FATHER'S DAY

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!! 

I'm posting this after our men's meeting simply because I want to spill my heart out about some of the greatest men I've ever known.  And, I've known a few over my 65 years.  

Today it is not popular to be a father.  I don't think it has been for quite a few years now.  Even in our churches, fathers don't get much of a break.  On Mother's Day we get blasted for not being, for the lack of a better word, mothers. I guarantee you that on Mother's Day in almost every church in the USA, you will have a preacher make a dig about Fathers.  It might be a subtle hint to do something special, as if we don't do something special all the time.  Or it will be intimations of selfishness, laziness, or some other 'ness' that leaps into their minds as they try to make the mothers in their congregation feel that the Pastor knows how 'put upon' they are.  I've never understood the need to make someone feel special by making someone else feel less special.  Moms are special!!  

It's the day before Father's day as I'm writing this, and tomorrow morning just before Men's group, I'll press the publish button, and release it.  I guarantee you that all across America, in almost every church, Men will be on the menu.  Instead of extolling the virtues of fatherhood, preachers will try to show the women of the fellowship just how special they are by beating up on the men one more time.  It will be a litany of failures, upheld by scriptural examples of failed fathers, with an encouragement to be better than the chosen example.  In my many years in Church, I've even heard Jonah used as an example of the wayward father.  How that young preacher nabbed on to Jonah I'll never know.  The points were good, the idea was strong, but nowhere did I hear the glowing praise heaped upon fathers that was heaped upon mothers. 

I want to break that mold.  

I fellowship with some of the most awesome men you'll ever know.  I've known most of them for over 20 years, and some of them for over 25 years.  I've seen every man in our Men's group in situations away from the church, in their homes, interacting with their children, loving their wives.  I've watched some of our men grow up from young boys into the loving fathers they are now.  I've seen some of them work two jobs just to make ends meet.  I've seen others work many years for another man, only to have the business turned over to them, and they themselves make a way for young men to be employed in the business.  We have a Junior High School Principal, two teachers, and an education counselor.  Out of our group of sixteen men, eight have college degrees, and two are working on their degrees.  All but five of our group are fathers.  

When called upon, all of these men will be there when you need them, and most of them will be there before you call.  I know they love their wives, because we've had intimate discussions about how wonderful our wives are.  I know they love their children, because I see how their children behave.  Believe me, you know when a child is loved.  

Later, when some of the fathers of young children are facing the challenges of being a father to a teenager, we'll be there for them.  Right now, I want you to know that I love all of you.  I've never been more proud to be a member of a fellowship than I am of being in this group of men.  You spur me on to good works, you challenge me to think beyond just myself.  Your homes are beautiful, your children wonderful, and your worship is contagious.  You are selfless as evidenced by the ministries our fellowship supports.  You do things nobody sees, and don't ask for recognition.  

I sing your praises if no one else will.  

Being a father is not the antithesis to being a mother, it is the completion of parenthood.  

You destroy the stereotypes!!!!!

Play With Me!

Last week I asked all of you to go back to revisit your childhood and remember a time when peer pressure caused you to do something that your parents had taught you not to do.  As I write this, I'm curious as to how early in your childhood you can go back to remember the first time someone pressed you to do something wrong.  My earliest memory of being pressured is when I was seven years old, and it is a memory I will not share.  At the same time, I know from watching my own children, that peer pressure begins very early.  It can be scary, because even though we hate it, the old saying about putting two boys together being trouble is true, and I'm here to tell you that it is true for little girls too.  

I don't know why getting two human beings together almost always leads to trouble, but it happens.  My Grandma used to say that it's not that they are smarter than you, it's just that even one child outnumbers you. My brother and I were an army of two without a general.  

As parents, what are you to do?  

If you, and your wife work, then at some point you have to put your child in day care.  In even a small group of say ten to twelve children, you're going to have at least one of those children be raised by parents who don't share your values. Now, top that off with that amazing ability of children to let their imaginations rule their actions and you have a recipe for misbehavior.  

IT IS INEVITABLE.   

I remember when my son was in the sixth grade, and he began to tell me what a movie was about that I didn't have in my video collection.  I asked him when he'd seen it, and he told me at a friend's house.  Needless to say, it was a movie I would have never allowed in our home. 

I ask one more time, what are we as parents supposed to do?  

You can't isolate them, and I really don't care who they are around, if you put two perfect little angels together, they'll find a way to act like little devils. 

Do you isolate them?  Do you hover over them like helicopters?   Do you do anything at all? 

