Why Fathers Are Crucial in Shaping Who We Become - Lynn Martin

Good morning, everyone. Happy Father's Day to the fathers.

Today, like I said, today is Father's Day, so I am not only speaking on Father's Day, I'm going to speak about Father's Day or about fathers. But first, I want to talk about animals.

So there are animals, when they're born, have come with varying levels of ability. Some animals, when they are born, pretty much can do absolutely nothing, and some animals can pretty much fend for themselves from day one or even hour one.

Anyone want to give me some examples of animals that can pretty much fend for themselves when they're born?

That one's actually probably the harder one. Any examples of animals that can't, like they need a lot of parental help?

Cats and dogs. Cats and dogs, yeah. Baby birds. Baby birds, yep.

Maybe I'll have to give you examples of animals that can fend for themselves. They aren't actually as common.

So here are some animals that they may not as much be able to fend for themselves, but they're at least born with a lot of mobility. For example, baby giraffes, according to Wikipedia, pretty much as soon as they're born, they can run around as well as two-week-old giraffes, and they can run probably better than you and me, is my guess, or at least me.

And calves are born, when they're born, they're able to stand, and baby giraffes and calves, they need their milk from their mother, they need help from their mother, but they're at least able to stand and walk, which is not the case for all. Maybe I'm getting some details wrong. Am I getting details wrong? I think you're doing pretty well. Okay.

And baby turtles, I didn't actually look up much on them, but I believe, don't take my word on this because I didn't research this, but I believe that their parents do not give them help starting out, at least not much. They pretty much have to fend for themselves, and a lot of them get killed and eaten, which is probably good for the creatures eating them, but not for them.

But they don't get a lot of help, and they can survive, at least some of them.

So then there are lots of animals who are born with needs. They're not able to take care of themselves pretty much at all. So here's a baby kangaroo, a joey. This is actually fairly mature. They're born, I think pretty much they don't look like kangaroos at all. They live in the mom's pouch for a long time. And baby birds, these birds could not take care of themselves, as you can see. And anyone want to tell me what the creature on the bottom right is? I had to look at the caption of the picture to know.

It is a rodent. Yeah, it's a squirrel. But I had to look at the caption, like I said, to know what it was. So you're probably doing better than me. So then what about humans? Here's an example of a baby human.

My guess is maybe a few days old, maybe a week old would be my guess. I'm not sure.

But as you can see, this baby human cannot take care of itself and needs quite a bit of help.

So humans actually, more so than animals, need to learn quite a few skills before they're actually mature. So some of the things that we learn are common to animals, like recognizing objects, grasping; some animals can do that. Crawling or walking, feeding themselves, exercising their muscles and abilities, that's all stuff that all animals do, humans do as well, or well, most animals do. But then there are a lot of things that humans need to learn as well that are unique to humans. So for example, we need to learn to communicate using human language. We need to learn all sorts of social skills. A lot of animals have social skills, but not to the level, or they're social animals, but they don't have social skills to the level that we do.

We learn reading and writing. That hasn't always been the case throughout human history, but that's an important thing today. Counting and calculation. Some animals can count, but not as well as humans and definitely can't calculate as well as humans.

And humans need that for the things that we do. Humans need to learn a worldview, religion, culture, citizenship, all these things that have to do with complex societies and, of course, with God, and also an occupation. Humans each learn a different occupation that they do. So for one reason or another, humans have one of the longest childhoods of any creature.

It depends on how you calculate it, but let's say that you're a child until you're about 18. That is longer. I wasn't able to find an example of a creature that has a longer childhood. I think there might be one or two, but I think elephants are about the next closest at maybe 10 years, something like that.

But most have very short childhoods. And part of that is probably because part of that God probably made in order for us to have time to learn all these skills before we were completely mature.

So let's talk about parents. Most baby mammals get support from their parents. I said most because I think all of them do, but I'm not absolutely sure, so I figured I'd say most. And usually, the mother gives the most amount of support to the child.

And often, the father doesn't give any support at all or is even dangerous. There are some species in which the father might actually kill and eat the children, and the mother actually has to protect the children against the father.

But in the case of humans, we're meant to have both parents. And like I said, we have one of the longest childhoods of any organism. And so that's one reason that we need two parents. If one parent is taking care of, let's say, three or four children up until they're 18, that's just really difficult. You need two parents to do that well.

