FATHERS OF NATIONS: TO BE THE FATHER OF ONE, YOU MUST FIRST BE THE FATHER OF ALL...

I did not become a father at 51 when our first child, TIERIAYOOLUWA was born to us as we prepared to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.

I note consciously that I would have still been a father if I did not have a biological child or children in a lifetime.

God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who delivered my soul from eternal damnation on Sunday, February 16, 1997, called me a father before the world began and gave me the commission of dominion: 'be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.'

That is not only tied to biological reproduction. It speaks expressly to reproducing yourself (capacities) in others as a human being. Therefore, to whom you are source of meaning, inspiration and growth (physical, mental and spiritual), you may be called a father. To whom you are a sustainer of life and hope, you may be called a father also.

With the foregoing consciousness, I positioned myself, under God to be a father to many. Instead of waiting for a biological son, I prepared for one. I dived into studying, what I call, 'the mystery of childhood.' I found that childhood stands on three pillars: childhood is a gift, childhood is the foundation we lay for #adulthood and childhood is a mystery to be studied carefully by those who want to handle children as primary and secondary parents. I postulated boldly, that until you graduate from the school of childhood, you must by all means necessary keep away or be kept away from play any role in the life of a child, no matter how minute such may be considered to be. I found that the personhood of a child, he/she is of worth, with a sense of judgement and power of choice.

I practiced fatherhood. I took upon myself the feelings of infirmities of every young person I came across. I decided that I will not sell out on their destiny that I see. I choose to be a believer in a child and his/her God-ordained destiny, even if I am the only one left on the line. I decided that I will not give a child a second chance, I will give him or her an infinite chance. I will not join the society to make a demand where we have not invested, like demanding discipline where I have not sown example-focused discipleship. I think every child I come across or whose destiny, I have had the rare privileged to intervene in directly or indirectly can testify that they have a friend in me.

I was neither fathered by my father nor the society. What my father and the society was not to me, I am determined to be to every child I meet, because I know the seemingly insurmountable pain of that abandonment or rejection. I know what it means for a society that was assigned to raise you to turn around and erase you. My story is not only of passion to profit, but also of pain to profit. The profit is as many youngsters as possible, in whose lives, I can architect and birth meaning, hope and future.

As we were in the preparation mode, we did not lose sleep over the seeming delay of our precious child. Seeming delay? Yes, I do not believe that there is a delay in God. Bishop David Oyedepo taught a principle I stumbled on many years ago and which I verily accepted as true and worthy of submitting to. He postulated: God is never late; my times are in His hand; when I am due, I will not be deprived. He makes everything beautiful at the time He designed for it. Was it possible for Zechariah and Elizabeth to have become parents before the appointed time assigned for John, the Baptist to be born as Jesus's forerunner, though they were married for many years? It is important to know that by the time the birth of John was announced, Zechariah was not in an ounce of faith as we know it today. Yet a man's lack of faith is too week to obstruct a loving God's redemptive plan for His priceless humanity.

Like Zechariah, I could not say I was in faith for our son to be born but I was in peace. 'My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, says Jesus Christ. So, when the word came from my father in the Lord, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya on Thursday, December 31, 2020, that our son will be born in 2021, though we were not yet pregnant, I leaned more on God's peace in my heart, holding on to that word, which the Lord spoke through His servant, with a bunch of doubt in my head. The Lord's mercies prevailed, and the word came to pass as it was spoken.

Here is my principle of fatherhood, if you do not have a heart to father all, you cannot father one. If you do not have a heart to father the society, you cannot father your biological children. Biological fatherhood is not ownership, it is stewardship. You own nothing. You administer all. God is the father of all, Jesus Christ being first son or biological son, so to say. But do we think God loves Jesus more than us all.

My journey to fatherhood, which began since I caught the revelation that I was first called as father to the society, to the nations, to every child, I come across, today shapes my understanding of biological fatherhood and it is my commitment today to build a better world through fathering as many children as I come across directly or indirectly or every child that will come across me directly or indirectly. The kind of the world in which I want TIERIAYOOLUWA to grow up and live in is only possible if I am a father of society, nations and every child, I come across or comes across me and I encourage others to follow this noble example.?