A Father’s Role

It’s time to celebrate! Another year is finally here. No, I’m not losing my mind just yet but I like to measure the calendar by Father’s Days. Why? Because I’m proud to be a dad. God has given me the honor, the privilege of having two special girls to raise. I don’t brag too often but my girls have grown into amazing young women. I’m sure their mom had a little bit to do with that, but hey, it’s Father’s Day. 

Like so many other men, I take my job of being a dad very seriously. After all, God has called us to lead our families. I know this wrinkles a lot of people’s feathers but men are the head of the family. The Bible instructs women to follow their husband. Fellas, before you start puffing up your chest, you should realize that we’re followers also. As a woman is to follow her husband, the husband is to follow God (1Cor 11:3). Notice I didn’t say follow her baby’s daddy but I’ll get to that subject on another day. 

God’s plan calls for the husband to love his wife as he loves himself (Eph 5:25) so he can be the kind of man a woman would want to follow. A man that is loving, caring and thoughtful. A man that is understanding, supportive, and has strong integrity. We should display those same attributes towards our children. God also expects us to give them discipline (Prov 13:24). Sometimes that calls for being a dictator but always with the love of a dad. 

Do you know the most important thing we do as dads? It isn’t the providing, the protecting, or the disciplining. It’s the training. Training our kids to love and honor God (Prov 22:6). Everything we do as dads, I mean everything, pales in comparison to raising our kids to know and build a relationship with God. If we do that we’ve done our job. Of course a father’s job is never finished. I worry about my girls being out there in this crazy world. But I take comfort in knowing that as good of a dad as I try to be, they have a much greater Father than me.

Happy Father’s Day!