Section (1) of Ch.8. (The Power of a Parent’s Blessing)

BLESSING YOUR CHILD AT THE TIME OF PUBERTY

 

While each of the seven critical times of blessing are important, puberty is perhaps one of the most impacting times to bless your child. Puberty is when a child is released into his adult identity. The inner image as a man or woman that is established at this critical time will impact the future course of the child's life.

 

KEY ROLE PLAYER

 

While both parents are very important at each critical time of blessing, at puberty the father is the primary role player in blessing the child. In all the preceding years Mom is the key parent God uses to impart security and an ability to trust others in the child. However, at puberty and throughout the teen years Dad steps on center stage as the key person God uses to establish gender identity and release the child into his adult destiny.

 

Every culture of the world has a tradition or ceremony to release a boy into manhood and a girl into womanhood except our modern Western culture. We have no such rite of passage. In virtually every culture the father through his blessing cuts the emotional umbilical cord that links the child to the mother and releases the child into his or her adult identity and destiny. Mothers were not naturally designed to do this any more than fathers were designed to give birth.

 

God has given fathers and mothers completely different roles to play in their children's lives. Mothers were designed to do two key things: give birth and nurture. Fathers were designed to accomplish two completely different things: establish a child's gender identity and release him into his adult destiny.

 

Even at conception it is the father's seed that determines the gender of the child. Genetically a female has two X chromosomes (XX), while a male has an X and•a Y (XY). So in conception the only chromosome the mother can contribute to the child is an X while the father can contribute either an X or a Y. If the chromosome contributed in the seed of the father is an X, the child will be a female, but the child will be male if the father contributes a Y chromosome.

 

I have also noticed God's design in the different way men and women hold a baby. Mothers tend to focus a child inward, holding the child toward her and cuddling him, while fathers tend to focus a child outward. Dads usually put the baby in the palm of their hand facing outward, thus showing the baby the outside world.

 

I also have observed that many couples divorce right before their firstborn reaches puberty (around age twelve or thirteen). Why is this? I believe this is part of a specific strategy of the enemy to remove the father from his children's lives during the teenage years. The father is the anointed and appointed agent to release a boy to be a man and a girl to be a woman. If he is out of the picture, then the devil will be able to use peers, movies, and circumstances to answer the child's key identity question with his false, destructive message.

 

If a divorce does occur, children most often live with their mother. Frequently in the early teen years the child suddenly says he wants to go live with his dad, and Mom may be horrified. She may respond by saying, "Why on earth would you want to go live with your father? Don't you know that he is a godless, alcoholic heathen? It would be crazy for you to go live with him."

 

However, there is something in the heart of that child that knows Dad has something he needs. That something is the father's blessing. Very few mothers understand this need in the hearts of their children, but it was designed by God to release him or her into manhood or womanhood. I believe the unavailability of a father to bless his children and release them into their adult identities at the time of puberty is one of the reasons God says He hates divorce (Mal. 2:16). Far too many couples choose to divorce without considering the generational consequence it will have on their children and grandchildren.

 

There is an intense spiritual battle to keep fathers from spiritually and emotionally connecting with their children. Tris is why the prophet Malachi says, "Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse" (Mal. 4:5—6, emphasis added).

 

This verse is not talking about the heart of a mother being turned toward her children but the heart of the father. Why would this be? As I considered this, it occurred to me that it is not diffcult to turn the heart of a mother to her children. In fact, it is diffcult to get the heart of a mother to release her children. What is more challenging, especially in the teen years, is to get the father to emotionally connect with his children. He is often focused on his career, finances, sports, and many things other than his children. This is why the yerse says God will turn the hearts of fathers to their children as the spirit of Elijah is released on the earth.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the Lord Jesus Christ did not begin His ministry until He had received the blessing of His heavenly Father. Again, if the father's blessing was so important that Jesus didn't do one miracle, preach one sermon, or begin His ministry until He had received it, how much more important is it for us today?

 

 

WHAT ABOUT SINGLE MOMS?

 

Some single moms may be asking, "What am I to do? The father of my children is not available to bless them. How can my children be blessed and released into their adult destinies?" While a mother can and should bless her children throughout their lives, she really cannot fulfill this role. It is the father who is called to establish adult identity and release his children into their destiny during the teenage years.

 

However, when a biological father is unavailable, God will identify other men who might fulfill this role in the lives of the children. There might be a godly grandfather, uncle, pastor, teacher, or coach whom a mother could ask to step into this role for her son or daughter. If you are a single mom, I would encourage you to begin asking the Lord whom He has prepared to help you train your child to have godly character and pray a blessing to release him into his adult identity and destiny.

 

Some mothers have written off their children's fathers as someone who could bless their children because he is not a believer. I would encourage you not to discount the father even if he does not know God or is irresponsible in many areas of life. God may still use him to impart meaningful blessing to his children.

