This five-part series examines five fundamental, yet absolutely critical, fatherhood concepts. This is not an all-inclusive list, but it represents counterpoints to five of the most severely damaging mistakes made by fathers today.
In Part One, we explored Knowing God.
Social media has done something spectacular to the world today: it has essentially stripped everyone of their identities. It is not that it has made everyone bland. It is that it has forced everyone to want to be just like everyone else. It has taken "keeping up with the Joneses" to extreme levels.
What used to be, as a result of cable television and MTV, a desire by many to be like the latest celebrity, has evolved into everyone trying to top everyone else. The best clothes. The best shoes. The latest cell phone. You have the newest iPad? I guess I need to go get one too!
It is no wonder that retail sales of non-essential goods has skyrocketed over the course of the last ten years. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, hi5, etc. They have created an instantaneous need for the next big thing by each and every person that it has resulted in two things: a global lack of identity, and levels of personal debt that are shameful and devastating.
The housing bubble was a part of it. People wanted the biggest house they could get because homes have become a status symbol. It was augmented by a rapid increase in sales of up-scale and luxury cars. Add all of that to the sales of "things" and we have a massive crisis of collective individual finance. Government officials -- from the House to the Senate to the President -- and government departments all pointed fingers at one another. But all we saw were symptoms. There was a singular problem that caused all of this to happen: insecurity -- specifically in one's identity.
We have a binary decision to make when it comes to identity: will we identify ourselves as children of God, or won't we?
If we choose to see ourselves as children of God, insecurity dwindles. It's likely to always be there -- we are, after all, stuck with this branding of Adam's and Eve's Original Sin. And by branding, I don't mean "Nike" or "CNN" or "Playskool". I mean fire-branded-and-scarred-for-life branding. We cannot get rid of the sin entirely while we are trapped in this "mortal coil", to borrow the Shakespearean phrase. And insecurity is a sin, plain and simple. It is a separation from God's divine nature through the decision of a man, allowing doubt of one's identity to creep in. That is insecurity. But as God's children, should we choose to accept that identity, we are sheltered to a large degree from this tendency by God's grace.
But what if we choose to identify ourselves as children of the world? Suddenly, we are not just momentarily separated from the divinity of God by sin; we have between us a wall that is insurmountable by man. Each person who chooses to identify them self as a child of the world walks around with this wall surrounding them. It boxes in their doubts about their attributes -- height, weight, appearance, choice of clothing, odor, hair style, etc. Every last thing that can help to build our identity -- things that are entirely inwardly focused -- is open to that doubt. And that doubt makes us compare ourselves to one another rather than to the man of Jesus Christ.
When we have one man to compare our self to -- and that man is also the Son of God and part of the Holy Trinity -- then of course we will fall short. But when we compare, we see only the attributes that matter: love, mercy, kindness, joy, peace, sacrifice -- all things that are outwardly focused. They are the attributes of the Holy Son of God, and so we strive for the perfection that is Jesus Christ. We know we will never achieve that perfection on Earth, because we are separated from God in this Earthly body by that branding of Original Sin, but we also know through the hope Christ has given us that the day will come when we will be perfected. They are the attributes that help us reach out to our fellow man. They are the attributes that allow us to form relationships that last.
Which brings us to the other side of identity. When we seek relationship -- friendship -- we are drawn to others like us. If we are children of the world, we are drawn to children of the world. If we are children of God, we will be naturally drawn to other children of God. That isn't an absolute, of course, and children of God are specifically called to reach out to children of the world as well. But that is another topic for another time.
Children of the world form relationships that are as deep as their own internal security. But there is, as we have seen, an inbuilt insecurity in each of them that causes their relationships to hit roadblocks. And we see this in the ever-increasing number of divorces. Our insecurities cause us to measure ourselves against our partners; we see that we are deficient, or our insecurities cause us to go to the other extreme of projecting our insecurities on our partners, making them seem deficient. So we divorce, and we move on. And we are seeing people do this two, three, five or more times throughout their lives! What compounds the situation is that many of these relationships bring children into the world. These children then learn their marital commitment concepts from their parents, and have an even higher rate of divorce than their parents did. You can begin to see why divorce rates are as high as they are.
Children of God are susceptible to divorce, too. Again, this group does not have the advantage of perfection. In fact, there isn't much of a difference in the rate of divorce among Christians as compared to those of secular couples. Approximately 78 percent of American adults identify themselves as Christians. That does not mean they are seeking their identities in Jesus Christ; it just means they are say they believe Jesus was...something...and that they believe they will go to Heaven. I hate to present such a cynical view, but I challenge you to poll 100 Christians regarding what they believe in 1) who Jesus Christ is, 2) whether he was crucified and saved us from our sins, 3) whether he rose from the dead, 4) whether he walked the Earth as a living being after his resurrection and 5) whether acceptance of these facts is in any way related to receiving salvation. You will receive, probably, 80 or more different combinations of these answers. When I refer to "child of God" I am referring to those who believe Jesus Christ is part of the Holy Trinity; is the Son of God; was sent to Earth to live as the only perfect human being that will ever exist; lived a life of ministry, including three intense, final years with many disciples -- twelve of whom were hand-chosen -- that culminated in his betrayal, trial, death by crucifixion, descent to Hell to battle death for three days, resurrection and ascent back to Heaven. In other words, those who believe what the Christian Bible actually states, without selectively choosing what applies to them and what does not. You may call it narrow-sighted; I call it a matter of (eternal) life and death.
Again, I digress.
But, ultimately, children of God form closer relationships because we lack those superficial insecurities that would otherwise prevent us from relating closely with others. We can love thoroughly because our focus is not on our own -- or our spouse's -- shortcomings, but rather on how we can love them as Christ loved us.
And all of this relates to fatherhood because, if we do not know ourselves, if we have not allowed ourselves to discover our identity in Christ, we cannot pass this same idea on to our children. Kids with fathers who identify themselves as children of God are likely to see themselves as children of God.
So, I ask: who are you?
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