Reforming FamilyLife & Public Culture: The Quest #6: Facing The Father Wound

Two Different Angles

Today we’re going to do something very significant, we are going to face, head-on, the Father Wound, proactively from two different directions.

1️⃣First, for those of us who are fathers, we’re going to face the Father Wound as fathers, because as we look at the Father Wound, we’re going to ask the question, ‘How can I avoid inflicting a wound on my sons?’ Or, ‘how can I make up for the wound that I’ve already inflicted on my sons?’. Those are the two significant questions that we want to address today.

2️⃣ Then from the angle as sons, we need to address ‘how do I speak to the wound in my own life from my dad?’ and ‘how do I get healing there?’ We call it “Facing the Father Wound”.

Whatever form that is, we want to address how to step into that wound and take it on, head-on. We want to look in both of those directions - both as fathers and as sons as we face this Father Wound.

Summary | Where We Are

A) We’re in the process of seeking to make sense of why we are the way we are. And most men don’t grasp the power of the past. They’ve never unpacked that baggage. A lot of guys walk around with baggage that they’ve never unpacked, and there’s incredible power in that baggage. How well they open that baggage and deal with the things that are in there – how well they do that - has a significant impact on the kind of man that they will become. Every man needs to unpack, look in that baggage, and say to themselves, “what does this stuff mean in here for me, right now, as a man?” It is so important for each of us to do that. Remember “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

1️⃣Each of us has a story to tell. We need to tell that story out loud to some other men. You need to talk with other men about your story so they can help you and you can help yourself by telling it out loud, to connect the dots between your past, your present and your future.

2️⃣Each of us is to some degree is a product of the past. Some of it is good and it makes life easier for us right now. Some of it is not so good. Some of it may be even bad, and it makes life harder for us because of some of the things that we’ve experienced in our past.

3️⃣Each of us is, in some ways, controlled by the past until we consciously and willfully choose to break that control. If you don’t understand your background, you’re probably doomed to keep repeating the patterns that were formed there. The good news is that if you understand your past - you can break loose from those bad experiences that have been holding you back from your quest for authentic manhood.

B) We are exploring the first of 5 major wounds in life that shape us. Of course, the first of those wounds is the Absent Father Wound. Yesterday, we had a definition of that wound, We said the Absent Father Wound was an ‘ongoing emotional, social or spiritual deficit that’s ordinarily met in a healthy relationship with dad that now must be overcome by other means.’

A deficit, is a hole that dad needed to fill. When dad didn’t fill it -- for whatever reason – what goes into that hole are things like anger, and resentment, and blame, and excuses, and a host of other problems fill that vacuum.

C) This wound is being inflicted upon sons today at epidemic levels. Yesterday,we noted that most of all the children today are growing up at some point in their lives in fatherless families.

“The damage caused by a father’s absence may be severe and may last a lifetime. It is a shadow; the longing of sons for their fathers is almost physical; something passionate, profound. It is often mysterious to sons what it is they want from their fathers”.

Dad is either a bright spot in a son’s life or he’s a shadow. Good or bad, right or wrong, empowering or disempowering - based on his presence or absence in a son’s life.

When you come to the last verse in the Old Testament, it makes a prophecy, if you were going to put a verse in to speak of a revival in Israel 400 years later, what would you put in it that would demonstrate a revival? There are a lot of things you could put in there. You could say that people would begin to be more regular in their worship attendance or they would give more to others or their marriages would be healed or the moral climate of the nation would be raised. Those are things that you could think of when you think of a revival spreading out in the nation. But as the Old Testament closes – and as Malachi prophesies this Prophet is going to come and bring forth a spiritual revival. He says, “Here’s how you’ll know revival is in the land.” Malachi 4:6 “And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children. And the hearts of the children to their fathers.”

That’s how you’ll know there’s revival in the land. There’ll be reconciliation between children and their dads. If there’s not – if that doesn’t occur – “I’m going to come and smite the land with a curse.” A high percentage of fatherlessness in a nation is a sign of a curse.

So how do you deal with the Father Wound? I’m going to give what I call 8 Proactive Remedies for us as men. Three of those are going to be for dads with their sons, and five of them are going to be for sons with their dads.

