"Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers."
--Proverbs 17:6
A.One of the greatest needs of our young people today, is to know their dads so they can bestow honor upon them.
B.The behaviour of many adults can be directly related to their relationship with their father.
Look into the past of the wife who is always fighting with her husband, and you will find a woman who had no relationship with her dad. When she gets upset with, and fights with her husband, it is really her dad she is reacting to. She is upset with the first man in her life, her dad, and she measures every man she meets in the light of her dad. If her dad was no good, she will respond by thinking that every man who gets close to her will reject her as her dad did.
According to Dr. John Brown III in the book What Makes A Man, girls who have affectionate touching from their parents, especially from their dads, do not go astray, or marry as young as those whose dads ignored them. Little girls need their dads. It is the loving dad who gives a child affirmation and confidence. When children grow up without the influence of their dad, they grow up to be troubled and wounded for the rest of their life.
WHY DO YOU NEED YOUR DAD?
(Proverbs 17:6)
"Children's children are the crown of old men..."
A. Grandchildren are the fulfillment of old men. Old men are all but forgotten. They are not as useful as they once were. They live without honor, or acceptance. Grandchildren fulfill grandparents by giving them honor. It is the grandchildren, not the children who give grandparents honor.
If your parents are handling your children badly, it is probably because your parents had a bad relationship with their father. The absence of the father has the potential of crushing a life. Dads, we need your strength and support to make us a whole person.
B. The second truth we get from this verse is, Fathers are the praise of their children. Proverbs 17:6 states: "...and the glory of children are their fathers."
If you are a step-parent, and your step-children live with you, the worse thing you can do is talk about your step-children's dad. The most important person in your children's life is his or her dad. Children boast and brag on their dad.
Little children, especially little girls, cry out, "I want my daddy." There is a built-in need for all little children to praise their dads. When dad does not make himself available to his children, he robs them of their need to praise him. Dads, your children need you. You are their praise. They need your strength and support.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DAD DOES NOT MAKE HIMSELF AVAILABLE TO HIS CHILDREN?
A. The children grow to become wounded adults. There is no one to confirm that we belong in this world. We need a dad to welcome and affirm us. We need him to lead and to help us make the tough decisions. There is no one there to give children a sense of accomplishment. We haven't heard our fathers say, "I'm happy you're here, son." Or, "How do you feel about this?"
There are many men who do not know where they fit in this because their dads were not a support mechanism to them.
- When was the last time you told your child he or she did something good?
- When was the last time you gave your son a big hug of confirmation?
- When was the last time you did something with your teenage son--just the two of you?
- When was the last time you made your son feel proud to be your son?
- When was the last time you made your daughter feel proud to be your daughter?
If all you do is yell at your children, and tell them how stupid they are, you can see why they grow up to be wounded adults.
B. Dads and sons live wounded relationships with each other. There are several signs that indicate that a father and son have a wounded relationship: They share little or no time with each other; their tolerance of one another is very low; the father never talks to his son, but at his son; the son has no respect for his dad's authority; a child's bad behavior is a sign that his conflicts are not being handled by his dad.
C. The third thing that happens when dad does not make himself available is, his daughter gets involved with bad relationships. When daughters are not getting dad's love and attention at home, she has no resistance to sexual attention from her peers. She gets pregnant and has to rear a child without the support of the child's father.
I know the pain of growing up not having a dad by your side. Sometimes I want to go into a shell, but I tell myself, 'If you don't be there for your children, they will grow up with the same pain you have lived with for the last forty-eight years.'
The woman who does not deal with the hurt between her and her dad, will end up as a very resentful, hard line feminist out to destroy the male gender. It comes out of her anger and hostility toward the father. She becomes crippled in her feminine soul and when she becomes a wife, she will not be able to surrender to her husband, to trust him, or respect him.
She will be on her guard all the time because her experience with her father has been negative and hurtful. She will not be able to trust a man. The whole issue of the father wound is very critical.
There are several things a daughter must have from her dad:
- She needs to feel loved and wanted by her dad.
- She needs an entrance into her dad's life so she can express her love for him in her own way.
- She needs to be able to build her life according to what she sees in her dad's life.
HOW TO HEAL A WOUND BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR DAD
A. We need to take our own hurts to Jesus. "Lord Jesus, my dad was wounded by his dad, and my dad has wounded me. Save me from this wounding. I do not want to pass it on to my children." This wounding between you and your dad will continue down to your children's children until someone takes it to Jesus.
If we are going to be good dads to our children, we need Jesus. Every dad is going to have to spend his life at the foot of the cross. Letting go of your wound with your dad will be tough. However, if we hold on to the pain, it will control us.
You will displace your pain by being furious with your children. If you don't take your pain to Jesus, it will take you. Once you take your pain to Jesus, He frees you to be the dad He has called you to be.
B. We have a Father God Who loves us and wants to be our Father. Psalm 27:10: "When my father and mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up." Psalm 68:5: "A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation."
We are created in His image and He is our Father and we are His sons. We must go to Jesus and start talking to Him about our woundedness, brokenness, need, and belongings.
C. Before we heal a wounded relationship with our earthly father, we must heal the wounded relationship with our heavenly Father.
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