By Jor-El Godsey, Heartbeat International President
While walking through the parking lot after visiting a superstore, my wife and I were joking about the labels CEO and CFO and who, in our household, they applied to. Since she has a degree in accounting, you can guess what I was lobbying for.
My then five-year-old son was in between us walking hand-in-hand, taking this all in. He stopped suddenly and looked up at me with a glint in his eye and said, “You’re the D-A-D.”
As I reflect on that moment, I understand that the reality of “D-A-D” is one that unfolds over a parent’s lifetime. Though motherhood might be more obvious, fatherhood also experiences transitions. Even before a man knows he’s a father, he has already begun the process of becoming one in more than just physical ways. How he responds to that will determine what type of “D-A-D” he can or will be.
In the pregnancy help world, we see too many examples of those who’ve rejected the role of father. Often we might find reasons to agree why a certain young man is not ready to serve in a fathering role to his own child. When our earthly wisdom leads us this way we might be tempted to champion single-parenting or feel more compelled to promote adoption. While there are certainly reasons to do both, we must be careful not to slight the call to fatherhood upon each man.
We must always remember that our Father God is actively working to reproduce Himself in each of us. He has inscribed on the heart of every man the source of good fathering. While earthly examples fail – sometimes miserably so – the Ancient of Days continues to sow seeds into the hearts of each generation. As believers and missionaries in this unique mission field we’ve been called to, we must be careful not to discard this reality.
The God of the Universe has divinely inspired both fatherhood and motherhood. He has established the most basic social unit – the family. Though our wayward culture and secularized media rails against every aspect of family, it remains His idea and His glory in its fulfillment.
As the focus is on Fathers this month, remember part of what we do is sow the godly seeds of family – motherhood, and fatherhood. The harvest of our seed should include more than babies born, but also marriages and families. Just as we seek to inspire the mothering instinct in the women we serve, we should always be mindful of the opportunities we have to inspire fathering. We can take heart that the Lord, in His wisdom, has also placed a complimentary calling upon fathers.