Eight Proactive Remedies for the Absent Father Wound

1️⃣If you’re a dad, make sure your son has the essentials. There are two things that your son should not leave home without. You need to make sure he has certain things in his life, and you need to make sure he hears certain things from you as a dad.

The 3 things you need to make sure he hears

a) I love you. He needs to have that kind of affection from you. Not just the physical touch, but he needs to hear from you, dads, specifically – from your mouth: ‘I love you.’

b) I’m proud of you. He needs admiration. He needs to know that he stands tall in your eyes.

C) You're good. You need to say, ‘Son, you’re good! I noticed you. And what I’m noticing in you are your strengths and I can name those strengths.

Many dads assume their son’s strengths, and what they notice are their weaknesses, and they point them out. And they name them. What your son needs from you is for you to notice his strengths and name them.

Three things you need to make sure your son has

a) A manhood vision. We’re going to be talking about that in due course. We will talk about what that definition is, how to get into that definition and scale that summit to get on top of that mountain called Manhood. He needs A manhood ceremony that seals it. You’re probably thinking, ‘what do you mean by manhood ceremony?’. Well, we’ll talk more about that in due course. Every son doesn’t just need to be told he’s a man - he needs to have an experience with dad and – hopefully a community of other men where he is invited into the community of manhood. He knows: “ON THIS DAY I became a man, and the community recognized me for that.” Now that’s a ceremony and we’ll talk about how to do those ceremonies in due course but first he needs a manhood vision.

b) A Code of Conduct to live by - primarily what you live by. He needs to see in you honesty, hard work and keeping your word and loyalty and purity and chivalry. You as a dad need to think about ‘what are my codes of conduct – what’s the moral code of my home that I am going to exhibit – that I want to be sure my son has?’ The only way he’ll have them is if you live by them and you can name them.

C) A transcendent cause. He needs something to live for other than himself. You’re the one who helps instill in him that larger vision. So often a son growing up can become the whole focus of a dad’s life. He can become self-centered, but one of the things dad needs to deposit in his son’s life is, ‘Son, life is not just about you, there’s something much bigger than you in this world.’ To me it’s a spiritual cause and he needs to be introduced to that spiritual cause by you as a dad.

Robert Lewis' book Raising a Modern-Day Knight speaks to a transcendent cause, a code of conduct, a manhood vision, and helping you as a dad raise your son to be a modern-day knight.

First of all, as a dad, Make sure your son has these essentials.

2️⃣ If you’re a dad, I want you to know it’s never too late to close the gap with your son, no matter how old he is. If you’re a dad today You need to focus on this principle: It’s never too late to close the gap with your son, no matter how old you are. Any dad can do that. It’s amazing what just a few things can do!

3️⃣If you’re a single dad – or if you’re a dad separated from your son – or if you’re a dad who has inherited a son through marriage and you have a blended family – here’s my word for you. Seek help and a sound strategy. In many ways you, as a father, are in ‘uncharted waters.’

What do you do in those moments? Here are a couple of recommendations to you.

1. Read, read, read! That’s my first principle. There are some great books – Out of that, develop a sound strategy of how to deal with your son or your inherited son. That’s so very important.

2. You may even feel uncomfortable after you read. You may have questions. Listen, find out A counselor in town and say, “I want an hour of your time. Tell him, I’m a dad who’s suffered a separation and I don’t have access much to my son. What do I do, so that I won’t injure my son further? How can I make up for some of the trouble caused because of that?”

Or, better still, “I’ve inherited a son in a blended family. How do I work this young man into our family so that he feels comfortable? How can I undo some of the things that have inflicted pain in his life?” So get a counselor and read, read, read!

3. Develop a sound strategy. You know the Scripture says, ‘In a multitude of counselors there is victory’. If you’re a dad, that is the initiative - develop a sound strategy and seek help.

Now, let’s turn the coin over and go ‘well, what about if I’m a son – how do I deal with the Father Wound from my perspective with my dad?’

4️⃣ If you’re a son, wounded by dad, choose to touch this wound responsibly. The easy way is to touch it irresponsibly; to bury the pain or to blame dad or to play the victim, or to act out with destructive behaviors you don’t understand, but whose roots go back to your home. The better way - and what I think is the most important thing to do, is to act responsibly towards your dad. ‘how do you act responsibly towards the Absent Father Wound?’ The two choices:

a) You can choose to forgive your dad.