I don't think you can do anything at all to keep two children from influencing one another, or from yielding to peer pressure. At the same time, I believe you can influence your children to exercise the wisdom you've been giving them from the book of Proverbs.   (Ah, now you understand why I went to Proverbs first.) The Proverbs are wisdom from above you.  Proverbs are spiritual, and therefore stand on their own without your prejudices.  You may not like the way I'm going to phrase this, but your child needs to know that God is the one looking over their shoulders.  Every one  of you know how much I despise the image of God as the big bully in heaven, just waiting to blow someone out of existence because they've transgressed a law or commandment.  Still, it is important for them to know that they can't just do anything they want without consequence. It is a fine line, and it is one that every child reacts to differently.  I don't know how I'd have turned out if I hadn't had the image of God that I did.  Finding out how your child sees God is important!!  This is where the issue of time comes in.  Are you willing to invest a little bit of  time in your child while they are soft and pliable, or do you want to wait until they are much older, and the time requirement is multiplied by a factor of 10?   If you don't define God for them, and if you don't define the moral nature of God for them, then their peers will.  It won't be a question of your child testing the boundaries of the Godly morals you value, it will be a peer establishing the boundaries. At the same time, it goes without saying that there are children who will rebel against even the most loving, and involved parents.  The counsel I give here is not a panacea, nor a buttress against the pull of the carnal nature. 

There are a few ways you can short circuit the power of peer pressure, but I want to talk about being the first peer in their lives.  AS their parent, you get to be their first everything!!!  Why not be their first playmate?  

Establish primacy in their lives and be the first one they talk to about their experiences.  Yes, your heard me right!!! You and your spouse can be the first person they talk to about life.  Be nosey!  Yes, be a nosey posey. Ask them who they played with during the day.  Ask them what they did.  Ask them how they feel about their friend, or friends.  Ask them about the daycare, about the Sunday School class, about the school classroom.  Ask them about the little friend from Church who you are sure is a perfect little angel.  By listening, and talking with them at an early age, you can 

gain primacy as the teacher of their faith.  I didn't know this when I raised my own children, but I can tell you how I've seen it work in other families. 

 

Be your child's first playmate!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is that enough exclamation points?  

Be the one that they play pat-a-cake with.  Be the horse they ride on.  Be the one who plays cars, dolls, make believe, video games, and a dozen other things that they will do.  You have to be their first playmate.  If you are their first playmate, then they will open up to you in playtime.  If that sounds too feminine or un-Godlike, then you have a much higher regard for yourself than you ought to.  If you think your life is amazingly grown up and complex and that God wouldn't play in the dirt with you, then you missed the whole point of Jesus.  If you don't believe Jesus existed before the foundation of the world, and that he was slain before the foundation of the world, then you've missed the point of salvation.  God knows time backward and forward, and He knew what we were like before He made us.  Dear God in heaven that is so humbling for me every time I think it.  Jesus was a little boy before God made little boys.  God sat down in the dirt with other little boys and played marbles and still he chose to make the dirt for little boys to play marbles on. Not only that, how many of those same playmates would later call out for His death.

This is our Heavenly Father!!!  

Our Lord and Savior, God the Son, is the same as you and I.  He chose to walk with his son Adam in the Garden during the cool of the day, and enjoyed watching his child name the creatures of the earth.  He listened to his son Adam and talked with him even though Adam didn't know squat.  If you think their daily walks consisted of God lecturing Adam, you don't know my God. Your little one that holds onto your finger as you walk toward the store is no different than your relationship to God.  If nothing else drives you to play with your child, knowing that God chooses to 'play' with you should. We must appear as infants to God even in our greatest wisdom and knowledge.  Still, he chooses to walk with us, and play with us.

As a father, you have first dibs on your child's interests, and their feelings.  Find the time to play, talk, watch, and do things together.  Ask them how they feel about little Johnny, or little Katie?   Ask them to make judgments, and to tell you what they felt. If you don't do it now, it will take a long time before they will do it after they're adults.  Yep, it's a tough thing being a parent.  The only true currency you have is time, and that is what a peer gives.   You have to be the prime peer in their life.  Notice I've avoided using the word friend.  As a father you can't be their friend until they come into maturity.  Later on, you can allow them to be your best buddy, but when they are little ones, you need to be their first playmate so that they learn to play the way you want them to play with others.  

I've told all of you before that I wasn't always an introvert.  My first week in elementary school forever scarred me.  My Dad never knew because he was in the Army, and moonlighted as a truck driver.  My mother didn't find out until I was in the fourth grade that the reason for my bad grades was because of being abused by my peers.  My dad wasn't my playmate, and a sibling isn't always the best playmate.  My report cards from the first grade on always had low marks on the line that said "Plays well with others"    I said all of that to make the point that if you are your child's first playmate, you can see who they are, and you can shape who you want them to be.  My Mom, and my Dad didn't know that I was having problems.  They didn't know because they didn't play with me.  That isn't a whine or a complaint. It is a warning.  It is even important for you to be your daughter's playmate.  How will they learn what a good man is, if all they see is TV or movie versions that have no reality to them?   

