What Is A Good Father?” This is a good question but I want to deal with “How to Be a Good Father”. It’s not enough just to know the characteristics of a good father we need to see what we must to do to be a good father.
1. LOVE YOUR WIFE
Your children watch how you treat their mother. They WATCH and they are LEARNING and FORMING their concept of marriage from YOU. You are creating a PATTERN, a BLUEPRINT for marriage with your children.
If they see you show disrespect to your wife, your son will carry that into his marriage. If you verbally or mentally or physically abuse your wife your daughter will expect that in her marriage.
If you treat their mother like she isn’t worth very much you are degrading the home, the family, and marriage which they will carry into their future homes, families & marriages.
BUT …
If they visibly see you show love and respect to their mother your son will learn how to be a good husband and father himself. If you honour your wife your daughter will never be satisfied with a man who dishonours her.
If you cherish their mother as a valuable part of not only your life, but their life they will carry that model with them for the rest of their lives.
Ephesians 5:28 “So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;” BEING A GOOD FATHER BEGINS WITH; loving your wife!
2. DON’T EXPECT PERFECT CHILDREN
Just like there are no perfect fathers there are no perfect children. Fathers, don’t EXPECT your children to be perfect. Don’t expect them to meet all of your expectations, to fulfil all of your goals for them,
to be what you want them to be.
Too many fathers try to live out their own lives through their children. They want their sons to be the football stars that they could never be. They want their daughters to marry into money and success that they never achieved.
Every child is different they are not a clone of you (Thank God!). It’s natural for a child to make mistakes, spill their milk, accidentally break things, and do poorly on a test. They are not perfect. ACCEPT your children for who they are whether they are clumsy or athletic, scatterbrained or brainy, shy or a motormouth, goofy or sophisticated.
Instead of constantly criticizing their imperfections, acknowledge their imperfections and love them. They are not perfect; they will never be. Colossians 3:21 – “Fathers, don’t make your children resentful, or they will become discouraged.” BEING A GOOD FATHER is not to expect perfect children.
3. ENJOY YOUR CHILDREN
Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward.” Children are given to us to ENJOY, not to be a burden, not to avoid, not to ignore, BUT TO ENJOY! In order to ENJOY them, you’ve got to be with them, have fun with them and share your life with them.
The QUANTITY and quality of time you spend with them tells them how important they are to you. Enjoy being a father and make sure that they enjoy having you as their father. Spend some time on the floor with them, giving them horsy rides, take them to fun places, doing fun things, laugh, play and give them some memories of Dad being FUN to be around. BEING A GOOD FATHER is enjoying your children.
4. LISTEN TO YOUR CHILDREN
Give them your undivided attention; not with one eye on the TV and the other eye on them. When they have a problem, when they are worried, when they are sad or when they are lonely. They don’t need cartoons, or a video game, or their best friends Dad they need YOU!
Get involved with your children, and know what’s going on in their everyday life. Listen to them even when they‘re not saying anything, they are speaking volumes. Be the kind of father that they can come to and say anything that’s on their mind without being criticized for it.
If you listen to them when they are small and their problems are small they will come to you when they are bigger, and their problems are bigger.
Proverbs 1:5 “A wise man will hear and increase in learning …” BEING A GOOD FATHER is listening to your children.
5. PROVIDE FOR YOUR CHILDREN
1 Timothy 5:8 “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.” You can’t be a GOOD FATHER and not provide for your children. I don’t mean that you have to give them everything they want; that’s one of the WORST things you can do. We are living in a generation of children whose parents have robbed their children of the blessing of WANTING, WORKING & WAITING for material things. We have spoiled our children by giving them INSTANT SATISFACTION and they will carry on this tradition by charging whatever they want and accumulating enormous credit card debt.
Too many fathers think they can BUY OFF their children with THINGS and thus relieve themselves of the guilt for not being the kind of father they ought to be but you can’t BUY your way out of Biblical fatherhood. My father provided me with everything I needed, and taught me the blessing of WANTING, WORKING, and WAITING for material things. PROVIDING for your children by giving them TOO MUCH, is just as bad as NOT PROVIDING for them by giving them TOO LITTLE. BEING A GOOD FATHER is to provide for your children.
6. TRAIN YOUR CHILDREN
Ephesians 6:4 “And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” We must teach and train our children to respect authority in the home or they won’t respect authority at school or in the world. We need to teach our children that there are BOUNDARIES, rules and regulations, a line that they must not cross.
Your children are going to test you. They are going to see how much they can get away with. They are going to see if you mean what you say if you are going to take a stand, or if it’s just an idle threat.
Every time you back down from Godly instruction, you will have to draw the line further and further away from God’s standard. If you’re not careful, after awhile, THEY will have become the authority and you will become the one in submission to them. Train your children to respect authority. Earn their respect, be consistent, discipline them with love, or they will never respect the authority of God in their life. BEING A GOOD FATHER is to train your children.
7. PRAY FOR YOURSELF
1 Chronicles 16:11 “Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually.” You don’t have all the answers to their questions you can’t solve all their problems. You don’t have all the wisdom, love and patience to be the father you ought to be. Without God’s help, you can never be the father God wants you to be. You need help! You can’t do it by yourself. BEING A GOOD FATHER is to pray for yourself.
8. PRAY FOR YOUR CHILDREN
Psalm 55:17 “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.” You can’t be with your children all the time but God can. You can’t protect them wherever they go but God can. You can teach them right from wrong, but you can’t be there when it’s put to the test but God can.
Pray for your children! Lift them up to God to do for them what you can’t do. As parents, we are not perfect, and we make mistakes. If we could to do it all over again, we would do things differently. Maybe we’ve done the best we could, we did what we thought was right we raised our children the best we knew how. NOW PRAY FOR THEM because your Heavenly Father loves them as much as you do and He has more experience than you do. Pray that God the Father will take your wellintended efforts at fatherhood and use them to bring your children into His loving arms. BEING A GOOD FATHER is to pray for your children.
9. BE A POSITIVE ROLE MODEL
Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” You are a role model for your children like it or not, good or bad they will model their lives after you. Like it or not you inherited some of your father’s characteristics; your children will also inherit some of yours. Whether you know it or not you are influencing the lives of your children, and your children’s children. You ARE a role model … a good father will be a GOOD role model.
10. PREPARE YOUR CHILDREN
Proverbs 23:24 “The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice, And he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.” You are preparing your children to leave home one day, they will take what they have learned from you, and apply it out in the real world. Preparing them for life away from you is only part of the picture. If you haven’t spent your time preparing them for eternity, you have failed as a father. God didn’t give you your children just to prepare a doctor, a teacher, or a plumber. God gave your children to Christian fathers to prepare them for eternity. You can’t choose which eternal path they will take but you CAN choose to show them the way to Heaven OR you can choose to just ignore their spiritual destiny. They have to decide for themselves the path they will take but you can have a Godly influence on their choice. BEING A GOOD FATHER is to prepare your children for eternity.
It’s not easy being a good father; it takes hard work, hard praying, and making hard decisions. You can’t do it alone. God doesn’t expect you to. God doesn’t want you to. Don’t leave Him out of your adventure in fatherhood.
By Pastor Ray Scott