Participants: Xavier Morales (Host), Gordon Fraser, Denry White
Series Code: AFH
Program Code: AFH000013A
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00:01 A good father takes time to play
00:05 He has strong integrity 00:08 He is someone that is truly dedicated 00:12 He is not afraid to show his love 00:16 He is a caring provider 00:19 And, he's a kind, spiritual leader 00:22 These are just a few ways to describe a father's heart 00:30 Hi, welcome to A Father's Heart I'm Xavier, your host 00:33 And today we're just going to go over some highlights 00:36 some things that we talked about during the season 00:38 So please join us. Here with me is Gordon and Denry 00:44 How you guys doing today? 00:45 Good, good. Doing well 00:47 Awesome man. So we've talked about a lot of things 00:50 during this season and it's been huh emotionally charged 00:55 and we shared our souls, our hearts together here 00:59 as men, not having fear of sharing our emotions, right? 01:02 But before we talk about, go over some of the points and 01:06 things like that, can we pray? 01:08 Yeah. Alright let's have a word of prayer 01:15 Dear gracious Father God, thank you Lord that men of God 01:19 can come together to pray with you and pray to you 01:22 and Lord right now we just ask that you continue to work 01:26 with us as fathers cause we still have no clue at the end 01:29 of the day how everything is supposed to go but we can 01:32 rely on you to understand what fatherhood is all about 01:36 in Jesus' name, amen. 01:41 So what do you guys think, what are some of the things we talked 01:44 about that, man like fatherlessness, fatherless men 01:48 what are some of the things we talked about that you liked 01:50 that we just go over it again one more time just to refresh 01:54 my memory, refresh our memories 01:55 I think for me one of the big things is what happens at birth 02:02 and that whole thing of not bonding, not making that initial 02:06 bond. That separation, not being there when the child needs 02:11 you. That was a great highlight for me. And a lot of things that 02:16 we talked about if you look at it, it all stems from the 02:19 beginning, you know stems from there. For whatever reason the 02:24 father chooses not to be in a child's life, it's a traumatic 02:29 thing for the child. And I think it's something we ought to be 02:33 aware of as men, as fathers. I also think, you know, 02:39 we have to celebrate the good fathers and encourage the 02:44 ones that are strugglin to get in the game 02:46 and that it is never too late to get in the game and just be 02:52 a father to your child and spend the time the child needs you 02:58 It's an important thing. What was your thought? 03:01 One of the episodes that stood out for me was realizing that 03:08 I don't have to be perfect and I think a lot of us fathers 03:12 try to aim for something higher than our ability and we try to 03:19 be the perfect dad and so all of our kids need perfect, you 03:23 know, all these things we try to be, to accomplish all these 03:26 perfect things and then we fail and then we get discouraged 03:31 ourselves because we are not perfect. But when we realize 03:37 that we serve a perfect God who does a perfect work through us 03:42 and how He makes us perfect and when we are patient with 03:47 ourselves and let grace work in us then we can be graceful to 03:52 our children and not expect them to be perfect either 03:56 and a lot of our children are not expectin us to be perfect 03:59 they're just expectin us to be fathers, that's it 04:03 Because we can't be perfect because we live in a messed 04:05 up world. We live in a world of sin and because of what sin has 04:09 done there's no way we can be perfect and lotta times we think 04:15 about the genetics of this whole thing, what you receive as a 04:21 child is what you pass on because that's a learned 04:23 behavior and if that's your only world view of what 04:28 fatherhood is like there is no way that you will be able to 04:32 get it right unless you get yourself, at least seek some 04:36 help, get some counseling if you've had some kinda traumatic 04:39 experiences in your childhood because it's just gonna go on 04:44 from generation to generation and I think as fathers we've 04:47 gotta look for ways to break the cycle so that what we've 04:51 experienced we don't pass on. So if there's a child out there 04:57 and that child is experiencing fatherlessness, don't let that 05:04 anger and hurt and disappointment keep you 05:10 from being the best father that you can be 05:13 I think we've got to forgive our fathers, forgive them 05:16 for not being there because some of them probably wanted to be 05:21 there but because of their childhood they just can't do it 05:27 they don't know how, there's no manual. There's no 05:30 there was no father for them to teach