If you enjoy giving and getting hugs, the last several months have been pretty tough on you. If you are not a touchy-feely guy, you may see this as a time of reckoning for all those huggers out there. But do not discount the power of touch. A UCLA study years ago showed that kids and adults need eight to ten touches a day for good emotional health. As dads, we need to hug our daughters and sons early and often each day.
Nurturance is the topic for this first week of the DadsHeroChallenge – While nurturing seems to come more naturally to moms, dads have a role to play as well. Nurturing incorporates touch, words of encouragement, discipline, listening well, providing and a host of other actions dads need to initiate. Click HERE to download your study booklet and access the first week’s teaching on Nurturance.
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” – Ephesians 6:4. Focusing on the second half of this verse eliminates the need for the admonishment the first half provides. The way the Lord trained and instructed His disciples is a study in itself. The basics included: consistent interaction, calm leadership, providing for their needs, patient teaching and re-teaching of parables, encouraging words, admonishment in love, challenging tasks, allowing failure and always pointing to the Father. The call is for dads to build on the basics Jesus exemplified in the training and instructing of His disciples.
Studies for dads are important because a generation depends on men navigating well through the fathering journey. If Faithful Fathering had a dime for every time an older dad said, “Man, I wish I would have had this information twenty years ago!”, we would not need donations to help run the ministry. I encourage you to find another dad or two that will accept the DadsHeroChallenge with you. You will be blessed in the process.
Prayer guide: Thank You Lord for Your word and for being my Father. I am not a touchy-feely guy and struggle with ways to hug my little girl that is maturing into a beautiful young lady. I have taken the easy way out and stopped showing affection. Forgive me. Help me grow in my understanding of nurturance in fathering my daughter and son as I accept the DadsHeroChallenge. Please open the door for a couple of other dads that will join me in this study and hold me accountable to become a hero in my children’s eyes. That is the dad You call me to be, and that is the dad my kids need to see. Amen.
A faithful father accepts the DadsHeroChallenge to understand nurturance.
