Turning Fathers’ Hearts to a Stolen Generation

turning fathers' hearts TURNING FATHERS’ HEARTS. Cancel culture has not only taken over college campuses. It is dominating many secondary and primary schools, with its LGBT, CRT and even CCP agendas. It has taken advantage of a stolen election to strengthen its hold on culture and education. Now we find it stealing children’s hearts and minds away from their parents, too.

Finally, parents are rising up in protest. But school boards are silencing their voices and trying to cancel them. Is it too late to take our schools back from defiant leftists?

Similarly, the people of Malachi’s time faced an increase of defiant wickedness.

“Your words have been arrogant against Me,” says the Lord. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts? ‘So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape'” (Mal 3:13-16).

They test God and escape. The arrogant are getting away with defying God. But God calls us arrogant if we give in to them and say, we are serving God in vain. If we give in and stop promoting His purposes on social media for fear of being cancelled.

Instead, He wants to fear Him, not them. And to keep speaking boldly to one another.

What it takes to be chosen by God

“Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard…’They will be mine,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘in the day when I make up my treasured possession… I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not’” (Mal. 3:16-18).

Here we see it doesn’t take much here to be chosen by God. We must simply fear Him and speak boldly to one another. Then He will use us for a great turnaround against the cancel culture. And for the restoration of this stolen generation to their fathers.

Then He will spare us from the dreadful day of the Lord which will come on the arrogant and wicked.

“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6).

It may surprise you to see who God will use to turn the hearts of fathers and children to each other.

He uses Elijah, who wasn’t even a father physically. And he didn’t act like a very good father spiritually.

Elijah the distant absentee father

Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha, signifying that Elisha would carry on his prophetic work. But he acted like he would not involve himself with Elisha any further. “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” Elijah said.

Before Elijah went up to heaven, he kept telling Elisha to stay behind. Also, Elijah avoided the sons of the prophets at Bethel, at Jericho and at the Jordan. They were only trying to say goodbye to him.

If Elijah was their spiritual father, he was a distant absentee father. He avoided communicating with them. Why would God choose him to restore the hearts of the fathers and children to each other?

Because God wants to use Elijah, or whoever comes in the spirit of Elijah, to show that even the most distant deadbeat dad can have his heart turned to love and care for his kids.

If we just look at the condition of our kids today, and that should be enough to turn our hearts. In Belize, fatherless boys are more likely to fail in school. They will tend to turn to drugs and gangs and crime, and spend time in jail. This has become almost normal for boys.

Fatherless girls are more likely to become unwed mothers. They will tend to raise their kids in poverty and fatherless homes. Then the cycle continues: failing in school and failing to get steady jobs. And turning to drugs and gangs and crime, and going to jail.

But ask Belizeans kids about this. Many say that joblessness, poverty, gangs and crime don’t rank as the worst of their problems. But depression and suicidal thoughts do. That’s what the Department of Youth Services found out.

Reducing the social distance between fathers & children

If only someone would really communicate with them, it would make a difference. The government is now offering them free counseling.

But we can’t expect the hearts of government to turn to the children. God wants to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.

More than half of Belizeans are under 15. The harvest is great. But the laborers are few. We need a great movement of fathers who turn from being distant to available. Who turn from being silent to communicative.

It begins by fearing God and by talking with one another. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough for God to work with. God says those who fear Him and simply communicate—”they are Mine.” They are His family and so He will make them into real families again. He will bless them and not curse them.

But before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, He will strike the arrogant who do not fear God.

So as we come out of Covid isolation, we need to reduce the social distance within our families. And we want to see kids coming back to church and back to school. We want to see them welcomed by spiritual fathers and mothers.

Not only that, we should reach out to kids now before the enemy gets them. Otherwise, they will go looking for love in the wrong places. Only God has the unfailing love they need. And the love of parents provides the context that God designed for them to grow in His love.