them what they need 05:34 to do and because of that they're at a loss 05:36 I think that's a good general premise that we talked about 05:40 that we need to focus on two is forgiveness you know, 05:44 and that's one of the things we have to work through 05:46 and I think one of my favorite parts was talkin about the 05:49 fatherless Trinity and the fact that we and any child sees 05:55 their father as a reflection of who God is and that reflection 06:01 of God can either be marred or can be amplified 06:05 in the child's life as they grow it can be really detrimental 06:09 if the child does not get a good image of God the Father 06:13 from their own earthly father and I can think of so many 06:18 things that we've talked about in reference to that and 06:21 just the fact that God loves us so much, He loves us so much 06:26 that even though He's a one child family per se 06:30 you know the only begotten Son of God, He chooses to include 06:33 us in the family of the kingdom of God and even though He's our 06:38 heavenly Father He still gives us earthly fathers that need to 06:42 put in the work and effort to really give us a spiritual walk 06:46 nurture us. You know we attribute nurturing to women 06:49 and giving us the nurturing aspect of spirituality, that 06:53 priestly role and I don't know I really resonated with 06:58 the fatherless Trinity 07:01 I really don't want to mess your minds up but I just have 07:05 this thought. What kind of father or how would we 07:10 how would we characterize a father who gave His Son up 07:15 to die? What would we call that? 07:18 Selfless. Huh? Selfless Come on now, let's be real 07:21 I mean if you give your child up to die for somebody else 07:27 what would the world think of you? 07:30 Murderer. A good father? Not at all, Worse 07:32 Terrible. That's true and you neglect him when he's callin 07:35 on you? Uh huh. But yet we call that love 07:40 How do you reconcile that thought. 07:44 I don't think there are words to describe that. Honestly, I can't 07:50 wrap my brain around the idea of givin up my one and only child 07:55 to die for a bunch of people that hate him in the first place 08:01 Does it make sense to me? Why would I do that for a bunch of 08:06 wretched human beings that are that despise him, spit on him 08:11 whip him and when he calls me I'm supposed to be the one that 08:16 comes to rescue him and I don't 08:18 and you're this big, you're this father that's all powerful 08:24 and you see a child going through this kind of stuff 08:27 but yet because of what you're trying to do 08:32 you're not only lookin out for that one child 08:35 you give that one child up to redeem the whole world 08:42 Selfless act, that one child, so that all of the other children 08:48 could have hope. You made a point you know when you said 08:51 it doesn't make sense, it's something imaginary 08:54 but that's the thing with love, love doesn't make sense 08:58 unconditional love doesn't make sense 09:00 WE ought to get that. You see our love, our love is based on 09:06 either feelings, emotions, based on how we, whether the 09:11 person treats us is conditional. God's love is unconditional 09:16 God's love goes beyond, it's a mystery. Even Paul says 09:21 for the gentiles and the Greeks it's foolishness 09:26 what, this doesn't make any sense. 09:28 This does not make any sense Why would He do that? 09:31 You know, and just like you said but there's sometimes even 09:34 as a father you do things that don't make sense for your family 09:42 and I remember even my dad, my stepdad, he did things I didn't 09:48 understand but now I look back and Oh, Wow 09:54 he didn't have a choice in this matter and he did his best 09:57 But one of the points I want to bring out is the not puttin 10:02 your children in the middle. I really encourage parents 10:09 if they're unfortunate, you're not together, don't make your 10:14 child a pawn. Don't make your child a chess piece 10:18 your child had nothing to do with your separation or whatever 10:22 occurred between the two of you that is not the child's fault 10:26 don't use the child as a pawn don't pull a guilt trip on the 10:30 child, make the child feel like oh, you don't love me 10:34 if you listen to your dad, you don't love me if you listen 10:37 to your mom. Don't put negative thoughts in your child's head 10:40 about the other spouse or even if you're livin together 10:44 if you're married. Sometimes it's unfortunate, sometimes 10:47 it's unfortunate. It happened to me. You know you tell your 10:50 child about the spouse so your child could side with you 10:55 you're actually destroying the child and later on 10:59 it will counter on you. 11:01 I think we should, as far as we need to take responsibility 11:05 for our actions and not puttin the children in the middle of 11:11 this, it's a very good point 11:13 But there comes a time though as you grow older 11:19 you've got to stop blaming everybody else 11:24 for your mess up and look to yourself. 