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Take Aim and Release

May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

father-son-bow

I recently had the amazing opportunity to listen to a challenge from Dr. Duane Litfin. If you are not familiar with the name, he is the President Emeritus of Wheaton College, and brought some great reminders to me in his presentation.

We read from Psalm 127. I have to admit, I had never taken the whole chapter as a single topic, but after hearing this, I felt compelled to share.

You see, I find myself challenged with the notion that my day-job needs to matter. From what I have read in management literature, I am not alone in this. We all need to have a sense that we are not just wasting our days and that we will come to the end of our lives wondering if we really made a difference.  Here is what the Psalmist had to say…

1 Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. 2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves. 3 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him. 4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. 5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court. (NIV)

I have never really connected verses 1-2 with 3-5 before. Solomon was passing along some wisdom that really struck home with me. It is not an accident that he starts by saying that the Lord needs to be in the center of the work, but then he wraps it all up talking about our kids and the blessing they are.

Solomon was really onto something here. I have always said that my definition of success in this life is that my grandchildren are serving God. Regardless of where I work, and what I do, my first, and most powerful, field of influence is my children.

C.S. Lewis once said “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.”

How much of the daily work I do is outdated the moment I finish it? Is my career really all about things that no one will know about, or care about, decades from now? I contrast that against the generations before me, and the generations that come after me. My dad does not have much in the way of material possessions, but he did leave me and my siblings a legacy to follow: A passionate legacy of living a life with God unashamedly.

Am I looking at my kids as a blessing? Many days – yes. Some days I forget and need this reminder.

Am I intentional in how I aim their lives towards the Lord? I need to be more so. When I am not placing a priority on my children, and their need for seeing who God is, it is because I am guilty of placing too much emphasis on other endeavors. Endeavors that, regardless of how noble, pale in comparison to my role as the father, mentor, leader in my home. My boys need to see the God I serve. They need to know that I am here for them. They need to know that true manhood is experiencing a personal relationship with the God of creation.

Disclaimer: I often refer to myself as a Jack of all Trades, Master of None. May I learn to be a Master of One Trade – Dad.

Filed Under: Blessing, Challenge, Fatherhood, Responsibility, Spiritual Leadership, Work Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Manhood is Caught, Not Taught

May 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Manhood isn’t taught; it’s caught.

I’ve shared this concept many times as I’ve encouraged men to embrace their role as coaches to young guys.  It isn’t really a foreign concept since most guys have had some type of coach in their lifetime.  You may be remembering one from your past right this minute.  Of course, not all coaching results in a positive experience, but you probably will agree that the influence of that coach has made a lasting impact.

As with coaching, fathering can also be either positive or negative.  Since none of us are perfect, our fathering will probably include some of both.  The question is, how can we minimize the negative and maximize the positive as we interact with our sons?

As the father of three sons (ages 36, 27, and 25), I have had to remind myself for years that my job is not to raise boys, but rather to raise men.  The job never really stops; it just changes based on age and maturity level.  As our sons mature and grow older, they will need a father’s influence in many differing ways.  Learning how to influence them appropriately will be a life’s work for any father.

I can assure you that our culture needs men who know what the role entails.  Unfortunately, we seem to be suffering from an overabundance of males who simply have no idea what practical and godly manhood looks like.  In other words, we have too many boys, many of whom are in their 50’s and 60’s.

Manhood-Caught-Not-Taught

Manhood is something like a cold virus: the strain you catch is the same strain as the person you caught it from.  So it is important for us as fathers to learn the type of manhood that God describes throughout scripture.  If you were to grade King David’s fathering and manhood, he would probably have a near failing grade.  But the New Testament refers to him as “a man after God’s own heart.”  Abraham lied about his wife and caused her to be placed in the harem of another king.  Not exactly stellar manhood, yet his faith was credited to him as righteousness.  Having God’s heart and living in faith are essential elements of godly manhood.  Actively cultivating these in your life will help you be the man your son should emulate.

