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About the Book
"The Fatherhood Principle" by Myles Munroe explores the importance of understanding the role of fathers in society and the impact they have on their children. Munroe emphasizes the importance of fatherhood as a foundational and transformative influence in a child's life, and offers practical advice on how fathers can fulfill their responsibilities and positively shape their children's future. The book emphasizes the importance of active, intentional fatherhood in raising healthy, empowered children.
Brother Yun
Brother Yun was born in February 1958 in the province of Henan. His original name was Liu Zhenying (ćæŻè„).
Brother Yun became a believer at the age of 16. Soon after he became a Christian, God called him to be His witness in the west and south. As he was obedient to the calling, he eventually became a witness of Christ not just in the western and southern parts of China, but throughout China and in the nations beyond China as well.
Brother Yun was born into a poor family. His familyâs financial situation took a turn for the worst when his father became ill with an asthmatic condition that led to lung cancer eventually. His life got worse when he became a Christian as he suffered severe trials and persecutions. In the midst of suffering for the Lord, however, he experienced miracle after miracle, which helped to strengthen his faith.
HOW BROTHER YUN BECAME A BELIEVER
In 1974, Brother Yunâs father became ill with lung cancer. His mother, who had been a Christian for many years but had become spiritually cold after the expulsion of Western missionaries during the Cultural Revolution, felt a deep sense of desperation because if her husband had died then, it would leave the family in dire straits. She thought of committing suicide. One evening, as she was lying in bed, she heard a voice saying to her that Jesus loved her. In tears and in repentance, she rededicated her life to God and gathered her family to pray for her husband. The next morning, her husband got better and as a result, everyone in the family, including Brother Yun, put their faith in God.
HIS HUNGER FOR THE WORD OF GOD
Brother Yun was 16 when he became a Christian. Soon after, he started hungering for the Word of God. However, his family did not have a Bible. He began asking his mother who Jesus was. In response, his mother would tell him that Jesus was the Son of God and that He had recorded all His teachings in the Bible.
Brother Yun wanted a Bible and his mother recalled that there was a man in another village who had one. So she brought him to see the man. The man was too afraid to show Brother Yun his Bible. So he suggested to the latter that he could pray and ask God for one.
Brother Yun decided to fast and pray for a Bible. For the next 100 days, he ate only one bowl of steamed rice everyday. One day at 4am, after fasting for 100 days, he saw a vision. In the vision, he was walking up a steep hill and trying to push a heavy cart at the same time. He was heading towards a village where he intended to beg for food for his family. He struggled greatly as he continued his climb uphill. The cart was about to roll back and fall on him when he saw three men walking down the hill in the opposite direction. One of them was a kind old man and he was pulling a large cart of fresh bread. When the old man saw Brother Yun, he asked him if he was hungry. He said âyesâ and started crying. The old man then took a red bag of bread from his cart and asked his two servants to give it to Brother Yun. As he put the bread into his mouth, it immediately turned into a Bible.
Upon waking up, Brother Yun began to search for the Bible. His search, however, was in vain. All of a sudden, he heard a faint knock on the door and someone was calling out his name. Immediately, he recognised the voice â it was the same voice he had heard in the vision. He quickly opened the door and standing before him were the two servants he had seen in the vision. One of them held a red bag in his hand. In this red bag was a Bible.
It was later that Brother Yun found out the names of the two men. One was Brother Wang while the other was Brother Sung. They were sent by an evangelist to give Brother Yun the Bible. The evangelist, who had suffered terribly during the Cultural Revolution and had nearly died while being tortured, had received a vision from God. In the vision, God showed him Brother Yunâs house and the location of his village. He was asked to give his Bible to Brother Yun. However, he did not obey God until three months later.
Brother Yun began to devour the Word of God. Even though he could hardly read, this did not deter him at all. When he had finished reading the entire Bible, he started to memorise one chapter per day. In 28 days, he had memorised the Gospel of Matthew. Then he went on to memorise the Book of Acts and so forth.
OBEDIENT TO THE CALL OF GOD
One morning at 4am, Brother Yun had a dream. In the dream, God asked him to be His witness in the west and south. In the same dream, he saw a young man from the south coming to his house. And so at daybreak, he told his mother to expect the young manâs visit and to ask him to wait for him. Then he sat off to a village he had never heard of in the west. The people in this village had been praying for him to visit as they had heard about how he had prayed for a Bible and got it.
