by Kenneth Sheets
Humanity rightfully places substantial respect upon those regarded as “fathers,” but this respect takes different forms and expressions as individual humans, or groups of humans, perceive the relationship between “fathers” and their children, that is, those who have descended from them.
Primary in consideration is the fact that the father-child relationship, just like every other function and interaction of every thing that exists, is not a “one way” relationship, that is, wherein the child respects and honors the father. Indeed, in the perfect design of the God Who Exists, every relationship between any two things in the creation has been designed by God with inexorable criteria governing the interactions between those two things in both ways, that is, the Creator’s design covers and includes criteria for the proper expressions of the relationship of each one to the other. Nothing is “one way” in its design; every thing is designed to express itself to every other thing in very specific ways in a reciprocal relationship.
In the father-child relationship, the child is certainly to value and respect the father, but at the exact same time, the father is to value and respect the child. Each is to seek to understand and conform to the perfect criteria of the Creator in his or her relationship to the other. The father does not relate to the child in any “childish” manner, that is, in a manner which does not manifest the wisdom gained from the additional years of life which he has experienced. This is not to say that the father cannot interact with his child on the child’s intellectual and perceptual level, but that, when he does so, he never violates God’s criteria for the position of each one in the relationship.
His every interaction is established in and upon perfect love as God designed it; his every interaction is rooted in giving of himself, within the design of God, to bring about that which is absolutely “best” for that child. Stated differently, he gives of himself to help the child become all that God has designed that child to become, communicating and modeling God’s design and its nature as the absolute best for all of human existence, and he does this in such an inescapable fashion that the child clearly and accurately sees the true person and nature of the Creator and the success and blessedness which He designed His human creatures to experience.
This all, of course, requires that the father honor the child by seeking to know, and to perceive and apply, all that he can during every stage in the child’s life, exercising more “control” over the child’s life in its early stages and gradually diminishing that “control” as the child grows and manifests that it has learned and is able to properly apply that learning. This relationship never ceases to exist, even when the child marries and becormes “one-flesh” with another human, and even to the end of that child’s life. This means that the quality and validity of the interactions, the teachings, the interpretations of life situations and experiences, must always have been established in conformity to the perfect criteria of God as He has actually revealed them, thus making those interactions and teachings and interpretations of life situations and experiences to be timeless in their nature, always of value in every aspect of life, but never “legalistic” as though their application constitutes the child “righteous” in the sight of the Creator.
The child thus grows to see the Creator as He truly is, and himself or herself as the created being which he or she truly is, and that child cannot resist seeking and possessing an unalienated relationship with the God Who Exists, a relationship wherein his or her thinking is so established that he or she is able to convey that same design to others. In reality, then, the father-child relationship is not limited to that of physical descendancy; it includes every relationship wherein a male human, one who is more mature, more knowledgeable, more perceptive, or more understanding in certain aspects of the design of God, seeks to accurately impart the content and significance of those aspects to another person in order to help that person to become all that the Creator has designed that person to be. Indeed, every man is a “father” to every other one who comes into his sphere of interaction and influence. May we all use our influence in such a manner! This is God’s perfect design, and we “fathers” can do no better!