Our society places a lot of emphasis on education.  We seem to think we can educate our problems out of existence.  What we may have overlooked in the process is the need for teaching (education) and instruction (coaching).  God nuances this language as he tells mothers to teach their children and fathers to instruct them.

Instruction includes demonstration and practical application.  In other words, the one being instructed observes the desired behavior during the instruction.  When we instruct our sons to securely tie the boat to a dock, it includes a demonstration.  The knot chosen may have been taught through a diagram, but the application is observed as someone else actually ties the boat to the dock.  By observing a man’s behavior, a boy is instructed about how a man acts.

My coach has told me a number of profound truths over the years, but in my next post we’ll look at the one I have found to be the most impactful: “You will never father well until you have been fathered well.”  In the meantime, keep at it.  Learn as much as you can about the Father’s Heart and believe what He says is true.  After all, faith is believing what God has said and then living it out daily.

Try it and watch what happens.

Filed Under: Fatherhood, Masculinity, Spiritual Leadership, Training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Like Father, Like Son

May 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Hey Dad,

Remember that old 70’s anti-smoking commercial that coined the phrase, “Like Father, Like Son?” Well, I felt a tinge of that today with my son, Jed (5), and it felt good…and scary.

It started out just like any other day. I was getting dressed and about to grab the first shirt on top when I remembered my wife telling my mom that I always wear what’s on top, which ends up being the same thing over and ove;r so I decided to dig deep and wear something different.

I pulled a blue-striped rugby shirt out and pulled it over my head. Later, I bumped into Jed, and he looked up at me in surprise and beamed a big smile.

“We match!” he said pointing to my shirt. “I’ve got one like that.”

He disappeared and then reappeared a few minutes later, proud as all get out, wearing a shirt almost identical to mine. We took a picture together and my little boy hugged his rugby-clad papa. I could almost hear that soothing narrator’s voice say, “Like father, like son.” It felt good knowing my son wanted to be like me…and then it felt scary knowing my son wanted to be like me.

Father Son

It’s a two-edged sword…and I wield them both. If that doesn’t terrify you, nothing will. But that’s what makes what we do so powerful. That’s why we can’t afford to coast, slack off, or quit. There’s too much riding on it…er…us. Jed needs me to show him how to be a dad, a husband, and a man. Actually, all eight of my children do.

Guess what? So do yours…like father, like…you know.

You ‘da dad,

Todd

PS – Rodney Atkins wrote a great song about this very thing called ”Watching You.” Buckle on your country seatbelt.

 

photo credit
Filed Under: Fatherhood, Responsibility, Training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Know your role!

April 23, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Know Your Role
One of the key ingredients to being a strategic and intentional dad is teaching our boys to apply biblical truth to everyday life. I have often found that life as a follower of Jesus gets fuzzier the closer it gets to real life. As fathers, we must understand that we must fulfill three primary roles in the discipleship of our boys.

Dads must be primary teachers.

A father’s goal for his boys should be to root their identity in the existence and glory of God. Far too many times, I parent as if God doesn’t exist. We should never allow our children to believe in a God who is distant and uninvolved. That means we must make it abundantly clear that God is with us in the mundane, ordinary tasks of the day. Our boys must see us glorifying God in all areas of our life. We must seek to embed the story of our sons in the larger story of God.

Dads must be primary counselors.

A father must realize that he is the negotiator in a house full of sinners, of which he is the worst. God’s plan for the family is to be a picture of redemptive community. In order for that to happen, fathers must lead their families in gospel-centered conflict resolution. Our sons must see a godly example from us on how to talk with another, serve one another, make decisions, and deal with differences. We must make sure that we do not give into surface solutions rather than dealing with our son’s heart.

Dads must be primary coaches.