11:28 and know that, listen man I've messed up. Own up to your 11:31 mistakes, own up to your faults so that you can move on 11:36 and a lot of times we can say you know this happened in my 11:42 childhood and that has happened and so I'm actin this way 11:46 because of that. There comes a time that you've got to just 11:51 own up to this, you know what I have to move on from here 11:55 I can't be stuck here because if I'm stuck here I'll forever 11:58 bring my child into the midst of everything and keep blamin 12:02 everybody else. You just gotta move on 12:05 I think this part of our conversation too, to recap 12:09 and understand everything, goin over everything we've talked 12:12 about so much, we never took time to look at our children 12:18 on the wall, the pictures. Have you ever just, I'm lookin at 12:25 mine right now, all our kids, you know the way they see me 12:34 you know what? How do our kids see us like? 12:38 I know we're talkin, we see the pictures and everything of our 12:41 children and I see their smiles and my kids don't think anything 12:48 negatively of me. You know, one time my son, my middle son 12:54 is my biggest supporter when I'm preaching 12:59 Sometimes I'm preachin and nobody else says, you know 13:01 I mean one of those situations they may not agree or just 13:07 thinkin too deep or whatever and I want someone to say Amen 13:10 I hear him, Amen. Preach, preacher. You know, he's just 13:15 he's just promoting, encouraging me. And so like you said 13:20 you know when they see you, they see you and they always 13:24 see you, sometimes I think they see you as a champion 13:28 a person they look up to. That's how they see you 13:32 as a person they look up to. 13:34 You know not necessarily that you are, you are the greatest 13:38 thing to them. So even the little that you do 13:41 is great, anything you do it's great to them and they're like 13:46 man, I wanna be like dad when I grow up. One of them came 13:50 the oldest one was like, I think God is talking to me Dad 13:53 I think He's telling me to be a pastor. And I had to sit 13:57 down with him and said, this is something that you pray about 14:01 and you ask God specifically what is it You want me to do? 14:04 And this is not something you take lightly. What I do 14:07 is not something lightly. So they look at you and they 14:10 look up and you can be the greatest inspiration to them 14:13 So I'm encouraging fathers, be the greatest inspiration 14:17 besides God, to your children 14:19 They look at us as perfect. When they see us, they see us 14:23 as flawless, we have no faults Even when you make mistakes 14:27 you're still perfect to them. That's how they see us 14:31 And when, sometimes when we make a mistake and it's really big 14:37 to them, it really startles them so we have to be careful 14:40 when we're saying one thing and they see something different 14:45 then their view becomes skewed so whatever we preach, whatever 14:51 we say we need to follow through on what we say 14:55 Cause they're seein us as this is my dad, he's good, 15:02 he's perfect in their sight. WE can never do wrong 15:06 in our children's sight. My biggest fear is what he said 15:10 you know as a pastor my biggest fear, I've heard the story so 15:14 many times with PKs and so forth what they see at church 15:19 is a different man than they see at home 15:24 The man in church loves every body, smiles at everybody 15:28 the man at home hates everybody always upset at everybody 15:33 and when they see that, they see hypocrisy 15:36 and children hate it. They like real stuff 15:42 And they'll grow up and say, this Christianity, this God 15:45 that you guys serve is fake. I don't want nothing to do 15:48 WE talked about also, you know, making memories 15:52 That's why I said you know, I emphasized so much pictures 15:54 cause, you know, have you ever stopped just to take a look at 16:00 the memories you made? Like one of those pictures 16:04 There's my oldest daughter holding her newborn sister 16:08 and the other one you know, just look at them, you know 16:11 just look at the fact that one of those, that's permanent 16:16 memories. If you guys just take a look. Just look at your 16:21 pictures, just look at them. And look at the things the 16:24 memories we've made with our children. 