In this episode we're going to explore the connection between Fatherhood, God and you and why it matters. We will also dive deeper in to the meaning and purpose of Malachi 4:6.

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Transcription - Fatherhood, God and You

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Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,

to take great pride in their role, and a challenge society to understand how important

fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.

Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.

Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.

There's not a minute to waste on this episode, so we're going to skip the usual

dad jokes and we're going to dive right in. The mission and purpose of the Fatherhood Challenge

is based on Malachi 4/6, which is turning the hearts of fathers to their children.

Every episode, everything done by this program has to align and center around that

scripture verse and mission, so please take the time to read Malachi 4/6 for yourself

and become well acquainted with it. Your future depends on it.

For those of you listening to this program for the first time,

let me share my story on how this program started. The reason God put this program into the world,

is not for my benefit, although I have personally learned a lot and grown a lot from some of the

episodes produced. God intended this program to warn the world of the horrible consequences of not

taking the warning of Malachi 4/6 seriously. God cares so much about relationships in the home.

God cares about dads. He cares about the Father, son, father, daughter relationship. He cares about

marriages too. Why? Because they all impact how we see the process and understand God. God is so good.

He always has been. He always will be. He has given us nothing but good things, good gifts, the gifts

of family. We human beings are the ones who have trashed and ruined his gifts. Then we blame God for

something we as humans did to the perfect gifts that he gave to us. Then we try and repair the

broken gifts ourselves and reject anything from God going forward. Imagine if you gave someone a perfect

gift out of love, hoping that it would also help that person understand you a little better and they

trashed your gift. They rejected you instead. How would you feel about that person? Would you love them

anyway and still try to connect with them? This is God. This is who God is. What does this rejection look

like for us today? Approximately 18.3 million children. That's about one in four are growing up without a

biological father in the United States. It is also still one in four globally. South Africa often

reports one of the highest rates of fatherlessness with estimates suggesting that around 60% of children

grow up without a father. Let me share some impact on the damage fatherlessness does to children.

Let's look at this from an angle of mental health. Anxiety and depression for example research shows

that children without fathers are two to three times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.

Now let's move on to conduct disorders. Higher prevalence of issues like ADHD and behavioral problems

leading to difficulties in school and relationships are also likely. Now let's talk about the

economic consequences. For example poverty rates. Fathersless families are over four times more

likely to live in poverty with around 30% of those households facing food insecurity. Then let's talk

about education attainment. Fathersless children have 71% higher chance of dropping out of high school,

limiting future job prospects and earning potential. What about crime? How does fatherlessness

impact crime? I'm going to share two points of this. There's a lot more to talk about with crime,

but for the sake of time we're keeping it very, very brief. Juvenile delinquency when it comes to that

children from fatherless homes are two to three times more likely to be involved in criminal

activities, including theft and gang involvement. What about incarceration? About 85% of youth in prisons

come from father absent homes, indicating a strong correlation between father absence and criminal

behavior. Now let's move on to the spiritual aspect, the spiritual consequences. As far as moral

development is concerned, lack of a father figure can lead to uncertainty about values, ethics,

resulting in moral confusion. Then let's talk about identity issues. Many fatherless children struggle

with their sense of identity, which can hinder spiritual growth and community involvement.

You've heard me many, many, many times on this program be a broken record talking about the

importance of finding your identity and purpose. The world likes to define this in other terms,

in psychological terms and other terms, but it would be irresponsible to completely negate the

spiritual. And many times the world likes to very purposefully omit the spiritual necessity in finding

your identity and purpose. In other words, the world would like to pretend that you were not created

by God and that God somehow has absolutely no involvement in giving you an identity and purpose.

We have such a high need for therapy and other resources, specifically for dads who struggle with

things like addictions, things that dads use to numb. What are dads numbing? A majority of the issues

stem from a hole inside of them. You can imagine an image of a human being and in a store-so area,

there's a huge hole of who he's supposed to be that's missing and that hole is an identity

and purpose. And so when you feel that emptiness, you know, you know inside of you that something is

wrong that you are not complete, you'd feel it and it hurts. It's painful and you always wonder who

is I supposed to be something at some point robbed it from you, something, some event in your life,

something happened that robbed you of your identity and purpose. And so you will do anything you have

to do to go find that either that or you will do anything you feel you have to do to numb the pain

of that reality that you are missing that wholeness, you are missing your identity and purpose.

