Fatherhood: 12 Thoughts

When I was a single guy, I gave little attention to someday becoming a father. Parenting wasn’t among my top ten future aspirations. Of course, that all changed in the delivery room when our first arrived. My marriage is surely my highest family priority, but I love the privilege of being a father.

So, here are 12 random quotes and soothing truths about the high high privilege of fatherhood …

“God’s design for the family is headed by a husband and father whose love is demonstrated by how he lives.”
~ Peace in the Home Value #4

“My father didn’t tell me how to live.  He lived and let me watch him do it.”
~ Clarence B. Kelland

“Scripture ordains men as servant-leader heads of their wives and households, and ultimately holds husbands responsible for the success or failure of their homes.  That’s a day-to-day, brick-by-brick active responsibility that can’t be delegated, sidestepped or ignored.”
~ Up the Down Escalator, July 2022

“One of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
~ Howard W. Hunter

“Every aspect of the family has been under a relentless attack for so long.  The sexual revolution of the 60’s, the rise and maturity of radical feminism, and the bullying deviant agenda of LGBT activists have all chipped away at God’s design for the family.  Strong, healthy and highly-differentiated masculinity, present and active in the home, is just one of the wreckages of these attacks.
~ Up the Down Escalator, July 2022

“Son, there are times a man has to do things he doesn’t like to, in order to protect his family.”
~ Ralph Moody

“Here’s prescriptive wisdom that we don’t hear from our culture:   Healthy male and female sexuality are strongly tied to the relationship between a child and his father.  A daughter needs a solid relationship with a sensitive, admiring and invested father in order to resist pressure to form premature relationships with men. And, a son needs a salient and strong father who will model healthy masculinity day in and day out — something mother isn’t designed for, or even capable of doing.”
~ More Than Neckties, June 2021

“Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.”
~ Charles Kettering

“In fifteen years (as a therapist), I have spoken with hundreds of homosexual men … but I have never met a single one who said he had a close, loving and respectful relationship with his father … there is not a single even moderately well-controlled study in which male homosexuals refer to father positively or affectionately … the one virtually unchanging variable is then poor relationship with fathers.”
~ Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Preventing Homosexuality: A Parents’ Guide, 2002

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
~ Ephesians, 6:4

“A child’s early concept of God is shaped by a his relationship with his “earthly” father.  God’s unconditional, sacrificial love isn’t going to make a lot of sense to any of them, if they interpret a father’s love as somehow tied to their performance.”
~ Sporting Fathers, November 2019

“One father is worth more than a hundred schoolmasters.”
~ George Herbert

Even if yours wasn’t perfect, pray for the fathers and future fathers in your life.

Blessings on your home,
robert