Knowing your family’s God purpose and call is vital for keeping unity and bond of it. God has a call to the family for service and ministry and it is up to the head of the house; the dad, to acknowledge it and build it up. God not only has a plan for adults but for the entire family. But, knowing the call is not sufficient for a home to be edified, there needs to an agreeing reaction and releasing to God of the family(Mt19:14). The bible teaches us that we need to prepare our children for God’s calling (Deut4:9) and that through witnessing and testimony’s. There are blessings to the dad who seeks out God’s calling for his home (Ps128:2-4) such as no other family will have. The children will be like shoots of olive producing oils of knowledge and talents. Going against the grain of society is what it takes for a family set on a course God’s call.
Luke 1:59-64
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, 60 but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”
61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”
62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
Now, Zachariah was a priest whose turn came up by the choice of lots to burn incense in the temple while the people prayed outside. He and his wife Elizabeth were descendants of Aaron the priest. They were up in age and his wife was not able to conceive. The priest whose function was to bring incense to the temple was to have tied to his feet a bell with a rope of which would sound as he walked into the temple. If the priest would die in the temple the bell would make a stomp sound and stop sounding signaling those who waited outside to pull him out. When Zachariah walked into the temple the Angel of the Lord appear and gave him the good news that he was going to be a dad, but he needed to name him John. Zachariah was challenged to go against the currant of tradition and family and in this time and age we too are challenged to go against the currant. Zachariah became mute because he chose not to believe the news, and so for nine months he could not speak. He had the choice when the child was born to either go with tradition or sign the name of descendants or the one associated with the kingdom. As dads we decide with whom are we going to associate our children and family’s as Joshua did (Josh24:15) to serving God.