thesinglemomkc.org/.

I was moved to tears today as I read Paul’s words to Timothy:  “To Timothy, my true child in the faith”. I began to wonder if I was able to say this about any of the young men or women in my life “my true child in the faith”.  Was I even able to make that bold confession about my own children?  I realized it was time for a heart check and see if I was living as the parent I was created to be. Revealing the love of the Father to my children and those around me.

 

Somewhere I have seemed to drift off the path of purpose. I have become busy with ministry, launching my children well and I have somehow forgotten that I am a mother, one who carries the heart of the Father and this passage jolted me awake.

 

I have to pause and ask:  As a mother am I living my life in a way that I want sons and daughters to emulate? Am I raising up children in the faith to know and love Jesus?

 

Our greatest goal in life should be the same as that of Jesus…to show a hurting world the extravagant, sacrificial love of the Father. Are we succeeding? Or are our lives too busy? Are we filled with anger, unforgiveness and sadness to the point that we are unable to show our children this abandon love that the Father displays through His Son Jesus?

 

Paul unashamedly told his disciples and the church to follow in his footsteps,

1 Corinthians 11: 1

Pattern yourselves after me (follow my example) as I imitate and follow Christ.

 

Philippians 3:17

Brethren, together follow my example and observe those who live after the pattern we have set for you.

 

1 Corinthians 4:15-16

You should have ten thousand teachers (guides to direct you) in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus…So I urge and implore you, be imitators of me.

 

There is something profound in the reality that we as parents should be ‘imploring’ our children to follow our example.

 

When I first happened on to verses like these, I wanted to run and hide. I did not feel adequate to lead my own children, let alone others. But as Paul so quickly points out…follow me as I follow Christ.  If I am not following Christ, walking the way He walked I should not want my children or others to follow me.

 

What do the steps of following Christ look like?

 

ASK

First we have to BELIEVE with are heart and SAY with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. Yes we have to accept what He did on the cross to save us and ASK for His forgiveness so that we enter into the family of God. 

 

Have you ASKED Him to forgive you of your sins and to be Lord of your life?

 

SEEK

The next thing we should do if we truly want to be fathers and mothers, is begin to look at how Jesus lived. Open your bible and study how the Father displays Himself through the man Jesus.  Jesus is the “exact representation of God the Father” (Hebrews 1:3)

When Philip said “show us the Father,” I believe that Jesus, with tears brimming over replied, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father”.  (John 14:8-9)

 

Therefore, if we want our children to know the Father and to know His voice, we must be willing to SEEK the knowledge of the Father and get to know Him, so that we can lead our children to Him…and Jesus shows us who He is.

 

So SEEK the Father by studying the Son.   

 

KNOCK

And don’t stop with seeking who the Father is, what He is like and how He loves…KNOCK on the doors of heaven in the place of prayer. His promise is that the doors will be open. We have access to freedom from old patterns of behavior, we have freedom from bitterness and anger; we have freedom from fits of rage, depression, and abuse. Yes, this freedom is ours, given freely by God but we must knock on the doors of heaven and as the doors open walk into those places of freedom.

 

Let’s commit together to show the Father to our sons and daughters. Let’s raise up a generation of men and women who know the Father’s voice and live out the “plans He has for them” (Jeremiah 29:11)