I used to think peer pressure didn't begin until much later in childhood until I watched the kids playing at the Pre-School in the public school system I used to work for.  Boy did I learn something new!!

When you play with your children (and grandchildren) you have the power to establish the rules of their peer relationship without giving them a bunch of do's and don'ts.  It's simple as that. How they treat their toys, how they imagine things, the stories they tell, the people they put in peril, and the people they save all have meaning to them, but it isn't indicative of their bent, it is a place to change their bend.  If you think of yourself as too good to play with your children then I promise you, they will quickly stop going to you for the more important discussions.  I know.  I've seen it both ways, and you can tell which ones I played with, and which ones I didn't.  

HEAVENLY FATHER IN A CAN

Let me say from the outset, this lesson is an unusually long one.  I thought it could be divided in two, and I tried, but it didn't work.  The Coronavirus pandemic sat us back on our heels as far as our study goes, and I believe there is an exciting study awaiting us at the end of our study into fatherhood. I'm just waiting for God to reveal it.  What I mean by that, is that I'm waiting for him to reveal the source material, a book, a guide, whatever.  So, with that disclaimer out of the way, lets get back into our study of fatherhood.

There is only one YOU, and there will only be one father like you. Even if you tried to follow a step by step process from a father you admired, YOU would be the variable that changes things up. I can give you my three “C’s” of a relationship, and it would play out much differently than what I’ve done in my family.  One thing is a constant between all of us; You are the only one who can reveal the heavenly Father to your children.  Your words, and actions will shape your child’s image of what a father is. This in turn will shape their view of their heavenly Father. The good thing is,  you don’t have to be perfect to do this job, you just have to accept the role and be wise in carrying it out. If I had to give only one piece of advice to fathers, it would be the same advice that David gave his son Solomon: Get wisdom.  (Proverbs 4:4-9)

The greatest gift you can give your child is wisdom.  I know you thought it was love, but love without wisdom is a cancer that destroys a child’s ability to know real love.  Don’t get me wrong, if you love your child as God loves you, you will give them wisdom. Being a good father is loving your child enough to impart wisdom, and live wisely before them. I know, everyone thinks that love is the most important thing for a father to have, but I would hope that love was a no-brainer.  A matter of fact, I would assume in most cases that the ability to love your own child is a natural reaction. I’ve seen lots of fathers over my lifetime be given their newborn baby child, and watched with joy how that little bundle of life can tame even the most physically strong manly man.  Every man comes to terms with their physical strength, raging hormones, and clumsiness when they are given their newborn child. Within your huge, powerful hands, there is a fragile life, and you are overwhelmed with love and tenderness.  Suddenly, you are a father.  It is a Big deal!!!!  It is also scary stuff.  While most people can quote (1 John 4:8b)  God is love, very few people realize He is more than love.  Loving OUR children is in our DNA, because our DNA is God’s DNA.  Just as God is more than love, we have to be more than love.  

So, if we are the father that reveals the heavenly Father, how do we do it?  We’re far from perfect. We aren’t all mighty.  We aren’t eternal.  We aren’t ...God.  

Exactly.  As I’ve said before; Embrace the fail!  Let it humble you to the task.  Not only did God entrust you with knowing Him, but now as a father, you are entrusted with revealing the one true Father to your children, dare I say, His children.  For all practical purposes, you are ‘Heavenly Father in a can.’  Let that rest in your cranial cavity  a little while.  You will fail, but you will also succeed.

I’m not a sociologist, psychologist, or highly trained child development teacher.  What I know about raising tiny humans comes from experience, both bad, and good.  God doesn’t ask you to be God to your child.  He alone is God, and  He is the only one who can be God.  However, you can be a father, which is way better than trying to be God.  Why do I say that?  Because I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a father say to their child “I’m the boss of this family you’ll do what I say without any questions.”  We think because God appears to demand unquestioning strict obedience to Him, we as fathers must do the same.  NOT SO!  Godhood is not what being a father is all about.  As I said earlier, as men we aren’t perfect, blameless, all knowing, or any other description of God’s unique nature.  We are fathers, and have a responsibility to rightly reflect fatherhood in such a way that our children can see God as Father.  It is as FATHER that God is kind, merciful, full of compassion, and gracious.  It is as God that He is a deity beyond our knowing.  I prefer to know Him as Abba, Father, and fear Him as God. Many old school fathers would rather practice the inverse.  They want their children to fear them, and then hope that they’ll come to know them. As I’ve said before, if you allow yourself to be the disciplinarian, and momma gets to be the nurturer, your child will not have a healthy view of the Heavenly Father.

