Gateway Church's Podcast
A Father's Influence
Well, I know that Pastor Robert doesn't start a message without some little story of introduction, so I've got a couple for you. I just didn't want you to miss him too much. So this one I just thought was cute. Both of them are. So let me just tell you. This is the power of influence and the things that we say and how it influences others. A little boy was attending his first wedding and after the service, his cousin asked how many women can a man marry? Sixteen, the boy responded. His cousin was amazed that he had an answer so quickly, "How do you know that?" Easy, little boy said, "All you have to do is add it up, like the preacher said, four better, four worse, four richer, four poorer." On this Father's Day weekend, I'm going to speak to you about the influence of a father, but I thought it'd be appropriate to bring you the top ten things that you'll never hear a father say. Number ten, can you turn up that music? It really calms my nerves. Number nine, you can't finish your piece, go ahead, throw them away. Number eight, here you take the remote. Number seven, oh no kids, this one's too fast, the slower one's better. Number six, wait honey, you sit this one out, I really can't wait to change that diaper. Number five on the top ten list of things that you'll never hear a father say, as a matter of fact, let's both get in those rings. Number four, hey kids, sit down at the table and try some of my goulash, Vichy swash. If you can't say it, you wouldn't enjoy it, right? It's goulash. Number three, go ahead, take my car and here's 50 bucks for gas. Number two, waiter, more ice cream for the little one. The last number one thing you'd never hear a father say, where do babies come from? Turn to Exodus chapter number 20, Exodus chapter 20 and just join me and let's pray and ask God to speak to us tonight. Father I thank you for your word, Lord, I thank you for the work that it does in our heart and life. I thank you Holy Spirit that you're the teacher of the word and so Lord, I ask you tonight to come and be with us in part to us here through our ears, speak into our spirit, God, that every person in this room might hear something directly from you and that ministry might result, touch our hearts tonight, we ask, in Jesus name, amen. Let me just tell you what I'd like to see the Lord do tonight as I speak to you. This weekend, Father's Day, it's kind of an interesting, as I was preparing this message, I was thinking, you know, I wonder where Father's Day came from. I mean, what's the purpose, how did it start? And so I just want to look it up and I thought it was kind of interesting. It began in the 1900s. It was started by a lady, her name was Sonora Smart Dog and she wanted to honor her dad. Her dad had been in the Civil War and her mother had died in childbirth and her dad raised six children in the 1900s all on his own and she just wanted to honor him for being a single parent. And so in 1909, she proposed a day to honor her dad in June and the reason June is that was his birthday, that was the month of his birthday. And the first Father's Day then was celebrated June 19th in 1910 in Spokane, that's where she was from. And then in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge showed support for becoming a national holiday but it didn't become a national holiday until 1966 when Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Father's Day as a national holiday and declared that it would be celebrated on the third Sunday in June. So you know, it's just kind of interesting, this holiday, this celebration started with a girl grown, had children of her own, she came back and realized the work that her dad had done and she wanted to honor her dad. So she was the one who initiated, isn't it amazing, you just never know when something is in your heart to do what effect it might have. She wanted to honor her dad and in 1900 and now for over a hundred years, we've been aware of and been practicing and encouraging the importance of a father. And I think in the day in which we live, this message is even more important. A few years ago, this book, my book The Influence of a Father, came out last summer after actually in the fall. We took it to CBA in August and Jenny was the one who challenged me to write the book. And he said, "You know, you ought to write a book," and I said, "About what?" And he said, "About being a father." And I said, "Really?" He said, "Oh, Tom, I've learned more about being a father from you than I learned from my own dad." That was just shocking to me. I just assumed that everyone had a father like I had that grew up in a home like I had and had the benefit of the things that I had experienced growing up. But I've found, even through Jimmy's encouragement and just talking with others in 20 years of ministry, that it's just not true. And now we have almost two generations of children who have been impacted by divorce and by fathers, if there wasn't a divorce, who have been negligent in their fathering duties because their attention has been turned other places. And literally, we now have two generations that are growing up and they don't know how to be a dad. They don't know what the issue, how to be a father of great influence. And that's what I want to talk to you about tonight. And I say to you ladies, even though I'm talking to the men, I say to you ladies, that this is important for you. In fact, I've had several women say, "I read your book and I really, really appreciate it. I've given a copy of your book to my daughter because I want her to know what she needs to look for as far as the qualities in her husband." And so I'm believing that what's going