James Merritt - What God Wants Every Dad to Know: The Most Important Principles You Can Teach Your Child

Buy this book for every father you know! It takes the time-tested truths of Proverbs and applies them to the task of fathering in a way that is both helpful and hopeful.

Rick Warren , pastor, Saddleback Valley Community Church, author of The Purpose Driven Life

Leadership is my heart and passion. The one thing a leader cannot delegate is his family. Using Proverbs as his source, James Merritt has written an outstanding book that will empower every father to lead his children to godly success. It is both powerful in its content and practical in its application. Dad, if you want to read a book that will change you and your family, read this one.

John C. Maxwell , leadership expert, author, and speaker

Paying heed to the best of wisdom, and understanding the worst threats, James Merritt gives answers that can transform the heart of a dad. In a time of broken relationships, here is a book that builds bridges on strong foundations. The joy of committed fatherhood has an unparalleled reward. James Merritt helps us navigate through the perils to win this grand prize of godly children.

Ravi Zacharias , president, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

With the wisdom of a PhD, the warning of a pastor, the wit of a communicator, and the warmth of a father, James Merritt has written a contemporary classic on the one subject we must not failfatherhood. This is must reading for busy men who understand that it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world and lose his children. I use this book for my devotions. Having grown up in six broken homes, this book serves to motivate, model, and mentor me in my life questbeing an effective father. I am eternally grateful. I need such a mentor.

Jay Strack , president and founder, Student Leadership University

James Merritt is my friend and counselor. Most of all he is a fatherHis message about child rearing is as simple and straightforward as the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule. He is exactly the right messenger.

Honorable John Linder , former US Congressman from Georgia

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Verses marked NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Verses marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Verses marked MSG are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Cover design by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cover photo altrendo images / Stockbyte / Thinkstock

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

WHAT GOD WANTS EVERY DAD TO KNOW

Copyright 2013 by James Merritt

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Merritt, James Gregory, 1952-

What God wants every dad to know / James Merritt.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7369-5008-4 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5009-1 (eBook)

1. FatherhoodReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. FathersReligious life. 3. Parent and childReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BV4529.17.M47 2013

248.8'421dc23

2012044856

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

I dedicate this book to my three sons,
James, Jonathan, and Joshua.
No dad could love you more or be prouder of you.

C ONTENTS

Nothing Ive ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a father to my children.

B ILL C OSBY, ACTOR

M y knees nearly buckled when the door swung open and the nurse motioned for me. Mr. Merritt, you may come in now, she said. I had been pacing back and forth outside the hospital delivery room, but now my legs moved in one direction. Through one door and then two, I approached my exhausted wife lying behind a makeshift curtain.

And thats when I heard it for the first time. A cry from the most beautiful babyfrom my baby. My wife fought back tears as she looked at me and proclaimed, We have a baby boy! Lips quivering and hands shaking, I whispered back to her, Im a dad!

Youd need to be a parent yourself to know the emotions flooding me the moment I laid eyes on my firstborn son. Elation. Pride. Apprehension. But perhaps greater than all these sensations was the deep sense of responsibility I felt for the future of this child. I knew I had just been assigned one of the greatest tasks a man will ever face: being a dad.

My mind raced with the many things I wanted for my new son, James Jr. I desired for him to be healthy and happy and to decide to follow Jesus when he was old enough to understand what that meant. I wanted him to grow strong on the outside and tough on the inside, prepared for the harsh realities of the modern world.

God give my son the spiritual and moral weaponry needed to win , not just survive, the battle called life, I would pray in the coming months. As he grows into a man, help him to do more than make a living. Empower him to make a life for himself that would honor You.

Sadly, too few parents today take their roles so seriously. Louis Sullivan, former secretary of Health and Human Services, delivered a speech to the Institute of American Values in the early 1990s and made this startling observation: Though our society is only beginning to recognize it, the greatest family challenge of our era is fatherlessnessThe adverse consequences of a fathers absence cannot be reduced to only a decline in income. It is one thing to substitute for a missing fathers paycheck. His attention, his guidance, his discipline, and his love, however, are not easily replaced.

Sullivans words are as true today as when he spoke them. Absentee fatherhood is becoming increasingly recognized as a strong contributor to the cultural, moral, and spiritual meltdown of our nation. Children growing up without fathers may be the number one social problem facing America today. But absenteeism is not confined to the inner city, nor caused solely by out-of-wedlock fathering. It is a phenomenon that is affecting homes in every community, with divorce and workaholism as two primary culprits.

The most endangered species in America is not the spotted owl nor the snail darter, but the responsible father.

We live in a generation that, for the first time in American history, has failed to understand this. The most endangered species in America is not the spotted owl nor the snail darter, but the responsible father. More children will go to sleep tonight in a fatherless home than ever before in our nations history. Consider the following:

In 1960, fewer than six million children lived in single parent families. Today, the number is 22 million27 percent of children under the age of 21.

43 percent of American children live in a home in which their biological father is absent.

Before they reach the age of eighteen, more than half of our nations children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhoods living apart from their fathers.