When my first daughter was born, I filmed the event. None of the X-rated or vomit-inducing scenes, just the simple pieces that showed the life-altering transition of a family of two becoming three. As soon as my baby girl came into the world, the nurses began checking all of her vitals. While they scurried about, my hand entered the camera frame and touched my baby girl on the stomach. I was making sure she was real, that what I was seeing was actually happening. I had been praying (for about 9 months) that God the Father would make me a good father, and gameday had come.
We don’t want to simply be a dad. We want to be good dads. The problem with this desire is none of us are good on our own account, through our own doing (Luke 18:19). Only God is good, so we need His help in the arena of fatherhood. For us to be good fathers, we must follow God the Father. Here are just a handful of God’s fatherly traits we should emulate:
1. God the Father is slow to anger
“The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.”
God shows incredible forgiveness and patience, so should we. The words in this verse should be descriptors of our fathering efforts. Don’t let angry be the word our kids think of when they think of us. Our kids are going to mess up…a lot. It’s how humans learn. It’s part of the growing-up process. Even as grownups, we still make mistakes, sometimes in significant ways. We have to be patient with our kids as they go through the maturing process of mistake-making.
Dad, anger is killing you!
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2. God fulfills His promise
“Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to Israel failed; everyone one was fulfilled.”
God is a promise keeper. The Old Testament is a centuries-long timeline telling different versions of the same story—God’s people turn away from Him, get into trouble, call out to Him for rescue, He lovingly saves them, repeat, repeat, repeat. Our own timelines probably share a similar resemblance. Even when His people were not faithful to Him, God remained true (2 Timothy 2:13). He kept His Word regardless of His people’s actions. We have to be men of our word. Our kids have to know they can count on us to be faithful and true, even when they are not.
3. God answers the call
“When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.”
God rescues His people. He saved them from the Egyptians, the Philistines, Midianites, Canaanites, even sin and death. When they call to Him, He listens. As dads, we fill the role of protector, defender, liberator, rescuer. If I had been arrested as a teenager, my dad would have let me spend a night or seven in jail before he came and got me. But he would have come; he would have rescued me. When our kids need to call out for rescue, we should be who they call.
4. God leads His people
“The LORD had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.’”
God always leads the way. In this passage, God chose Abraham to be the patriarch of a whole nation of God’s people. The LORD called Abraham away from his home—everything he knew and was familiar with, to an unknown place that God would show him. The only way Abraham would know the right way to go was by following God’s lead. As dads, we are the leader of our family. We must lead the way. Our words, actions, examples, and guidance should be what our kids draw on to know which way is the right one to go. We must blaze the trail for our kids to follow. And for us to know which way to lead, like Abraham, we must follow the LORD.
A Good Father Follows God the Father
Simply being a dad is easy. But becoming a good father requires patience, effort, and most importantly, the work of God’s Word in our lives.