to take place tonight is if there's a hole in your heart, because of something, a neglect of your dad, the absence of your father, something that you didn't get from him, or you feel unworthy. You may be a dad tonight, but you just don't know how to be an influential dad. My prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit is going to speak something that will give you encouragement and hope and bless you. Open up a new area, you know, it's not just enough to be a biological dad. We want to be an influential dad, and that's where we start in Exodus 20 and verse 4, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any lightness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them for I," now just wait, before we go on, let me just say this. I often wondered when I read this, why God talks about the whole issue of fathers in the context of idol worship. This passage is a part of the passages where Moses received the Ten Commandments, and in this passage, he's saying, "You shall have no other image but me. I am the Lord your God." And then he says, "Why?" In verse 5, "I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments." You see, I don't know if you see it this way, but the influence of this passage is God-intended fathers. God has ordained it so that fathers have an influence in their children's lives. And I'll tell you tonight, if you aren't aware of it, you're an influence if you aren't even trying to be an influence. You think just a minute, you think about what your dad, the things that your dad did in you, your image of God has been determined by the way that you dad, your dad responded to you, and if you're struggling with how much God might love you or how God would provide for you or do things for you, I will bet you it's tied to the way that your dad reacted to you. You see, there's important roles that God intended for the Father to fulfill, and those roles become generational in their influence. So let me just throw out a few that God intended for the roles that God intended the Father to fulfill. First, the Father establishes the worship climate of His home. The Father establishes the worship climate of the home. Now, I say to you men, that's one of the greatest motivators to be a worshiper of God, I know. If you have especially sons and you want your sons to love and worship God, if you don't set the pace, your son will assume that it's a woman's religion. Your kids will not value the whole issue of making and putting God first in their life. Second role is a Father creates the image of God in the mind of His children, an image that is not easily changed. Third, the Father is the doorkeeper of the home. He provides protection and security by the values He establishes in a pulse. And a Father speaks purpose and destiny into the life of His children, by the way He responds to them. You think about it tonight, the future, whether your kids struggle to be a success, whether they struggle to find identity and purpose and a productive place for serving God and His Kingdom and being productive as it relates to their family. It's greatly influenced by you as a Father tonight. If you're struggling in those things tonight, you look back and see if it isn't tied to something related to your own dad. Your own dad may have said you'll never amount to anything. You're always going to be a failure. He spoke issues of destiny over you. God intended this and that's why this whole thing begins with the subject of idol worship. What is the most important issue in your home tonight? It better be putting God first and dads, you establish that climate. And then if you put God first, I want you to know that the influence, your generational influence extends to a thousand generations. Now let me just tell you the benefit of this. My dad and now my wife's parents have been a tremendous blessing in our family. They pass down values. What I'm talking to you about tonight, the examples I'm going to give you tonight, come right out of my own heart and life. And not only did I receive a benefit, but now I turn and as I fathered, I added two the things that I was given and now I have four kids who have received the benefit that I received growing up and now I have one grandchild and soon to have a second and I'm seeing generational influence in what took place. And I look back to my parents, it's way more than inheritance. It's way more than any money that transferred this way or any social standing. It's a spiritual benefit and blessing that had been passed down to me and I turned around passed it down to my kids and now they're turning around to pass it down to their kids. As a father, that nothing makes me more excited than to see the good decisions, to see the things that I've invested in my kids, bearing fruit, godly fruit in their life. You see it's a generational influence. Well, when we do this, when we talk about generational influence, what is the key factor here? I want to start with the foundation and I believe the foundation is a principle that I call the principle of transference. It's found in this passage if either if you are unrighteous tonight, if you don't serve God or love God or if your focus is other places, the iniquities of your life, the tendencies to do things are going to pass down to three or four generations. Well, just in a practical sense, we know that's true. We know alcoholism runs in families, we know diabetes runs in families, we know overweight, we know compulsive behavior. These things travel generationally, they transfer generationally, and so if there are issues in your life that you are not addressing and you're thinking, it's no big deal. It's just me, really. If you have an issue