And this is why we have so many programs for addictions. This is why the therapy business is booming

because we are trying to solve all of these problems that stem from a spiritual issue. Rather than

address the spiritual issue behind this, we avoid it and we seek it other places. And we think

somehow that that is going to be a permanent solution and it's not. It can help us address some of the

pain. It can lead us on a path towards healing, but it will not last and it will not remain firm and

it will not fill us completely without the spiritual God has to be present and be part of the solution

or it is a complete waste of time. So now let's talk about the specifics that underscore the multifaceted

impact of fatherlessness on individuals in society. If you read Malachi 4 6 carefully,

there is a reference to a curse for not taking God's warning seriously. God saw this curse coming

out as a thousand over a thousand years ago before we even tried our best to understand the scripture.

We've responded by trying to explain the curse as talking about anything else other than fatherhood

or we've just flat out ignored it. I can remember the first time that I read Malachi 4 6 and my reaction

then was cool story, bro. So in my own way, I had distanced myself. This is something that happened

thousands of years ago. It has nothing to do with me. It's not related to me. And so for me, it just

read as, hey, this is great advice, turning the hearts of fathers to their children. Yeah, great advice.

People should look into that. That's it. That was the extent of its relevance. It was something that

just happened to be written thousands of years ago and a little part of that might be relevant for

us today. Other than that, for me, the purpose of the story was just to show us what was being talked

about in some society and some specific culture thousands of years ago. And that's it. And that's

for the most part, that's where we leave that story. Pastors have avoided it in their congregations.

With the exception of networks and stations airing this program, the media, both Christian and secular,

have avoided the topic of fatherhood and they have avoided the topic of Malachi 4 6. Fatherhood groups

and organizations are content to stay away from Malachi 4 6. And any association with fatherhood

and especially with God, this includes dad coaches. It's a saturated market. Dad coaches today

are actually arrogant enough to believe that leaving God out of fatherhood can still result

in a dad who's at his best. God is the ultimate dad coach. If you aren't following and teaching his

ways, then you are selling others short and teaching a lie because you aren't getting your information

from the source. Let's talk about the curse God tried to warn us about over a thousand years ago.

What does it look like today? It has gotten our attention in the form of mass shootings. So let's talk

about the impact of fatherlessness on mass shootings. Whenever a mass shooting happens, one of the first

narratives that you're going to hear throughout the media is the narrative about gun control. It is

almost as if we have this this agenda that has been waiting for a reason, waiting for an excuse to be

pushed through legislation, waiting for an excuse to be pushed through mass media. But it just needs

the right story and the story has to be real. It has to be true. And so every time a mass shooting

happens, it is the perfect gift to the media. It is a perfect gift to politicians who have been waiting

for the right opportunity to serve this in front of you, the audience. So gun control is the very first

thing that you're going to hear. The other common narrative, which just backs the gun control

narrative is the need for school security. What you won't hear talked about is what was going on

in the home in the family life of the mass shooter. You will not hear that presented front

in center. That will not be the first thing that the media wants to talk about. There won't be

those deep investigations. And it's easy to do that because all you have to do is say, hey, the

family has a right to their privacy. And that's it. That is all the excuse anyone and everyone needs

to stay away from that issue. And so we'll talk about everything else because it's easier. But we are

missing so much vital information in understanding the home life behind these shooters. There are common

threads. We just don't want to look at them. And maybe it's because there are echoes in the

in the lives of those families that might look a little bit like our own reality. And that's a

painful thing to face. For example, let's look at the Valdi shooter. No one was talking about the

home life of the Valdi shooter. This was an event, a mass shooting that happened in Texas. No one talks

about the Valdi shooter's father, his lack of presence, his lack of consistent involvement in the

life of his child. He was missing to be blunt. No one talks about the impact of the marriage on that

kid. That kid suffered a lot. It does not excuse what the shooter did while he's a child. He's still

responsible for what he did. But my point is there are a series of events that led up to that moment.

And all of them center around the home life. It centers around the marriage. What happened to the

marriage between the kids father and his mother and the mother is not completely innocent either. She

has her own role to play of being missing emotionally and physically unavailable for her son.

The same as the father. And then let's talk about the daughters. There are two daughters involved in

that home. Both of the daughters went to the military. They went to the Navy. And they were also on

record, stating that one of the biggest reasons why they went to the Navy was because their father

was unavailable for them, both physically and emotionally. These are the stories. These are the

truths. These are the realities that the media won't talk about. This is why we're talking about it here.

