A man's identity is linked to who his father was. He might not know his father or he might know him very well. He might hate his father or he might put him on some kind of pedestal. The variations of possibilities are endless. There is an inescapable link and as men get older it becomes more apparent. Souls beget other souls. That is how God made us.
No matter who a man is or what kind of relationship he had with his genetic father (or other father figures) there are conflicts that arise in his soul that are linked to this father and son dynamic.
These days I don't think women are taught this concept but if they can get their minds around this idea then it will really help them understand the men in their life. This isn't something that can often be faced head on either. It is an issue that lingers near the blind spot of male perception and must be handled with great tact and care.
A man wants to be, needs to be, his own man but in a sense he never can be. If his father was an honorable man he walks in the shadow of that honor and if his father was a dishonorable one he has the conflict of knowing that no matter how honorable he is there might be a seed of the things that he sees and hates in him also. That is only one glimpse of a thousand different less definable reflections that are happening in a man's soul that he can't possibly be aware of.
Then there are the men who never knew their fathers. They live with no genetic mirror to give them a reflection so they wonder and have psychic loose ends that can't be tied up.
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." - John 10:27-30 ESV
Wow. He Is the only man who ever lived who could say that He and His father were one and mean it like that!
"He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." - John 1:11-14 ESV
The word translated 'right' in verse 12 is the Greek word exousia (Strong's G1849) and in other places it is translated as 'power' or 'authority'.
What does it mean to be God's son? What does it mean to be anyone's son?
As we get older all men find out what it is like to transform into our father's image.
There was and is no dysfunction in Jesus' relationship with His father and the miraculous thing is that there does not need to be dysfunction in our relationship with Him either.
Grace is the key. Grace and truth.
Grace opens the door for us to go to our Heavenly Father and be close to Him.
Some men have a genetic father or another older man they can go to that helps them along the way. Others never have that or the man they had that link with is gone now. Men age and men die. That is how life is. But those who have trusted in Christ have a Father in Heaven to go to. He sits on a throne... it is a throne of grace.
Our Earthly relationship points us to a greater eternal one if we are available to go there.
Can we put a price on that privilege? I can't.
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' " - John 14:6 ESV
Once we have a Savior we also have a Heavenly Father. It is a package deal.
Amazing.
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