When the meeting at the village concluded and Brother Yun got ready to leave, the villagers refused to let him go. So he stayed on and recited to them the first twelve chapters from the Book of Acts. After that, the villagers finally let him go. From the village to his house, it could take up to 2 hours to walk. Because he did not want to make the young man from the south wait too long, he decided to run home. All of a sudden, he found himself entering his village without any apparent time lapse. What should have taken him a few hours took him just a few moments. It was as if God had supernaturally transported him back to his village.
PERSECUTIONS AND MIRACLES IN HIS LIFE
Brother Yun was arrested by security police numerous times and was thrown into prison three times for sharing the gospel in communist China.
When Brother Yun was arrested the first time, he was only 17 years old. At that time, he was ministering at a meeting far away from home. After he was caught, he was thrown into a freezing cold prison cell. There was no heat in the cell and his winter coat had been thrown into the snow by the security police who had caught him. He began to sing Psalm 150 aloud. The more he sang, the more he was filled with joy. Gradually, his frozen hands and feet regained feeling and he no longer felt cold.
During his first imprisonment in Nanyang, Brother Yun felt that God wanted him to fast without food and water until he could see his family again. This fast lasted 74 days, which was humanly impossible but yet was made possible because he chose to obey God.
During those times when Brother Yun was in the hands of government officials, he was repeatedly beaten and tortured with electric batons. He was also kicked and trampled upon. Furthermore, he had needles being jabbed underneath his fingernails.
Once, Brother Yun was paraded through the streets with a red cross tied behind him for half a day. When night fell, he was locked and left alone inside a large interrogation room. The wooden cross was taken off his back but his hands were still tied up. All of a sudden, the rope that was used to tie his hands snapped by itself. He immediately walked out of the interrogation room and walked through the courtyard in the midst of onlookers. Nobody stopped him or said anything to him. It was as if God had blinded their eyes and they did not even recognise who he was.
Because the front gate was locked, the only way Brother Yun could get out was to climb over an eight-foot high cement wall. He climbed up as much as he could manage. Then he looked over the wall and saw that there was a ten-foot wide open tank directly below. Suddenly, he felt as if someone had lifted him up and thrown him over. He was thrown so far that he did not land in the tank.
Brother Yunâs 3rd imprisonment was a very dark period in his life as the prison guards in the maximum security prison were determined to prevent his escape. So they beat his legs to cripple him permanently. They had him beaten up everyday, even in his crippled state. One day, God instructed him to escape from the prison. This was confirmed by a brother-in-Christ. Thus, on May 5, 1997, he miraculously walked past dozens of prison guards and out of the maximum security prison. It was as if he had become invisible to the guards. He did not realise that his legs had been miraculously healed until later.
Throughout all the horrendous and painful experiences that Brother Yun went through, the word of the Lord kept coming to him, encouraging him and strengthening his faith.
BROTHER YUNâS MINISTRY
Brother Yun eventually escaped China and sought asylum in Germany in 2001. Since then, he has been continuing his ministry from there and has spoken to congregations internationally. He has founded âBack to Jerusalemâ Movement and has been sending missionaries out from China to share the gospel in the least-reached nations.
Brother Yunâs life and ministry have impacted many lives. Thousands of people have become Christians through his ministry. It is thus inevitable that fellow Christians have allowed themselves to be used as instruments of wickedness to attack his reputation. The co-author of The Heavenly Man, Paul Hattaway has aptly put it this way, âMany of the great Christian leaders throughout history have been the subject of brutal attacks from other Christians.â
AFTERTHOUGHT
Brother Yunâs childlike faith and his prompt obedience to Godâs call are exemplary. It is incredible that he has remained faithful to God despite the tremendous suffering and persecutions he has gone through.
