Here are 61 things every father should teach his son.

No doubt, most of these should be taught to our daughters as well, but for the sake of many of our boys that are being emasculated, let's stick to things you want to make sure your son knows.

Every father should teach his son to:

1. Speak to his Creator/have faith in Christ

2. Change a tire

3. Change a car’s oil

4. Shave

5. Drive a manual transmission

6. Swing an ax

7. Catch a baseball

8. Throw a football

9. Drive a nail

10. Do his taxes

11. Treat a woman with honor and respect

12. Defend himself

13. Back a trailer

14. Parallel Park

15. Shoot a gun

16. Sharpen a knife

17. Bait a hook

18. Start a fire

19. Conquer your fears

20. Tie a tie

21. Tie these 8 knots (overhand, half-hitch, square knot, sheet bend, figure 8, slipknot, noose, bowline)

22. Use ratchet straps

23. Mow the grass

24. Make an apology for something you have done

25. Hunt & fish

26. Grow your food

27. Ride a motorcycle

28. Crap in the woods

29. Play Rock, Paper, scissors

30. Thumb wrestle

31. Manage a bank account

32. Make a large purchase

33. Eat chicken wings without looking like a toddler

34. Make Long-term investments

35. Own your own mistakes

36. Cook

37. Skin a deer

38. Clean a fish

39. Throw a punch

40. Measure twice, cut once

41. Sleep outdoors

42. Say I love you

43. Smoke meat

44. Maintain situational awareness in public places

45. De-escalate a tense/dangerous situation

46. Respect his mother

47. Treat elders with honor

48. Butcher an animal

49. Take a girl on a proper date

50. Rebuild a small engine

51. Season cast iron cookware

52. Weld

53. Unclog a toilet

54. Clean a gun

55. Cook over an open fire

56. Identify poison ivy, poison oak, and stinging nettles

57. Sight a gun

58. Make a cup of coffee

59. Stand up for what you believe in

60. Grill a steak

61. Change a diaper

Don’t be discouraged or overwhelmed if you don’t know how to do all of these things. Pick the ones you feel are most relevant and start there, then fill in the gaps in your own skill sets and pass it on to your boy. Good Luck!

 

Whenever I see a child, or an adult for that matter, in anguish, it floods me with sympathy. But when I see a child in grief I immediately think, 'where are his parents?' 

Every child needs nurturing parents to console their hearts, to ease their sufferings, to comfort them in sorrow, no matter how big or small. Sadly, too many children today haven't a loving chest to bury themselves in; none to ease there minds or patch their wounds, within or without. 

Too many latch key children, abandoned by the absence or the neglect of those who they look to for aid. 

If ever the lash and a table need overturning, it's in the homes of preoccupied parents. 

 

 

Of course it's impossible to describe Christianity in a page, but I think this covers some of the most key factors. 

 So, I got the news my oldest grandson, age 31, got saved!

In his teen years he denied the faith and vigorously sought ungodly pursuits.

Both he and his fiancé have had a number of dark encounters with evil presences and the reality of evil personally, and culturally, and it started forcing him to face the fact that if there’s evil than there’s also good.

My grandson was listening to some Gregorian chant music, that his younger brother recommended, and while he was listening at work. the Holy Spirit came on him and he started weeping and he heard the Lord say.

“Welcome home son.”

He said he almost fell to the ground at work. He was a mess.

Both have prayed to surrender their lives to Christ and the Holy Spirit has been moving in them.

Believe me when I say, there is enthusiastic rejoicing going on that words fail to describe!

In the last year, three of my grandchildren have gone to the mission field, and three others have come to Christ surmounting huge obstacles.

Needless to say, when I hear people say that the Holy Spirit is not bringing revival I have to shout, “Well, He is in our family!!!!!

This July we will have at my son’s church a baptism, and five of our family will be baptized and one friend of ours, so it will be a glad day of rejoicing! 

If that's not revival what is???

