Fathering occurs in the mundane of life as much as the formalize, standing behind the podium corporate father preaching and teaching mode.
One: Deal with trends in the corporate publicly even though individuals feel targeted by fundamental principles.
You will not be able to separate solid Truth from the immediate application if you teach people to submit to discipling from a fathering role. You teach principles, processes, and protocols of kingdom culture, and you will run right into the behavioral patterns of the people you are fathering personally.
If you do not problem-solve with your preaching, like Paul, Simon Peter, James, Jude, John, and Jesus, you are not a fathering leader at all. If you are not problem-solving, and someone else is problem-solving for you, the person problem-solving is the actual leader.
Fathers make solid decisions and make them stick. Fathers solve problems even when the risk-taking choices that confront the serious issues that produce these problems shake relationships to the core.
Here’s what it looks like: You make strategic decisions to disciple inheritors that reveal what is in their hearts. Then, you publicly and privately solve these manifested problems with fathering problem-solving strategies. Your decisive plans for discipling lead to assertive strategies for problem-solving, or you are not the actual leader.
I would estimate that 90% of fathering failures occur because fathers want to bark orders without solving the problem those orders create. I would assess that 90% of inheritor rebellions arise from issues ignored by decision-making fathers.
Two: Recognize that your mercy has limits measured by your principles, processes, and protocols.
Mercy never warps what is right into something wrong. Right remains right while mercy maintains an open door of opportunity for change. Mercy will shout louder than judgment: the sense in which this Scripture marks mercy and judgment for decision-making says, “Keep the door of opportunity for people to choose right open while displaying and expecting what is right inside the point of access.”
Mercy in a fathering leader comes from your shared passion with the Father. Mercy never withholds discipline. Mercy vastly increases instances of and insistence upon painful discipline. Mercy says, “The door is open. There is time as opportunity for change on the countdown clock.
Mercy says, “Be teachable and transformable, and you will be authenticated by your endurance.”
Mercy reflects the revelation of projected outcomes upon a screen where fathering leaders see what Father intends to produce through the authenticating process. Mercy sees that Divine outcome and original intention coming together with Father’s passion burning within the fathering leader until the leader wants to see that outcome come to pass so much the same fire consumes him.
That is heady stuff.
When Esau shows up, the same fathering leader announces publicly, “You have no portion in this estate because your false entitlement says you will inherit by changing Father’s preparation process.”
Mercy cannot abide rebellion. It embraces submission because submission is endurance. Endurance is submission.
“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; righteousness shall look down from heaven.”
Psalm 85:10-11
Read this passage like this:
Time as opportunity and right behavior and culture met in the street called “kingdom.” When they embraced, right living and internal wholeness kissed each other; from the Earth, the seeds of correct behavior and culture germinate, put down roots, grow up, and branch out to produce fruit, and Divine expectations and anticipations observe this kingdom normal from Heaven.”
Recognize that discipline is the strategy of mercy during the time as opportunity for the transformation process. Mercy sees the outcome anticipated by prophetic vision and the expected behavior by fathering leadership.
You will recognize your mercy when your other leaders point out the deadly dangers of people in process. You nod in agreement and say, “I know the difference between immaturity and rebellion. The real issue isn’t this behavior and motivation but submission and endurance to the process. I hear your caution.”
“Recognize that I am limiting leadership influence to the level of their submission and releasing them to greater influence as maturity devastates rebellion. Overcomers get the promises. Esaus are booted out the back door to protect Father’s estate from fraud and tomfoolery.”
Mercy will stir up the elder brother who sees the estate in production more than the inheritors in preparation. Elder brothers limit the opportunity for change, but fathering leaders discern the difference between the submitted from the entitled.
Three: Support and Submit to the Painful Process
We seldom discuss the submission of fathering leaders. Still, we must countenance this fundamental condition: fathering leaders must submit and endure the painful process that preparation applies to inheritors when every nerve network in their soul cries for relief.
The proverbial “this hurts me more than you” thing actually applies. Stop short-circuiting pathos in your inheritors. There is no easier way! There is no improvement on eternal principles! There is not “I know more than God” insight!
Look at this: “God the Father is in charge of this painful process, not you.”
To avoid the pain of the process, fathering leaders may bend to the temptation to relieve themselves of hearing the cries, whimpers, complaints, and begging of inheritors. Fathers may look at the dramatic displays of victimization spirits: “I am a victim of God’s overreach and overreaction.” As if Father God could be capable of such things.
You will hurt because you strengthen the inheritor to endure when you want to convince yourself that easing up on the grinding pressure of the crucible will help them deal with the inevitable. No! Keep the olives on the Gethsamane press. Keep the crushing consistent. Keep the demand upon the soul of the immature on “full power.” No, relief is not helpful because Father accepts the responsibility to determine the pressure of the pathos.
They will cry, “Papa, I’m dying here.”
You must reply, “I know you are dying. Please die more quickly and quietly.”
They will cry, “This is destroying my dreams.”
You must answer, “Your delusions are no more than hot air balloons drifting you offshore to a Pleasure Island devastation. You are as prodigal as a goose. The needle I’m pushing through the hot air balloon will put you on the ground where God plants you, no longer blown by windy whimsicals.”
It hurts to watch them hurt. It reminds you of dark days of the soul when you were uncertain but submitted.
It reminds you of the relief you experienced when mystery met revelation. Still, the moments you trusted without that light shining in the darkness were as necessary as the Light that you received after you endured.
Stop protecting your inheritors from pain! Take a hammer to the “momentary relief” button you push when they moan in terror. No! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The press of Gethsemane is the crucible of obedience that leads to the most significant moments of surrender: “Father, into Your hands I release my spirit.”
No cross for your inheritors means no resurrection of new life and living for your leaders.
Those who quit the process or jump some of the gaps will have blind spots in their future fathering, drop zones in their revelation coverage. They will miss the markers that lead to ultimate destiny if you provide them the lying limiters of dead-end detours.
Father has a way that leads to life in the ultimate sense of created, original intention, and the way to that narrow gate is increasingly more limited in its specifications.
Know this: your interventions between inheritors and the Father always limit the progress of your sons and daughters. You help nothing but your own weakness when you question Father’s processing of people.
If Father slaps that hand reaching out to touch the forbidden, stand by to redirect the inheritor to Divine provision that builds the soul. If Father puts the hurt on the backside of an inheritor, step into the swat to maintain the sting that invests your strength of will into the maturing son.
If Father says, “No!” in a whisper as thunderous as lightning strikes across the street from your house, sustain the stun that shakes the inheritor to the core of his being.
Remember, you represent and partner with the Father. Do not represent yourself and partner with yourself in fathering lest you turn into a Pharaoh.
