FATHERHOOD

By: Russ Jackson

I was considering God’s goodness as I spent some time one recent Saturday morning with my 5 year old granddaughter at a local indoor play park. The Park is located within a local church building and is open (and free) to the public. I saw 50 plus children playing with each other and generally having fun. I was pleasantly surprised to see the number of fathers who came to interact in this setting with their children. Fully half of the parents spending time on a Saturday morning with their children were men. What a joy and a blessing it was to see this expression of God’s heart being shown through His people.

This reminded me that God spent several centuries speaking with humankind, encouraging, rebuking, correcting, loving and caring for His creation and just before He was going to be silent for approximately 400 years (the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament), God left a message for His people. 

God, as a good father, would have chosen His parting words very carefully. After all, he deeply loves His people. Just before He leaves for a 400 year absence He leaves His people with these final words:

Malachi 4:5&6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.

Rest assured that God was not just spouting poetic words. His final words were packed with meaning for the people back than and for us now. These would not have been idle words or some casual remark. God would emphasize this when He comes back on the scene at the time of John, the Baptist (“prepare the way of the LORD) and then Jesus, the son of man, who showed us that God is our Abba father.

Up until the coming of Jesus, those who considered God at all thought of Him as a far-away, awesome, God to be feared. When Jesus came he brought a radical and new concept that God is very near and our Abba Father!

As men of God I encourage you to draw close to our Abba Father and then model that fatherhood to your children. Lay down your life, love them dearly and encourage them to seek our heavenly Father. Turn your hearts to your children as He draws them to you. In this way we can join with Jesus to bless this land and avoid the curse that will surely come if we don’t.

Yay God!