And humans are also born into a very complex world because of the complexity of ourselves. We have dangers of all sorts of different kinds, a lot of dangers that even animals don't have. We need complex social skills. We need to understand correct worldviews in order to thrive. We have complex emotions and ways that we bond with each other. And it's really, really important for humans to know when they can trust or mistrust each other.

So things like this are really important for humans, and fathers play a very, very important role in helping us develop these skills.

So now I'm going to talk about heroes. So what do I mean by hero? It has different possible meanings, but I'm going to just define it as a role model, someone you'd look up to or emulate or admire, someone that you want to be like, someone that you feel is just really up there, such a great person.

And for all of us, parents tend to be the most likely people to fill this role because they take care of us constantly, for most of us who have parents. They have a lot more experience than we do because they've been living a lot longer than we have. And also, raising children is not an easy thing. So when someone has to go through something that's hard, it often encourages them to grow in character. So they're probably better than us as well.

Not always the case, but that tends to be the case. So I'm going to speak especially about fathers here because this is Father's Day. A lot of what I'll talk about applies to mothers as well, but I'm going to talk especially about fathers. Children like to be like their father, tend to.

They probably see their father less often, so he is more special. They may see their mother pretty much all day, and so she seems less special to them. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, but it is nice for a child to think you're special.

A father is usually stronger than the mother is and so appears special in that way. He has a different set of skills. Mothers have one set of skills that they tend to really excel in, and fathers have a different set of skills that they tend to really excel in. But the skills that the father has, typically the child doesn't see all the time, whereas the mother's skills are being used constantly to keep the child thriving. And so the child kind of tends to take those for granted. And also, children tend to trust their parents, and especially their fathers, to protect them.

For example, for my son, if a dog runs at him or something, he is perfectly comfortable. As long as my arms are around him, he knows that nothing can happen or believes that nothing can happen, and let's hope nothing will.

But if he is not right next to me or his mom, he just doesn't know what might happen. All sorts of bad things could happen. So for reasons like this, fathers tend to be our heroes. And my father and my grandfathers have always been some of my biggest heroes.

My father's actually right here, so I'll try to be careful what I say not to embarrass him, but he should know he's one of my biggest heroes. And I noticed that in my son as well. He wants to do everything I do, and I assume I'm his hero. I haven't actually asked him, and he hasn't actually told me, so he is one-year-old, just so you know.

Young children want to do what their fathers do. They want to eat the same foods, for example. There are some foods that my son just really didn't like, but then I would eat them and just really seem like I was enjoying them. Well, he'd start getting curious. There's something about this food that obviously is a good thing if my dad likes it, so then he'd start eating it. Not sure about this, but then he'd decide that he was going to like this food, and then he'd end up liking it because he wanted to be like me.

And I've done the same as well.

Children like to express the same opinions as their parents, and they express the same political opinions, the same if their parents, if their father has a particular sports team he roots for or a particular brand of car or something like that, you can pretty much bet that that's going to be the child's brand of car or sports team or whatever.

So we also learn a lot of abilities from our fathers as well. We want to learn the skills that they have. And in all this, we're consciously trying to be like our fathers. My father taught me a lot of things. He taught me, for example, to take care of animals, and he actually gave me responsibility in those areas. I was supposed to take care of the chickens, which I did, and I learned a lot taking care of chickens. And so now if I had to take care of chickens and raise eggs, I would have the knowledge needed to do that because my father gave me that responsibility.

We also emulate our parents and especially our fathers unconsciously. So we learn a lot of values from our fathers. For example, how do men treat women? This is one of the social skills or a social value that we learn. So do men treat women as valuable? Do men treat women as friends? Do men treat women as if women are their property? Or do men treat women as if they are kind of weird or less than men?

These are different ways that men tend to treat women.

Some of them are good, and some of them are bad, definitely. But we tend to default to the way our fathers treat women. That's the way we tend to view it as well. And I think this is true both for men and for women, that they tend to the value that their father has tends to become their value as well.

And for example, what does it mean to be strong or manly? This is especially for boys. Does it mean that you don't ever cry, or does it mean that you're just unfeeling and uncaring, or does it mean that you're gentle? Is that what manliness is? Is it serving others? Is it having all the freedom you want to do whatever you want? Is that manliness? Is it being brave or acting in dangerous ways? Is that manly?

