Children, Turn Your Hearts Toward Your Fathers

“…he will turn the hearts of the children to their fathers.” (Malachi 4:6b)

We have all had fathers. We have all had imperfect fathers. The whole gospel in a nutshell is the story of how we might have our hearts reconciled to our Heavenly Father. Our eternal destiny is wrapped up in this turning of our hearts toward God. We will never have peace nor will we ever experience real victory in our lives until we are one with the heart of our Father.

God desires this union so much he sacrificed his Son Jesus to make it possible. He also wants very much that we be reconciled with our earthly fathers. Many live their whole lives looking over a chasm of separation to distant fathers who don’t seem to know how to connect with their children or they are so self-consumed they don’t care to make the sacrifices necessary to build strong relationships with their own sons and daughters. Sometimes family members search for a crutch by saying, “Oh, but I came from a dysfunctional family.” Over the years I have become more and more convinced that we all came from dysfunctional families. That’s what sin does to the family, it makes it dysfunctional.

We have to make peace with our fathers, even if they were cruel and abusive, even if they were never there, even if they have already died. The hearts of the children are not turned to the fathers until they have made peace with them.

My own father came up short in a lot of ways but he demonstrated a loyal love for God and always directed my heart toward Christ.

I sat with my father at his bedside during his last 12 days in Meadville City Hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania. At the age of 65 Dad had had a massive stoke and he lie in a coma. My mother and I sat hour after hour with him. I sat many hours alone with him before he died. I talked to him. I told him things I never told him before. I confessed some things I felt he needed to know. I prayed and prayed he would come out of his coma. In the first few days he squeezed my hand a couple times in response to things I’d said. I told him I loved him. He never emerged from the coma. He died in that hospital bed and we buried him in a small cemetery behind a small Methodist church in a little village not far from Meadville.

The things I told my dad while he was lying in a coma were things I wish I had told him before he was stricken down. I’ll never know if he heard me or understood me. Don’t put off talking to your fathers while you still have them. If there is a need for reconciliation, if there is a need to clear the air, if there is a need for forgiveness or confession, don’t hesitate. Find the courage to do that because your father will one day be gone. There can be no healing without communication.

Children and fathers must meet each other half-way on the bridge to reconciliation. The children must often confess rebellion and disobedience and the fathers must confess the many failures and weaknesses. We have all had imperfect fathers. We are all imperfect fathers. Let’s look at a few ways fathers sometimes fail:

1. Work-a-holic father. My father was a work-a-holic and his father was an alcoholic. My father and his brothers were abused horribly by a father whose idol was a whiskey bottle. My father's mother died when he was 17. He never received words of affirmation from his father so he spent his whole life literally working himself to death trying to prove his worth. I know near the end of his life he regretted not spending more time with his family.

2. Passive father. Perhaps the most dangerous father of all is the passive father. He is emotionless. He will not throw a block for his children. He says he loves them but his actions indicate he loves himself more than his children. He refuses to get involved in the lives of his children. He often comes home and sits on his throne waiting for others to serve him.

3. Tyrannical father. Maybe some of you have had a father who provoked you to anger because he set a standard so high you could never achieve it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen these kind of fathers “provoking their children” to anger and frustration on a little league field or a soccer field demanding a performance from them they are incapable of giving.

4. Absent father. The son who grows up with gender confusion often doesn't know who he is because his father never affirmed his identity. The daughter of an absent father often follows after deceptive and undesirable males in her life because she is trying to fill the empty void in her life.

God wants reconciliation between fathers and their children. What is not forgiven is passed on to the next generation. If we want to break the cycle we have to forgive our fathers whether they be dead or alive. If we didn't have a good father we must break the cycle and become good fathers by patterning ourselves after the one Father who is perfect, our father in heaven.

David Mease wrote a song entitled My Father’s Chair:
“Sometimes at night I’d lie awake
Longing inside for my father’s embrace.
Sometimes at night I’d wander downstairs
And pray he’d return but no one was there.
Oh, how I’d cry, a child all alone
Waiting for him to come home.”
“My father’s chair sat in an empty room,
My father’s chair covered with sheets of gloom.
My father’s chair through all the years
And all the tear I cried in vain
No one was there in my father’s chair.”

"Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne” – (Rev. 7:10)

If your father’s chair is empty please rest in the assurance that your heavenly Father’s chair is occupied and will never be vacated. All earthly fathers struggle with their own imperfections but our Father in heaven loves us with a perfect love.
Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

A Father's Children: More Precious Than Gold

Psalm 127:3-5 "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."