16:26 My daughter is a character. That picture over there with her 16:30 She was eating some frostin, some cream and I guess she felt 16:36 that more than her mouth needs to taste it so she put it on her 16:41 face and her hand, everything and so I just had to take a 16:45 picture and I remember that exactly, I remember that day 16:49 just start laughin. Often, and we do this every so often 16:55 we have all these stacks of pictures. On my son's 19th 16:59 birthday I think I stayed up until about 2:30 in the morning 17:04 just going from picture to picture and havin that moment 17:09 all by myself. That emotional moment with tears comin down my 17:14 cheeks just because I'm recallin countin from baby, just memories 17:19 him, we're outside with his tricycle. Memories just goin 17:24 through memories and not afraid to get in touch with my emotions. 17:28 I realize and I thank God, I really thank God for where 17:34 He's brought us from and how He has kept us. I have wonderful 17:40 children. I have a wonderful son and a wonderful daughter 17:44 and I thank God for how He has helped me, my imperfections 17:51 to teach them His ways, to pray for them, to encourage them 17:56 to let them know that no matter what Daddy loves them 18:00 have I made mistakes, yes. 18:03 But I was never afraid to say I'm sorry 18:06 I've messed up but the whole thing of bein a, goin down 18:12 memory lane and lookin at pictures and gettin in touch 18:16 with my manly emotions 18:20 gettin in touch with my manly side, the emotional side I call 18:24 just bein able to relate man, I tell you. Memories are great 18:28 build them. I can sit down, we talk about the trip we went to 18:32 Arizona, although they hated it but I didn't mind driving 18:38 hours, so we can have time. Daddy we just could fly and get 18:44 there. But we'll miss the memory of just talking, of just spendin 18:49 the time, just bondin together so we just had a wonderful time 18:54 together. So those are memories I'll never forget and I know 18:57 they wouldn't forget. So we have to build memories with our 19:00 children. I remember a memory of my dad and mom playing 19:03 basketball with me. You know it was corny to me but now I 19:07 look back and I appreciate it 19:10 One of my memories with my Dad we didn't have the money to get 19:16 fishing poles. We were living in Puerto Rico 19:18 My mom, me and my dad went out to go fishing and 19:21 we grabbed old jugs of bleach and things like that 19:26 he cut a little pin-sized hole and put a fishing line in it 19:34 and he took the top off the jug and put a knot and put the 19:40 hook and everything and that was our fishing, and when we catch 19:43 a fish we just start rolling the jug like this and it's silly to 19:48 people, to some, not sayin all but to some 19:50 but to me it was like, I caught a fish for the first time 19:53 That was my moment you know, it was an ugly fish 19:56 I couldn't eat it but I caught a fish 20:00 You know those are little things that even though we've gone 20:03 through things with our fathers. Even though we've experienced 20:06 things that we want to forget 20:11 we can't ask God for better father figures 20:17 They gave us what they had, what they knew 20:21 I think that's why it's important to forgive 20:24 because, yes we are angry at some things, yes we're upset 20:29 at others, what they did what they didn't do but at the end 20:33 of the day, if it wasn't because they met our mothers, we would 20:38 not be here. You know one of the great things we also brought 20:42 out in this series is that about how to respect the mother 20:48 You know we don't want to make it seem like, oh we just pro men 20:52 and we want to bash the mothers 20:56 No, that's not what we're trying to do. We want to 20:59 encourage the men to be in the lives of their children 21:02 and we want to encourage them to be helpful to the mothers even 21:07 if unfortunately, you know they have been separated or so. 21:11 You know respect them like, don't call them your baby 21:13 mother. Call them who they are. 21:15 They are the mother of your child. And so give them that 21:19 respect even if they are disrespectful to you 21:23 even if they are talkin ill about you, you as a man 21:28 it's your responsibility to always restore people 21:32 Also we talked about when if fathers died in the home 21:37 what do you do, how do you get help as a single mom? 21:42 we talked about the different programs that are probably out 21:45 there, mentorship. But if you're going to have a mentor 21:49 to mentor your child, make sure that, you know, they're good 21:55 because a lot of pedophiles are there so we've got to make sure 21:58 that children are protected but find someone to mentor 22:03 and mentor that young man and let the man mentor your young 22:08 man and let a young lady mentor your young lady so that you can 22:13 have that mentor relationship so that child can learn how to 22:17 be a man and to help you out. 22:20 The safety of your child is a priority. 