Are You a “Good” Parent?, Part 2

My last post reminded me of a couple of biblical examples that spoke volumes to me about the subject of Christian parenting.

The story of Eli and his sons is the first one (1 Samuel 2:20-36). Eli’s sons were priests and spent the majority of their time abusing their privileges in self-serving ways. No one would consider them “nice, well-mannered young men.” They were first class jerks. This passage often makes it into parenting seminars as an example of a gluttonous, lazy, and personally undisciplined father and the havoc that his lack of restraint causes. The inference is clear: Eli’s sons were horrible because Eli was a bad father. I can’t tell you the number of parents I’ve seen who, upon hearing about the inappropriate behavior of their children, are washed over with guilt because of the actions of their offspring. And it doesn’t matter the age – the child could be forty years old and still the parents feel they are responsible in some way. The church often reinforces those stereotypes, as if the personal humiliation isn’t enough on its own.

But here’s another biblical example we don’t talk about that much: the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 8). Do you know about his kids? They were just as bad as Eli’s – possibly worse! In fact, their injustice and willingness to take bribes is what casued the Israelites to want Saul for a king. That may explain why Samuel was so against it. Even as Saul is being appointed over Israel (12:1-4), Samuel is still carrying on about his sons still being available to judge Israel – as if they are a better choice than Saul. By all Christian standards, Samuel is what a parent should be: a mighty man of God, modeling service and sacrifice to God on a daily basis. Someone to be admired and imitated. Yet, his sons reject his example, despite his efforts to influence them for the better. By chapter 12, it’s obvious that Samuel thinks a king is a bad idea – but more importantly, he’s so blind to his own children’s behavior that he actually thinks they are still qualified to govern Israel.

Okay, Sam, so what’s your point? Well, it’s essentially what I said in the earlier post. Good parenting is not about cause and effect or “if you do A, you’ll get B.” It’s not a formula. Parents have to believe that our parenting makes a difference. Otherwise, it’s an overwhelming task. But for Eli and for Samuel, regardless of personal devotion to God, the spiritual formation of any child goes beyond what even the best parents can do. Ultimately, each person has to recognize the pursuit of God in their life and be willing to respond. I can do my best to create an atmosphere where the Holy Spirit can draw my children into relationship. But in the end, each child’s response is their solely their own. And that’s not a bad thing. God pursues relationship with our children regardless of our behavior, simply because that’s what he wants. And his desire for their salvation far outweighs any hopes I may have for my children. So I model my Christianity, not because it’s important for them to see it. I model it because my Christianity is important to me. And as God pursues them, one day their Christianity will be important to them as well.

 

Are You a “Good” Parent?, Part 1

I’ve been thinking about what makes someone a good parent – or better yet, what we should consider good parenting skills. I’m finding there aren’t any hard, fast rules that determine whether your child turns out to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner or an ax murderer. And most kids end up somewhere in between anyway. A couple of books have brought this question to my attention.

The first was that fun little book Freakonomics. One of the chapters attempts to determine the bearing of different parenting styles on children. What the authors find is that socio-economic status has significant bearing in a specialized way. Children in middle to upper income families do better because of the opportunities that money gives them. Intelligence has little to do with it. For example, a child who reads children’s books in his/her home is likely to do well in life. But it’s not because they read better than another child. It’s because a child whose parents have enough money to buy children’s books are also going to have enough money to buy piano lessons, art lessons, etiquette classes, a private school education, etc. Baby Einstein videos don’t do much for your kid, but a parent willing to spend the money on those videos will most likely spend that same type of money on other things to make sure their children succeed. Interesting point. But it says nothing of spiritual or character formation.