“Your faithfulness flows from one generation to the next; all that you created sits firmly in place to testify of you.”  Ps. 119:90

Here is his testimony ---

 

"I have given my heart to Christ.

KYRIE ELEISON! (Lord have mercy)

Lord have mercy on me. 

For years, I have spoken against you with bitterness. 

I have honored other gods. 

I watched the light leave my eyes. 

My soul was as a withered tree. But it flowers again. 

So quickly has your mercy renewed my spirit. 

I am in awe before you.

CHRISTE ELEISON! (Christ have mercy)

Surely there is one God in heaven. And Christ is he. 

Your Spirit has visited me when I was beset by darkness. 

It feels as if the claws of something evil was pulled right out of my head. Right out of my heart. 

Banished into the abyss by presence of the Holy Spirit.

I invited this Spirit within me. It lives in me now. 

And it has convicted me, comforted me, and I am in awe at your power. 

A peace which I cannot begin to describe has surrounded me. 

I cast out every idol in my home. My pagan statues and sorcerous amulets have been expelled.

There is a garden now within me. A stillness. 

Your word nourishes me like bread. 

I am a new person.

HALLELUJAH!

The son of God lives in me."

 Up your game!

"And this do, knowing the time, that is is already the hour for you to awaken ....The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand..." Ro. 13:11 & 12

I chose this picture to illustrate the quote because of the intensity displayed. The times always require us to earnestly seek the power of the Holy Spirit; this is a perverse and evil generation! 

Mediocre Christianity will not suffice. 

  Trauma Bond

Trauma bonding is the attachment an abused person feels for their abuser, specifically in a relationship with a cyclical pattern of abuse.

The bond is created due to a cycle of abuse and positive reinforcement. After each circumstance of abuse, the abuser professes love, regret, and otherwise tries to make the relationship feel safe and needed for the abused person.

Trauma bonding is one reason that leaving an abusive situation can feel confusing and overwhelming. It involves positive and/or loving feelings for an abuser, making the abused person feel attached to and dependent on their abuser.

Signs & Symptoms of Trauma Bonding

Because not all abusive situations result in trauma bonding, you may be unsure if this term applies to you.

So, what are signs of trauma bonding? They include the following:2

An abuse victim covers up or makes excuses to others for an abuser's behavior

An abuse victim lies to friends or family about the abuse

A victim doesn't feel comfortable with or able to leave the abusive situation

An abuse victim thinks the abuse is their fault

The abuse follows a cycle (i.e., the abuser tries to make up for an abusive incident)

The abuser promises they'll change but they never do

The abuser controls the victim (i.e., manipulation or gaslighting)

The abuser isolates the victim from friends and family

The abuser gets friends and family on their side

The victim continues to trust the abuser. 

This is from "Very Well Mind" here is the link for further information. 

https://www.verywellmind.com/trauma-bonding-5207136

 The following excerpts are from a 20 page article published in Rolling Stone magazine describing Dave Eubank.  I don't know of any Christian that I admire more, a true hero of the faith and fearless as he faces real danger. He is friends with my family and I know the inside story, and he is the real deal! A full feature film was made about him and I urge every Christian to watch it, you will be changed! 

Zealot or Savior? 

"This U.S. Minister Is Training Rebels in a Civil War.

For 25 years, ex-Special Forces officer Dave Eubank has been dodging bullets to bring humanitarian aid to rebels in Burma’s ongoing civil conflict. 

Starting in late December, I spent three weeks with Eubank and the rangers in the jungle, going on missions and trying to understand what would drive a man to not just lead a crusade in the bush but to also haul his wife and children with him. In nearly two decades of conflict reporting, I’ve never encountered anyone like Eubank — an ardent believer with deeply held conservative values willing to risk his own life and family for a faraway cause. And not only offer much-needed aid and relief to the persecuted and battle-scarred, but also money and muscle.