Great coaches prepare, model, and adjust. Dads must prepare like coaches by parenting with the end in mind. We must know our “personnel” and prepare them to be people of hope even in the midst of a fallen world. We must also parent with a humble awareness of our own sin. Last time I checked, I don’t recall Romans 3:23 saying that just our boys sin. Boys must hear from their dads that only through Christ can we truly experience freedom from the things with which we struggle. The hope of the gospel must be the constant theme in the life of our family. Finally, we must be willing to adjust and make sure that we never let the minor trials of life take our mind away from the major issue at hand, casting and modeling vision for our boys about what it means to be a godly man.

These three roles will play a critical part in how we teach and shape the worldview of our sons. My prayer is that we all take each role seriously and that we strive to glorify God through the way we invest in the lives of our boys.

What role do you find the most difficult? What methods are you using in your house to fulfill these roles?

 

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Hey dads, feel like crashing a party? Our sister site, the MOB Society, is hosting a Facebook party TODAY at 3pm EST.

Why would you want to crash that? Here’s why:

It’s all about giving HOPE to those who need it most. This party promotes the Mother’s Day Special going on right now at MOB. Not familiar? Head here for all the details about this great project to provide meaningful, noble work for women who have been trapped in the sex trade. We need your help to spread to the word about this project!

Need another reason? Enter the giveaway at the MOB society site today, and you’ll be entered to win a great Mother’s Day gift for the BoyMom in your life.  The package includes a Freeset bag, bag of coffee beans from Avodah, and a copy of Hope for the Weary Mom.

See ya over there, Party Crashers!

 

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Filed Under: Fatherhood, Spiritual Leadership, Training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

What A Man’s Gotta Do

April 18, 2013 By Leave a Comment

WhatamansgottadoMy wife, weak from the stomach flu, came out of the bathroom where she’d been hiding out—hiding by my request, I should say.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, shakily. “I feel like I shouldn’t have left you out there to do that.”

She had just stepped into the bathroom for the bedtime rituals when one of our younger children stumbled to the door of our bedroom and was gloriously sick—on me, on the laundry beside the door, the surroundings generally. Knowing Melanie was in a dicey state already, I had called out to her, “You stay where you are—we’ll take care of it.” Two of my sons scrambled for towels, trash bags, all the stuff needed to get the situation at least stabilized, and in a few minutes we got the sick child off to a different bathroom, the first load in the laundry, and Ground Zero restored to a more hygienic state.

It made me think about my father, who passed away while I was in college. Dad was a strong man with a weak stomach. My mother used to tell me that if my sister or I were sick, or even needed a serious diaper change, Dad would take care of the cleanup without hesitation or complaint, and when the crisis was over, excuse himself to the bathroom and be privately ill. Mom tried to spare him that indignity whenever possible, but the thing that she remembered and shared with us was that, even so, he went ahead and did it.

I’ve often thought that most Christians are not likely to face lions in the Arena – we brace ourselves up for that – but more often, we’re pecked to death by chickens. My dad never took a bullet for any of us, he never took newsworthy public stands or did remarkable feats of heroism, but he lived a life of quiet faithfulness to the needs of his family. I’m sure he would have run into burning buildings for any of us, but he answered the call of marriage and fatherhood by doing the routine, boring, even nauseating stuff, just as a matter of course.

The old Western-movie cliché is “Sometimes a man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do.” I learned from my dad that most of what a man’s gotta do is not the stuff of movies or newsreels, but the simple willingness to sacrifice his own desires and comfort for the needs of someone else. I hope my sons are learning the same lesson from me.

 

Photo Credit

Filed Under: Behavior, Challenge, Fatherhood, Marriage, Masculinity, Responsibility, Servanthood Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Parenting Your Children For Eternity

March 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Parenting Your Children For Eternity ~www.boydads.com

I have no idea whether my sons will grow up to be pastors, doctors, teachers, athletes, musicians, politicians or laborers.  But the one thing I do know with certainty as a Christian parent is that my children will stand before God some day.  With appropriate reverence, I understand that they will either stand before their Father in Heaven having believed in Jesus or not.  Eternity awaits every single one of our children – that I know.

