Now all I see is money cars jewels stars/ womanizers/ tough guys/ guns knives and scars/ drug pushers/ thug/ strippers/ fast girls/ fast life/ everything I wanted and everything I could ask life/ if this aint livin then they lied well/ Guess I married an old wives tale/ wow fail/ I don't know another way to go/ this is the way they ever showed/I got this emptiness inside that got fighting for approval cause I missed out on daddy saying way to go/ aint get that verbal affirmation/ know how to treat a woman/ know how to fix an engine to keep the car running/ so I'm look at the media/ and I'm following what they feed me/ rap stars, trap stars, who ever wants to lead me/ Even though they lie, they still tell me they love me/ they say I'm good at bad things/ but atleast they're proud of me/
-Lecrae 'Just Like you'
These lyrics are being spoken from the heart of a man who grew up in a fatherless home and the effects it had on him. Just like this artist, our boys are having to get their cues on manhood from whomever is around them at the time,drug pushers, T.V. shows, rap artist. Where have all the men gone? I sit and trying to imagine a community, as well as ministry participation where there is much men involvement. Oh, how that would transform our world as we know it. My heart breaks tonight.
I want to leave you with a link to a very good article on the Fatherless. When you are done there, go and read the statistics on the impact of boys growing up in a fatherless household. Please pray with me that God would raise up more godly men to impact our communities and churches. Pray that He would send an out pouring of his spirit amongst our generation so that the ones that follow will not suffer.Children without fathers need men who love Jesus to practice what God the Father teaches them. May the Lord raise up more men to do so.
Patrick Moynihan, 1966, America Magazine
"... there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future--that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder. . .are not only to be expected, they are very near to inevitable. And they are richly deserved."