with drugs, alcohol, pornography, you name any vice. It's not just you that's being affected. Let me put it in the positive side, the motive, the motivation to fix issues, to address issues in our life is a motivation that goes way beyond me. It's a motivation that says I want my kids and I want my grandkids to not deal with the issues I've had to deal with and so God helped me with this. It's generational transfer. It's the principle of transference and so let me say that the foundation of this is that you can only transfer what you have yourself so we contend. We contend for a relationship with God. We contend to determine how I can have a quiet time amidst the busy schedule, how I can keep priority straight, make priority time for my kids and yet fulfill my work responsibilities. We contend for those things so that we can establish authority and when my kids say, "Dad, I don't have time to have a quiet time. I can't go to church. I'm too busy. All of this homework, I have an authority that says, "Yes, you can. No you won't give priority to this. You're going to give priority to that because I've established in my own life the authority that gives me the ability to transfer. If you don't have a relationship with God, you can't transfer a relationship with God to your kids. If you don't own or have the qualities or of character that are described in the Bible and you want to develop those things in your kids, I'll just tell you. It's not going to happen if it isn't in your own life. You lose authority to be able to transfer those values." So I'm not pointing a finger to try and make you feel guilty. I am trying to motivate you though tonight to say, "No issue is too small to overlook. We need to address the issues of our own life and the motive for that is I want to touch my kids and my grandkids." And if you're young enough tonight that you don't have them, you haven't started your family yet, I'm telling you, the decisions you're making today are generational decisions. If your kids are up and raised, do you know it's not too late for you? You can still make changes in your life that God will use and direct and you can alter a generational pattern by the decisions you make regardless of how old you are or what level or of development your kids are at. This is one of the most important issues of life in my opinion. It's the issue of what I am, who I am, and what I address, I'm going to transfer to my kids. Let me say it this way. The influence of a father cannot be overestimated. Let me just give you a couple of comments. There's an English proverb that says this, "One father is worth more than a hundred school masters." Sigmund Freud said, "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need of a father's protection." Then God says, "I'm going to visit the iniquities of the fathers to three and four generations, but the good news is I'm going to show loving kindness and mercy and blessing to a thousand generations." Now let me just say to you tonight, I'm not talking about perfection. I am not a perfect father. My dad wasn't a perfect father. We have, every one of us has flaws and has warts, but I'm telling you, you can be an influential father that passes things from generation to generation. It's worth it. God promises if we will address the issues, if we'll make sure that there's nothing before Him and that our focus is on Him, that's the whole issue of idol worship, He'll bless to a thousand generations. There's three things that fathers transfer to their children, and that's what I want to spend the rest of my time concentrating on. The first is a concept of God and His work in life. Psalm 139 describes the fact that in our mother's womb, God determined who we are, what our personality was, how we would look, the length of days, all of that was determined by God in our life, has been determined by God in our life. So when I think of my dad, here's what my dad did for me. My dad reflected, transferred an understanding of God, by the way that he treated me. He was consistent with gracious love to me. He held a standard, but he applied that standard with loving graciousness. He was devoted to my total good. I remember when I called my dad, I was an adult, but all growing up, this is one thing my dad would say to me, he'd say, "Tom, you do not have to do what I do. I want you to do what God has put in your heart to do, and I'll help you in every way possible." Well, I graduated from college, and I went to work for my dad, and in his business, he had warehouse locations, it was a wholesale paper distribution company, we had warehouse locations from Montana to Lubbock. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and I took business transfers to Oklahoma City and then to Amarillo, and while we were in Amarillo, we were a part of the group that started Trinity, and then four years after it started, I left and came on staff at the church. I remember calling my dad one day after years of my dad saying, "You don't have to do what I do." I was in his business. He had three other partners. I was the only son in the business. Called my dad one day, and I said, "Dad, I want you to know I'm calling your partner," who was my direct overseer after our conversation to resign. He said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to become the business manager of our church." He said, "Really? How much does it pay?" He wasn't interested. He wasn't concerned about the impact on him. He was concerned about me and my kids and my family. How much does it pay? Are you going to be able to support your family on this time? I said, "Oh, yeah, Dad, they're just really generous. Really? Is this something you want to do?" Yes. Then