On Father’s Day last year, I made a video about how to be an effective godly father. This message applies to all actual, aspiring, and current father figures.
It also applies to everyone in a position of influence over someone else. Here is the transcript:
An Effective Father Gives Their Children Handles
In 2011, my father dropped me off at Oakwood University and left me a Bible.
In it, he wrote, this Book can keep you from sin, or sin can keep you from this Book.
In writing that statement, what my father was doing is that he was leaving me a handle – he was putting a life-large lesson into a bite-sized nutshell so that it could remain with me.
He always gave me these kinds of handles. If you are a father, what bite-sized handles are you giving your children to leave them with a better handle on life?
An Effective Father Gives Their Children Roots
In giving me that Bible, he also reminded me of the spiritual substratum, he had methodically embedded in me from birth until that moment.
We can say that he reminded me in no uncertain terms that he had given me roots.
You see, the deeper the roots, the more potential the fruit. If you want better fruit from your children’s lives, it starts by giving them solid roots.
If you are a father, what kind of roots are you leaving for your children to have a secure and stable basis to grow in life continually?
An Effective Father Gives Their Children Wings
In 2012 I got an opportunity to go on an international mission trip to Kenya. My father asked me if I wanted to go.
The year before, he had taken me on my first international mission trip to Ghana.
This time he challenged me to go on the mission trip by myself and lead my group. After he instilled confidence in me, I took up the challenge.
Since then, I have led and co-led several mission trips of my own, and I still do so until this day. In this instance, what my father was doing is that he was giving me wings.
This is the ability of a father to help their child see and fly to new horizons in their life. It is the father’s ability to help their child see and fly to horizons the father himself has never experienced.
Because while good fathers train their children to succeed them, great fathers teach their children to supersede them.
If you are a father, what kind of wings are you giving your children to help them thrive, not just survive?
An Effective Father Gives Their Children A Model
Our family lived in NYC for 12 years. During that time, we stayed in an apartment complex, and my mother used to come home around midnight from work.
For those who have lived in NYC, you know how difficult it can be to find parking can be around that time.
So I remember when my mom got home, I used to see my father wake up from his sleep, take the car from my mom and drive for several minutes, sometimes even close to an hour, to find parking for her.
What my father was doing was that he was leaving us with a model – a model of self-sacrificing love.
What I have learned is that a child internalizes their values through imitation (what they see), not just instruction, what they hear.
Therefore, a father’s life is more valuable than his advice.
So, fathers, what kind of model are you giving your children, and is it a model based on the best model that we have, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Are you asking God to mold you into an effective father?
