YOU CAN FATHER FROM REST

My Dad walked into the boys' room that Sunday Evening. He came to call on us for the usual Sunday outreach in church. The response from my brother that day was shocking. He told my dad that he was not interested in going to church that evening. In my mind, I was already shivering and pitying him. “How dare you turn down Daddy’s call for church?”

My Dad’s response that day shocked me more than my brother’s ‘stubbornness’. He just said “Okay,” and he walked away. I picked up myself and followed him without asking questions. My brother stayed at home. Today, my brother is a pastor. Laughs! My lesson that day is that “Fathering and leading is not by gra-gra” (unnecessary aggression)

You can father from the place of rest. Fathering does not have to be dictatorial. What did Abraham teach or show Isaac that the young lad was willing to lay down his life because God demanded him as a sacrifice? We see the pedigree of Abraham’s fathering pattern from the mouth of God himself:

Genesis 18:19 NIV

For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

What did Jephthah teach his only daughter that made her agree to her dad’s vow of sacrificing the first thing that came out of his house after his victory in battle? Fathering does not have to be by force!

Even God the Father did not have to force Jesus to lay down his life for the redemption of the world. He did it willingly.

By the time you begin to see that there is a competition of raised voices and flexing of muscles, then there is something already fundamentally wrong.

Father your seeds from the place of rest by trusting in the Lord, by learning from the Word and worthy examples and by saturating your home with the presence of the Lord. You can father from the place of rest.

temilOluwa Ola, Eruwa