I have become, at my age, more unsteady on my feet.  My balance is off and I don’t walk as confidently as a senior man.  It is hard to admit.  It seemed therefore, appropriate for me to write a blog about spiritually stumbling.  Hebrews 12:12-3 give us this exhortation.  “So stop letting your hands go slack and get some energy into your sagging knees!  Make straight paths for your feet.  If you’re lame, make sure you get healed instead of being put out of joint” (Wright).   Wow, I sure get this message.

I take this both physically and spiritually.  I need to do the best with what I have physically.  “Al, keep at it; don’t give in the aging process.”  But these verses also can be seen as a spiritual exhortation for all ages.  Don’t get out of shape spiritually.  Cry out for spiritual energy; don’t begin to coast spiritually; Keep your focus on the straight path before you; If your wounded spiritually, allow the Lord to heal your soul.

The Psalmist expressed his gratitude for being able to stay on the path.  “My steps have held to your path; my feet have not slipped” (Ps 17:5). He also was thankful for the help he received on his journey.  “If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; through he stumbles, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand” (Ps. 37:23-24)

What I find especially encouraging is being able to walk in the presence of the Lord.  “He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.  And so I walk in the Lord’s presence as I live here on earth” (Ps 116:8-9 NLT).  He helps me to walk in the light. “For you have rescued me from death; you have kept my feet from slipping.  So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light” (Ps 56:13 NLT). 

The prophets continually warn us of stumbling in the dark.  “So there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living.  We look for light but find only darkness.  We look for bright skies but walk in gloom.  We grope like the blind along a wall, feeling our way like people without eyes.  Even at brightest noontime, we stumble as though it were dark.  Among the living, we are like the dead” (Is. 59:10 NLT). 

Long ago, the prophet Isaiah warned us to be careful not to pay attention to “misinformation.”  In his prophetic message, he called it “conspiracy.”  “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them. Make the Lord of Heaven’s armies holy in your life.   He is the one you should fear.  He is the one who should make you tremble” (Is 8:12-13 NLT).  Otherwise, Isaiah warns about stumbling.  “He will be a stone that makes people stumble, a rock that makes them fall.  And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.  Many will stumble and fall, never to rise again.  They will be snared and captured” (Is. 8:14-15 NLT).   

My testimony –  I want to finish strong.  I don’t want to bend the knee, becoming lazy spiritually.  Lord, help me to fight the Good Fight to the end.  By your grace and mercy, give me the will, the strength and the  determination to walk  in the Light of the Lord’s Presence the rest of my days.  Above all, allow me to be a man of truth, who not only exposes  “misinformation” but also  has the courage and insight to represent the truth in word and deed. 

Anthony Bradley writes how pop music “cries out” regarding fatherlessness in our culture.  “For decades, popular music has served as a powerful medium for artists to grapple with personal trauma, none more resonant than the wounds inflicted by bad fathers.  From abandonment to emotional neglect, musicians have transformed their pain into melody, offering listeners both catharsis and a window into the lifelong consequences of paternal failure.  In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a wave of songs emerged that directly confronted the heartbreak of absentee or neglectful fathers, spanning genres and generations in a cultural reckoning with broken families.” 

Bradley, who obviously knows the lyrics,  gives this warning, “The voices of these artists…… are cultural testimonies to the devastating impact of fatherlessness…..The depth of rage, sorrow and longing found in these lyrics makes one thing abundantly clear: the failure of fathers is not just a personal failing, but a social epidemic with generational consequences…..The pain of these artists is not theoretical…….The sociological research confirms what the music has been screaming for decades: children need their fathers…..These songs, then, are more than expressions of personal grief.  They are warnings….a father’s absence is never forgotten.  It lingers in the lyrics, in the broken relationships, in the struggles for self-worth, in the desperate search for love in all the wrong places.”   

And as Bradley reminds us if nothing changes, “these same songs will continue to be written, decade after decade, generation after generation, an eternal echo of a crisis we refuse to confront.”   

Bradley comments on the lyrics of various pop artists.  He mentions Eric Clapton’s “My Father’s Eyes” (1998) as a haunting lament about longing for a father he never met, filled with deep sorrow.  Kelly Clarkson in “Because of You” (2004) speaks to the deep scars of abandonment.  Everclear’s “Father of Mine” (1997) rages against a father’s absence.  The song express the brutal realities of growing up without a father.  

Hip-hop has been an unflinching genres when it comes to fatherlessness. 2Pac’s “Papa’z Song” (1993) expresses longing, rage, and self-reliance at a father’s absence.  Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel’s lyrics are like a verbal assault, demanding answers for years of neglect.  Earl Sweatshirt’s “Day” (2015) suggests that some wounds will never heal.   Kendrick Lamar laments the impact of a father’s presence as a generational and cultural wound.  In “U” (2015) Lamar shares to deep self-hatred resulting from family struggles and abandonment.  In J. Coles unreleased “Dear Father” (2011) is a song about abandonment and the internal war that rages in a son left to wonder why he wasn’t enough for his father to stay.   

Many of these artists have spent their lives struggling with the question:”Why wasn’t I worth staying for?” And even more hauntingly: “Am I doomed to repeat the sins of my father?”  “Every absent father, every abusive father, every neglected father leaves a wound and those wounds do not simply fade.  They fester, they metastasize, they are passed down.  Fatherlessness is not just a private heartbreak – it is a crisis that shapes our families, our communities, and our nation. It lingers in the lyrics, in the broken relationships, in the struggles  for self-worth, in the desperate search for love in all the wrong places.” 

This article spoke deeply to my heart as a father.  I raised three children and am grandfather to eight grandchildren.  Bradley’s remarks made me reflect my fathering and the wounds I have left.  I am thankful early in my marriage for knowing God’s order for the family  I was committed to doing my best as a Dad.  For the ways I was not a good father, I have asked my children for forgiveness.