Ordering people around? Is that what men do? Is it manly to be the center of power and be in control of everyone? Or is it manly to lead with humility? Is it manly never to ask advice? These are the sorts of things that these are the sorts of values that we learn from our fathers.

And again, some of these are good, some of these are bad, but we tend to default to what our fathers do. Also, we learn responses from our fathers. When someone makes you look bad or threatens your image, do you respond in humility or kindness, or are you really insecure? Do you respond in anger? What happens when things don't go the way you want them to? Are you pessimistic? Are you hopeful? Are you thankful? Do you just give up? When you care about something, do you dedicate yourself to it? Do you obsess over it? Are you jealous of other people having it?

Again, these are values. These are responses that we tend to learn from our fathers. We default to what our parents value and the way they respond. So good character doesn't happen by accident. We have to put a lot of effort into developing good character.

But the better the role models that we have, the less effort we have to put into developing that character. And that has strengths and weaknesses. If we start out at a really good spot, sometimes we don't actually learn the character ourselves, and so it's not as intrinsic to us. Whereas sometimes when people start at a worse spot, they actually need to learn the character themselves, and that leaves them at a better spot.

So there are strengths and weaknesses, but as a whole, the better role models that we have, the easier it's going to be for us to have good character. So I'm very blessed to have been given great role models.

My progenitors, that is, my ancestors in this case, especially my well, I'm talking about my male ancestors. My female ancestors did as well. They cared about character. They cared about honesty. They cared about kindness. And those are values that I really want to emulate in them.

And no one is perfect, but that's not the point I'm making here. I'm going to talk about imperfections as well. But these yeah.

So another thing that our fathers especially give us is a sense of identity. When someone is missing a father, they tend to have an identity crisis. That's probably one of the deepest identity crises that you can have. We hear a lot about identity and identity crisis, but that's one of the most significant ones.

We really want to know who we are, and people who are missing their fathers often feel less stable. And adopted children, usually, they want to find out about their biological fathers and their mothers as well.

One example is, so my wife has lost both her mother and her father. When she lost her mother, her mother was one of her closest friends, and she spent a lot of she had a lot of emotional connection with her mother. And so that really rocked her to lose her mother. But then about a year later, she lost her father, and suddenly she realized, you know, she hadn't been she loved her father, but she hadn't been as close to her father as her mother. But somehow losing her father had actually it actually shook her more in some ways because now she had to ask, "Who am I?"

She didn't have him there as her stability. So that's something that fathers give us and tend to give us. And when we're missing a father, that can really be a difficult thing. And these days, it's very sad. It's very easy to be missing a father because of a lot of social issues. And of course, all through the years, fathers die, fathers things happen to all of us.

And for those who don't have a father, it's a real struggle. And it's the same, although in somewhat different ways, for those who have an absent or an abusive father. That's a very real struggle for them. So what do people who are missing a father have to fill the place of a father, or do they have anything? Well, I'm going to suggest that we all have God as our father. God wanted everyone to have a heroic, earthly father that they could look up to. But because of human sin and human death, not everyone has one of these.

But God wants to fill that place for those who don't have a father, and also for those who do, because whether we have a father or we don't have a father, we all need a hero who won't let us down ever, and that's God. So that's a hopeful thing for those of us who have fathers or who don't have fathers or who have good fathers or abusive fathers. Either way, God is there to fill the place of father for us.

So why is God a father? Does God show himself as a father because he knows that we need a father? And does he fill that role because he knows we have that need? Or did God give us fathers because he knew that we needed a picture of who he is? I think it's a both-and, that God made the world in this way for a very important reason, and that the fathers that we have can help us understand more about who God is. And God also knows that for all of us, we need a father, and so he's there for us.

So we talked about heroes a bit. I'd like to talk about complicated heroes.

So here's a big question. We need fathers, and fathers play a very special heroic role in our lives. And I've talked a bit about my father and my grandfathers. They've played a very special role for me, and I really value what they did.

For anyone who doesn't have a father, God wants to fill that need for us. But what do we do when we have complicated heroes or when we have a father who is complicated or imperfect? I've talked about the good points of my father and grandfathers, but they weren't perfect.

