A Fatherless Generation

I went to a prayer meeting the other day (which is probably one of my favorite things ever: prayer+meeting=awesome). We were praying for God to raise up a generation of sold out hearts in Peoria. I prayed that God would bring fathers and mothers into those young lives to train and guide them. Lisa jumped in after and prayed for “impartation and healing for the generation right now who doesn’t know what it means to have a spiritual father or mother.”

Throughout my life I have been blessed with people who invested in me and taught me about the Lord and the things of His word. Darin was a father to me from 5th-8th grade. He was the first; the one who laid the foundations. Todd was a father to me. He was the one who led me to the place of making my faith my own and going hard after God. Phil was a father to me. He led me to the things of the Spirit and provoked me seek out what it meant to “walk in the Spirit.”

After Phil left for Kansas City, I was left to sort out the day to day questions “on my own.” That’s not to say that he left me hanging in any way at all… I was just now at a place where I didn’t have anyone leading me. My church at the time didn’t really have a concept of discipleship, so I was left to press into the journey of the Lord on my own.

I’m thankful for the 4 or 5 years that I had people intentionally investing in me and provoking me… and leading me with wisdom when I was ready to make foolish decisions in my zeal. But about my sophomore year of college I found myself clinging to Isaiah 54.13, which says “Your sons will be taught of the Lord.” I prayed constantly for the Lord to bring someone into my life to be a mentor, a father… someone to provoke me further in the Lord and to affirm me in the things I was doing – somebody to simply confirm to me that I was doing this right.

I told the Lord that as long as someone like that was not in my life, I fully expected Him to teach me and guide me; to provoke me and show me how to walk in this realm that I was so unfamiliar with.

I have no doubt that He did just that… no doubt in my mind.

But something still lingers… the desire for affirmation. Sometimes I still wonder if I’m doing this all right… if I’m walking how I’m supposed to be walking… if I’m walking in all I could be… if I’m overstepping some sort of boundary…

There’s been a sort of “kickback” against this sort of affirmation in our culture in the past few years. It’s like a lone-ranger mentality, and I’ve had that one for a while. So when I say “affirmation,” I don’t mean that I need somebody to tell me who I am - I know that full well. What I am saying, though, is that we were made by God to live and abide in community and part of that is the safe-haven of accountability.

Lisa’s prayer caused a groan to rise up in me because I still have that lingering question… “Am I doing this all right?” And so much like the question from Wild at Heart – “Do I have what it takes?” Those questions linger fiercely in my heart… fiercely.

This is a strange for me because I grew up with a great dad who provided so much for me. One thing, however, that was always a little difficult for him was teaching (especially about anything concerning God…that’s just sort of something that he grew up learning you “don’t talk about”), so I essentially learned how to figure things out on my own – which I’m truly grateful for. That’s a skill that, as I’m learning, the vast majority of the people in today’s world don’t have. So I love my dad, and I wouldn’t replace him with anybody…I’ve learned so much from my him. But what I’m longing for is a spiritual father… literally a “father in the spirit.”

This is what so many today, young and old, are groaning for: Fathers and Mothers.

Like those who’ve grown up without a father in the home, the victims of an epidemic across the globe, I think there are a multitude of Christians today who were born into the church and don’t even know they have an inheritance because they had no father or mother to show it to them (this is also one of the reasons I have a gut-check about the “mega-church” trend we have going here). Thus they sit with the a trillion dollar inheritance, all the while living like paupers because they don’t know any better. I am convinced that this must be bestowed…released through the fellowship of believers.

…Sometimes I wonder what inheritance I have that I don’t know about.

I want everything God will give me, and if the people around me don’t want the portion they’ve been given, I’ll take that too. I want to walk in the highest reality and fullness that the Lord will allow me to walk in. I want it all.

But sometimes I need someone to help me walk that zeal out. Sometimes I do foolish things because I have revelation without wisdom.

We are entering a period of history where the cries of people throughout history are being answered and God is releasing revelation of Himself, the knowledge of the Living God, to His people. Thus the need for fathers and mothers is growing exponentially. Each of us ought to be willing to be a father or a mother to those who come after us… to walk in a “spirit of adoption” (Romans 8.15), just as we have been adopted, and to empower those who are newly birthed into the realm of the Most High God.

Malachi 4.6 says, "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse." The “he” is the spirit of Elijah...the Forerunner spirit, which also speaks of John the Baptist (Luke 1.17). This is a verse of promise because it assures that the hearts of the fathers and the children will be reconciled… that a culture of honor would be restored.

But then there’s that phrase, the one we leave off the end because it’s not the warm fuzzy type: “so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”

To live apart from the way of the Lord is to empower a curse…and not just any curse. This one is spoken by the mouth of the Lord. That’s scary.

Thus, this loaded verse becomes two-fold: First, when we honor our fathers and mothers (physical and spiritual) as well as walk in a spirit of adoption in becoming a father or mother to those “begotten through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4.15), we walk in a Forerunner spirit which prepares the way of the Lord – it cultivates the presence of the Lord and paves the way for the return of Christ. Secondly, if we leave those born into His church through the gospel of Christ to wander on their journey without discipleship, without a father or mother in the spirit, we open the door for a curse to fall upon us… one that affects the very ground we walk on.

As it stands, this generation is left doing one of two things: asking “do I have what it takes?” or making foolish decisions out of youthful zeal. Where are the fathers and mothers who will provoke, lead, and empower a generation to utterly surpass them in the Lord?

Those we lead should ultimately walk in a greater reality in God than we did because we got the breakthrough for them. Our ceiling should be their floor.

May they arise like Ezekiel, to call forth a generation as dry bones to become an army. May those who have never experienced what it means to have a father or mother, in the physical or the spiritual, know what it means to have the Lord meet the needs in places where we have failed. May the Lord restore the years the locusts have eaten and may we walk in all that He has for us.

I hope desperately that Christians become consumed by a spirit of adoption, both in the physical and the spiritual, so that as the Lord ends abortion in our land there are people to take in those unwanted blessings, and so that as the Lord begins to encounter lives and bring many to Himself there are fathers and mothers to show them what it is to walk in the fullness of their inheritance.