Instilling A Legacy, Pt II…
Psalm 127:3-5 (Amplified Bible)
3Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. 4As arrows are in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. 5Happy, blessed, and fortunate is the man whose quiver is filled with them! They will not be put to shame when they speak with their adversaries [in gatherings] at the [city's] gate.
I know you have heard us speak a lot about the ministry that God has blessed us to be partners in. It is because of the unique move of God in this place that learning, revelation and expansion comes, not effortlessly but with greater ease. Our Bishop is truly a Spiritual Father; he not only models a father spiritually but does it in the natural to those and for those who have lacked that vital connection with their own fathers. He is no respecter of person, gender or age. Last Sunday the spirit of God lead him to have an alter call, as He was ministering to those at the altar, the Lord lead him to a young lady, which we later found out was seventeen years of age. This young lady never knew her father and never received a hug from him. Before he hugged her as a surrogate for all the hugs she had missed from her father, he took her to school. He told her how a young man that steps to her should be treating her, he went so far as to tell her that a man should always place you on the inside when walking away from traffic. It was amazing to watch this young lady’s life be transformed by those moments he spent with her as a father. Although not her biological father her life was visibly changed forever, because in those moments he became the father she never had!
Men are you changing the lives of your children? Are you taking moments to teach them the valuable and irreplaceable lessons of life? I have a very dear friend who was relaying a time spent with his son, teaching him and training him about his clothing and the way he wears, his clothes. He says even at eighteen years of age he will not allow his son to go out of the house, with his pant sagging off his behind showing his underwear to the masses. I have another friend who is a widower and he is there each and every day with his children, school functions and every night he is loving them and tucking them into bed, teaching them the value of a father even in the worst of times and heartbreak. I have single fathers that I know that make no excuse for not being in their child’s life regardless of the relationship with the children’s mom. They make it their business to be there teaching and leading, guiding and protecting, providing and loving them. Our Bishop was speaking on the relationship of fathers and their children and he referred to the scripture above, children are the arrows and the father is the archer. The child will only go as far as that archer will pull pack the bow and aim it and release it. A mother can never do the job and duty of a father. Fathers missing in action are causing this generation to seek wisdom in all the wrong places and for them not to know what to expect from a man that comes into their lives, or how to become the man they need to grow to be. Fathers are supposed to be the first insight a child has of God. This is one of the main reasons our children are running from God or do not know how to get to Him, because of the bad images that some fathers have betrayed before them, or they have never guided them to God, because they were not there to model that behavior before them, or they lived a life that sent a mixed message or drove their children from the very presence of God.
Daddy where are you? Are you present in your child’s life, loving them, guiding them, teaching them, training them, and pointing them into a future that is bright and will inspire them to be the difference in the future? Daddy are you teaching your daughters by your actions, words and the way you live, what she should be looking for in a man the one that she will share her life with? Daddies are you teaching your son, how to treat a woman by the way you treat his mother and other women in your life? Men have you model God so that He is easy to find for those children entrusted in to your care, have you taken the confusion out of whom He is and where He can be found, or is the path unlike because it is unclear to you? It is time to Man Up and be the father that God planned before the foundation of the world, one who is a reflection of God’s love and God in the earth for our children!
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