The Year My World Fell Apart
Twenty-five years ago, my world fell apart. I had just turned 39, was happily married with five kids, and served as the associate pastor of a growing two-year-old church plant. My health was good, I enjoyed an active life, and ministry opportunities abounded. Everything looked good from the outside. But on the inside, it was a different story. Starting in January of 1994, fear, hopelessness, depression, detachment, anxiety, and emptiness became my daily companions. All my life, I had taken pride in my ability to think clearly, but suddenly, thoughts began racing through my mind that I couldnât stop. Panic attacks came regularly. I imagined I would be dead within months. And then there were the physical effects. Most days, I found it hard to catch my breath. My arms itched incessantly, and no amount of scratching relieved the sensation. When it didnât seem like a 200-pound weight pressed against my chest, I often felt an eerie hollowness. My face buzzed. I was light-headed. I spent many nights pacing and trying to pray. âThis Doesnât Happen to Pastorsâ Other than the normal pressures of a church planting pastor, there were no obvious reasons why I seemed to be going crazy. In an effort to rule out potential causes, I made an appointment with my doctor for a complete checkup. The results came back. I was âfine.â Nothing had prepared me for what I was going through. My internal accusations that âthis doesnât happen to pastorsâ only made me more frantic. I looked fruitlessly for something that would give me victory over whatever it was I was battling. Scripture. Prayer. Worship music. A retreat. A vacation. Even a trip to Canada during the âToronto blessing.â Nothing helped. Early on, I thought about seeing a counselor, maybe even a psychiatrist. I was aware of occasions when people with hormonal imbalances, an inability to sleep, or traumatic personal histories benefited from medical intervention. I wondered if drugs might help me get back on my feet to deal with what I was experiencing. I also identified with various labels I had read about. Nervous breakdown. Burnout. Anxiety disorder. Depression. Whatever was going on was affecting me emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. The symptoms were too numerous and intense to think this was only a âsinâ problem. But no label I assigned to my condition identified root causes. If what I was experiencing originated in my own heart (as it seemed), I wanted to explore that first. I wanted to press in to the gospel to see what I might be missing. The next two and a half years were the hardest of my life. But knowing what I learned from them, they were, without a doubt, the best years. Many people, most significantly my wife, Julie, were invaluable means of grace during that time. I hope to be a means of grace to you or others you might know who have been through something similar to what Iâve been describing. These are a few of the lessons God taught me during that time. We Might Not Be Hopeless Enough About a year into my dark season, I told my good friend, Gary, that I felt dead inside. Life didnât make sense. I felt completely hopeless. Garyâs response was one Iâll never forget and have passed on to countless people, âI donât think youâre hopeless enough. If you were completely hopeless, youâd stop trusting in what you can do and trust in what Jesus has already done for you on the cross.â Our problem isnât that we have no hope. We just hope in things that arenât God. Our own abilities. A preferred outcome. Our reputation. Financial security. You fill in the blank. And when the idols weâve hoped in donât deliver as promised, we panic. We despair. We lash out. We go numb. Thatâs why the psalmists speak of hoping in the Lord and his word at least twenty-five times, and why David tells us to âhope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermoreâ (Psalm 131:3). Itâs easy and common to hope in something other than God. Blessed Are Those Who Know Their Need For most of my life up until that point, my heart aggressively served the idols of credit and control. Those idols revealed a selfish ambition that desired not only peopleâs approval but their applause, even their adoration. I wanted to receive the praise only God deserves. When I couldnât get everyone to think I was as great as I thought I was, or when I realized the world didnât bow to my desires, my idols punished me: mentally, emotionally, and physically. I thought I was a victim. I thought depression was âcoming on meâ from âout there.