Courageous

Many of you have probably heard of or seen the movie Courageous.  The message of that movie is -- fathers need to stand up and lead their families. 
This message is very familiar to me.  Three years ago, a woman I had just met was in our church office as I was walking through and she was talking about putting together a Purity Ball.  I said “let me know if you need some help with that”.  Well, she did.  One week later I was sitting at a table with eight other ladies and we started planning.  I had pictured a small church event but she and another woman had a bigger vision. 

We all had daughters and this was a very important virtue we wanted to instill in our daughters, the fathers were kind of an accessory.  As we started to plan and pray, God revealed to us that this is not about the daughters,  but primarily about the fathers and their role in the family.

From that this same group put together a “Fireproof” marriage ball for couples and a “Calling of the Knight”  integrity event.  Every one of these events is calling the fathers to be in the role that God intended, as leader of the home.  Leader meaning, emotionally, spiritually and physically being their for your wife and children, leading them in the ways of the Lord, as instructed in the Bible.

Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament and speaks to fathers about this very thing.  God was going to be silent for 400 years at this point in the Bible and knew that if the fathers failed to lead their families according to the Word, then we would not have been ready for His Son to enter the world.

I have to wonder if God is preparing Christians for something in which we must all be as strong as possible.  Strong people can best come from strong families led by strong men and our men have been beat down by society for the past few decades.  They need to be reminded that they have all that it takes to lead, they just need to do it.
Jeannie