WE are presently making preparations to honour Fathers all over the world today (Sunday June 21), which is a very special day for fathers. Let me give a brief history pertaining to father’s day which I believe would be of great interest to readers.

Sonora Dodd, of Washington first had the idea of ‘Father’s Day’. She thought of the idea of Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924 supported the idea of a National Father’s Day.

Then in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father’s Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.

Father’s Day has been a very old tradition since the beginning of time. About 4000 years ago a young boy named Elmusu wished his Babylonian father good health and long life by carving a father’s day message on a card made out of clay. No one knows what happened to Elmusu or his father, but the tradition of having a special day honouring fathers has continued through the years in countries across the world.

The fifth commandment in the Bible is: ‘Honour thy Father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.’ (Exodus 20:12)

The word father in the Hebrew is ‘Abba’ meaning father along with the following definitions in Hebrew for Father: ”source, sustainer, nourisher, supporter, foundation of that which comes out”.

From this Hebrew definition we can surely say that the Father is the source and foundation of the family. The family is something very sacred before the eyes of God and must not be taken for granted as many do today in ‘live home & common law relationships’.

We cannot separate the father from the mother or separate the husband from the wife. Marriage is a very sacred institution ordained by God since the beginning of time. God created marriage to be an expression of Himself. When God created marriage he created it absolutely perfect. Man failed God because of sin. Man is really and truly the spiritual foundation of the family.

The first man created by God Adam was fathered and mentored by God himself. When Adam disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, God came down in the Garden and called for Adam not the woman Eve.

That was because God gave instructions to Adam and not his wife Eve. Because of the sin of disobedience since the beginning of time man died spiritually, physically, and eternally.

Adam died spiritually because he was expelled from the presence of God, he died physically because of disobedience to God, and he died eternally by being separated from God eternally.

Today we have seen a great moral breakdown in the home and family. We have seen domestic violence caused by so many drunken and immoral fathers. We have seen family separation where husbands and wives are going their separate ways.

Divorce and more divorce every day. Child abuse by parents, poverty and separation of children from parents. Why all these social ills?

It’s because men have turned their backs on God. They have failed to take up their responsibility as a father who is the source and foundation of their family income.

A woman is not looking for a sex champion to be a husband. She is looking for a father in her husband, the source and sustainer of her financial and emotional needs. A true father doesn’t only just produce; he sustains, protects, nourish, love and supports.

No marriage becomes great if either the husband or the wife is nothing but a taker. Great marriages are built by great givers. Both partners have to learn how to truly love one another according to holy scriptures. When you get married you don’t automatically live happily ever after.
In fact if you and your spouse refuse to change wrong attitudes after you get married, you won’t live happily for two hours. Marriage is supposed to be a covenant relationship in which two people learn how to complement each other.
This kind of marriage is achieved when both marriage partners maintain a sense of love and compassion for one another.
Husbands need to show their wives that they are important, they must show them that they care and concern for them as well as their children. Wives need to be loved not beaten and abused. Our wives need to be loved. They need to be cared for. They need to be given security and closeness without sex. The driving force in a marriage is not sex, that’s why most marriages failed.
Love and affection and sex will work together. Wives need conversation from their husbands. When a married couple is continually conversing with each other, they are forming a closer bond between them. That should always be their goal, because God did not call them to live two separate lives in one house.

The Father’s role as well as the wife is:’ “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 21:6). The word ‘train’ in this verse of scripture means to instruct, educate, discipline, etc. Every father should remember that one day his children will follow his example. Parents are teachers of their children. When I see a child ‘cussing’, I realise he learn to cuss from his parents. I read a quotation by Anne Geddes: “Any man can be a father but it takes a special person to be called dad”.

That is quite an interesting quotation because there are so many running fathers in the world today. It takes a special person to be called dad. I feel very special when I go shopping with my wife and children. My children see me as their financial source.

My daughter can pick up a lot of stuff in a supermarket when we are shopping and just have to say ‘daddy will pay for it’. It’s because she has her trust and confidence in me as her father, nourisher and sustainer.

William Shakespeare wrote: “’It is a wise father that knows his own child”. A father will only know his child when he takes on the responsibility to care for that child. Father’s day will be a very sad day for many fathers because they really don’t know their children. They will not get love and affection from their children because they have deserted them from a very tender age.
Some father’s will be blessed by their heavenly Father because they have taken up their responsibility to care for their family. The true essence of fatherhood is for fathers to take up the leading role in their homes because they are the foundation of their families.

Bad fathers will produce bad children and bad children will create a bad society and bad societies will create a deplorable country all because of poor fathers who are the foundation of their families.

I am very happy when I stand on my church stage looking at fathers coming into the house of God with their wives and children.

If every father would attend church regularly and involve with their priests and religious leaders in church activities we would have a more morally upright society and stronger family values. Modern psychologists have proven that children that came from good families are the brightest in schools; they also discovered that children that came from broken homes perform badly at schools.

It’s about time our fathers of this country start leading their families and become better role models for their children. I realise that I am getting old because I begin to look just like my father. May God bless all our fathers in Guyana. My prayers are with you.

REV. GIDEON CECIL