I’ve repeated this scene in my mind more times than I can count. Fluorescent lights filled the basement with a golden hue. The furniture was worn out and the table tilted. I didn’t know where we were or who this man was, I remember seeing my mother’s face, she seemed to love him. You have to trust him.
He was tall. Dark skin. She looked more like me than my mother. I remember he seemed to like me and I enjoyed it. He leaned over, asked me questions and gave me candy. But when I asked him if he wanted to go play ball, he said he couldn’t. Someone wouldn’t let him out. The rescue house had rules that a child could not understand.
- And apparently he couldn’t understand life either.
- The years went by with broken promises.
- Forgotten anniversaries and past Christmas parties looking at the door.
- Over time mold would fall and cement hardened.
- The other day I went to your house to see my brother without thinking of s stop and see his son?It wouldn’t affect me.
- It couldn’t affect me.
- He had matured very early and adults do not need the help of his father.
And that same pain, frustration and despair for the dad, whom I hated (and as many others as I did), came back to my eyes this weekend.
In many ways, Adonis Creed’s story is the story of many black boys. Despite obscene language and the insinuating scene, the story is a moving image of a predominant absence. Even though your father, the famous boxer Apollo Creed, died in the ring?An absence more excusable than most, still grew up without a father. For a time, she struggled with several foster homes, until Apollo’s wife (who was not Adonis’ biological mother) received it. Even with Apollo dead, Adonis kept screaming for him.
Angry, hardened, lost, he enters the ring alone to find his father, as he tries to find himself too, but there is no man in his corner. No one to teach you how to throw a right hook or one?Uppercut? On the left, or how to ask a girl to date someone or how to handle difficulties in your family. a father in Rocky Balboa.
In his struggle to father his own son after his wife’s death, Rocky becomes an unlikely mentor and father figure to the young man. He trains, supports, and gives advice to parents. They have a captivating relationship. They fight verbally with each other. They’re angry and hurt against each other. Forgive me, go to battle together. In essence, they are father and son.
The bond between them contrasts brilliantly with Creed’s imposing opponent Viktor Drago. Born into hate, trained by his father from an early age, he eats, sleeps and breathes the struggle. Viktor is the son of the man who killed Creed’s father. trained in the hope of taking revenge on Rocky, who defeated Drago, who cost the family everything. It’s more of a weapon than a son. Drago’s father is present, but he is blinded by vengeance. The film is about two families, two relationships between parents and children, and the power of these relationships to form or destroy men.
Growing up downtown, my story was no exception, the other Lost Boys and I didn’t sit in a circle talking about our biological parents not being part of our lives, it wasn’t part of our culture. We wouldn’t mind strangers who didn’t want trouble, we were tougher than that. There’s no point in crying on the sidewalk.
“Who’s your Rocky? I asked a black Christian brother after the movie was over. It took a moment to think, but he didn’t give me an answer. With two children, I couldn’t think of a father figure to guide him. “spiritually, emotionally and paternally, I could only tell him to become Rocky who had never done so.
Men need a man on their side. Whether biological or not, they need older, wiser, more experienced men to become the kind of warrior God calls them to be. And while the lack of a biological father is an epidemic in the black community, I wonder if The Church can be proud of much more health compared to our children. Do we train the children among us to become husbands, fathers, strong soldiers, faithful, and pious?
Where is Paulos, who dedicated himself to mentoring Lucas, Timeteos, Titos?Where can orphans find the father they never had?How many men can call a young man a “true son in faith”?(1 Tim 1. 2; Tt 1. 4). The streets and the world line up to recruit our men to other armies. Where are our mature generals, commanders, and captains whom God has prepared to train others for our war?Many of us are confronted with ropes, bruised, bleeding, reeling, trying to survive this round. We need you.
God is certainly the Father of orphans? (Ps 68:5), but take care of your children through the present and mature saints of the local churches. God promises to give many adoptive children many parents when they become members of the body of Christ (M. 10:29-30). The Apostle set an example. Paul’s creed was written in the lives of his children. The youth of our churches are our crown before God (1Q 2. 19). They need us.
If you don’t have a spiritual father, pray for one and ask the men who know you. Ask them to guide you in the talk. Ask to spend time with your families. Ask how to handle a checkbook, change a tire, love your wife as Christ loved the church. If you don’t have a spiritual child, it’s not too late. Even now it can change a young man’s life and the lives of many others through him. Trust what you know to faithful men who will also teach others (2 Tim 2:2). Find an Adonis and be his father.
In this book, Richard D. Phillips cuts the smokescreen of cultural confusion and highlights God’s mandate for men. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, the author brings fundamental teachings that cover all areas of life and encourages men to follow a path of repentance and renewal. towards biblical masculinity.