I learned Eubank was nicknamed “Mad Dog” and “Father of the White Monkey,” and led an all-volunteer staff of ethnic minorities and foreigners — many of them ex-military — working on the front line. Controversially, some team members carried weapons, ready to fight the Burma Army if they came under attack. Others carried video cameras to document war crimes. Word was the charismatic American triathlete could cover 40-plus miles of hostile terrain in a single day while preaching the good book.

Burma’s lawless depths have attracted plenty of G.I. Joe wannabe’s with a messiah complex. From a distance, it’s easy to think of Eubank as a Bible-thumping mashup of Colonel Kurtz and Captain Fantastic. But even the most hard-boiled Southeast Asia hands agree, that in a world of counterfeits, Eubank is the real deal: a diehard humanitarian who has risked his life time and again to help the most vulnerable in a forsaken place that most Americans can’t find on a map. 

Eubank prays aloud more often than anyone I’ve ever met. On the phone, when under attack, for large crowds or passing strangers, even mid-sentence. Often he’ll be talking in his crisp, rapid-fire cadence and then slip in a prayer that’s only discernible by the closing phrase, In Jesus’ name, amen. 

Such religiosity can come across as pious and performative when delivered from the pulpit. With Eubank though, all the prayer somehow feels endearing, a genuine hedge against existential threats that are very real."

The article is written by Jason Motlagh, journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, and the photo is his as well.    

 "Disgrace has broken my heart, and I am so sick.

And I waited for sympathy, but there was none;

And I looked for comforters, but I found none." 

Ps. 69:20

What a heart wrenching photo.... I wish it weren't so common, 

I wish no child ever experienced child abuse, but sadly, this is all to common today. 

The only question I must ask myself is this, 

"Am I ready and prepared to help her?" 

If not, call me what you will, I'm no Christian. My eyes are blinded, my heart is cold, my faith is impotent. 

Forgive me if I'm harsh, but this is our world today, 

am I in it? 

Am I salt and light? 

Is the pulpit I sit before training me to be an advocate for the hurting?

Do my Bible studies help equip me to break down the gates of hell? 

Am I learning how to love like Jesus loved? 

If a broken child came to me, would I have words of light and life to lift her lost light and broken spirit? 

Are the doors to my heart and home open? 

Or will the Lord speak His words to me --- 

"Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:

I saw the tears of the oppressed—

    and they have no comforter;.." Ecc. 4:1

This is not an actual photo of an abused girl, but those who fight abuse used cosmetics to mimic the effects of abuse and the girl is a model.

 

Do you have doubts??

I'll share something I wrote and give to struggling and doubting Christians frequently.

You are not alone, it isn't unusual to doubt, nor does it alarm Christ.

First, let me remind you that if we have faith as a mustard seed, we are Christ's, right? Jesus loves us with an everlasting love, and He also says that “A bruised reed He will not break and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish." Mt. 12:20

That means that He knows His children, those who believe in Him and He will not cast them out even though their faith is tiny, feeble, shaking, up and down, and even doubting.

In the book of Jude, he tells us to “have mercy on those who doubt;” vs. 22

Mercy, not condemnation, not judgment or scorn, but mercy.

Every thinking person has doubts, and certainly, the younger we are in the Lord the more doubts we will have.

To be honest, there are many who call themselves Christians that I find little of Christ revealed.

We have a society that is using every form of media to engineer doubt and unbelief in God; every portrayal of Christians is either weak and repelling, or vicious and uncaring.

Songs deny Him, movies laugh at Him, Television distorts His message, mocks his followers and shows only the failings.

So, that alone is a significant hurdle.

Another common struggle Christians have is, they see in the Old Testament God blessing His people with material things, and we can be influenced to believe our success, or material blessings are the foundation of our faith or reveal God’s love. But in the New Testament, Jesus specifically taught that the riches of God, wisdom, perseverance and joy are within us, not in our changing circumstances.

Life brings many struggles, tragedies and sorrows, and Christ certainly had a full measure of suffering, and so did each of His disciples, and truthfully, no one escapes hardships.

