How to Honor and Love Your Philandering Father

First of all, I looked for the definition of the word “father” in the Encarta English Dictionary in order to convince myself that I really know the word “father” both in theory and in real life.

 A father is a man who is the parent of a human being, or a male animal that has produced offspring; a man who brings up and looks after his child as if he were its father; a man who is an ancestor, especially the founder of a family or people; a man who establishes, founds, or originates something; a man who is a community or civic leader; and “to father”, is a transitive verb which means, to cause a woman or female animal to produce offspring.  A father is like having or showing the qualities traditionally associated with a father such as love, support, and protection.

Do married men with children really understand their roles of being a “father” to their biological or non-biological children which was entrusted to them by God who is the Father of everything?

Before I give you the answers to the above questions, I would like to share a short story about a father who left his children and his wife because of other women.  The father is a businessman up to these days. He is fond of traveling from place to place because of the nature of his work.  According to this philandering father, as far as he can remember and recognize, he has begotten 20 children already, borne to about 10 women whom he married four of them, while the others are mere casual sexual relationship since the age of sixteen years old. 

Upon reaching the age of 43, realizing his mistakes, he tried to put all his children in one home minus their mothers so he could fill up the lost days while he was still philandering.  One of his daughters was instrumental of his life’s renewal.  He was taught how to mend his mistakes and patch-up the strained feelings between him and his children.  His daughter’s right attitude towards God the Father was the big factor which influenced him to change his carefree existence.

The daughter shared the succeeding tips on how she won his father back to the right track leading towards God.  Keeping in mind always the Words of God and living by it, Proverbs 29:3 which states, “Whoever loves wisdom makes his father rejoice.” and Proverbs 10:1 which says, “A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother.” was amongst her inspirations to the seemingly hopeless case of his father.

In short, she kept herself close first to the heavenly Father.  Slowly and respectfully, she let God teach her first then he taught her father through her deeds.  This daughter tackled their differences and disagreements in a clear manner, by not offending and bearing in mind that the best relationship is the one where the love of one for another matters more than anything else.  She showed his father love and respect, instead of confronting him for his mistakes doing all the possibilities to let his father realize that there is more happiness in keeping a clean, peaceful and harmonious relationship, full of love and which no longer revolves in the past.  She said, “it is the will to make amends which I have seen from my father, which for me, is enough to forgive him of his philandering past.”

 She adds it is not enough just to be there.  Please involve your father by looking for an activity you and your father can do together and make time for it regularly.  Listen to him.  Try to understand him, don’t shy away from him.  Be patient with their weaknesses and set a good example.  Encourage him to open up his problems and show consistently that you respect him.  If he has done wrong, let him know that it is his behavior or the wrong that he has done that you dislike and not him.  The most important of all is to always pray for him, for with God everything is possible.

A child is likely to see God as a good father if she sees God in her father. 

Now, the answer to the above questions is already clear if you got the message from the short story of that philandering father and his loving daughter.