Hebrews Chapter 12 He’s comparing God as our Father with our earthly fathers in this particular text, but he says: “Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us; for they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. But He [that is, God] disciplines us for our good…” .

See that line in the middle: as seemed best to them. there may be a very small percentage of fathers who are just evil. We’ll talk about them in a moment. But I would say most dads – your dad, my dad —didn’t get up every morning thinking: now let me think of how I can just screw my son up.

He had problems; he had difficulties and those difficulties hurt me and hurt you, perhaps, but he didn’t get up and walk through the day thinking ‘how can I just kick him between the legs and make him hurt some more? How can I wound him? How can I really mess him up for a lifetime so he’s struggling because of me for the rest of his life?’

Do you think your dad ever thought that? Now there may be a real small percentage of you who do – and God help you. We’ll talk about that. But for most of us, the problem for our dad was not that he was malicious, but he was dealing with his own Baggage. All of a sudden, we realize they weren’t the hero we thought they were, they were just men with clay feet, just like us. The older we get, the more we realize how difficult it is to be a dad. Right? If we’ve got stuff we’re still struggling with, we could get so preoccupied with that stuff and our work and other things that just by the force of all of that, we become hurtful dads. We never, ever intended to do that.

b) By choosing to believe in God’s justice

Now there may be a few of you saying, ‘no, you don’t know my dad. My dad was evil.’ You know – to be real honest – because I believe in evil, there probably are some guys out there who just chose – even in the face of a family – to do evil to them. If that’s the few of you, then you have another choice – it’s not so much to forgive your dad, but simply to release your dad to God’s ultimate justice. Romans 12:19 says: “Never take your own revenge, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘vengeance is Mine and I will repay.”

We live in a moral universe, and though justice will not be wrapped in this life, what the Bible promises from Genesis to Revelation is that there will be justice; you can count on that. So, if there have been hurts inflicted upon you that were hurts of evil it’s time to just let that go and not try to get even, because there will be a time for justice. So release your dad to God’s justice. So, if you’re a son wounded by dad, choose to touch this wound responsibly.

5️⃣If you’re a son wounded by dad, courageously seek reconciliation with your father. If you’re a son and you feel a separation from your dad, your dad’s not going to come to you. This is you stepping up to manhood. If you want reconciliation, you need to go to dad. In going to dad, you’re going to find something changing you. Suddenly you’re going to be stepping up into manhood. You will feel that as you approach your father to try to heal the breach that you feel in your relationship.

a) There may be separation between you and dad that springs from dad’s relational shortcomings. If there’s that, then don’t let that stop you, because sometimes dad just doesn’t know how to do it.

b) There may be separation between you and your dad that springs from some past conflict, and you need to clean it up. You know, there are a lot of sons who’ve said hurtful things to their dads, or their dads have said hurtful things to them, and they don’t know what to do with that. They still continue – and kind of bury that and go on with the relationship, but there’s that hurt that’s still there. you need to repair those. Take the initiative to do that. That’s walking into the Father Wound.

6️⃣If you’re a son wounded by dad, risk asking for your father’s love. There are some of you who would say, ’you know, I’ve never heard my dad say “I love you” and that’s important; I want to hear that.

7️⃣If you’re a son wounded by dad, risk asking for your father’s blessing. Some of you have never gotten a blessing from dad. He’s never really given you that ultimate affirmation. Where he recognizes what you’re doing with your life or the way you’re doing it. There’s something about it that if he could put his hand on you and say, ‘Son, I’m so excited about you. I’m proud of you. I love you. I’m excited for you.’ There’s been that vacuum there that’s hurt you. Maybe you went a different way than he wanted you to go, so you’ve always wondered how he’s felt about you in that regard. But if you don’t have it, then maybe what you need to do is get up and go ask for it. That’s real manhood.

8️⃣Then lastly, If you’re a son wounded by dad, you can reclaim the relationship you missed as a son by becoming a good dad to your children. For the most part, that’s what I’ve had to do. To not repeat my family history that I grew up with, I had to make a choice some time in my life. That choice was that I was going to live in a way with my children - the way my dad had not lived with me. I was going to ask for help, and I was going to read books and I was going to step up to authentic manhood and go ask for A Father’s blessing and do all the rest.