â Actually, I was the one producing it, through my own fears, unbelief, and false worship. I was forsaking my only hope of steadfast love (Jonah 2:8). Over time I came to see God was guiding the whole process in order to turn my heart to him. He wanted to wean me from my self-centered idolatry so I could find the greater joy of pursuing his glory instead of mine. Benefits We Donât Think We Need In the first year of my trial, I was often unaffected by normal spiritual disciplines like reading Scripture, gathering with the church on Sundays, and prayer. The promises of the Bible seemed like empty platitudes, meant for those who were doing well. In reality, I didnât see the depths of my need clearly enough. A friend introduced me to John Owenâs Sin and Temptation  and God used it to show me how deceived my heart could be. Rather than wondering why I felt so hopeless and fearful, I started to own those feelings as the effect of functionally seeing myself as my own savior. Apart from Jesus, I was completely hopeless and had every reason to fear. But Jesus died on the cross to save hopeless and fearful people. And I was one of them. That thought process, repeated a thousand times, pointed me again and again to the Savior I needed more than I had ever realized. Feelings Are Unreliable Proofs The Psalms teach us that a relationship with God involves our emotions. Godâs presence brings joy, Godâs promises bring comfort, Godâs provision brings satisfaction (Psalm 16:11; 119:50; 145:16). But I was trying to root my faith in my experiences rather than in Godâs word. I was looking to sustained peace as evidence that the Bible was true, and found myself chasing experiences rather than Jesus. When I was unaffected by the gospel, I began to see that other desires were at work in my heart. Selfish ambition. Self-atonement. Works-righteousness. A love of ease. Feelings tell me something is happening in my soul, but they donât necessarily tell me why I feel (or donât feel) a certain way. We discover that through patiently and consistently trusting and pursuing God (Proverbs 2:1â5). When I insist on finding relief from my emotional distress before I believe God, Iâm living by sight, not by faith. Self-Focus Wonât Ultimately Defeat Self-Sins In March of 1995, I went on a personal retreat. After 24 hours, I determined my problem was that I had been depending too much on my own righteousness and needed to trust in the righteousness of Christ. When I got home, I committed myself to a rigid discipline of Scripture memorization. Julie told me I came back more bound up than when I had left. One reason my dark season lasted so long was my belief that both the problem and solution ended in me. It was my lack of faith, my legalism, my poor choices. I needed to memorize more Scripture, do more, do less, do nothing, do everything. Over time, God graciously showed me that putting sin to death involves me but doesnât depend on me. Godâs grace comes to humble, needy people, never to those who think they deserve or can earn it. Robert Murray MâCheyneâs counsel is still wise: âFor every look at self, take ten looks at Christ!â His perfect life, substitutionary sacrifice, and glorious resurrection are a never-ending stream of delight, hope, and transformation (2 Corinthians 3:18). Take Every Temptation to Christ Maturity isnât freedom from temptation, but responding to temptation more often with what God has said and done for us in Christ. I often thought I was backsliding when the temptations of anxiety, fear, hopelessness, and depression reappeared (or even increased). In those moments, I was tempted to think what I had been doing and believing âdidnât work.â But John Owen observed, âYour state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.â In my discouragement, I was tempted to run to something other than Godâs word and the gospel as my refuge. I started to doubt that hearing the Bible preached on Sundays could do any good. But Godâs promises remain true no matter how many times we forget or neglect them. Jesus will always be the only Savior who died for my sins to bear my punishment and reconcile me to God (1 Peter 3:18). In him I am truly forgiven, justified, adopted, and eternally secure in Godâs love and care. As I continued to confess my inadequacy with phrases like, âYou are God, and I am not,â I saw more clearly how God alone will always be my rock, steadfast love, fortress, stronghold, deliverer, and refuge (Psalm 144:1â2). Traveling Through the Valley The lessons I learned during those years have shaped my walk with God to this day. I still battle many of the same sins I fought twenty-five years ago, but I fight with greater clarity and trust in the one who has won the war. Temptations are less frequent and less intense. Iâve been able to point others who have been going through similar seasons to the life-transforming hope we have in the gospel. Removing difficulties, problems, and trials isnât the only way God shows he is good. Instead of superficial solutions, Jesus actually delivers us from our false hopes of ultimate salvation, satisfaction, and comfort. We want relief from the pain â God wants to make us like his Son. We want a change in our circumstances â God wants a change in our hearts. A crucified and risen Savior proves once and for all heâs actually able to bring that change about. Iâve learned that the goal of the battle against emotional turmoil isnât simply emotional peace. The goal is to know Christ. That realization led me to pray at one point, âIf being like this for the rest of my life means that I will know you better, then leave me like this.â Thankfully, God didnât leave me like I was. He gave me a deeper trust in the care of my heavenly Father, a more passionate love for Jesus and the gospel, and a greater awareness of his Spiritâs presence. I know better now what Paul meant when he said, âTo live is Christ, and to die is gainâ (Philippians 1:21). Which is why I thank God that, in his abundant mercy, he caused my world to fall apart twenty-five years ago.