he said to me, "The same thing that he said my whole life, voice told you, "You don't have to do what I'm doing. If you think this is what you need to do, I'm behind you 100 percent. If you could have seen me that day, I was in my family room. I'd come home from the office so that I could talk to my dad privately and let him know. I was on the phone and I was just sobbing, crying, sobbing. I was trying to maintain my composure that day. Jan came up to me after I hung up and she said, "Are you sure she was crying because I was crying?" She said, "Are you sure we need to do this? Are you sure we need to do this?" And I said, "Yes, it's right on you. Yes, it's right. It's hard, but it's right." See, my dad transferred and understanding the God. God's going to be behind me. God is with me. God is seeking my good. He's forming, not against me. When he leads me into something, when my dad disciplined me. He was disappointed in me. He never tore me down. He was always positive. I remember my senior, not my sophomore year in high school, I got kicked out of school for fighting. It's the only fight I ever had in my whole high school experience. Another friend and I went to a basketball game. It was the beginning of the basketball season and we were playing on the sophomore basketball team and we went to a varsity game and it was at another school and we got out of the car and some guys across the parking lot yelled some obscenities at us. So my friend says, "You going to put up with that?" I said, "No way. I'm not putting up with that. You going to put up that?" No. And so we kind of charged each other up and we went over and in a minute we were throwing fists at anybody that moved. When nobody got hurt, there was about two seconds the police were there and they took us in and the principal who was, happened to be a man that went to church where I went to church, he said, "Tom, I'm so disappointed in you. There was so much opportunity for you, but not if you're going to act like this." He said, "You're kicked out of school. It's a Friday night." So I mean, kicking out for the weekend, what's the deal with that? And he said, "You're kicked out of school until I meet with your dad." My dad was at a meeting that night, so I came home, told my mom what had happened, and I was just mortified with my dad, what my dad would do, mortifying. She said, "Well, you need to stay up and tell your dad he'll be home about midnight. You need to stay up and tell your dad what's happening." And I said, "Mom, I'm really tired. I need to go to bed." You think you could stay up and tell him? He said, "No. No, you need to." Oh, it was the longest way of my whole life for my dad to get home. He got home and he kind of looked at me like, "What are you doing?" I normally didn't wait up for him. Either I was out and he was a sleeper. I mean, we didn't normally have an interchange later than I said, "Well, Dad, I got something to tell you." And he said, "What?" I said, "I got kicked out of school tonight." And he said, "You did?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Tell me about it." So I told him the details. Not one time did he raise his voice at me. Not one time, he was very clear, "We're not going to have a pattern of this." And you represent me when you go places. But there was no rejection, there was no angerness, anger expressed toward me. He said, "Okay, well, we'll go talk to the principal Monday and the school bed." Now, see, when my dad reacts that way to me, and then I screw up something in my life and I go to God and I say, "God, I got something to tell you." I really miss things out here. I have no fear that God's going to say, "You idiot, you stupid, no good for nothing. What are you thinking?" I tell you what, you're on my very last mirror. And if you don't watch it, you're going to be out of here. My dad transferred to me an understanding of God and his work. Every work, my every work as a father has been to prepare my children for understanding God's love and how it works. So in my discipline, I did it for training. We discipline, we never discipline our kids because they made us mad, they frustrated. We discipline them to train them something and so discipline was the result of disobedience. Why? Because that's the way God disciplines. If we obey God and follow Him, we're fine. When we disobey God, he disciplines us. Why? Because he loves us. So that's exactly what we did with our kids. And we tried to be as generous as we could with our kids. We didn't worry about spoiling them. It wasn't based on what they did or what they, oh, we taught them responsibility. We taught them about cleaning their room, picking up their clothes and taking out the trash and all that stuff. But it wasn't tied with, "You do this and I'm going to give you this. I'm going to give you stuff you don't deserve." When they come and ask me for money, it's like, "Wait a minute. You need another $10 I just gave you, $20 last week. You are sucking me dry." Do you think God ever does that? We evaluated the needs of our kids and we did the very best we could to abundantly supply their needs. So that they'd understand that God is just that way. God gives us more than we ever deserve, more than we ever need. He never looks at us and says, "Now, how many quiet times have you missed? How many times have you been in church? It's not about us. It's not about performance. It's about his grace. A father transfers a concept of God and his work into his children's life. Second, the vision of father transfers a vision and a purpose for living. Our words create purpose and possibility. These are some things that I heard my dad say as I was doing that. I'm proud of you. I