This is the title of a movie I watched a couple of weeks ago.

With good actors and a nomination for an academy award, it looked like a promising evening’s entertainment. What it turned out to be however, was both entertaining and thought provoking.
The story was about a man and his relationship with his father, with flashbacks to his youth and teen years. The father was a jolly, sociable type, the life and soul of the party, and what most of his friends and neighbours would describe as a nice guy. However, he had a nasty habit of putting his son down in company. He would make a joke of it, and could never understand why the boy lapsed into bitter silence. After all, it was just a casual joke, wasn’t it? “Don’t be so over sensitive – you’ll have to face a cruel, competitive world one day. Better get used to it now.”

The boy’s mother was gentle but vulnerable. Predictably, she would act as a shield between father and son, while at the same time making outrageous excuses for her husband’s behavior. “He doesn’t really mean it,” she would say over and over again.

This may be a fictional story, but it plays out far too often in reality, in every suburb in every town and every country. I have seen it many times, especially in the lives of some of my friends when I was young. Personally I was blessed with kind, caring, but fairly strict parents. But quite a few of my friends and acquaintances suffered real emotional and psychological abuse from their fathers. And most of these, as I remember were supposed to be Christian families. Does the Bible have any specific advice for Christian fathers?

How not to do it

“Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged,” we read in Colossians 3:21. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Did Paul perhaps see traces of this kind of behavior even in his own dearly beloved congregations?  
Do some parents, even today try to prop up their own egos by putting down their children who are dependent on them and helpless to defend themselves? By the time the man in the movie grew to adulthood, he had very little time or respect for his father. Often during the running I wanted to say something like, “No, listen to your son. Give him a hug and share a joke with him, not at his expense.”

Strangely, there was a kind of reconciliation at the end of the story. The son, by now middle aged, began to see his father in a different light. He came to realize he had weaknesses, that he was often selfish but not without some redeeming features. He focused on the good times when they had some rapport and some memorable experiences. He remembered the time his father hugged him and said “I will miss you, son,” when he went off to university. These were the times when he really ‘saw’ his father.

And what does our Father in heaven have in store for us? Something much better than just a patched up reconciliation between fathers and sons. God says: “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the  fathers…(Malachi 4:5-6). “

And how will God do this? He has already done it through the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, allowing his Holy Spirit to work through our minds and hearts. Today Christian fathers can be the greatest blessing any child could wish for. Like their Father in heaven, they give their children the good gifts of patience understanding, encouragement and sometimes, when necessary, tough love.

The Bible seems to be silent on specific advice for mothers. In fact, God compares his own perfect love to that of a mother.”Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).

Of course, human mothers are not perfect either. Perhaps they can be too soft, but that’s another subject.

But we all have a perfect heavenly Father who does not change “like shifting shadows,” and from whom we receive every good and perfect gift (James 1:17).