The other two books were religious. The first was George Barna’s Revolutionary Parenting. This book was pretty adamant that a particular type of parent turns out spiritual “champions” on a regular basis. The type of parent? Evangelical and conservative. That wasn’t that surprising either – Barna is an evangelical. The point was that these parents modeled a Christian lifestyle for their children and gave them multiple chances for response. But I began to think about many of the Christians I know today…and whole lot of them were not brought up in a Christian home at all. And the more serious ones had a horrible upbringing. Maybe that’s because they actually understand the gravity of salvation since they were so far from God to begin with. Or maybe they understood the ravaging effect of sin in a more personal way. There is some truth to the idea that great sinners make great Christians. So Barna’s approach leaves out a whole lot of people.

The final book was Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength. In the second chapter or so, Dungy talks about the exceptional example his parents provided for him. They were strong, church-attending Christians and both had higher level educational training. Both were teachers. By our society’s standards, that’s the one-two punch. It’s easy to talk about how great his parents must have been and that surely this was the reason for Dungy’s successful coaching career. But the last paragraph of the chapter throws a wrench in that scenario. Dungy stated that it wasn’t until years later as an adult that he made a commitment to Christ. Huh? Wait a minute. If anybody should have been a great Christian from the start it should have been Dungy. He had Christianity and education. But it didn’t impact him as much as we assume (or hope) it would.

So what am I trying to say? As parents we have to believe that our parenting makes a difference. Otherwise, it’s an overwhelming task. By secular standards, socio-economic status determines our success in life. But for Christians, it has to be more than that. Yet in both of the Christian books I described, the spiritual formation of any child goes beyond what even the best parents can do. In fact, some Christian parents who do everything right, end up driving their children away from God. As much as parents would like to believe that model parenting matters (and it can certainly help things), ultimately each person on this planet has to recognize the pursuit of God in their life and be willing to respond. I’ve come to understand that there is no way I can really introduce my children to God. Now, I can surely model the importance of personal relationship before them. I can also place them in environments where the Holy Spirit can draw them to him. But in the end, that’s between my children and God. And there’s nothing I can do about that.

But there’s hope. I also believe that God will go to the same extremes that he has done with me and my wife in order to develop a relationship with my children. God doesn’t pursue a relationship with my children because I want him to. He pursues them because he wants to. And his desire for their salvation far outweighs any hopes I may have for my children. So I don’t model Christianity because it’s important for them to see it. I model it because my Christianity is important to me. And as God pursues them, one day their Christianity will be important to them as well. Not as a cultural condition, but as a genuine love response to the overwhelming goodness of their Creator.

“Windowless” Parenting

I am an anxious parent. Scratch that. Petrified parent. I read parenting books constantly. And the sole motivation for reading these books is the sheer terror I feel when I consider that the solutions to the problems I face as a parent are already solved in a book somewhere. And I haven’t read it yet. I have three daughters. They are all extremely bright and independent and beautiful. I’m sure they already intimidate the guys in their classes. Heck, they intimidate me! But I think I’ve already picked up on some things that will be foundation for my relationship with them. For example I have figured out that when raising daughters, the issue at hand is rarely the real issue. The meltdown over not eating vegetables has little to do with hunger. It’s usually a trigger for latent emotion stored up from a hurtful event earlier in the day (or week). I’m a guy so I assume it’s actually about vegetables. Guys, listen up: it’s not about vegetables. The next part of that process is to connect with your daughter in conversation so that she will eventually tell you what the real issue is. To me, that process is one of the most fascinating things about raising daughters…it’s kinda like a treasure hunt. I’ve got some good theories, too – things I won’t be able to test for a long time. For example, I have a hunch that the resistance I will feel from my children at age 16 will return to our relationship when they are 36 if I continue to treat them as I did 20 years earlier. So, I’m thinking about those things now as well…while I try to figure out what’s behind the vegetable “meltdown.”

