The Prodigal Roamer-Thoughts From the Frontier

Every other Monday at City Fellowship we have a men’s Bible study where we delve into the Word and discuss what it is to be a Biblical man. This past Monday, Lee Wilson said something that really sparked my thinking.

“Every man needs a father.”

All men have fathers, for better or for worse. Some of those fathers misuse their authority as a father and cause brokeness in a young man’s life, be that by abuse or abandonment or what have you. So what about those boys?

My first thought was that not all men need fathers. I haven’t had a father in years. I feel like I’ve turned out okay. But the more he unpacked what he meant, the more I realized he was right. Lee went on to say that American men lack a definite age of adulthood, we don’t have a certain rite of passage we go through to become men so what tends to happen is we look to a “father” for validation of our manhood. We want to be told that we are on our way to becoming men, that we are doing manly things, that someone is proud of us. And the more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve realized that Lee was dead on. Men need that validation from someone they see as a man.

One of the most meaningful things that has ever happened to me is when I got a text message from Lee that said someting along the lines of him being proud of me the way that a father is proud of his son. This was validation of my manhood, validation that I had come from the depths that I was in when he first met me and had become a man who was pursuing God.

One of the most beautiful things about the Gospel to me is that God is our Father. That He is the Father I didn’t have, that He loves me and treasures me as a son. I’ve never felt good enough for my dad, but God loves me despite my imperfections, and I never have to feel like I’m not good enough for Him.

I praise God for men like Lee, men who have seen a broken boy who seemed beyond redemption and have decided to pour into that boy and help him on his way to becoming a man. I praise God for men He has raised up to be “fathers” to those who are fatherless, and I pray that I can be that man for someone one day, and I pray that I can be the Godly father I am called to be to my children one day.