As men, it is easy to feel overwhelmed with our responsibilities as husband, father, provider, protector, and leader within our families. God commands us to provide for our families not just physically and materially, but also emotionally and spiritually. The responsibilities He gives us are real, and they can be heavy, but with them also come amazing and beautiful rewards.
So often the rewards of being a husband or father get overshadowed by the realities and the responsibilities. It saddens me to hear people refer to their wives or children as “burdens”. They are missing out on the incredible joy and blessings that come with the role of husband or father.
As men, we need to commit to changing how we view these roles that God has placed us in. He is a good, good Father who gives us good gifts. Make a commitment to look for the good in each day and be thankful for the blessings God is giving you through these people He has placed in your life.
Let’s take a look at a few of our responsibilities, realities, and the rewards that come along with the roles of being a husband or father.
Your Role as a Husband
Responsibility:
Provide financially for your wife and family, be a spiritual leader in your home and lead them in the ways of the Lord, love your wife as Christ loves the church, be committed to having a relationship with her which withstands the trials of life and the tests of time.
Reality:
It takes perseverance and a determined effort to not just stay married, but to have a great relationship with your spouse long-term. Being committed to the relationship brings a sense of safety, security, and trust to a marriage. A wife’s understanding that her husband is committed to their relationship gives her the peace that he won’t leave when things get difficult.
Rewards:
• Having a best friend and partner for life
• Always having someone with whom you can be at ease and be your true self
• Having someone to laugh with and share moments of true intimacy with
• Seeing the love for you in her eyes
• Living life with a woman who has your back through thick and thin
• Going on frequent dates and exploring life together
• Growing old together
Your Role as a Father of a Son
Responsibility:
Raise a man who will love God, be loving and faithful to his wife and family, work diligently with integrity, and be a good steward of the resources God entrusts to him.
Reality:
Raising a son is a delicate balancing act of encouraging adventurousness and instilling responsibility. You must teach him to know the voice of God and to obey God’s will for his life. It is your job to establish within him a faithfulness to his family. The best way to do this is by demonstrating these characteristics yourself by drawing your son close to you, leading him in his growth toward manhood, and sharing the journey with him.
Rewards:
• A buddy to share experiences with
• The joy of watching your son grow, change, and mature
• Raising him to become a forever friend who you respect and love
• Getting to teach your son about life through your eyes
• Letting your son show you the world through his eyes
• Trying new hobbies or experiences together as you each embrace your similarities and your differences
• Seeing him grow in his relationship with God and become a spiritual leader
Your Role as a Father of a Daughter
Responsibility:
Raise a woman who will love God, is confident in her true value as God’s child, seeks to follow His will in all things, and loves and cares for her husband and family.
Reality:
Today, girls are flooded with society’s lies about who they are and where their value comes from. As fathers, it is our responsibility to overcome those lies and to show them that they are inherently valuable because they are created by God. When girls do not receive appropriate fatherly love as they are growing, then they often seek a replacement for that love when they are adolescents and adults. The replacement may revolve around sexually focused and/or abusive relationships. Many young women do not have a proper view of their identity as God’s child and fall prey to the lie of sexual mis-identity.
Rewards:
• Being called “Daddy” whether she’s little or grown – There’s nothing like it
• Learning about and enjoying the world from a different perspective
• Encouraging her to embrace her God-given femininity and being on the receiving end of her nurturing instincts (& fresh baked bread!)
• Watching her develop independence and try new things while getting to be her biggest fan
• Sharing deep thought-filled conversations and life experiences with someone you love and admire
• Hearing your grown daughter say she wants to marry a man who loves his wife and family like you do (by the grace of God!)
• Getting to teach your daughter to trust that God is her loving heavenly Father and watching her grow into a beautiful woman whose life is rooted in God.
As men, we have many responsibilities within our families, but the blessings and rewards are beyond counting and are amazing. The rewards are relational, establishing intentional relationships with our wives, our sons, and our daughters, because no one and nothing else can replace us as husbands and fathers. God has given us a purpose, and it is incredible. Because God is a relational God, our greatest rewards will be the relationships in which we have put God in the center and allowed Him to hold us together.
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25)
“The righteous man who walks in his integrity, how blessed are his children after him.” (Prov 20:7)
