What About Fatherhood When Best Efforts Fail

From http://www.covenantnews.com/cronkrite060510.htm

What About Fatherhood When Best Efforts Fail

By Al Cronkrite

The Covenant News ~ May 10, 2006

Back in my “name it and claim it days” I was a claimer of II Corinthians 5:17. My hopes were high that if I conducted my family affairs to the best of my ability in accordance with the outline God put forth in His Word, the results would be equal to those of the always righteous. I considered all things new, the past to be prologue, and the future smoothly righteous.The rebellion of three progenies, with one an addict, changed my mind.

My father served in the army during the First World War and was involved in the fighting. He was unscathed but severely handicapped by the depression. The final couple of decades of his 60 year life span were spent working as a hardware clerk. Although he was not a selected Christian and I never really got to know him personally, he was a good husband, a hard worker, and an ardent Sunday afternoon writer.My father’s father was described to me as a “swinger”.

He left a family of five children, ran off to New York with another woman and shortly thereafter died while still young. He was not spoken of by my family and I did not know of his philandering nature until I was an adult.On my mother’s side, her father, an austere, hard working Irishman, amassed substantial wealth in arable farm land prior to his early death from blood poisoning at the age of 43. My sisters and I still own some of the land he cultivated.My parents were both the youngest members of their respective families and my grandparents had already passed away or soon did so after I was born. I did not have the privilege of knowing my grandparents.I was the eldest of three siblings, the only son, a rebel, a womanizer, and an out-of-control drinker.It is the twilight of my life. I have sired three children. They are all grown. The two daughters are past middle age and my son is 26. The daughters were progeny of my first wife of twenty two years and the son of my second wife of 30. God choose me 43 years ago.

In prior days, when the culture was agrarian, sons were an asset in the physical work necessary to sustain life and property and daughters in bearing children, keeping the home, and maintaining the men who worked the land. Large, well managed families become prosperous, the sons and daughters married, and produced their own children. The family grew in wealth and size populating the earth.In those days fathers and grandfathers were patriarchs whose favor was sought and whose opinions were valued. Rebellion was treated with severity and children tended to be both obedient and attentive. Patriarchs set family standards, religious affiliations and political views were seldom in conflict. It was a system designed to perpetuate family government.Woman’s suffrage drove a telling wedge into the family structure. It was the first of several socially engineered factors that have followed Where the family through the father had previously voted as a unit, suffrage created the possibility of dissension where God sought harmony.

The assumption of political agreement between husband and wife has been lost. This discord immediately effected the security of the children and the continuity of their education. Feminism and rampant homosexuality have heaped additional evil and havoc on marriage and family government.While children should be a source of pride and help to their older parents mine are mostly a source of worry and need.The eldest is cerebral palsied and lives in an assisted living facility in New England. I hear from her 3 or 4 times a year and visit her personally almost as often. She was married for a short period of time to a cerebral palsied man, they divorced, and she has done exceptionally well on her own in spite of very severe physical impairment.

Though she maintains contact, her father is not prominent in her list of priorities.The second daughter lives in the Southeast with her husband and 5 children. They have a fine marriage. However, in over a decade and a half together they have never owned a good automobile or lived in a decent home. They are always needy and a target for charity. As is often the case with those whose development is stunted, while perfectly willing to accept the charity, they have failed to accept counsel and have persisted in pursuing wrongheaded decisions. A little more than three years ago in pursuit of their third or fourth religious rabbit, they joined a cult. Since that time, we have been estranged. They seem quite happy with that arrangement.My twenty-six year old son has been defiant from an early age. In one of the worst school systems in the nation which itself rates poorly in the world, he barely eked out a high school diploma.

When he was a baby I had money put aside for college. In the twelve years he spent in school he put forth no effort to do well scholastically. He is independent but has bounced from job to job and residence to residence for the past eight years. Lately, he has become addicted to pain killers an addiction that will dog him till God’s Grace allows him to seek help. He avoids us.Christian parents are not assured righteous siblings. Like the historic kings of Israel a righteous father often sires a rebellious and sinful son or daughter.

The seed remains in all human beings and can become overtly ugly at any time.In spite of the problems with my children through the years God has been greatly faithful to Patty and me. She is a sweet spirited, wonderful, Biblical quality wife who has supported me in my often uphill battles, comforted me, and created a peaceful, Godly home that many greater men would envy. For me all things have been made new, but to my progeny the old seems still to cling.Many years ago I made amends to my own dear Mother who lived through my rebellion. My Father died before my redemption.

I was not old enough to know him. Mother was the head of our home and most of my ire was directed at her insistence that I live properly. It was her patience and prayer that kept me before God’s throne and eligible for redemption. Children who disobey the Fifth Commandment pay a heavy price. Ones father and mother are god-like forces in the lives of their children and failure to honor their position regardless of their personal inadequacies stands before God as an insult to His creation.It often seems that my patriarchal duties have been seriously mishandled. From the rebellion of those who preceded me and from my own, I can but repent. I have never been able to duplicate his great love for God, his love for his enemies, or his readiness to forgive but I can identify with King David whom God greatly favored even while his family seemed to be paying a price for pre-generational sin.It seems, though, on balance that sin can appear in the most righteous household and that fathers have to remain steady in their governmental duties.

Jesus illustrated that role in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The father made no attempt to pursue his rebellious son. Instead he waited for the change to come in the son and rewarded it with a great celebration. We pray for that change but sometimes it does not come and like King David there is only lamentation.


Published originally at EtherZone.com

Al Cronkrite is a free-lance writer from Florida. He can be reached at fmsinfla@hotmail.com

More from Al Cronkrite