Importance of Fathers

Today is Father's Day.

It's a day where we get to appreciate and affirm our fathers for their importance in our lives.

Our family is in San Francisco where my husband goes every week to work, so he can most fully financially support our family. My Dad is in Denver and has just walked through a very trying time of taking care of my Mother after heart surgery; he's been called into a place of care that he has never been challenged to live into until now.

The lives of my husband and my father have gotten me thinking about the importance of fathers in our lives.

Both men in my life have modeled sacrificial living for the sake of their families; putting aside their own comfort for the good of those around them. This is what the Bible calls men to do; model their lives after their heavenly father and the sacrifices he made on our behalf.

Our Heavenly Father gave us everything he had.

He gave us his son. His most important relationship given sacrifically so we could know how much he loves us. He didn't withhold anything from us; contrary to the lie that the Serpant told Adam and Eve in the Garden--instead he gave us everything.

Our Heavenly Father teaches earthly fathers how they are to live to model love and commitment to their family. I can't underestimate the deep importance that fathers carry for how they model God to their children.

I listen to a lot of people. Almost to the person, I hear how their view of God is formed by how their father lived and treated them. I wish that fathers understood the deep privilege and responsibility they carry because of this reality: it is their most important role in life.

Missio Lux has some amazing fathers in it. I see the love they carry for their children as the families walk through our door together. I see the investment they are making in their children spiritually as they take seriously the role of growing them up as people of faith and good character. I see their desire to grow spiritually themselves so they can model that for their wives and children.

But, we have a long way to go to influence all the people around us. Every generation that continues the broken father influencing their broken children continues to the cycle of brokenness, instead of wholeness and healing.

My dream for the next year is to significantly multiply the awareness and response of how important fathers are in our lives to bring us to a life of freedom and wholeness that Jesus offers everyone.