Speaker 0 00:00:05 Greetings and welcome to another edition of thinking it through. My name is Craig Jarvis. I'll be your host for this podcast. Put out by village church, east on a variety of topics, dealing with our ever-changing culture and trying to explore each one of these changes. Or as many as we can looking at them through the mind of Jesus Christ. Hey, listen, we are up to a Baker's dozen. Yes. I know 13 podcasts and we are looking forward to doing a lot more. Uh I've uh, I've actually tried to keep up with doing two a week and
Speaker 1 00:00:37 Narrow it down to one. So listen, if you are interested in grabbing these, as soon as they come up, you can jump on at apple or Spotify and automatically get downloads, or you can always visit
[email protected], east.org. That's VC east.org. And there, I don't know if you knew this, but you can send in suggestions for what we could talk about on our upcoming episodes. So that's available as well. Well, listen, father's day is coming up next week. It's coming up quick quickly. So all you kids out there, all of you, children and all you grown individuals that, uh, have your dads around to honor them, make sure that you don't miss this day. All kinds of families will begin honoring their dads in their wives. Honoring their husbands fathers are incredible blessings to their children and their wives. And this is really the way that it was meant to be from the beginning.
Speaker 1 00:01:25 The history of mother's day. I don't know if you know, this goes back to the 1860s. Mother's day was declared a national holiday in 1914 father's day. However, wasn't declared a national holiday until 1972. This is surprising seeing how valuable dads are here's 10 valuable things about being a dad. Number 10, you know, stuff about tanks. Number nine, you can go to the bathroom without a support group. Number eight. If somebody forgets you to invite you to something, he can still be your friend. Number seven, you can drop by to see a friend without bringing a little gift. Number six. If another guy shows up at the same party in the same outfit, you might become lifelong buddies. Number five, one wallet or one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons. Number four, there's always a game on somewhere. Number three, your pals can be trusted, never to trap you with these words.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 So notice anything different. Number two, if something mechanical doesn't work, you can bash it with a hammer and throw it across the room. And number one valuable thing about being a dad. You can do your nails with a pocket knife. I think sometimes we underestimate the importance of fathers. Mark Twain said when I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant. I could hardly stand to have the old man around, but when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. Sometimes in our modern culture, dads get a bad rap. They look silly on sitcoms. They never seem to grow up. They just play with more expensive toys. By the way, did you know Elon Musk, father of four or five father of five is selling tickets for a 10 day ride to the space station, just for a measly little payment of $55 million.
Speaker 1 00:03:11 Yeah, you could do that this year older, you get the bigger toys. They were clothes from their own decade that their minds get stuck in. And they can't seem to get out of these fathers are downplayed over and over in our society for their importance to their families. Listen to this and time magazine and an issue called the hottest jobs of the future. This is from the early two thousands. They listed fatherhood is one of the occupations that would disappear in the next century. This is what the article says. Quote, between inverter in-vitro fertilization and cloning dads could become dinosaurs who would have thought this would come true so fast. Here's an article written, not that long ago, May, 2016 quote things have changed with the advent of sperm to sperm capabilities. We can now allow women to produce healthy sperm cells, which can be used to impregnate the egg of another woman no longer are we restricted by the iron grip of natural selection, no longer our costs men required.
Speaker 1 00:04:12 What? Great language, a fantastic side. The article goes on to say a fantastic side effect of lesbian couples. Having their own children is that with no, Y chromosome involved couples are guaranteed to have little baby girls. So perhaps it's only a matter of time before men become obsolete. Their parasitic nature finally exposed for all to see and their legacy. Finally, coming to an end. Can you believe that that was written in a magazine? Here's the truth? A fatherhood is a God created position. God thinks that men fathers are essential to the growing process. Listen fathers were created for a purpose. They're given a specific set of instructions, a specific role invented and laid out by God that they perform in the household. Families are meant to function better when dad is doing dad's stuff. For instance, did you know that dads who play rough house with their kids, foster better emotional intelligence, memory, learning, morals and ethics in their children.
Speaker 1 00:05:14 Yeah. So if you like to rough house with your kids, you are actually doing them a favor as a dad. They are increasing in all of those important aspects in their lives. It's been largely proven year after year, that families function better when the father is present and engaged with his wife and with his children, when that does not happen, children's simply do not do as well. Statistics after statistics show this more than 70% of all juveniles and state reform institutions come from fatherless homes, children from broken families are nearly twice as likely as those in two parent families to drop out of high school children without a father are more likely to show disciplinary issues. 71% of high school dropouts are from a fatherless home with these kinds of statistics. School failure may as well, have as much to do with disintegration of the family as, as it does with the quality of the school.