Jesus taught us that in this life we will have tribulation.

Be that as it may, many doubt when it befalls them. 

And truly, some tragic things that happen in this world are beyond what we can bear alone, but Christ promises to walk with us and bring us out of any and every loss.

No doubt, great losses change us forever, but God will even transform our great losses for good.

I try and encourage you, in large part, because I’ve suffered great loss. 

Jesus wept, loved and showed the world what compassion truly was, and it was forged on the anvil of sorrow, not prosperity. 

“He was a man acquainted with grief, a man of sorrows.”

 

 

Don't be discouraged, Christ will lift you up! 

The Kingdom of God is a contradiction to so many rules of our earthly kingdom and culture. "Results" are the measuring stick on earth, 

but "intentions" are the measure in Christ's society. 

We want to present to God a seamless flow of victories over our prominent failings, and when we fall short, we are flooded with discouragement. 

"Oh, it is all in vain," we cry, 

"I have failed once again and will never move past these hindrances to success and wholeness." 

But in these very sobs of remorse, rises a higher prayer of intent than any pride of accomplishment. 

Christ will never be brought down to measure us by our accomplishments, but He will ever look deep into our intentions as the measure of success. 

Each time we fall and feel remorse, we are, by 

"kingdom life's standard," 

exercising great faith and intent. 

He measures our devotion, not by achievement, but in our calls for mercy. 

Each time we rise from failure and continue on in hope of mercy, we are met with His approval and acceptance. 

We stand, not by our abilities, but by our hope in His mercy, which endures forever.

His promise is ever to the bruised reed, those who stumble, stagger or fall, but look to Him for remedy, they are accepted as beloved. 

 “They are blessed who realize their spiritual poverty, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them."

This is the most contrary law of heaven: that our weakness is our strength. 

Giving up our hope that we will achieve our goals, but rather, that we will never achieve them; but He will take our desire for completion: 

our sobs of remorse, for prayers of victory; 

and out of our weakness He will make materials for success.

It is always Christ's duty to achieve; our duty is to believe He can and will.

How will you ever encourage another if it depends on their own determination?

How can all come to victory if it depends on our ability? 

Oh no, we fly to His arms for strength; 

the cleft of His rock for comfort; 

under His wings for aid and safety: always trusting that, 

"God calls into being that which does not exist."

 

Legalism – What it is, and how to tell if you are one

There is something missing in the presentation of the gospel that the legalist presents that leaves me feeling like an important element is missing. 

At this point it's hard for me to find the precise words to describe it but there is a harshness or rigidity that permeates, and I think it can discourage the struggling believer; and which of us isn't struggling? 

Christianity is good, but it needs mixing with humanity before it will have a practical value. If only a little humanity is mixed with it, the product will be dry and tasteless; but if it is combined with the real milk of humanity, and enough of it, the result will be a loaf fit for the tongues of angels. 

The kingdom of God did not, in the beginning, consist in words, but in power – the power of godliness – though now we have fallen into another method; we have turned all religion into faith, and our faith is nothing but the productions of interest or disputing; it is adhering to a party, and wrangling and protesting against all the world besides. 

A character which Christianity does not fructify – does not soften, enlarge, beautify, and enrich – is not benefited by religion – or, rather, has not possessed itself of true religion. 

God loves that which is beautiful and attractive in character, just as much as we do, and it makes no difference where he sees it.   

A Christian sucked dry of his humanity, is just as juiceless and as flavorless as a sucked orange, and I believe that God regards him in the same light that we do.  

  Jesus was not attempting to regulate civil society, nor the church, by minute regulations, but by inspiring the soul with those nobler emotions from which the just rules spring, and which themselves need no laws. He spoke from conscious divinity in Himself to the moral consciousness in man. He was not framing principles into human laws or institutions. Now the Pharisees sought to restrain evil by a microscopic consideration of externals, and so does the legalist.     