In other words, what we can say is that we've come to a place in our society that a mass shooting

is less painful to us than talking about what's going on in our own homes. And that is a really,

really bad place to be. So when we read that scripture texts in Malachi 4, 6 where it says,

"Well, less I strike your land with a curse." Back thousands of years ago mass shootings were not

something that anybody in that culture and that time would have understood. Whenever God presents

something in our time, or in the case of their time thousands of years ago, He always spoke to people

where they were in their culture, in their time, in their reality, in their language. They

understood curses. They understood exactly what that was. When famine happened, when other bad things

happened, when war happened, pestilence, and their mindset and their culture, that was likely because

they did something to anger some God. And so they had better change what they were doing. Figure out,

first of all, what made that God so angry that He caused these things to happen. Second, we need to

change so we can make that God happy again. And then maybe these curses can be reversed.

That was their mindset. This is the way they thought thousands of years ago.

So God spoke to them in their language in a way that they would understand.

What God really wanted out of them was change in their homes and their families. The same is true

today. God expects and wants the same for us. Thousands of years ago, God knew these things would

happen. God knew about these curses, the way they would look for us in our time. By the way,

mass shootings are just one example of the curse. It's not the curse. There are many other things. I

mean, we can look at our crimes statistics. We actually already did. We've already taken a look at

some of those consequences, some of the curses that God saw thousands of years ago that He was trying

to warn us about long ago, but we have missed it. We have ignored it. And so this is why we are talking

about it today because we have to change. We have to be willing to do something different.

The statistics that we're reading, the realities of what are happening of what's happening today,

the suffering that is happening in families and homes, the brokenness, the fatherlessness is not

acceptable and we have to do something different. We have to change it. So let's talk about how

fatherlessness impacts marriage. Fatherlessness can significantly impact event individuals' views on

marriage and relationships, leading to various outcomes. So here are some of the key effects.

Let's look at attitudes towards marriage. There is skepticism. Individuals from fatherless homes may

develop a skeptical view of marriage, often seeing it as unstable or untrustworthy. Let's also talk

about expectations. They might have reduced expectations for their own relationships, potentially

leading to less commitment. Marriage as a whole, at least in the United States, have actually dropped.

Fewer people are getting married. There is a lot of cohabitation that happens. And even couples

that are considering marriage will often cohabitate before they marry. Could this likely be linked to

the skepticism about marriage itself? Could this also be because of the lower expectations of marriage?

I can assure you that this was not what God intended for marriage to be. This is not what it was

originally intended to look like. But fatherlessness does play a role in damaging the marriage institution.

Let's talk about relationship skills. The lack of role models growing up without a father can mean

fewer positive male role models resulting in challenges in understanding healthy relationships

and communication. Have you ever wondered why you see so many kids on screens? Why they're constantly

looking at phones, those that have phones. They have to be distracted by something. And they struggle

with interpersonal relationships, communicating with their parents, communicating with other adults.

Those skills just aren't there. Let's talk about another aspect of communication. Let's talk about

conflict resolution. Skills for resolving conflicts and navigating emotional intimacy may be

underdeveloped, increasing the likelihood of relationship problems. This might feed right over into

divorce rates. If we can't resolve conflicts, then marriages can fall apart easily. So how is

fatherlessness increasing divorce rates? Research indicates that children of divorced or single-parent

families are more likely to experience divorce themselves, sometimes due to a lack of understanding

of a healthy, marital dynamic. If we don't have a good example of what a healthy marriage should look

like, because it's not part of our reality with our own parents, when it's time for us to have those

relationships, we look to what's around us, because we have nothing else to go on. We can either just

form our own opinion based on what we think it might be based on our own internal ideals of what we

think marriage is. And if we're not sure about that, we'll look to the culture around us, which really

isn't looking so great, because the examples of what a healthy marriage looks like now. And we're only

talking about the marriages we see around us, may not be the healthiest to look at into model. We

haven't even talked about the high numbers of divorce around us, the people around us that are divorced

or that have been divorced multiple times. And we look at that as the norm. And so it can cheap

an marriage. We can lose that value and understanding of what it means to remain committed. And that's a

very bad thing for us to see. Let's talk about teenage pregnancy and unstable relationships.

