FIVE HABITS OF GREAT DADS... 2

The Bible says our children should be like arrows in our HANDS. Our hands are what we use to work at things. Our fingers are the major tools we use to get things done here on earth. God wants you as a father to properly handle your children.

Using the picture of our HANDS WITH FIVE FINGERS , I want to share with you something God showed me, which has helped me and made a better father out of me. I’m going to call it the FIVE HABITS OF  GREAT DADS . God gave me these tips as a summary and framework for fathers' functions. I believe it will also help you greatly.

Like I said earlier, being a good father didn’t come naturally to me as I had no great example in my background to learn from. I then turned to books to find help but I was not fully satisfied either . As men, we differ greatly from women. A woman isn’t overly concerned about logic. Step-by-step approaches don’t so much fascinate women. They are more intuitive. We men are different. We have to have it laid down step by step, line upon line for it to be meaningful to us.

The truth however is that no habit comes easy. To acquire a habit, you need to stay at it and not give up. If you decided to wake up five a.m. every day for example, you would agree with me that the first time your alarm goes off at five o’clock, you don’t jump out of bed and bingo! Habit formed. No. the first time, you probably turned over and battled with whether to shut the alarm up and stay some moment longer in slumber land or get out of bed. By the second day, it’s easier. By the third day, you begin to get a hang of it. Experts say that after twenty one days, you have a new habit to yourself. By the time you keep at this for a year, you cannot easily break the habit without some ‘side effects’.

The same thing applies to being a father. You have to form the habit of being a great father on purpose. Cultivate the habit of being a great dad. Develop it. It doesn’t come automatically.

WHAT IS THE GOAL OF FATHERHOOD ?

And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Eph 6:4

You’ve probably heard it said that mothers are the managers of the home. Well said. However, every organisation needs a director. While the manager is concerned about the day to day running of the organisation and short term goals; the director focuses on the long term goals of the future. This does not mean that one occupies a better position than the other or is more valuable. Not at all. On the contrary, it means that both the manager and the director are vital to the smooth and effective running of the organisation.  The mother manages the present, while the father is directing it to the future. The future should not be mortgaged for the present; neither should the present be forfeited for the future.

The Bible admonishes that fathers should not provoke their children to wrath. Why does God say this? And what does He mean? You see, fathers play a very vital role in the lives of their children. The place of a father in a child’s life cannot be underestimated without dire consequences. God knows that the influence of a father over his children lasts beyond a lifetime.

One way or the other, we are reflections of our fathers. Some people spend recklessly, for instance just to prove their father wrong. He probably had given you the impression as a child that you would never amount to anything important. Others hate school because their fathers made a monster out of it while they were growing up. Worse still, some men have womanising or alcoholic tendencies because their fathers treated their mothers wrong or lived such lifestyles.

The Yorubas in Nigeria must have observed this truth when they coined the saying that “A mother is a child's gold. The father is a child’s mirror.” How very true! A child tends to see the world through the eyes of his father. I’m going to say this again - A family is the father’s reflection! I know that my children will carry a reflection of me everywhere they go. One of my daughters told me she wished she could keep bearing my name even after being married. My reply to her was that it is more important for her to retain the influence of the name, be a reflection of her father and serve well, wherever she went.

One of the things that will outlive you as a father is the honour your children ascribe to you. You will need this honour in your later years. By the time you reach your sixties and retire, your honour as an employee would be gone because you would be retired and your services no longer needed. In your old age, when most of your contemporaries are no longer there, it is your children that will surround you with honour. This is why it is important for you to be the best father you can be now that you have the chance. No wonder the Bible says that a man’s children will speak for him at the gates(Psalm 127:5).

Children are naturally afraid of fathers. Dependents are usually afraid of authority figures. This is why it is easier for a child to lie to the father than the mother. There’s something about a father that tends to put a child on his guard. When a child is provoked to wrath, that provocation becomes the root cause of all the misdemeanours that pervade the society today. The crimes, the terrorism, prostitution and all such vices that plague our world today are a result of wrong fathering. Children who have not been properly fathered end up flawed and disoriented one way or the other. It usually takes the grace of God for such to find their feet and not repeat the cycle.

The task before you as a father is a lifelong one. You can’t afford to take it lightly or joke with it. It’s one you have to consciously prepare for. Fathering cannot be operated like a vehicle on autopilot. No sir! You can’t do that and expect your children to turn out right! It takes a father to build up a child. Children can stay at the level of their mother for as long as possible. It’s the father’s duty to take them up. To state it clearer, mothers gather the children AROUND them while fathers bring them UP.

Take a look at your fingers.  How many do you have? All things being equal, you should have five. The first of those five fingers is the thumb. You may have noticed that the position of the thumb makes it possible for it to touch the other four fingers conveniently. What fatherly habit does the thumb signify?

DELIGHT

... to be continued...