Steve Farrar - Articles

What Every Son Wants

Every son wants to be disciplined. He needs it. He may not let on at first, but the happiest son on earth is the son who has been appropriately disciplined. Biblical discipline actually relieves a son. It lets him know that his father actually loves him. It’s as if the air has been cleared, life has been put back in order as God intended it to be, and everyone can breathe and enjoy life as it should be enjoyed
 
But every son also wants to be understood by his dad. I cannot emphasize this enough. David didn’t understand Absalom. Now Absalom had some serious problems in his own life. But he was legitimately enraged that his sister had been raped. If that were your sister, wouldn’t you feel the same way?
 
David didn’t seem to fully get it. He didn’t understand Absalom’s righteous anger regarding the heinous rape of his sister. David didn’t listen to Absalom’s repeated appeals to his father for justice on her behalf. Then when his son in desperation brutally took matters into his own hands, David simply looked at the hard-core facts at hand and shut Absalom out of his life—forever. So much for building bridges. So much for redemption in any form. David took the easy way out. He ignored his son. He loved him, but he ignored him. And it turned out to be disastrous.
 
It was over Absalom that David experienced his greatest grief. “O, my son, Absalom, my son, Absalom, my son, my son!” He wept uncontrollably once he had learned of his untimely death (2 Samuel 18:33). Absalom was the son who had nearly cost him his kingdom. Yet Absalom had been the son who had grabbed the heart of David more than any of his other boys.
 
If a dad disciplines without ever taking the time to get to know his son and truly understanding him, his discipline can actually turn out to be counterproductive. And that is exactly what happened to David. That’s why he had such great remorse over Absalom.

—Steve Farrar

Steve Farrar is the author of many books, including the best-sellers Point Man,  Finishing Strong, and Battle Ready: Be Strong and of Good Courage in These Troubled Times.

Getting to Know Your Son's Heart

How does a dad hear the “tick-tock” of his son’s heart?  It certainly isn’t going to happen just running around on a sports field, or racing through a “to do” list at breakneck speed with your son, or pushing through twenty pages of math problems. You might glean a little knowledge about him, but you probably won’t get very far inside his heart.
 
You’ve got to have some down time to hear the ticking of his heart.
 
So some guys hunt. Take your son with you.

Some guys go fishing. Take your boy with you, and you’ll have plenty of time to hear the tick-tock.
  
I know one guy who takes a motorcycle trip each summer with his teenage son. They plan a ten-day trip and cover a lot of highway. And they’ve got plenty of time to talk in the evenings.
 
I think you get the idea.
 
You’ve got to purposefully design a time of quiet where you can hear the inside of your son’s heart. One more thing. The older he gets, the more important these times will be. Why? Because he’s getting closer to manhood every day and you’ve only got so much time left to be with him.
 
It’s on getaways like this that he will begin to open up his heart and let you know what’s going on inside. It’s just the two of you without any interruptions. No friend, no video games, no school, no phone calls. Good things come out of deals like that. 
 
The better you know him, the better you will be as a father.
 
The better you know him, the more effective will be your discipline. The more time he has with you and the better his relationship with you, the less he will resent your discipline. Josh McDowell has said it for years:  “Rules without relationship equals rebellion.” 
 
God has called you to be his father, not a jerk. 
 
He’s going to have enough jerks in his life that are always on his case and nitpicking everything he does. Make sure that’s not you.
 
When fathers get overly harsh in their discipline and in the atmosphere that they set in the home, sons get angry. And they are right to be angry. When fathers are jerks they are in absolute disobedience to the Word of God:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

—Steve Farrar

Steve Farrar is the author of many books, including the best-sellers Point Man,  Finishing Strong, and Battle Ready: Be Strong and of Good Courage in These Troubled Times.

 

One Last Shot

When Solomon was still young and inexperienced, David began to pour his energies into mentoring and preparing Solomon to follow him on the throne. He knew that he had screwed up as a father. He had failed to do the job with his other sons. But in the final chapters of his life, David would pour all of his energies into fathering and mentoring Solomon to take the leadership mantle into the next generation.

If David was anything, he was a fighter. He wasn’t a quitter. It wasn’t in his nature to sit passively by and let everything in his home continue to fall apart.

So he made a major midcourse correction.

He decided that it was time for him to start mentoring and stop being a passive, distant, and absent father. It was time to build a son. It was time to give his son what he really needed.

Just like David, you, too, can make a midcourse correction. No matter what your situation, your age, the sins of your past—David teaches us that it is never too late to change course. You can still become the father your son desperately needs.

In fact, it is here that you cannot fail.

The Enemy will do everything, absolutely everything in his power to distract you so that you will fail.

You cannot let that happen.

—Steve Farrar

Steve Farrar is the author of many books, including the best-sellers Point Man,  Finishing Strong, and Battle Ready: Be Strong and of Good Courage in These Troubled Times.