In 1888, J.C. Ryle, the English writer, pastor, and father of five, wrote a sermon called “The Duties of Parents.”  It was a 17 point sermon on Proverbs 22:6.  These were his closing words to his church that day:

“Train well for this life, and train well for the life to come; train well for earth, and train well for heaven; train them for God, train them for Christ, and train them for eternity.  Amen.”

Though this sermon (and now book) has many great biblical insights, encouragements, and reminders, there is one phrase that has both stuck out to, and stuck with me.  It is the phrase, “train them for eternity.” To put it simply, Ryle is reminding Christians to parent their children for what really matters.  In a culture where the opportunities (some of which are good) are endless, it is easy, if not tempting, to lose sight of eternity.

As parents, our most prized priority must be to diligently and graciously train our children to grow up to love God and love the world.   One of the greatest joys we have as parents is to teach, guide, warn, model, and encourage our children from the Bible. The Apostle Paul makes an interesting comment regarding Timothy’s training as a child.  Notice what he says in 2 Timothy 3:14-15:

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

Paul suggests that Timothy, from a very young age, was being taught the Bible.  The fertile soil of Timothy’s heart was being plowed and prepared by a parent who was pursuing eternity.

The following are simple and practical ways to help show your son(s) that you are living with eternity in mind:

  1. Spend meaningful time with your son(s) talking about spiritual things
  2. Share with your family what God is teaching you
  3. Pray for and with your son(s)
  4. Lead family devotions
  5. Let your son(s) see you reading God’s Word, praying, or sharing your faith
  6. Let your son(s) see you serve by using your gifts in your local church
  7. Give generously and sacrificially to God’s kingdom – For example, give to missions, your church, a family or individual in need, etc.

Today I want to remind you that you also can be that kind of father: a father who is living with one eye on this life, and the other eye on the life that is to come.  It is by God’s grace that any of our children come to faith in Jesus, but we must not forget that God has also uniquely chosen parents to help pass along faith to the next generation.

In Jesus,

Patrick Schwenk, The Dig for Kids

Filed Under: Fatherhood, Responsibility, Spiritual Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Power of a Blessing

February 28, 2013 By 5 Comments

We haven’t been the greatest parents spiritually. I hear parents talk of how they have family devotions every evening and I just think, “We suck!” We have never done a family devotion, unless the reading of Luke 2 on Christmas morning counts. We don’t send our children to Christian School like other good Christians do. But the one thing we do is pray a blessing over our children when we drop them off at school. We’ve been doing this for 16 years but never seen the impact like we have this year with our adoptive boys.

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My wife Carolyn was running late to drop off our almost 4-year-old and almost 3-year-old at preschool, which, by the way, is at a Baptist Church in case you were judging us harshly. Her habit is to pray a blessing over each of them in the parking lot prior to heading to their classrooms, nothing long and pharisaical mind you, but brief and to the point. Well, on this particular day she was in such a hurry that she forgot to pray for the boys. As she dropped off Sam (our almost 3-year-old) and began walking down the hall, relieved that the morning ordeal was over and the boys had been delivered safely to their respective classes, Sam came running out of his classroom, tears in his eyes and teacher in tow. He cried out, “You forgot to pray, Mommy.” Immediately Carolyn turned on her heels, ran to our little boy, took him in her arms and prayed a blessing over him. The teary-eyed teacher watched, moved by the tenderness of a young boy longing for the prayer and blessing of his parent.

Sam has only been a part of our family for 11 months. He came to us from an environment where prayer was foreign, blessings were few, and safety and security were not a certainty. Yet in his brief time with us he has come to know the power of prayer and a blessing. He knows the comfort of a loving hand on his head and the peace of God which transcends all understanding that results from prayer.  He has come to know the love of an earthly father and mother and is learning the love of his heavenly Father.

So, for those of you who feel you don’t measure up to other Christian parents, why not try praying a simple blessing over your children each day as they head off to school or day care. It won’t take a minute, but it will affect your child immediately and change him or her for a lifetime!

Filed Under: Adoption, Blessing, Love, Prayer Tagged With: , , , , , , ,