In a previous post I suggested there is a symbolic connection - prophetic even - between the state of my closeness with my wife and the closeness between me and God. More than that - it's like one depends on the other. If I become captivated by Jesus I will in turn be much more captivated by my wife.
Is this true also of my family? Is this true also of my father?
The nature of God has many many facets. He is not only masculine and paternal (often) - he is also feminine and maternal at times. Not only is he a teacher, he is also a friend. Not only is Jesus my master, he is also my brother; fellow heir to the glory of God.
This poses a problem for many of us in the church today; mostly for guys, but also for girls. For guys I would assert their relationship with their father is more significant than with their mother in the complete picture of their lives because their father is supposed to be the role model for their own future. The mother role model obviously has much bearing on their character but boys do not grow up to be mothers - they grow up to be men - fathers.
The problem is this: In our generation we still remember Modern times. Our fathers were generally strong leaders within the family; decisive, commanding, disciplinarian, stoic... but times have changed and where once one truth - belief in your beliefs - reigned... now confusion reigns - 'what is truth for your is not truth for me' - options, choices, open minded thinking. I understand that both models have flaws, but I think it is important to recognise the pressure placed on men these days, having grown up with a father that seemed to know everything and could make decisions and was in control... to have grown up with the new mindset that you can never truly know what is right - decisions are all subjective. We are unable to follow in the footsteps of our fathers - however flawed they were in part, we simply cannot emulate that Modern model. The issue with Post Modern parenting then, is that for a start it is new... generally we do not know how to do it... The only model we have is the one our own fathers gave us but we cannot do that one - do we end up creating a whole new messy model for our own children that lacks the leadership and direction and mentoring that our children deserve - and that really we would love to be giving them...?
If that makes sense and you followed my train of thought(!) then what that leads to, in a roundabout way, is that society - but more particularly for this blog - the CHURCH is full of orphans. Some are effectively orphans (due to absent/divorced parents) some are emotional orphans, some are spiritual orphans... Even those who have grown up in the church with Christian parents can be spiritual orphans if the father has neglected or not known how to mentor or disciple his children spiritually. Vicar's kids are infamously badly behaved , emotionally unstable church drop outs because of the spiritual neglect they recieved from godly and passionate fathers who lovingly slaved away for the spiritual good of the wider flock but were unable to; or neglected to love their own children in terms of mentoring their faith and championing their emotions.
The conclusion therefore is not necessarily what you might expect... it's not that we need to understand and repair our relationship with our earthly fathers first and then we can engage with God better - rather we must lean into grace for our healing and our identity in God our father - which in turn informs us and motivates us and empowers us to connect better in grace with our 'old school' dads! Learning to be fathered by God will facilitate repair in our being fathered by our earthly dads, and loving them all over again. Learning how God fathers us will inform our understanding of how our dads fathered us - helping us contrstucively critique our relationship with our dads. This in turn will free us in our own deepest places as we no longer depend on him for our approval, identity, affirmation and other things but in complete safety and acceptance from God we are set free to love our own fathers and to become good fathers ourselves. More about that in the next post!
Is this true also of my family? Is this true also of my father?
The nature of God has many many facets. He is not only masculine and paternal (often) - he is also feminine and maternal at times. Not only is he a teacher, he is also a friend. Not only is Jesus my master, he is also my brother; fellow heir to the glory of God.
This poses a problem for many of us in the church today; mostly for guys, but also for girls. For guys I would assert their relationship with their father is more significant than with their mother in the complete picture of their lives because their father is supposed to be the role model for their own future. The mother role model obviously has much bearing on their character but boys do not grow up to be mothers - they grow up to be men - fathers.
The problem is this: In our generation we still remember Modern times. Our fathers were generally strong leaders within the family; decisive, commanding, disciplinarian, stoic... but times have changed and where once one truth - belief in your beliefs - reigned... now confusion reigns - 'what is truth for your is not truth for me' - options, choices, open minded thinking. I understand that both models have flaws, but I think it is important to recognise the pressure placed on men these days, having grown up with a father that seemed to know everything and could make decisions and was in control... to have grown up with the new mindset that you can never truly know what is right - decisions are all subjective. We are unable to follow in the footsteps of our fathers - however flawed they were in part, we simply cannot emulate that Modern model. The issue with Post Modern parenting then, is that for a start it is new... generally we do not know how to do it... The only model we have is the one our own fathers gave us but we cannot do that one - do we end up creating a whole new messy model for our own children that lacks the leadership and direction and mentoring that our children deserve - and that really we would love to be giving them...?
If that makes sense and you followed my train of thought(!) then what that leads to, in a roundabout way, is that society - but more particularly for this blog - the CHURCH is full of orphans. Some are effectively orphans (due to absent/divorced parents) some are emotional orphans, some are spiritual orphans... Even those who have grown up in the church with Christian parents can be spiritual orphans if the father has neglected or not known how to mentor or disciple his children spiritually. Vicar's kids are infamously badly behaved , emotionally unstable church drop outs because of the spiritual neglect they recieved from godly and passionate fathers who lovingly slaved away for the spiritual good of the wider flock but were unable to; or neglected to love their own children in terms of mentoring their faith and championing their emotions.
The conclusion therefore is not necessarily what you might expect... it's not that we need to understand and repair our relationship with our earthly fathers first and then we can engage with God better - rather we must lean into grace for our healing and our identity in God our father - which in turn informs us and motivates us and empowers us to connect better in grace with our 'old school' dads! Learning to be fathered by God will facilitate repair in our being fathered by our earthly dads, and loving them all over again. Learning how God fathers us will inform our understanding of how our dads fathered us - helping us contrstucively critique our relationship with our dads. This in turn will free us in our own deepest places as we no longer depend on him for our approval, identity, affirmation and other things but in complete safety and acceptance from God we are set free to love our own fathers and to become good fathers ourselves. More about that in the next post!
1 comments:
Lets help the economy and go to the shops. Lets stand up and fight against the norm. And yes there were some very insightful other things that you said
Post a Comment