This is my appeal to Men who didn’t have the consistency of fatherhood in their lives, just like me:

Consistency is something I value highly when it comes to the men who I consider mentors, big brothers, and/or positive influences in my life. My father was extremely inconsistent in his parenting, so when men in my life are inconsistent it can affect me very negatively. When the men in my life aren’t men of their words or when they break promises, it can sometimes cause me to categorize them dealing wrath instead of mercy & grace. It can cause me to put the guard back up that I once let down to trust them. It can make it very tough for me to relate to them past their last shortcoming.

Also there are things in my life that I struggle to conquer as a result of never having those things demonstrated or taught to me as a young man. Some of my biggest struggles in life are in some way attached to the lack of male leadership in the home environment I grew up in. Many fundamental things about manhood I learned from a woman (my mother). And the other things that she couldn’t teach, I learned on my own either from good sources or skewed sources. One of my greatest fears is failing to be able to love and serve my family as a husband & as a father because I never had that example growing up.

By now you may be asking, “Why does hearing about my issues matter?” Well the reason I share this information transparently is for the sake of encouraging and challenging men who are just like me.

I am open and aware of these struggles in my life and I am working through it daily to change my perception and my response to them. But the truth is there are so many of us (men) who deal with “father issues” but never address them. Men who never talk about the lasting effects of not having their father in their lives. Men who never admit how broken their perception of manhood & authority is because they never saw their father be a father, a husband, a provider, a protector, a man. I wrote this to encourage men to begin that dialogue today.

Men it is time we lay aside the weights that cripple our manhood in these particular areas. It is time to confront those fears of failure that come from never having an example of what you are currently trying to be and master. It is time to admit that we need help, that we need wisdom and grace, that we need examples. It is time to heal and grow through these issues instead of suppressing them as if they don’t exist. It is time to be open, honest, and transparent.

We have to deal with these issues; we have to be real about how they affect us as men. We have to be an open book with the men in our lives that are dedicated to mentoring & being a positive influence in our lives, letting them know the struggle that threatens how we relate to them. And we have to establish a view/belief of God as the loving, caring, consistent, perfect FATHER He is and live out the reality of what that means for the fatherless.

If we do not deal with these issues, they will continue to eat away at us. They will continue to mock and torment us mentally and emotionally. They will give us the wrong motivation for pursuing manhood. They will destroy us. It is time to throw away every false perception of manhood we have adapted and become real men.

“Sing to God…a Father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:4-5)