AS a quick review, there are some ground rules that I believe will help any Christian father be a wise, loving, and good father like our Heavenly Father.  First of all you must understand that your job as a father is just as important as your job providing money, being a husband, being a church member, or any other number of tasks you think you must do. When I counsel couples before they get married, I make it clear to them what their job as spouse is by showing them what they would do without their spouse. I don't know how many times I've heard young husbands say; "My life was great before I got married!"  Then they proceed to tell you all of the exciting things they did, the women they had, or the party life they gave up.  Which I would quickly call them out on.  I would quickly remind them that if they'd never got married, they would still need to go to work and make money.  They would still need to go to Church and serve as part of the community there.  If you weren’t married you would still engage in hobbies, and pastimes.  Your job as husband is not what you bring to the table, but what you bring to the person who sits at the table with you.The same thing is true when you become a father.  Instead of having only one person to be concerned with, you now have one, two, three more lives to be concerned with.  Now you have a serious job title, father.  Your job as a father is always a work in progress, and doesn’t end once they leave home. However, in my opinion, the first five years are the most critical years of your child’s development.  Later, they’ll discover if you are a good husband, pastor, church member, worker, or any other number hats you think you have to wear.  The only role that will be imprinted into their brain long after they’ve grown older is the role of father you embraced when they were tiny children.  

So, let’s get back to the wisdom thing.  While God didn’t get really explicit about how to raise a child, He did give us this beautiful book of wisdom called Proverbs.  Within this marvelous volume is infinite wisdom to guide you, and eventually guide your child in the affairs of life.  Everything to do with human nature is in that book.  To me, there is no greater self-help book a man can read than the book of Proverbs.  Living a life of wisdom will carry you past the winds of feelings, passions, emotions, tragedies, failures, successes, and victories that are life.  Within the book of Proverbs are the revelation of who God is.  HE IS WISE and JUST above all else.  He is JUST because He is wise.  Without wisdom, you could love your child with all of your heart and lead them straight to the pit of hell. It is wisdom that gives love its balance.  Good isn’t measured in love, but in wisdom.  Picture in your mind the indulged (spoiled) child.  You know they are loved!  You also know that they are loved too much.  They were showered with love without limits.  Every whim, every desire, every grasp of their hand was rewarded with what they wanted.  Then, suddenly life happens and they are rudely confronted with the knowledge that the world doesn’t spin just for them. A spoiled child makes you feel pity for them, not the parents. Wisdom would have limited their grasping hands, and muffled their tantrums.  Love without wisdom is like eating too much candy. 

  

Yes, get wisdom above all else.  It will keep you, and it will guard them.  Wisdom will make you a good husband, father, and teacher.  Let love empower your wisdom, but never let it overrule it.   This is how our heavenly Father describes himself.  Wisdom will help you when your child doesn’t know what they want or how to get it.  It will help you to explain life’s most difficult moments when love seems to be a million miles away.  One of the biggest problems with people who don’t know the wisdom of God, is that they try to frame this world in terms of love only.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the statement “If God is love, then why… “ enter any number of cruel misunderstandings that can be thought up. 

 

Without wisdom, every disaster, restriction, or roadblock in life appears to be a cruelty.  When you have God’s wisdom as the guide of your life, your children will be reassured, and comforted through the worst storms.  They will learn that through adversity comes strength. They will learn that love comes from struggle, and wisdom through experience.  They will learn to accept denial as easily as success.

 

Wisdom dampens the fires of our emotions, and steadies our thoughts until we are able to process the circumstances we find ourselves in.  Wisdom helps to explain the struggles, and give insight to the problems.  Wisdom lifts us above the circumstances, and frames our life in terms of truth.  Wisdom removes the rose colored glasses, and allows us to see clearly.

  

As a father, wisdom will help you to respond to your children instead of reacting to them.  Wisdom will help you to frame the boundaries of their life, as well as giving you boundaries to your own life.  Wisdom will help you to have better relationships with those around you, especially your family.  Wisdom will help you to be a better husband, which is the first quality your children should see.  Wisdom will help you to be a better son, to the father who may not have given you wisdom. 

 

So, how do you get wisdom.  First, ask for it.  (James 1:5)  Then, read a chapter in Proverbs every day, for the rest of your life.  WHAT?????   Yes, a chapter a day.  Eventually, they will be written down into your brain so that in any circumstance, you will have wisdom available to you.  If it is in your heart and mind, wisdom will guide everything you do.  Yes, it will even color your love with truth.  Wisdom comes from doing things God’s way.  Doing things God’s way will then be associated with you to your children. Almost every child will say that their daddy loved them, and then you get the ‘but,’ followed by a long list of complaints about your lack of parenting skills. ‘Dad was too strict,’ ‘Dad was too easy’  or ‘Dad wasn’t there.’  However, I am convinced that no child can ever complain about a father who made wisdom their goal.  If you seek wisdom, I promise you will hear your child describe you as the wisest, most loving man they know, and they will come to you for counsel.  They will probably do it sooner than later.  

  

SEEK WISDOM.