In June we celebrated fathers. It is challenging  in a culture where much of the U.S. and churches are filled with the fatherless (absent or disengaged fathers).  In order to celebrate fathers we had to still address the sobering realities of the negative effects of a fatherless generation. Because of this, our view of God as our Father has been tainted, diminished and sometimes rejected.

Malachi 4:5-6 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

“A community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship with male authority, never acquiring any expectations about the future – that community asks for and gets chaos,” 1965 Senator Patrick Moynihan. Since, that day the number of fatherless children has more than doubled. In the last decade, conservative estimates have American taxpayers spending $112 billion dollars annually on fatherlessness and single parent homes.

God is eager for us to change our view of the father child relationship.  It is not as much that all of our earthly relationships will change, but our perception of how God views and interacts with us will.

Joseph, Jesus step-father, had his world turned upside down by God’s Son, Jesus. He could have responded culturally for his day and put out pregnant Mary.  Instead, he gave up his temporal reputation, to effect eternity.
        

Let’s make Fathering Famous