Soul Dad: The Father We All Want To Be

I’m going to talk to you for 12 and a half minutes from this topic: SOUL DAD: THE FATHER WE ALL WANT TO BE.

Let’s begin by reading 3rd John verses 2 through 4:

2 Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. 3 For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

PRAYER

Gracious God, thank you for this opportunity to look into the Word of Life.

I pray that you will, just now, hide your servant behind the shadow of you.

And that you will speak directly to your people,

by your power,

for your purpose.

We ask this, Father, through the life giving Holy Spirit in the name of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

There is a question that lingers persistent in the mind of every father.

It doesn’t matter how old or young you are.

It doesn’t matter how old or young your children are; the question lingers.

“HOW CAN I GIVE MY CHILDREN A GOOD LIFE?”

And we live in a world that works overtime to help us answer this question outside of the context of the truth revealed in the scriptures.

We live a world of body fixation…

that tells us that if we teach our children to eat right and exercise, then they will have a good life.

And so we put our girls in gymnastics and our boys in football and wait until they are in bed to have our favorite snacks.

We live in a world more convinced of the power of mindfulness than the power of God.

So when the dog dies, we take the child to therapy.

We model for them breathing techniques and “me time”.

We teach them to name their emotions and insist that others listen to their thoughts.

Our culture is focusing more and more on humanity in all its social dimensions.

And so we break our backs in hopes that we can leave a little money to our children.

We pour ourselves out trying to make sure they have all the right relationship; from their friends, to their love interests, from their mentors to the ancestors.

Even in the church where we supposed to have some spiritual revelation…

we focus the majority of our energy on teaching children to master their wills and surrender their hearts.

Choose Jesus and act right.

We do all these things…and feel a sense of failure when we can’t do them or won’t do them.

But still in the rare moments of stillness and honestly we are haunted by two nagging realities:

#1: We recognize that its too hard.

None of us really want to be that dad constantly pushing our kids to be the star athlete with the perfect diet…an honor-roll student, a good citizen, a model church member, and the perfect friend.

We recognize that it is an impossible standard we set before our children, but we do it anyway because we do not know another option.

And the second reality is even more terrible than the first.

Because deep inside we know that no matter how hard we push our children and no matter how well they achieve, now matter how often they meet and even exceed our expectations, it is not enough to secure for them a good life.

We know that people with good diets still get sick.

We know that one can save and be very frugal and still wind up in financial ruin.

We know that even good people find themselves in hard relationships.

And know that even the strongest willpower can be worn down over time.

We know these things are not enough for our children because we recognize that they have not been enough for us.

These three simple verses, from the pen of a spiritual father, carry in them the ancient precepts of the Christian faith that we need in our day.

If we want to be the fathers we aspire to be…if we want our children to be the people we desire for them to be, we do not need something new from Starlink or Google.

We need something old from the scriptures.

In these verses John alludes to an architecture of the human person that is discernable in the scriptures and which was the dominant view in the early church.

That at the core of the human person is the HEART: the place of the will and intentions.

Moving out from there is what we might call the MIND: the place of the intellect and emotions.

Then there is the BODY: the physical expression of the person in the material world.

Then there is the SOCIAL dimension: or who a person is in relationship to others.

But, then there is a somewhat mysterious principle of the person…an essence that integrates, correlates, and enlivens all of these other dimensions…it is called the SOUL.

THE SOUL IS THAT PART OF HUMANITY THAT WAS RUINED BY SIN AND THE SOUL IS THAT PART OF OUR HUMANITY THAT RUNS OUR LIVES.

We can try to discipline our WILLS…

and enlighten our MINDS…

strengthen our BODIES…

and nurture our RELATIONSHIPS

But, until the SOUL is healed and strengthened, there will always be ruinous havoc coursing through our lives…and it will show up somewhere.

And God, beloved, is the only true healer of the soul.

This is the great call of the Gospel

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest…”

Not just for your heart or your mind…

Not just in your body or in your relationship…

You will find rest for your soul.”

To be a great father, you don’t have to be an expert in economics or medicine, psychology, law or even theology.

But, become an expert in the soul…Be a Soul Dad.

Fathers, we are builders of children. But we have to understand something.

Bishop and I are both on the board of a maternity home and we are building a facility in Englewood.

But before we could take bids from a contractor, we had to work with an architect to draw up plans.

In the same way, we won’t be able to build well in our children’s lives if we don’t understand the plans drawn up by the architect.

I know that these things are rarely taught in the church.

I believe that is because the proposal of this passage offends our modern sensibilities.

In a world of body worship and mindfulness, materialism and intersectionality; John puts forward the proposition that at the core of human existence is mystery from God called the soul.

In a world where the most educated among us hold truth to be personalized and local, contextual and fluid; John puts forward the proposition that there is a fixed standard of truth revealed from God and knowable only through covenant relationship with Jesus.

These are the ancient teachings of our faith. But, we don’t talk about them anymore because the culture moved on.

After three hundred years of being ridiculed by enlightenment thinking, and modernism, postmodernism, and whatever it is we have today; it is like the church has come down with an inferiority complex.

And instead of boldly proclaiming the truth we have from God, we have limited ourselves to imitating the culture.

We try to be healthier and stronger than the manosphere

We try to be more mindful than the psychologists and the spiritualists.

We try to be more disciplined than the Muslims

Hotter than the models

Smarter than the universities

And richer than Wall Street

And we set aside the thing that should be our core distinctive, the healing and care for the human soul.

Beloved, May our children prosper and be in health as their souls prosper. May we prosper and be in health as our souls prosper.

I encourage you in the midst of the fun and celebration of the day, to bring your soul before the Lord.

Stop by the prayer station.

Read a devotion before you go to bed.

I also want to invite all of the men to be a part of the Soul Dad Dialogue Group.

I’m going to lead the group and we’re going to go much further into this conversation about Soul Life.

We’ll meet at 8am on Saturday mornings.

3 times in person.

3 times on zoom

If you want more information, scan the QR code.

Let’s Close In Prayer:

Gracious Father, Thank You for being the Shepherd and Healer of our souls. Teach us to care deeply for the souls You’ve entrusted to us—our children, our families, and even our own. Make us fathers who walk in truth, who build not just strong bodies or smart minds, but anchored souls. Renew us by Your Spirit, and give us prosperous lives that flow from the prosperity of our souls. In Jesus’ name, Amen.