TD Jakes - The Reflection of Fatherhood
All of this is about fatherhood, and you can’t talk about fatherhood without discussing the image he’s created in my image, in my likeness. My image is my legacy; my legacy carries my genes, my images, my characteristics, and my name. My legacy is what I leave. My prophecy is what I aspire to; my legacy is what I leave behind, what I leave in the world as evidence I was here. That’s what it means to be a father: to leave someone in this world as a testimony that you were here, how you shaped that person, and how you developed that person is the artistry of fatherhood. The conversations you have with them, the moments you allow them to see of you, and the things you unveil of yourself—being a father is a great expression of masculinity.
You do not allow your baby son to see underneath your skirts; but throughout the course of life, little by little, you unveil who you are as a man as they grow older and begin to understand things about you that you couldn’t tell them when they were younger because it wasn’t time yet. When they are young, you hide your skirts, glory to God, because they’re not ready to see you as you are. Ask Noah’s sons what happens when you behold the father ahead of time. The gradual unveiling of who you are as a man is something that happens over time as you and your son go through life together.
As he becomes a man, you begin to reveal yourself as a man so that he can see his likeness in you and you can see yours in him when he develops to the point where he begins to look like you. This is good; I want to describe it to you because we don’t always get the benefit of seeing it. Even those of us who have a father don’t always get to see it. We don’t always get to see it acted out in our lives or in our relationships; perhaps my father is an alcoholic, or maybe he is strung out on drugs or cocaine. Maybe my father is a cross-dresser, or maybe he’s decided not to be a father at all. Maybe my father never came home, and so the mirror is left without an image.
Whatever passes by the mirror, it reflects. In the absence of fatherhood, anything that gets near a mirror will reflect whatever is closest to it. If it’s mama, it reflects mama. If it’s drug dealers, it reflects drug dealers. If it’s gang leaders, it reflects gang leaders. If it’s businessmen, it reflects businessmen. If it’s white-collar crimes, it reflects whatever you put in front of it because to be a son is to be impressionable. And whatever gets closest to it, it will reflect. Are you hearing what I’m saying? So for all of you who say fathers don’t matter, you need to change your philosophy on that because fathers are very important, particularly for boys. Boys need something to reflect off of to figure out what they are supposed to be when they get here, there, or elsewhere. That’s very important to understand.
Now, I know that your child’s father might not have been a good husband, but that doesn’t always mean that he can’t be a good father. Just like your being a good mother doesn’t always make you a good wife. Those are two completely different jobs. In a perfect world, you would be good at both of them. Some of us are good at one, and some of us are good at none. Anytime a man is old enough to make a baby but not to raise one, somebody is going to suffer. Anytime you’re old enough to put a ring on a finger but not old enough to be a husband, somebody is going to get hurt. It is very difficult to go from adolescence to adulthood as a man and not leave a trail of blood somewhere behind you, where you hurt somebody. A trail of blood for a woman in the Old Testament was a sign of her purity. When she gave birth, the man penetrating the woman was a sign of them entering into covenant.
In fact, the marriage was not considered legitimate until the couple brought out a bloody sheet as evidence of a trail of blood, which was a sign of the authenticity of the marriage: the man broke the hymen, and the woman provided the blood. The blood caused the covenant, and the covenant sealed the marriage. Now, there are not many bloody sheets left in the world today. Oh, y’all got quiet on me; I thought y’all were with me. There are not many bloody sheets left in the world today because there are not many men who are the kinds of fathers they are supposed to be. In the absence of fatherhood, there are not many women who kept the blood reserved for someone in covenant.
So what we have today is a shadow of what God had in mind; it’s just a mere image of what God intended. So the question emerges: Can imperfect people develop a functional relationship? That’s the question. Ask the question, whether you want to talk about it or not—whether you live in a good neighborhood, a bad neighborhood, whether you’re a hood rat, or whether you live in the suburbs, or whether you have a house as long as a football field, or whether your house is above a garage. That is still the question. Money does not erase the issue of relationships. Relationship is not something you pay for with a check; relationship is not something you earn with degrees. Just because you have more degrees than a thermometer does not make you a good father. Just because you make a lot of money does not make you a good father. Y’all with me today? Y’all ain’t with me today.
Being a father has to do with your ability to have relational skill, which the child can reflect on, depend on, grow from, and understand themselves in the light of the unique nuances that you bring to the relationship. You are not duplicating mama, but it’s hard not to duplicate mama when the only father you ever saw was a woman. So when the only father you ever saw was a woman, and then you marry a woman, both of you are trying to give the kid the same thing because all you can give the child is what you have. If you didn’t receive fatherhood, it’s hard to give what you didn’t get. Okay, we’re going to get into this; we aren’t shouting today. We are going to delve into understanding what God is calling for when He talks about our Father.
Now, you must understand that the pattern was perfect. The first pattern was God. The pattern was perfect; however, if you go to the material store and pick out a pattern and buy some fabric, the pattern may be perfect, but if there’s a flaw in the material, no matter how well you cut along the lines of the pattern, there’s going to be a flaw in the dress—not because the pattern wasn’t perfect, but because there’s a flaw in the material. This is the story; this is the gospel. That’s what the gospel is аbout: a perfect pattern and flawed material. That is John 3:16. That is the gospel message; that is the story of Adam and God. That is the story of the prodigal son.
That is your story; that is my story— that my pattern was perfect, but my garment was flawed. So what do you do when you have a flawed garment and a perfect pattern? You can drink it up, you can smoke it up, you can get high, you can avoid it, you can ignore it, you can discard it, you can say it doesn’t matter, or you can say, «I don’t believe in it.» But does the gospel have a place for a flawed man to end up a great father? That’s what I want to talk to you about today. I believe every man in the world needs to hear this message, and I think you ought to text every man you know to get him on the line. And every woman who is raising a son to be a man needs to hear this message. Every woman who works with men needs to hear this message, and every woman who wants a man needs to hear this message. Because a lot of the women who want a man are actually looking for a girlfriend.
The reason I say you are looking for a girlfriend is that your value system regarding relationships is feminine. You don’t understand that the way a man expresses love is not the same way a woman expresses love. So you’re really looking for a female in a pair of pants. If they don’t respond to you in feminine ways, you don’t feel loved because the only love you ever experienced was from mama. So it’s not just the sons that need the love of a father; the girl needs the love of a father too. She needs to understand a man’s signals because men don’t always speak with language; they speak with signals and body language. We respond to things in non-verbal communication, and you need to learn how to read our faces, expressions, and movements, interpreting that correctly.
If you never grew up in a household with that, you cannot really understand that my silence doesn’t have anything to do with you. So you won’t be following me all around the house asking, «What’s wrong? What’s wrong?» Ain’t nothing wrong. I’m just not you. I’m wired differently than you; I respond differently than you. I don’t cry about the things you cry about. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, it doesn’t mean I don’t love the child, and it doesn’t mean I’m not upset. It just means I’m different. Male and female, He created them, and they are different.