Maybe you've heard this story before, if so, it is worth repeating. A man worked very hard throughout his entire life. He finally made it to heaven and an angel met him at the gate. The angel welcomed him and saw that the man was dragging a huge container. The angel said, "You won't be needing that, sir." "Oh, but I must have this. I've worked and labored by the sweat of my brow my entire life for this. I've invested everything in it. Please." The angel was very curious what a man might work so hard for so the angel asked, "Okay. But, sir, might I see what it is that is so valuable to you?" The man opened the container to reveal it was full of gold. The angel looked perplexed and astonished, "Why have you worked so hard for that, sir? We pave our streets with that stuff." He had spent his days for nothing more than asphalt in heaven.

If a man were to gain the whole world and lose his son, what does it profit him? My five year old son, Kameron, has arrived at the ‘mimic daddy’ stage. His godmother bought him a watch the other day and he was so proud of it. He wanted to wear it to bed. “Daddy, why don’t you wear your watch to bed?” I replied, “I don’t need to know what time it is and it's a bit uncomfortable.” So, he took off his watch, walked out to the living room and laid it on the coffee table beside my watch. I am on constant alert because he patterns himself after everything I do and say.

If a man were to gain the whole world and lose his daughter, what does it profit him? A bitter-sweet day for fathers is the day you give your daughter away to another man in marriage. The standard by which your daughter measures a man who is a candidate to be her husband will be based upon the character of her father. She will probably not aim any higher than her father. Fathers must hold the standard high.

There are days when I’ve come home literally exhausted. Times when I’ve longed for some time of solitude, a time of quietness and rest. I’ve dragged myself in the door some evenings and all I want to do is collapse but I am met at the door by an energetic five year old boy who has been waiting all day for his daddy to come home. He wants to chase, he wants to tickle and he wants to wrestle and he wants more than anything the attention of his daddy. What is a weary father to do? He sucks it up and wrestles because the time spent with his precious son is more important than even rest to his weary body.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer teaches that a father is a mirror, a thermostat and a compass in the home.

1. The Father is a mirror to his children. Your son learns to like what you like. Your daughters especially will look in the mirror that is their father to see if it reflects any beauty or value in her. A father who belittles and degrades his children does irreparable harm to their self-esteem.

A father must realize that he is like a god to his children. His ultimate purpose is to portray the image of God to his family. He introduces God through his own character. His children worship the ground he walks on. I remember being a young child in grade school bragging to my friends how strong and smart my dad was. I had the best Dad in the world and I wanted everyone to know it. That’s why, when a father uses words that bring shame to a child, the child believes every word as the gospel truth. If you tell him he is worthless he won’t question you. In education we call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell a child he can’t succeed and he won’t. Tell a child he is a failure and he’ll likely become a failure.

Lutzer tells of a father who told his adoptive son in a moment of anger, “You are nothing. You are what just the result of a one-night-stand.” That father didn’t murder his child but he may have done something worse. He destroyed his inner soul. He stomped on and crushed the boy’s sense of self worth and that son may never recover from those words.

2. A Father is a thermostat in his home. He sets the tone for the atmosphere within the home. His anger or moodiness is contagious. His joy and humor is like a healing salve during difficult times. He sets the parameters for how family members speak to and treat each other.

3. A Father is the compass of the home. If church isn’t important to dad it won’t be important to the children. If the children never see dad reading his Bible it’s not likely they will read their Bible. If dad treats mom with disrespect then the children will treat her in like manner. Young ladies dating and hoping to marry, do you want to know how he will treat you after you are married? A strong indicator is to check out how he treats his mother or how his father treats his mother.

A father who comes home every weekend and lay on the sofa watching television and eating chips and drinking beer often wonders why his children are not industrious. “Why are my kids so lazy?” It's because he sets the tone. When he runs with his buddies he cusses like a sailor and then smacks his nine year old son when he says a cuss word. The boy is only trying to be like his dad, his dad is like a god to him. Why is he being punished for wanting to be like his daddy?

Fathers are often deceived into thinking the most important thing in life is earning another dollar, reaching for a bigger home or a nicer car. It's wonderful if a father can provide the very best for his family but he nor his family will take any of that into the next life. As fathers, we need to learn and emphasize the three R's: earn respect from your children and wife, develop relationship with family and God and demonstrate a religion that proves itself when times get difficult because nothing is more important than the souls of our children.


Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

Fathers: Relevant or Irrelevant?

Jennifer Anniston, the 42 year old actress from the popular sitcom, Friends, made a controversial statement when she insinuated that fathers are often inconvenient and when it comes to child rearing they can be quite optional. She seems dedicated to promoting the non-traditional family.

The traditional family: father, mother, children and a dog name Spot has worked quite well now for over 6,000 years. The traditional family is biblical, it was the original plan of God. God determined from the beginning that a man needs a woman, a woman needs a man and he put within them a natural yearning for children and a child needs a mother…and a child needs a father.

Memo to Jennifer Anniston; as a Hollywood elite, you are extremely wealthy and disconnected from reality. Out here in the real world children who grow up in single parent homes are poverty stricken. Divorce may be cool in Hollywood. It may be cool to be a single mother and turn your children over to the nanny for nurturing but out here 75% of children growing up in single parent homes are suffering from poverty.

America is being judged by a just God because we’ve turned our back on the traditional values taught in scripture regarding the traditional family. If Jennifer Anniston’s model is so much better than God’s model, consider the following:

1. Poverty. Young children living with unmarried mothers are five times as likely to be poor and ten times as likely to be extremely poor. (National Center for Children in Poverty)

2. Substance Abuse. "Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse." (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

3. Physical and Emotional Health. “Children in single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in two-parent families to have emotional and behavioral problems.” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

4. Education. “Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

5. Crime. “10 times more likely to become a chronic juvenile offender if male and born to an unmarried teen mother.” ("Maternal and Perinatal Risk Factors for Later Delinquency." Pediatrics 99, 1997)

Here is the challenge: go to your local jail or to the nearest prison and try to find one young man there who had a wonderful, godly father and who enjoyed a deep and meaningful relationship with such a father.
6. Sexual Activity. “Adolescent females between the ages of 15 and 19 years reared in homes without fathers are significantly more likely to engage in premarital sex” (Contextual Effects on the Sexual Behavior of Adolescent Women." Journal of Marriage and Family 56, 1994)

There was a bumper sticker years ago that said, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” There may be some truth in that. It depends on what kind of man he is. If he is a thirty year old couch potato addicted to video games still living with his parents or depending on his wife to bring home a pay check…well, he is pretty useless.

Women need men of integrity, godly men dedicated to honesty and purity and committed to the task of caring for his wife and nurturing his children in the fear of the Lord. Every woman needs a man like this. Every child needs a father who will demonstrate to them the traits of a heavenly Father. Every son needs a father to pattern for him what it means to be a masculine, godly man. Every daughter needs a father to provide for her the assurance that she has worth, that she is beautiful and has great value.

Boys who grow up without fathers will seek to fill the empty security void in their lives. They often find role models that are unkind and even cruel to them. Almost all members in the street gangs are fatherless boys looking for some sort of protection and security that absent fathers fail to provide.

Daughters who grow up without fathers will seek to fill the empty hole in their hearts that should be filled with man-love. If there is no father to fill that void they often turn to other males who often say words they want to hear in order to encourage her to give them what they want and then they dump her like a piece of trash and the wound he put in her heart follows her forever.

Our culture is full of men and women who are emotionally wounded and crippled because dad was absent or because dad didn’t do his job.

Some of our children are fatherless because of unfortunate circumstances. A sickness or premature death may have taken the father away. These children need desperately to know the love of a heavenly Father. When an earthly father’s loving voice is silent, when his loving arms are still, great comfort can be found by a Father who is perfect and faithful, a rock and fortress for every difficulty in life.

When I die, I don’t want my children to remember me as just a teacher, or a preacher. I don’t want them to remember me for the house I lived in or the car I drove or the clothes I wore. I want my children to say, “My dad loved God. My dad’s life reflected the life of Christ. I learned the love of Christ because I saw it in the heart of my dad.”

Fathers, when you come to the end of the road and you look back and reflect won’t you say:

“I wish I’d told my wife ‘I love you’ more than I did. I wish I’d spend more time just listening to her share her heart with me.”

“I wish I’d been more honest with my family and my children about my own weaknesses. I wish I hadn’t put up pretenses. I wish I would have made ‘being like dad’ more achievable.”

“I wish I had prayed more with my family. I wish I would have spent more time pointing to Christ rather than drawing attention to myself.”

“I wish I’d made more memories with my family. I wish I would have wrapped my arms around them and said, ‘I love you’ more often.”


Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.