22:22 We also talked about when Jesus wept. 22:24 How we need to teach our young men and even our young ladies 22:28 how to properly express emotion. That it's ok that society says 22:32 don't express but Jesus wept. 22:36 You know more than once so it's a thing we need to understand 22:40 not to hold it in but learn how to cope, express our emotion 22:44 properly. A lot of our children do not get the chance, we don't 22:50 give them the chance to express their emotions and we don't give 22:54 them the chance to be upset, you know depression is actually 22:59 anger within. So if you suppress even them teaching them how 23:03 to be upset the right way and what to do with their upset 23:07 like, you know, in the case of police brutality and those kind 23:11 of matters you know. Teach them to respect authority 23:14 even if authority doesn't respect them, you know, teach 23:18 them their number 1 priority is to get home. 23:21 To get home. Not your pride, not your ego, not even your race 23:24 come home. Be respectful and even if they call you out a name 23:28 mistreat you, you come home. When you get home, then 23:32 you deal with the proper chain of command and lawyers and 23:35 so forth. But we need to teach them how to deal with anger 23:39 and other emotions. And Father 101, this whole idea of what 23:45 it's like to be a father because there's no manual of course 23:48 but one of the things that I think a good father needs to 23:51 have is balance. Being able to balance work and being able to 23:57 balance your family life. And balance is a very important 24:02 thing. Also, being able to balance your spiritual life 24:05 cause you need to have that devotional life in place so that 24:10 the child can see and mirror your devotional life and 24:14 understand it. My dad is having time for me, time for his wife 24:20 and time for the Lord. You flip that, time for God and time 24:24 for family. But that balance is important for, to have in a 24:29 child's life. So have and understand that havin that 24:33 balance goes a long way in that child's life because the 24:38 child now when they grow up to be their own father 24:42 they'll have balance. 24:44 I think too right now, just thinkin about it 24:47 we've talked so much about so many different things 24:50 from genetics to abandonment to rejection. You know I want us 24:55 us to take one minute, each of us just to kinda say what's 25:01 in our heart as far as what we've spoken about and 25:04 what kinda things do we want to say to fathers that we 25:07 encounter, Denry? 25:10 I simply want to say, be a father 25:13 whether you feel it was a mistake in your relationship 25:16 or whether you feel you're not prepared 25:19 whether you feel that you have problems with the mother of your 25:25 child, whatever excuse, whether it's fear or whatever 25:28 be a father. Your child is not asking you to be perfect 25:33 Not at all. Your child is asking you simply this, is to be 25:38 their father. To be their guidance, to be the person that 25:42 they, when they are fearful they can call on, nothing more 25:46 excites me than when my children are scared at night and they 25:50 call me in the middle of the night, Daddy, Daddy 25:51 and I can be there. So simply this, be a father. 25:56 You're not perfect. 25:58 I never had the best father but I have a father I love 26:02 And I have a purpose in my heart to make changes so when I 26:09 get children that I will be better than my father was 26:13 And I think because it's never too late 26:18 to make some changes in your life even if you've done a bad 26:23 job of bein a father, it's never too late to start 26:27 to make changes, to say that I'm going to be the best 26:30 I'm gonna take what I have and use it. 26:32 Love my children, I'm gonna love my children because 26:35 I've got a God that loves me so much that He chose to 26:39 give up His only Son for me and if He can do that 26:44 I'm not going to give up my son but I'll give of myself 26:49 I'm willing to sacrifice whatever I need to sacrifice 26:53 so that my children can be whole and that's what I think 26:58 you know a good father should do 27:02 Thank you guys and we'll pick it up another time, but 27:07 it's been a long season and we've talked about many things 27:13 The main thing is, being a father is not the most 27:16 impossible thing in the world 27:17 There are too many broken children. Our systems are jails 27:22 our juvenile centers are riddled with fatherless youth 27:26 without mentorship. We have children dying without knowing 27:31 their fathers or knowing God 27:33 You know there's something inherently wrong with our world 27:38 when we can't turn to our fathers. Yes there might be 27:41 different circumstances, yes things happen. The point is that 27:45 we're reachin out to you, the one that's sitting there 27:49 waiting for an opportunity to be a father to your child 27:51 Don't wait till it's too late, do it now. 27:54 It's not impossible, you can do it. We'll pray for you 27:58 we'll pray with you and we love you. 28:00 Thank you for watching |
Revised 2017-01-25