EMBRACE THE FAIL

     I’ve had to write and rewrite this lesson at least four times.  Even now as I’m getting ready to post it, I find myself looking for clarity. I’ve thought about just deleting it, but I can’t.  After the last lesson, it feels as if I’m backtracking.  As all of you know, we’ve spent the last twelve years studying manhood from every direction, through many different books, while attempting to live those principles through our actions. If I were to ask you if you’ve been successful at putting all of those principles into action, most of you would say; No.  If I asked you whether you’d tried, I would get a resounding yes.  Isn’t grace the power to succeed?  Yet, most of us hate to admit we fail.  Admitting failure seems to somehow diminish our Christianity, or the work of His Spirit within us.  This is the furthest thing from the truth, and our inability to admit we fail, is why the world calls us hypocrites. If we don’t give our children the room to fail, they will become liars and thieves.  If we deny others the ability to fail, we become unreliable measuring sticks for salvation.  If you don’t embrace your failures, how can you expect your children to get back up and overcome theirs?  Embracing your failures goes to the kingly trait of being aware of yourself, and how your actions affect others, especially your family.  If there is one constant in the Bible it is the need for honest self evaluation, and living a transparent lifestyle.  Finding grace to be the best father you can be is what we are going to focus on.  From here on out you’re going to hear me refer to it as ‘deliberate fatherhood.’ Pursuing fatherhood as a noble endeavor  is still an endeavor none the same, but it is the pursuit that defines our faith..   

Many of you who were teenagers when we began this men’s group, are now fathers with children of your own. In no time at all, your children will be teenagers, and you will confront your greatest fears. Hopefully what your fathers share with you during this study will make a huge difference.   As a father of two girls, and a son, I learned a lot about fatherhood from practical experience, however, what I knew going in could probably be distilled down into a few short paragraphs. Now, after three children, five grandchildren, and watching my peers raise their children, my best advice can be summed up into three words; Follow the Bible.  Beyond that,  ask your fathers what they did,  and follow Holy Spirit.  

You can’t go wrong following the Bible. I wish I’d known the bible better as a young father.  Sadly, much of what I will share with you from personal experience was learned from my mistakes, not my successes.  I can try to blame it on my parents, their parents, or the system, but the truth is, I only studied the bible for dogma when I was young. I made it a source for sermons, not a pattern for life.  I want you, and your children to do better than me.  Best advice I can give; Follow the Bible.

The reason I say follow the bible is because I believe that if YOU follow the bible, if you live out its precepts, you will be the best father without even trying to be a father.  The Bible, both Old and New Testament, offers sparse direct instruction on how to be a parent.  Instead, of clear concise rules about hygiene, playtime, education, time allocation, and other everyday matters of parenting, we were left with hundreds of ‘stories’ about what others did. One of the reassuring aspects of the bible is that it makes no attempt to hide imperfect families. We’ve been given examples of every kind of home environment that men, and women can create.  We see functional families as well as dysfunctional families within its pages.  We’re shown what abandonment looks like, and what adoption looks like.  We’re provided example upon example of what devoted parenting looks like, and what lazy parenting looks like. Even polygamy is depicted for us to see its dangers. Every aspect of family life is revealed to us not as hard rules, but as illustration and example. Throughout the Bible we’re given example after example of how a child raised in a godly home can end up abandoning the God of their childhood, or the God of their parents. When that happens, it is easy to blame oneself, and wonder what you did wrong.  At the end of the day, no matter how good of a father you are, the little human being you brought into this world has a will of their own, and must choose to follow God on their own. Sometimes a child will rebel.  You will have to learn to embrace the fail, even as our Heavenly Father did.  Yes, even God had to endure the sorrow of a wayward child. The first child, Adam, didn’t fare well, even though the creator of the Universe personally raised him.  Keep that in mind as failure looms large in your heart.  When you are looking into the eyes of an angry child, you are experiencing what God experienced. God wasn’t love until He had children. 

You’ll discover like those of us whose children are grown and on their own, that love is born of suffering.  If you haven’t already come to this knowledge, you will.  As a loving father, you will grow to love your child more, but it will grow through the vale of suffering.  Loving your child means swallowing your pride, putting away your preconceived notions, and knowing that this wonderful life you helped to create, will hurt you.  They will press all of your buttons, teach you fear, carve out your heart, and hand it to you on a platter.  They will make tears roll down your cheeks like a river, and cause your hair to turn grey.  If your children cause you to weep, then you have stepped into true love.  Embrace the LOVE.  So, When I tell you to ‘embrace the fail’, I’m actually telling you to embrace the love.  If your love comes without suffering or sorrow, then it isn’t really love. If your family isn’t worth fighting for, putting up with, or swallowing your pride over, then you don’t love them. 

Our job as fathers, is to raise children the best we know how with what we know, and to love them through everything no matter how much pain it brings. If you truly love your child you will guide them into wisdom even when it hurts you.  There’ll be days you succeed like a big dog, and others where you’ll tuck your tail and whimper away brokenhearted.  Children aren’t like a mathematical equation where you can plug in numbers and crank out a perfect human being.  The Bible doesn’t have instructions for what works with every child. There isn’t a formula, because each child is a unique ingredient.  Only when Moses gave the laws to the Hebrews were we given rules concerning parenting. Actually I think all the laws concerning parenting boiled down to one rule; Don’t kill your kid.  (We’ll deal with that later.) Even these rules weren’t specific.  WHY? Because God knows each and every child is a unique person from their parents, and separate from their siblings.  God cherishes uniqueness.  As a creator, He celebrates the variations in each human being.  While medical science may be able to lump us in groups according to DNA patterns, and mental health officials may be able to qualify us according to personality types, the truth is; humans are individual, and unique. Even your best behaved child will break your heart. Looking back on my own life I am proud of my children, and happy with where they are at in their lives.  Still, all three of them broke and crushed me at one point of their raising.  Hopefully they saw the father in me in the midst of my broken heart.  Only they can know whether I helped them to see the heavenly Father.  I loved them the day they were born, but I didn’t always deal wisely or teach them how to live wisely. 

This is why I’m glad you 'older men' are here to help me teach this study.  We need to love our children, but love must be applied with wisdom. Once your child leaves home, the ‘constructive’ part of fatherhood is over, it then becomes a job of helping them maintain the wisdom you’ve shown them.  Some of you have already shown me that you are much wiser fathers than I was at your age.  That is why this study is so important!  Every young father, and prospective young father needs your wisdom and advice.  PLEASE feel free to share it while we are gathered together. A matter of fact, even as we study together, we all become more informed and infused with wisdom.  THE PROBLEM IS;  Child rearing is the one thing you can’t get a mulligan for.  I can’t take what I learn today and ask my children to come home and learn again.  Wisdom gained today can’t make up for a lack of wisdom while they were young. You younger guys are blessed to have the fathers you have, and hopefully by the time this study is over, you will be the next level of fathers your children need to produce the next generation of fathers that will change the world.