Welcome to Living My Faith, a weekly show that celebrates the everyday believers who are walking with Jesus, not just on Sundays, but in every area of their lives. From relationships and parenting to health, habits, and home, our guests share how they keep their faith at the center of it all. Hosted in Jacksonville, Florida, and supported by Christ-centered partners, Living My Faith is a space where real life meets real faith. Today, our host, Morgan Yonge, spoke with Jay Cookingham of Strategic Fathering Ministries Inc.
Jay Cookingham
Pastor at Strategic Fathering Ministries Inc.
Website Address: https://strategicfathering.net/
Short company description:
Can you share a moment or experience that significantly deepened or shaped your faith journey?
There are many of course for all of us. The two major ones is God delivering me from a life of abuse at my father’s hands. And the death of my bride in 2019.
In what ways do you actively live out your faith in your daily life — at work, home, or in your community?
Serve as pastor in a small church in a small community.
What encouragement or scripture has been especially meaningful to you in this season, and why?
Romans 8:15 “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” Knowing God as Father changes everything! Starting with me first.
What advice would you give to someone who’s struggling to live out their faith or looking to grow spiritually?
Press into God, give Him everything and everyone. Believe that you are His son or daughter and walk that out daily with Him.
Transcript:
Morgan:
Welcome back to another episode of Living My Faith, where we highlight those who are a faith based in making Kingdom Impact. I’m Morgan Young, joined today by Jay Cookingham with the Strategic Fathers Ministry. Strategic Fathering. Jay, thank you so much for joining us.
Jay:
Morgan, thank you for having me. I really enjoy these kind of things. It’s just to be able to share my heart on some things. So thank you.
Morgan:
Yes, absolutely. Well, tell me about what you do and your role with Strategic Fathering Ministries.
Jay:
Well, there’s a lot of different hats that I wear. I wear a hat as a pastor, wear a hat as a ministry leader. But what I try to do is just be real with men and speaking out of my story of growing up in an abusive home and having father wounds and some other wounds that came along with that, and just trying to get men to see how much Father God loves them and wants them to know Him as their heavenly Father and deal with a lot of that goodness and being forgiven and being redeemed and restored and transformed into the men that He sees them, you know.
Jay:
And He wants freedom for us. So I do seminars, I do teachings on it. I have some books on it, but really, I’d like to come alongside of men and help them get my hands dirty, so to speak, and walk alongside of them, maybe counseling or mentoring.
Jay:
Some men. This I have one I do counsel and mentor on Fridays. And so my role is basically just to be an encourager and to remind men that, you know, what to know the truth of who Father God is and who we are in Christ. And there’s such freedom there.
Jay:
Yeah, it does create a lot of freedom, which is funny because at the beginning of the faith journey, people would think the opposite. They’re like, oh, I don’t want to stop doing all the fun things of this world to be a Christian. But once you are, it is so much freedom.
Morgan:
Oh, amen to that. There is no greater adventure than following Jesus on this line. There’s nothing that compares to that. And what’s great about that is an adventure that, yeah, there is some unsafeness and there’s adventure. You know, there is, to be honest, to be truthful about it. But there’s so much freedom to become the person that you really want to become on the inside and get rid of all the obstacles and all the things that are holding you back so that you can walk in freedom, speak in freedom.
Jay:
And then the best thing is that you help other people become free too. And that’s a wonderful gift.
Morgan:
Absolutely. And it is so much more fulfilling. It’s the only thing that’s truly fulfilling.
Jay:
Yeah. Amen to that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Morgan:
So how do you help, like what are some of the tools, resources, or things that you tell these students or people that you’re ministering to? How do you help them deepen that relationship with their Father, their heavenly Father?
Jay:
And a lot of it has to do with the work of forgiveness. There’s a lot of forgiveness that has to start this ball rolling, so to speak, of maybe forgiving things that were done against us or to us, you know, maybe actions or words or neglect, or in my case, abuse.
Jay:
It really starts with forgiveness. And it’s the work of forgiveness. It’s a decision to forgive, but it requires processing this. And so I help men see that their woundedness, that they can be honest about these things with God, that you can read the Psalms to see how honest the Psalms are about pain and suffering. And where were you, God?
Jay:
And all that’s got to take is to be really real with God and bring all these things to Him so that they can have a discussion about it, talk about it, and so that they can forgive, learn to forgive, learn to walk in forgiveness so that they can begin to see God is not this harsh being in the sky, but a loving Father that just wants to set them free.
Morgan:
Yeah. It’s so good. And who better to speak on this than a man of seven children? Yes. So that’s incredible that you have raised seven kids in this world and raised them to be wonderful adults as well.
Morgan:
Now you have dealt with some grief in the past years, and that’s what we were talking about off set, is how to have that intentional strategic relationship with our Father while combating such grief and such hard time. Can you talk to me a little bit about this?
Jay:
Sure. You know, it was a real challenge. You know, I’ve been a Christian for a very long time. I’ve been a Christian since I was seven years old, you know, even in that abusive home.
Jay:
But when, you know, I was married for 37 wonderful years, my wife was the greatest person on this planet. And so everything, my identity got struck down in big ways.
Jay:
So I had to regain my balance, so to speak, and remember that I was God’s son first, and I am God’s son. Everything else can be taken away. Everything can be stripped away.
Jay:
But remembering that I was God’s son gave me some stability in my life so I could start to walk through those questions of grief. And I still, I’m still challenged by this. I’m still challenged by grief.
Jay:
Every day, every day is a challenge to show up in my faith, to live out that faith in a genuine way while dealing with the pain and the loneliness that comes from grief.
Jay:
But I learned that grief isn’t the enemy. Grief is a great teacher, if we just learn the lessons.
Jay:
And so losing my wife six years ago has been really difficult and really a challenge and a struggle. But God has been faithful in every moment of that. There He is. Made this whole identity thing of me being His son stronger and deeper.
Jay:
And I have learned new levels of His goodness through it.
Morgan:
Well, that’s a beautiful reflection on something that can be so hard in life. And now you can bring that to help so many others. So thank you so much for sharing with us today and for the great work that you’re doing.
Jay:
Well, thank you for having me again. And I am truly, truly grateful for the opportunity.
Morgan:
And likewise. And viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode. If you want more information, head on over to LivingMyFaith.com. We will see you in the next episode of Living My Faith.
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