REAL FATHERS!
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DFO 1109
--Excerpts from the Letters of Father David.
1. I'VE NEVER SEEN A CHILD YET WHO DIDN'T NEED A FATHER OR A FATHER IMAGE, somebody to play the part of a father. But I've sure seen some kids without fathers who sure needed them! They needed a father's heavy hand to straighten them out when the mother didn't have what it took. Every child needs a father, & especially as he grows older he needs a father more than a mother. A father comes into the picture loud & clear in the later years when the child really needs discipline & strength.
2. It's a lot like our relationship with God: The Holy Spirit is like a mother, sweet, loving, gentle--the Spirit that conceives a spiritual babe, bears it, & gives birth to a new-born babe in the Kingdom of God, a Child of God. But as we grow older & become aware of what's going on, we're apt to need the father's image of God Himself & are more afraid of Him than we are of the Holy Spirit, afraid of His Word of correction & His judgements & His very heavy hand that enforces His strict rules.
3. ALMOST THE GREATEST INFLUENCES IN MY LIFE WERE MY OWN CHILDREN!--They really make you serious & inspire you to be good & do what's right & be an example & train them up in the way they should go. You realise the serious, sober responsibility of a little child's life in your hands.--They're going to be what you make them!
4. I once thought my life was behind me & I'd never accomplished much for the Lord. I only had my own little family, my own children to show for my whole life's work, living in the equivalent of a tent, watching over nothing but one tiny little flock with seemingly nothing but wood in my hands--no gold, no job, no home, no nothing but those little lives that He had given me to rule with the authority of His Word!
5. God kept saying, "What is that in thy hands?" And I questioned, "What do you mean, Lord? You can see what I have in my hands!--Nothing! Nothing but this Rod (the Word) & my little lambs! What can I do with these? They're nothing! We're nobody!" But He said, "If you will go in My Name & say only that I have sent thee, I will do great things which thou knowest not of!"
6. And when I finally really INSISTED on serving God full-time by faith with our little family of six, those children began to support me in their service for the Lord! God began to bless their ministry so much that it didn't seem like I needed my ministry anymore! The only ministry I had besides the gift of helps--helping them to minister--was to teach those four little children the Word of God, to have classes, teaching them the Word all day sometimes, reading the Word, telling them stories, absolutely baptising & immersing them in the Word! Sometimes I think they thought they were almost drowning in the Word!
7. (Maria: It may be one of the HARDEST jobs, but it's one of the most REWARDING. The compensations are so great for all the sacrifices.) Someday you're probably going to be thankful you had a part in those little rascals' care & training. One of these days you're going to be proud of them. You have made a human being, you've made a living, walking, talking machine out of a little dummy. It's thrilling!
8. THE BABIES & CHILDREN ARE NOT JUST WOMEN'S WORK! In the Family we're supposed to be willing to do whatever needs to be done. And if you have real love for the Lord & each other & the children, you will do whatever needs to be done.
9. Every child has got to have a FATHER--even if it's not his own! What the hell difference does it make whose seed it was? Now maybe that's a pretty revolutionary concept of having children, but I believe children are an heritage of the Lord! If God gives it, what the hell difference does it make what instrument God used, whose penis God used, whose seed God used?
10. GOD gives a baby, & both the father & mother had better WANT it. I can't imagine any people who don't want babies, at least not any of our people!--Especially when it's a gift & a creation of God! You'd better want it & be thankful for it, & start taking good care of the baby by taking good care of the mother! Any man who's not going to take good care of the mother is not going to take good care of the baby either, & that's plain pure selfishness!--Very selfish! God give us fathers!
11. (Maria: A lot of the girls in our Family don't know who the father is, which means some of them don't have anybody who feels responsible for their child.--But all of them should feel responsible.) And if the father is selfish & doesn't want children, he needs to learn to want children & to love children. He needs to learn to take care of a pregnant mother & learn to help her with the children. I mean it's not all fun getting up in the middle of the night & changing the baby & mixing its bottle & losing sleep & all the rest.
12. THAT'S WHAT MAKES A MOTHER WONDERFUL: That self-sacrificial spirit that is willing to sacrifice her own time, her strength, even her health for the sake of that child. And that's what makes a father wonderful: That willingness to sacrifice himself & his strength & his time to help take care of the mother & the child, amen?
13. Are YOU equal to the task?--No, but GOD is!--And He will help you to make them His good children, His faithful witnesses & His future rulers if you'll do your best as His queen mothers & kingly fathers to rear them in His house as the fine & worthy princes & princesses that they should & must be to rule His future Kingdom with us! What a future! What a kingdom! What a task! Are you fit for it?--God will help you if you try! Amen?--Amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family