Who needs a dad?

It occurs to me that so often we find ourselves in a position of defending why things are as they were supposed to be.  So it is that we fall all over backwards making sure that single parent moms do not feel bad while at the same time trying to insist that dads are important too.  But who said it was a choice?  It was not God.  We were and are the ones who take what God has given and either dismantle it to its minimal core or else we force a choice.  When God created them male and female, gave marriage to the man who leaves his home and to his wife who is joined to him, we immediately protest and suggest that this does not in any way denigrate, the single parent moms of this world.  So we go about using statistics to prove that dads are important as well and that children need fathers in the home.  Why do we have to prove this?  Is it not enough that this is how God created things and ordered the family?  Apparently, not.

It would be easy enough to cite study after study that gives evidence to the importance of a father to a child in the home but for this Father's Day, I will simply let the creative will and purpose of God stand without feeling the need to prove that what God has said and done is true.  When God ordered the shape of our most intimate relationships, He made them binary -- male and female and their home.  He did not say that having two parents was better or that children might suffer with having only one parent or that any home that does not look like this was still just as good as the one God established.  No, the Lord simply made things as they are and deemed them very good.  That ought to be enough.  At least for Christians.

I wish it could be said that it was enough, for Christians.  But it seems that even Christians must be convinced that what God has said and done is good.  We are so full of ourselves that we insist that God explain Himself for making them male and female in a world of many attractions and genders.  We are so arrogant as to insist that God must prove why His design in creation is better than our design after the fall.  We are so proud as to make God's creative design merely one of many rather equal choices.  How foolish we are and how blind to what is God's will, purpose, and love!  

But even that is not enough for us.  We have turned fathers into enemies of the home and deemed all the world's problems to have spawned from patriarchy.  Masculinity is toxic.  Children do not need fathers but need to be spared the terrible influence of dads (unless there are two dads, then suddenly everything is okay).  You might think that now that our culture is woke and we are working to undo what generations of patriarchy has fouled, things might be improving.  They are not.  Even Christians have bought into the foolishness of the moment.  Maybe the world might need to be convinced but Christians ought to trust that the Lord's will and way is always good, at least better than the broken homes we offer Him as the fruit of our enlightened parenting skills.

Who needs a dad?  You do.  You need first of all the heavenly Father who is the source of all things good and right and true.  That is what Christ did.  He delivered to the Father what was always the Fathers but what sin had corrupted and stolen.  He delivered us to the Father, washed in His blood, so that we might be His own and live under Him in His kingdom which has no end.  And living under Him means trusting in His order for the home and His shape for this thing called marriage.  Happy Father's Day begins with the acknowledgment of God's order and the goodness of the estate He has created.  Proof that it is good is okay but trust in the Lord is better.  That is where it ought to start -- not with study or poll telling us what God already knows.  So, dads, live up to the promise.  That is your job.  You are not an optional extra but an essential part of God's order and plan.  Provide for your family as best you can.  Protect your family.  Be a spiritual leader in the home and take your family to church.  Be an example of goodness and virtue and do not complain about the sacrifices you make.  You are exactly where God wants you to be.  Now work at becoming the best dad you can be.