Why haven't I talked about their faults?

Well, partly because my father's here, and I don't want to embarrass him. No, I wouldn't even if he wasn't here.

It's not I don't pass over their faults because I ignore their faults. As I showed earlier, we tend to relive our parents' mistakes, and so it's really important to me to be able to understand where am I possibly making similar mistakes to what my parents made. So I try to understand what's right and wrong apart from what my parents taught me so that I can make sure that I don't make mistakes as well.

But the reason I don't talk about my parents' faults is that we learn from good better than we learn from what's bad. It's much easier to improve by focusing on what's good than by focusing on what's bad. So if we keep what's good in front of us, we're focusing on it, and we tend to follow that and be influenced by that. It helps us when we're thinking about that. That trains us to think that way and to think about what's good. It's much harder to improve when we focus on what's bad. Sometimes it may feel like that's the important thing to do, but we can really miss doing good when we focus on not doing bad.

And when we focus on not doing what's bad, it can lead us to cynicism when we're thinking about what's bad all the time, and it doesn't help us to grow.

So that's one reason why I think that we should praise people for what they do right much more often than we criticize them for what they do wrong. So here is a tip. If you want a tip for improving yourself, here's one for free from me.

Just get everything done, get everything right that your parents got right. If you do that and then pick one or two things that they did wrong and get those right, you have improved from where your parents were. It's really simple.

It's really simple, but it's very difficult. I have a lot more work to do before I get everything right that my parents got right. And the more that I realize how hard it is, the smaller their imperfections look. I think as we grow up, we start noticing our parents' imperfections more and more. But I hope as we grow older, we start noticing, "Oh, wow.

I always thought I was better than that, but no, I actually wasn't. And maybe they weren't really as bad as I thought they were." And I have only respect and admiration for my fathers and grandfathers. I want to be like them, and I'm grateful that I can learn from their strong points and their weak points. And I only hope that my son can say the same for me.

So this is my goal. I want to get everything right that they get right, which I have a while to I have a bit until I get there. But then I also want to get a few things right that they got wrong. And then I want my son to be able to do the same as well for me. So if we keep at this, eventually we'll get better and better, not only ourselves, but also as communities, etc.

And it couldn't have happened if each generation hadn't tried to do this. This is my proposal. You can take it or leave it.

So let's talk about tearing down role models. So society today, we're probably all aware, has a passion for removing role models. For example, people are tearing down statues of people who had slaves or who fought for slavery here in the US.

And in some cases, that's a very good thing because a lot of the heroes of the past were not good people and should not be our heroes. And there have been many leaders who have committed sins that have been whitewashed and ignored and have really harmed people because that was never dealt with. But the thing is, people do need role models.

And here's what I'd like to ask. If you need to take away someone's hero, provide them with a better one. And you can't just do that by taking away someone's hero and just finishing right there. You actually have to provide them with a better role model. That doesn't just happen.

And don't leave them with the cynical view that all the role models probably are just terrible people once you understand, because that's the sense that I get from people today. They've seen in so many cases where there were people who everyone thought were great people, and then they found, "Oh, there was this wrong with them or that wrong with them." And then their question is, "Well, is everyone that terrible?"

So don't leave them with cynicism. There are good people out there. There are great heroes out there. Help people find the right heroes.

And let's talk about rewards.

Being a hero might make you famous. And if you like fame, you have your reward. Jesus said this. But you might end up losing your reward because you might end up later being infamous rather than famous. However, on the other hand, if you actually are a hero for others rather than for yourself, God will reward you. You might not be honored by people, although I would hope that people would honor you, but you will be honored by God. So what reward are you interested in? Are you interested in being a father or a hero or whatever because you want to be well-known and widely acclaimed, or do you want to do that because you actually love the people that you are leading?

So I'd like to end with a thank you to all the fathers who are fathers because they love their children and who care for their children rather than their image or their position or whatever. And I'd like to thank all the church leaders who lead not because they want to have an honored place in the church, but because they know that people need this, and so they step forward because of the people and are willing and humble in their leadership.

It's something that, as a father, I want to aspire to be that way. I have great role models, but even if I didn't, I would have God and Jesus Christ as my role models to follow in being that.