 

I have heard testimonies from many mothers who were shocked that their child's father agreed to participate in a ceremony to bless his son or daughter at puberty. Others have said God powerfully used a father despite his flaws to bless his child through his words even though he was not a godly man. So if you are separated or divorced, I encourage you to ask your children's father to consider blessing his children even if he has not been responsible in other ways. He still holds a key that God may use to unlock the future for his children even though he may not fully understand what he is doing.

 

If the father is unwilling or unavailable to bless his children, the body of Messiah is called to step in. (See James 1:27.) Godly men in the church are called to rise up and be fathers to the fatherless. Several pastors have shared with me the lifechanging fruit that resulted when they or other godly men in the church took a young man under their wing. They trained and prepared the boy for adulthood and then conducted a blessing ceremony to release that boy into his manhood. I have also seen godly pastors do the same for a young woman and bless her in a ceremony to release her as a woman. Single moms, don't despair. Ask God whom He would like to use, and when and how He would like to bless your children and release them to be men and women of God.

 

 

KEY QUESTION TO BE ANSWERED

 

The key questions that either God or Satan will answer through parents during puberty are: Do I have what it takes to be a man/woman? Am I adequate to fulfill my calling as a man/ woman?

 

If you recall, puberty can be a time of great insecurity. Your life is changing - physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The key message the devil wants to send at this time is, "You are inadequate. You don't have what it takes to be a man/woman. You're not as well developed as other boys/girls your age. You are just a little kid and will never be a real man/woman."

 

This is a time when teens may be required to change clothes in front of their peers in a locker room for sports teams and physical education classes in school. Everyone is usually checking each other out and sometimes making comments about one another's physical development. The enemy will always see to it that there is at least one kid there to criticize the others. So this is a time of self-consciousness, self-doubt, and awkwardness.

 

God intended for a father to be there to answer his child's heart question with a resounding, "Yes, you are adequate. You have everything you need to be the man/woman God has called you to be. You are not a little child any more. You are a young man/woman. Nothing more is required. You have what it takes, and this day I release you to be a man/woman!"

 

Now, men and women tend to perceive value and adequacy in very different ways and thus have slightly different inner heart questions they need their fathers to answer. When a man's heart asks, "Am I adequate?", he usually wants to know, "Am I powerful? Am I a force to be reckoned with? Do I have a purpose to fulfill?

 

Do I have the intelligence and skills to fulfill that purpose - to do something significant - and will my work really make a difference on the earth? Would someone actually pay me significant money for my ideas and/or skills? Do I have what it takes to attract a woman who will unite with me in my life's purpose and calling? Do I really have what it takes to fulfill a wife sexually, emotionally, and financially, to protect her and provide for her, or will I be found lacking?"

 

When a woman's heart asks, "Am I adequate?", she usually wants to know, "Am I beautiful and enchanting? Am I worth pursuing? Am I attractive enough (spiritually, emotionally, and sexually)

 

for a man to risk his life to pursue and fight for me? Is there a man who will love me so much that he would kill the dragon, swim the moat, scale the castle wall, kill the evil prince, rescue me from the tower, and take me off on a white horse into the adventure of a lifetime? Or will I be alone all my life because I am too fat, ugly, or stupid for anyone to ever want me?"

 

A father is the one who can impart God's answer to these key questions into the heart of his son or daughter at puberty. How that father relates to his daughter at this critical time in

 

life establishes an expectation in her heart of how she will be treated by men in general and by her future husband specifically. How the father relates to his son establishes in his heart an expectation of how he will be treated by employers and others in the marketplace.

 

 

BLESSING AND CURSING AT PUBERTY

 

Every culture in the world has ceremonies, traditions, and rites of passage at puberty to release a boy to be a man and a girl to be a woman. While the traditions and ceremonies may vary from culture to culture, the basic elements of blessing remain the same.

 

Blessing at the time of puberty may include:

 

1. The parents learning to separate identity from behavior in order to bless the identity of the son/ daughter even while correcting his behavior

 

2. The parents creating a safe home environment, which facilitates the open sharing of feelings and experiences between the father and the son or daughter

 

3. The father accepting and blessing his child in a correct and healthy way, thereby severing the childhood identity from the mother and releasing his son/daughter into manhood/womanhood

 

4. An initiation into manhood/womanhood that the father orchestrates

 

 

Cursing at the time of puberty may include:

 

1. The parents shaming and cursing the child's identity while attempting to correct his behavior

 

2. The father preventing the children from openly sharing their feelings and experiences with him because of divorce or his ignorance, insecurity, apathy, desertion, death, or the like

 

3. The father not accepting, blessing, or releasing his children, and the identity of the son or daughter remaining bound to the mother, causing the son/daughter to still feel like a child even into adulthood

 

4. The father manifesting an attitude of shame or embarrassment over the physical changes in his son or daughter

 

5. The son or daughter experiencing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, resulting in a feeling of uncleanness and worthlessness