"Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda...
Oh Well"

What Turning the Hearts of the Fathers To the Children Is All About.
 

As I watched the war in Iraq, and I listened to the criticism of our fighting men and women, by a bunch of over the hill "Military Experts" on television, I was painfully aware of how far my generation has missed the mark. And not just in grasping how far technology has increased the efficiencies of warfare. We church fathers are just as out of touch in preparing the next generation of the Body of Christ.

Scripture is very clear in what it says at the very end of the Old Testament about what the Lord will do "before the coming of the Great and terrible day of the Lord." (Mal 4:5)

He will send Elijah the prophet. "And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse."

This is mainly about REPENTANCE, nothing else, pure and simple.

It is a repentance born out of piercing realization. We are the fathers of this present generation that could soon see the beginning of the Day of the Lord burst upon the world. "Coulda, woulda, shoulda, Oh well" just won't cut it any more. Our days of procrastination, rationalization and not dealing with the issues we should have discharged, have brought us to this point.

We should repent mightily for what we have failed to do ourselves and at the same time turn our hearts to the young men and children who are now faced with cleaning up that with which we have not dealt. But you know what? Scripture tells us that the hearts of the children will be turned to us, the fathers. That's far more grace than we deserve. But then weren't we saved by God's wonderful GRACE in the first place?

God is first and foremost a father, with the same kind of father's heart that he put in each of us. As the Day of His Return draws closer, we should be resolving many issues, particularly those that impede our relationships with our children. Turning the hearts of the fathers to the children is a direct order from OUR Father in Heaven. Amazingly, he's already put it into our children's hearts to reciprocate. They just put it in their own language with something like " Don't sweat the small stuff, Dad".

Small stuff indeed! When the Lord is coming back a week from Tuesday, a lot of things we wrestle and grouse about as fathers somehow don't seem nearly as important.

Our Father Who is in Heaven knows what's ahead. He has decreed that "The hearts of the fathers will be turned to the children AND the hearts of the children to their fathers." In today's parlance God is saying,

YOU GUYS ARE IN THIS TOGETHER, AND YOU NEED TO GET IT RIGHT!

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, Oh well. These are words and thoughts that have no meaning but sorrow and remorse for all eternity. Please don't let them separate you from someone younger. Experience the Father's heart while you still can.