am proud of you. Almost as often as I heard my dad say, "I love you." He would say to me, "I'm proud of you." In fact, my dad passed away in 1989 and not long after he passed away, I was hurting and missed my dad. It was almost a year after he passed away. One day I was just wishing I could talk to my dad. I couldn't figure out why that I was struggling with this and I was thinking about it. Why is today so hard? It's almost been a year. It was a particularly bad day that day. There's some things that hadn't gone quite right and I was a little insecure about myself. In those days, those would be days that I called my dad just to hear his voice. "Hey, Dad, how are you today?" Fine. I wouldn't have to tell him that there was something wrong. He would end the conversation that's saying, "I love you, son. I'm proud of you." What do you think I'd do with my kids? "I love you, son. I love you, son. I'm proud of you. You're going to be great." That's another thing that my dad used to say. He'd say, "You could do anything you want, Tom. There is nothing outside the realm of possibility." Now, I never asked him this, but I did think it. I thought, "You mean brain surgery? You know, a NASA astronaut?" He told me nothing is outside of the realm of possibility for me, and whatever I did, I would be successful at it. Now, I just thought every dad said that to their kids, but what I know today is not every dad does that. Every dad or most dad, many dads, in order to try and motivate their kids, tell them that they're a failure, that they're never going to amount to anything, that they're just not making it. We had days when the grades weren't what they needed to be, and we needed to motivate a little bit. I'm not saying you don't motivate. I'm not saying you don't correct. I'm just saying, "I heard, and I passed on. I'm proud of you. I believe in you. You're going to be awesome. You'll be a success at whatever you do. God's working for your goodness situation," and let me tell you a story about what happened and how this worked out in our kids. I can tell you stories for everyone. I have four kids, two boys and two girls. We stagger them, boy girl, boy girl. If any of you know Lisa, Corley, she's my daughter, and she and Braxton live here and attend Gateway. I love this church and I love this church for loving them. Anyway, our oldest is a boy, and when he was about eight years old, he tried out, maybe it was nine, he tried out for a little dribbler's basketball. This little dribbler's basketball, we had some, the fathers were the coaches, and it was a draft set up. I don't know if they had something, I'm sure they had something like that here. My son wanted to play little dribblers more than anything else in the world. He wanted to be drafted. He had several friends that were on this team. Actually, he might have been 10, I don't know, it was in that age range. But he had to try out, so he went and tried out, and several fathers that we knew, and they would say to us, "Oh man, we can't wait, we're totting to be on our team, we're going to draft him," I never tried to necessarily count the chickens, so to speak, before they hatched, but the day of the tryouts came, and he didn't get picked, he was devastated. As it turned out, they had more kids try out, show up for the tryout, then they could actually put on teams, and so after the tryouts were done, the guy that was running the thing said, "Well, we have more kids than we can actually place on teams, and so we're going to start a second league, and anybody that's not drafted, we're going to put in the second league." Well, before we even knew whether Todd was picked or not, he turned to me, and he said, "If I'm not picked for the first league, I'm not playing in the loser league." I said, "Why do you say it's a loser league?" He said, "Dad, anybody who didn't get picked, they're the ones that are going to play in that, they're the losers." And I said, "No, that's not true, son." I said, "Let's see what God does, but let me tell you, we've prayed about this. I believe that God's working on your behalf in this situation, and if you don't get picked in that first league, because it was by age range, two ages, so it might have been nine and ten year olds, you're the youngest in the age range. If you're picked, maybe you would sift the bench most of the time this year, and maybe if you don't get picked, it's God's purpose for you to get some place where you can play a lot for the benefit of your skills." No, I said, "I'm not playing, Dad, I won't play in the loser league." Jan and I prayed and he didn't get picked, so privately we're just heart sick that he didn't get picked, so we go to him and say, "God knows about this more than we do. We don't know why. We don't know the purpose, but I know this. You're a good basketball player and you're going to be really good. It takes work, and so I believe there's a purpose in this." Well, I didn't make him, but I strongly urged him, convinced him, told him he would be good that he would succeed. This is something that God has a purpose in. I didn't know we did or didn't. I mean, I assume he did because I believe God works all things, but I couldn't see it with my eyes. He was speaking faith into his life, purpose into his life, so he said, "Okay, I'll play." Well, he started every game. He played all the time. He was one of the top scorers in the league. He proved by his play that he should have been in the other league, but he may not have had that opportunity there. He went on to play high school basketball, played varsity basketball in his junior and senior year. He was selected to a regional all-metro team and all-metro games scored 16 points. The