 Leo Tolstoy’s wife Sophia records in her diary the tragic hardships of living with a hard religious man of unending moral strivings:

“His sermons on love and goodness have made him indifferent to his family, and it means the intrusion of all kinds of riff-raff into our family life.

And his (purely verbal) renunciation of worldly goods has made him endlessly critical and disapproving of others."

“There is so little genuine warmth about him; his kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles. His biographies will tell of how he helped the laborers to carry buckets of water, but no one will ever know that he never gave his wife a rest and never—in all these thirty-two years—gave his child a drink of water or spent five minutes by his bedside to give me a chance to rest a little from all my labors.” 

Has Christianity given to you the true feeling of brotherhood? As for me, I think we need improvement, to understate it. To many that call themselves Christians, leave me feeling hollow, distant and discouraged. And sadder still, I know at times, I’m guilty as well.   

Inspired by the writings of Jeremy Taylor 1650, Henry Ward Beecher, Timothy Titcomb, Phillip Yancey, 

 Coming off the heels of the Resurrection of Christ, 

I found this sculptured grave stone a Pastor had made for his wife and child that died in tragedy, but now they are breaking free from the grave, resurrected in Christ. 

What a hope we have in Christ!

 

"It is not by darkening and dishonoring the creature, that we honor the Creator. 

Those men glorify God most who look with keen eye and loving heart on His works, who catch in all people some glimpses of beauty and power, and who have a spiritual sense for good in its dimmest manifestations, and who can so interpret the world that it becomes a bright witness to the Divinity." 

William Ellery Channing.  

 

 My son and a close friend both did a post on prayer today, both were calls to pray.

 

As I was reading them my mind drifted back to the eighties when we had prayer meetings at church and in homes. 

These were times set aside to pray, not to fellowship, not to eat brownies and discuss end times or politics, but just to pray. 

I remember my son inviting me to a prayer meeting he was going to with some people from the Vineyard church. 

My wife and I entered and the prayer had already begun; we found a seat on the floor, there were about a dozen or so there, some were singing songs of worship, others were praying out loud, some quietly praying and the air was alive with the presence of God. 

We were immediately transported by the Spirit into His presence. 

Tears flowed; joy bubbled over in this difficult to describe meeting. 

I left with my heart burning with love. 

So, how does one describe this? I think this passage from Song of Solomon describes it perfectly. 

Song of Songs 8:5-7 TPT

“Who is this one? She arises out of her desert, clinging to her beloved. 

When I awakened you under the apple tree, as you were feasting upon me, I awakened your innermost being with the travail of birth as you longed for more of me. 

Fasten me upon your heart as a seal of fire forevermore.

 This living, consuming flame will seal you as my prisoner of love. 

My passion is stronger than the chains of death and the grave, all-consuming as the very flashes of fire from the burning heart of God. 

Place this fierce, unrelenting fire over your entire being. 

Rivers of pain and persecution will never extinguish this flame. 

Endless floods will be unable to quench this raging fire that burns within you. 

Everything will be consumed. 

It will stop at nothing as you yield everything to this furious fire until it won’t even seem to you like a sacrifice anymore.”

  Stupid Drunk

I’ve been sober too long

it happened too soon

the longing, remembering

the warmth of the blush

the tingle and laugh.

I’m not parched,

but I’m not dangerous.

I can walk the straight line,

but I wont dance

uncontrollably wild.

Take me to cellar yet again

O Lord of the Wine.

by Eric Blauer

“For these people are not drunk, as you suppose…” -Acts‬ ‭2‬:‭15‬ ‭

“The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.” -Joel‬ ‭2‬:‭24‬ 

 

"I am rapt in an ecstasy of sweet terror, for the Lord God is coming down upon us. He is standing before me and touching my body, so that I have to close my eyes in a terror of shuddering ecstasy...." Author unknown.

"And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said,

“Woe to me, for I am ruined!

Because I am a man of unclean lips.." Isaiah 6:4-5

Whatever your experience with God, however you walk with Him now, there is more!