The fathers we need

"I believe that God desires for every father to courageously step up and do whatever it takes to be involved in the lives of his children. But more than just being there, providing for them, he is to walk with them through their young lives and be a visual representation of the character of God, their father in heaven.

A father should love his children and seek to win their hearts. He should protect them, discipline them, and teach them about God. He should model how to walk with integrity and treat others with respect and should call out his children to become responsible men and women who live their lives for what matters in eternity.

 

Some men will hear this and mock it, or ignore it. But I tell you that as a father, you are accountable to God for the position of influence He has given you. You can’t fall asleep at the wheel, only to wake up one day and realise that your job or your hobbies have no eternal value, but the souls of your children do.

Some men will hear this and agree with it, but have no resolve to live it out. Instead, they will live for themselves and waste the opportunity to leave a Godly legacy for the next generation. But there are some men who, regardless of the mistakes we’ve made in the past, regardless of what our fathers did not do for us, will give the strength of our arms and the rest of our days to loving God with all that we are, and to teach our children to do the same. And whenever possible, to love and mentor others who have no fathers in their lives, but who desperately need help and direction."

Courtesy of Sherwood Pictures' film Courageous.

I may not have children of my own, but there are many children who I have come to care for, to protect and to love as if they were my own.

The 'other' lost sheep

Once, there were two shepherds.

One shepherd is often talked about; his heroism being a well-known story. He is the one who looked after 100 sheep and, when one wandered off, he left the other ninety nine and looked everywhere, not stopping until he found it. When he did find it, he put the sheep on his shoulders and held a great celebration.

The other shepherd lived in a different time.

He also had 100 sheep, but some of his sheep were much younger – some were still lambs. One day, he noticed that one little lamb had wandered off. He was about to set off to search for that lamb, when he paused to think. The culture of the day said that lambs were fragile creatures that needed a lot of love and care, so much so that two shepherds were needed, just in case the lamb had gotten itself into a spot of bother.

The shepherd didn’t want to be accused of mistreating his delicate lamb, so he went to a neighbouring farm and asked the shepherd there if he could have some help. His neighbour listened to his problem, and then accused him of not thinking the situation through: how could he be so careless as to leave ninety nine sheep alone – especially when some of them were just lambs – in order to go searching for just one? Perhaps he should just cut his losses and get on with his duties for the others. After all, he could have faith that God would make sure the lost little lamb was safe...

The Good Samaritan - revamped

A teenager, having missed the last bus, was walking home one evening. The journey was a few miles and he knew his parents wouldn’t be best pleased if he called them up and asked them to come out and pick him up. So he walked.

The journey wasn’t too bad, although part of it was on fast roads and part on narrow lanes.

Along the way, a car approached him, travelling in the same direction. The driver, one of his teachers from school, slowed down, but as soon as the teacher recognised the teenager, she overtook safely and continued, knowing that her job did not permit her to give lifts to pupils.

A short while later, another car approached, again travelling in the same direction. This time the driver was the vicar from the local church. As he neared the teenager, he too slowed down. He took a look at the teenager and, realising he was a member of the church, overtook safely and continued on his journey. He knew that the procedures and policies in place did not allow him to take the teenager home, unless there was another adult in the car with him.

However, because the vicar tries to be a good Christian, when he reached his destination, he telephoned the teenager’s parents to inform them of the situation.

Soon after, another car approached, this time travelling in the opposite direction. The driver noticed the teenager walking with his head down, and pulled over. He looked at the teenager and asked if he wanted a lift. The teenager, not knowing the driver of the car, said he was going in the other direction and that it wasn’t much further. The driver gently insisted. He said it was a dangerous road and it was no bother to him.

When they turned up to the teenager’s house, the stranger led him to his front door and explained the situation to his parents. They thanked the man and he left. Then the teenager received a telling off, not only for missing the bus, but also for not telling them that he had missed the bus (they found out because the church’s vicar had called them) and for accepting a lift home from a stranger.

Now, which of those three – the teacher, the vicar or the stranger – acted like a neighbour to that teenager?

But also, with which of those three would the teenager’s parents have been happier to provide the lift home?

The problem of postmodernism

The dictionary says that postmodernism is “characterised by a rejection of ideology and theory in favour of a plurality of values and techniques.” Basically it says that there is more than one way of doing things and that it really doesn’t matter – we have to make up our own minds. An “all roads lead to Rome” idea.

The problem is that it doesn’t work.

Yes, we have to make up our own minds on how we are going to do things – that’s the beauty of free will – but the problem is that some paths just end up in disaster.

Here’s an example. The idea that the type of films young people watch and the computer games they play can seriously influence them has been around for a long time. A Home Office study reported in 1977 showed as much. But the backlash was that there are people who were exposed to extreme sex and violence as a child who are as decent as any other member of the human race. Whilst that may be true, it’s a non-argument: it is selective observation, or cherry picking. The issue here comes from the assumption that we can somehow ‘know’ how a child will turn out if we subject them to such material. Some people get lucky. Others get scarred.

The path we choose to take will have an effect on how we live our lives, and can even affect the lives of those around us – especially children.

And here’s where postmodernism fails. It says that we should be free to do what we want to do, that people shouldn’t judge just because it isn’t their cup of tea, and that there are many expressions and interpretations of things. Now, whilst a lot of this is good, there is one huge problem… and it comes from the application of postmodernism into society.

Postmodernism is enforced by adults. These are people who have grown up with a strong set of rules (whether they abided by them or rebelled against them, they knew those rules) and have grown to a level of intellectual understanding to be able to question those rules. It’s like being taught about black and white, and then learning about the grey area in between.

But postmodernism enforces the grey area without establishing the black and white. It means our children don’t have any rules to question, no boundaries to push against. By enforcing postmodern philosophy we actually prevent the next generation from learning the way we learned.

As adults, we can understand that there is a big grey area. But young people are still learning. We need to be aware that whilst some of them can understand the greyness, others cannot, and we are all (adults included) at different stages.

The argument of postmodernism is supposedly one of freedom against established (‘old fashioned’) rules. I wonder if in reality it is arguing for non-responsibility.

Labels

I find it interesting. We send our kids to school. We’re concerned about rebellious teenagers or riotous youths. We have child protection policies and there are a lot of projects regarding young people who are under-18. There are all these labels for people who are living through their first 2 decades of their lives and the only thing we can be sure of is that they are not adults.

As such, there are things in place to make sure they are protected, or that they have enough activities, or so that they have a good learning experience. There are certain ways in which adults are to act around them to make sure there is absolutely no hint of anything which might (even remotely) be construed as abuse.

We have children’s workers, youth workers and family workers. People take the role of ‘appropriate adults’ and mentors. There are specialised professions for working with those under-18s. Whilst it may be no bad thing, it all adds to the divide. It is precisely these people who need to help people grow from childhood to adulthood.

It doesn’t happen overnight as a person becomes 18. It’s a process. It takes years of teaching and learning where the social boundaries are. It means that as one of those young people goes through life, we must gradually give them more responsibility, rather than making them abide by the same rules until they are 18… at which point the cultural rulebook suddenly changes and they are thrown into a whole realm of freedom they are not ready for.

Is it any wonder why the nation’s young adult population is such a mess? Alcohol abuse, drug abuse, vehicle abuse, people abuse and no taking responsibility: ‘it must be someone else’s fault’ because it always was whilst they were growing up.

I think we’ve missed the big picture. You can call them children or kids or teenagers or young people or youths or under-18s. Call them whatever you want.

When are we going to start treating them like human beings?