final game of his senior year, he scored 28 points. Do you think it would have happened? If I wouldn't have challenged the loser attitude, you see, a father speaks purpose and destiny into his kid's lives. With our hands, we impart blessing, first physical, but then spiritual. We impart correction and we impart blessing, all in the same process. Third, father imparts a concept of God in his work, a vision and purpose for living, and the third is values, the qualities that form the foundation for behavior and relationships. My dad taught me how to succeed in business. He taught me diligence and faithfulness. He taught me submission to authority. These are all values that transferred and today I'm the beneficiary of what he deposited into my life. I'll just tell you, he did not do that by simply hanging around. He did it by proactively being involved in my life and watching over circumstances. I learned by what he did to do this same thing in my kids. I mowed lawns one summer, went to the beginning of the summer and I knocked on doors and gathered commitments from people and one lady, so a widow lady agreed to have me more yard and she said, "Now I need you to come on this day because of me and family coming from out of town. Will you edge and mow and catch the clippings and take it all away? Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, I'll do all that." I was so excited, "Well, the day that came for me to mow, and I didn't want to mow. The guys were playing ball down at the school and I blew it off. I didn't go mow." We were sitting around the dinner table that night, he'd get a phone call and it was the lady whose yard I didn't mow and my dad answered the phone, "Oh, man, I can hang up." "Oh, yes, Mrs. Soam, so, yes, oh, is that right? Oh, oh, well, yes, yes, we are eating, but that's no problem, we'll be right over." I thought, "Oh, no." He loaded me up, took me to this lady's house and then talked to her the whole time that I mowed. She didn't say one thing. He'd say, "Yeah, you missed that right over there. Make sure you edge that right over there, and hurry up. You're taking too long." I mean, he shoved this in a good way down my throat to let me know. You will be a diligent, faithful person. If you give your word, you're going to live true to your word. I don't have time, but I can tell you then how that then transferred to my kids as I watched over their life. There's things of attitude with friends, things of responsibility and work, things related to church, and the attitudes they have to church. My son got married on the 30th of December, this was about five years ago, and on the Christmas that he got married, before he got married, he presented me a gift, and it was a poem that he had written and had framed, and it was my Christmas gift, and I'm going to read you the poem, and then we're going to be done. He titled this poem, "Lessons of a Father." To learn how to fly with a gentle nudge, to learn to forgive and not hold a grudge, to know how to talk with a bridal tongue, to know how to walk and leave the young, to follow the advice and counsel of peers to follow God's word will enhance your years, to give with a heart that feels better when done, to give with the love of God for his son, to know it's all right for a man to cry, to know it will hurt when we say goodbye, to love and live an enjoyable life, to live my family and honor my wife, to love my family and honor my wife, to see the good in a ridiculous mess, to see that my children have a place to rest, to never give reason to question your word, to never let anger from your mouth be heard, to learn to encourage with a simple smile, to learn that the best go the extra mile. A pattern, I pattern my life after the lessons I've learned, the teaching goes on, but now it's my turn. I go with the strength from the training I've had, these are the things I learned from my dad. You can be a multi-generational influence. Question is, do you have things to transfer? Has God done the work in your life? Have you addressed the issues of your heart? All of us are works in progress. You're going to ask the fathers if you would to stand up. If you're a father in here, I'm going to pray for you. Pray over you. If you're standing next to a dad, father, husband, you don't have to move over, just put your hand on him, and let's agree together that God would bless these men. If there is any area that you need to make a change, that God would do a work so that your influence will extend multi-generational. Father, I pray for every man standing tonight, I pray more, regardless of their age. I pray, God, that their influence would take a step up in the days ahead of you. I pray, Lord, where there's been failure by their dads in the past, where they have not had the tools to be what you would have called them to be. I pray that you would make it up, that you would fill in the void, or they would label them, to be influential dads, influential fathers, imparting more and closer to you, speaking vision and values, and transforming character and qualities to the truth. God, your work could be fulfilled. They need a healing touch tonight, God. They need a healing approach, healing of voids, I pray that you would touch them, and heal them tonight, set them on a firm foundation, that would enable your work to be healed. Nothing, no wrong influence, no equity, from past generations would flow through them, in the order that God, your blessings, would begin to flow to a thousand generations. To these men, to their children, to their families, God, that you would speak to them now, and make them to be the way fathers of infants, God would give you praise and glory in Jesus' name.