Fatherless youth, particularly girls, are at a higher risk of early pregnancy and may enter into

unstable relationships, perpetuating cycles of father absence. And this should not be very difficult

to understand, because girls growing up in the home often look to their father as the ultimate example

of who they should look to for a husband. So when the father is missing, and this has two components

to it, this can be physically absent and this can also be emotionally absent. And we're talking

about girls, but this is also true for a home with boys. The father must be physically present,

and must be emotionally present. They are equally important, but when it comes to teenage girls,

if the father is either physically absent or emotionally absent, it can lead and will lead likely

to destructive patterns in who they seek in a mate. Now let's talk about emotional challenges.

The fear of abandonment is very, very real. Individuals may struggle with fears of abandonment

and commitment issues, making it difficult to maintain long term relationships. There we go.

There's another impact on marriage. That's negative. Then let's talk about trust issues.

Past experiences of father absence can lead to trust issues affecting both romantic

and platonic relationships. This may also feed into why people who are divorced are less likely

to remain in that marriage when they remarry. Now let's talk about parenting styles,

replicating patterns, for example, individuals from fatherless homes may unintentionally

replicate their parents' relationship patterns affecting their own parenting style and future

family dynamics. This is how cycles can get repeated. This may be where generational curses can

actually play out, so it is something to pay attention to. Where does this all lead to? What is the

conclusion? The impact of fatherlessness on marriage and relationships is significant and multifaceted.

There are efforts to support through education and positive role models that can help mitigate

some of these effects and promote healthier relationships. But again, without the spiritual focus

on strong relationships with God, the chances of these solutions having a lasting effect

are significantly reduced. The top two reasons that everyone is leaving God out of an absent

father or marriage crisis is anger and/or shame. Emotions are powerful and often scream louder to us

than truth. Truth can be bold but quiet. Emotions flow, they come and go. They can be warning signs to

us or simply make us feel good in the moment, but they aren't solid or unchanging. Truth is solid.

As the scriptures say, the truth will set you free. This is where we come to identity in purpose.

Every man must know his identity in purpose. It is essential that every man seek this truth

in his own personal life. Without this truth, you are building your life on sand instead of rock.

You will be easily ruled by your emotions, by trends, the media, and the lies that you hear from

others. Your true identity in purpose is only found in connecting with your Heavenly Father.

There is no other way to find this. If your marriages in crisis, this is where you start to find answers.

If your relationships with your children are in crisis, this is where you start to find answers.

If your job or career is in crisis, this is where you start to find your answers.

If your whole life is garbage, this is where you start to find your answers. Let go of yourself

and grab onto your Heavenly Father and don't let go. Get a good Christian therapist who understands

the value of restoring you to your true identity in purpose and can help you do this. Next,

get connected with a group of Christian men who will welcome you and enjoy fellowship with you.

They will be essential to your personal growth spiritually.

Last, listen to this program and share it with others that you know who would benefit from what is

taught here. As you listen, I want to challenge you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to open your mind

and teach you as you listen. This program began because the Holy Spirit asked me to start the

Fatherhood challenge. I had no desire or interest in doing this when he asked me. That was one

sign that it was his voice I was hearing clearly and not my own. But I felt the love of Jesus and the

love of the Father expressed through the Holy Spirit for fathers and families everywhere.

For the children this program would someday bless. I was also very well aware of how God Himself

personally rescued me from my own brokenness and saved me from breaking my family and marriage apart.

I remembered how I heard Jesus forgave me for my many sins knowing that no one else had the power to

forgive them. Jesus forgave me and treated me as if I had never committed those sins,

giving me a fresh start, a chance to live a new life in Him. Now the Holy Spirit is inviting me

to cooperate with Him, to partner with Him and start a new program and a new ministry to build

strengthen and restore fathers to their children. After what He did for me in ministry to build and

strengthen me, after what He did for me, I was not about to say no, working with the Holy Spirit,

working at the center of where God's heart is, is where true meaning lies and where wholeness

and joy is found. I have come to enjoy what I do and consequently I've found more joy in God.

I challenge you to do the same. I challenge you to connect with Him right now.

Clear some space wherever you are, clear some time and just take that moment. Don't put it off,

don't waste time, use this time right now and just quiet yourself and open up your heart to God.

Open up to your Heavenly Father. Lay down the shame. Lay down everything. Lay down the fear.

He just wants you the way you are. Right here, right now. Just talk to Him. He is waiting.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge. If you would like to contact us,

listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more

information about the Fatherhood Challenge, please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's TheFatherhoodChallenge.com.

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