Speaker 1 00:06:09 Listen to this 71% of pregnant teenagers come from a fatherless home, emotionally distant fathers correlate with riskier sexual behavior in their children. These statistics are not disputable. They come from a variety of different places that do these statistics, but they all come up with the same conclusions. We don't like to talk about these statistics because the statistics of fathers who don't engage with them, children only seems to be growing sadly, nearly one in four children live in homes without a father in America. Listen, the truth is these dads will never know what they're missing out on. I did a up on dads a few years ago, actually it's a many years ago when I started having children, it always stuck with me at the time I had just two girls. Now I have four, uh, my wife and I have wonderful little girls, uh, not so little anymore, but at the time we had two, I had been a dad for just three years.
Speaker 1 00:07:09 It was the third celebration for me for father's day. My kids had just begun to grow up and develop their own little personalities. And I began to realize some of the amazing things I was going to be in for as a father. So I wrote this article and I called it a father's example. And I'd like to read it for you. Here's how I wrote. I love being a father. My children are the smile at the end of my day when Hannah just turned one year old and Abby closing in on three, both of their little lives are filled with wonder and surprise. And it shows in every single one of their facial expressions. I can't wait to get home and find out if Hannah was able to stand on her feet all by herself without the assistance of a nearby chair, or to hear Abigail's stories of blowing soap bubbles off the back porch, both of the girls love to be tickled.
Speaker 1 00:07:58 And when you do, they both giggle with delight. Hannah's laughter is especially contagious. As she proudly displays all five of her little teeth in her big smile, Abigail's Nunez practice as engaging in corporate prayer at the dinner table. As we begin by giving thanks for the day she finishes off by listing every one of her friends and giving. Thanks for them before she breeds deeply pauses and proclaims a very loud, amen. Our house is a carnival of wonder for our little girls in life. Couldn't be better for them. When you walk into our house, you can't help, but join in the laughter. However, while being a father is the most enjoyable things in my life. I also realize that it is one of the greatest areas of responsibility of my life. I have an enormous responsibility to provide my children with the best example of our heavenly father that I possibly can.
Speaker 1 00:08:52 My own dad was a great example of God's love it. My dad who'd led me to the Lord without his example in my life. God only knows where I would be today. He's always been a great influence in my life. He's given me a rich legacy to cherish these memories of my own father's example. To me constantly remind me of my responsibility to my own children. I believe that being a father is a God calling. It's one of the highest callings in human existence. It is our best chance to exemplify godly principles and invest in godly values. With the next generation. What our children see in us is what they will become. It only underlines the responsibility of the father in the house. The father is God's appointed leader in the home. His love for his children is one of the best examples of God's love to us.
Speaker 1 00:09:37 He is God's man for the job. And someday he will give an account as to how he fulfilled his responsibilities in the home. So to all the fathers out there, God bless you in your house to you and your ongoing quest to be that righteous example to your children. I dedicate this poem from an unknown source to you, their little eyes upon you. They're watching night and day. There are little ears that quickly take in every word you say, their little hands, all eager to do anything you do. There's a little boy dreaming of the day. He'll be like you, okay? You're the little fellows idle. You're the wisest of the wise in his little mind about, you know, suspicion would rise, leaves in you. Devoutly holds all you say and do he will say and do in your way. When he grows up, just like you.
Speaker 1 00:10:28 There's a wide-eyed little fellow who believes you're always right. And his eyes are always opened. As he watches Dan Knight, you are setting an example in everything you do for the little boy who's waiting to grow up to be like you fathers, you may get a bad rap at times. You may feel like all you do is work to keep the family together. You may feel like a taxi service. You may feel like you're overwhelmed and undervalued, but you should know. God has given you one of the highest callings on the planet. You have a limited time to invest in your wife and your children make the most of it don't believe the lies that you're not important before. God, you are extremely valuable from the old Testament to the new Testament. Your role is as a father is essential to the health of your family, the admiration of your spouse and the joy of your own soul and Psalm 78 5.
Speaker 1 00:11:18 It says he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to are to their children so that the next generation might know these laws, these children, yet to be reborn and that they would arise and tell them to their children so that all will set their hope in God and never forget the works of God, but always keep his commandments. And then you skip forward to Ephesians six, four. I love this first, this one says, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord fathers. You may not be able to guarantee your children will grow up to be successful, devoted followers of Jesus, but you sure can put a lot of obstacles in their way. It is a high calling. It never ends. So fathers let's fulfill our role as dads in a way that would make God our father proud. And if you need something to remember the importance of father's day, remember what Jimmy Fallon said. Father's day is important because besides being the day on which we honor dad, it's the one day of the year, Brookstone does any better
Speaker 0 00:12:26 Get your father. And I used to gift tube socks worked great by the way, just make sure they have the right color stripes from his favorite decade. It's been a privilege talking through and honoring our dads with you together. I pray that all of you out there that I've been given this wonderful gift of being a dad would enjoy. It would love, it would realize the blessings inherent in it. And then the next generation, the only benefit I hope you'll join me next time. As we spend a few moments together, thinking it through.