One of the areas of ministry I oversee at my church is “discipleship.” That simply describes the process of people becoming more like Jesus. It’s a tricky business. I can provide “avenues” for others to engage God. But I can’t make people choose to deepen their relationship with God. Ultimately, I feel the burden for the spiritual well-being of our congregation. However, they are not my most important “calling.” The best place for me to help someone become more like Jesus is in my own home. My children are my ultimate disciples. People at church may get my ideas and programs. And I can counsel and give spiritual direction to them an hour at a time. But rarely can I be available to them like any true opportunity for discipleship needs. That side of me belongs to my children. They get my presence and my ability to teach in the moment.

Parents miss this. We fill our children’s lives with quotes and adages and morality tales as we whisk from one task to another. But we often forget about the most important thing: modeling the beliefs we desire to instill in our children.  We provide them no context in which to grasp our “wise words.” So our words fall flat. I call this “windowless” parenting. Children often have no context or “window” to see why parents feel the way they do. They see no action associated with what we tell them are our most cherished beliefs. We can tell our children to reserve judgment and refrain from gossip, but they listen to every phone conversation we have. We can tell them to be honest and authentic, but they hear how we mask our true intentions with others. We can tell them mom and dad love each other, but they rarely believe it until we ask them to not interrupt us while we tell our spouse about our day.

Be a window for your children. They are your disciples.

Power or Character?, Part 2

Okay. The contexts of power and character go beyond Bible verses to the life of the believer (and non-believer).  Let me give you two examples from my life.

Before I went into vocational ministry about a decade ago, I worked for the credit union of a Fortune 500 company. It was a promising career (and sometimes I wonder why I left it for ministry!  ) . My boss would come by my office and chat a couple of times a week. He would ask, “What’s up?” or “How are you doing?”  I assumed that he wanted outstanding loan balances or delinquency percentages. My heart would jump every time he did this: Is he checking up on me? What does he want? He’s looking for something. What did I do wrong? I would say very little so that my words wouldn’t be “used against me.”

That’s the context of power. I assumed that our conversation was more of a chess match. Someone would win and someone would lose. I didn’t know any other way to operate. For the record, I was an idiot. My boss never intended for those conversations to go that way. He simply wanted to get to know me better – he simply wanted a good relationship with me. That’s why he asked how my day was or how my wife was doing. Then he would ask if there was anything he could help me with or offer advice about what that I may be struggling with. He didn’t do this so he could write it all down in a secret file. He wanted to work with me to solve the problems and grow my experience as a manager in the financial world. I didn’t get it…and it must have been incredibly frustrating for him simply because he was working from the context of character.

Here’s another story. A few years later after I had shaken myself free from that paradigm, I walked into a church service of a friend to visit. The service had started – I merely wanted to sneak in the back and listen to my friend’s sermon. A lady was in the foyer texting on her phone I had never seen her before. She stopped and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be texting during the service. How about not telling anyone?” And then she laughed nervously. I said, “I’m sorry, you must have mistaken me for God’s policeman. I’m not the least bit worried about your texting.” I smiled and slipped in the back door. That lady assumed that I (a total stranger) worked from the context of power. She was caught. I would “expose’ her. I would win and she would lose. She may have assumed that God felt the same way…

The same is true with kids. Children become defiant. They get angry. They push boundaries. And when they do that they are imitating the power context of authoritarianism they see modeled for them in home, church, and at school. They feel the attitude of competition we bring home from a hostile work environment and listen to our words. And they began their own personal life of conquest. I know I’m in the minority here, but I have chosen to reject that approach. Occasionally I forget when I’m backed in a corner or seriously frustrated with my children’s behavior. But most of time, if my children become defiant I look for clues as to why my relationship with them is broken rather than force their obedience. Can I “make” them behave? Sure. But all that does is reinforce the importance of power in their hearts.

God has called us to live life from the context of character. That means occasionally you find yourself on the losing end of some arbitrary contest that someone set up that you may not even know you are competing in. That’s okay. They created that contest, not you. Expose the context of power. And declare that you don’t play that game. It’s not for faint of heart, mind you. But it’s the one modeled by Jesus. Of course, they killed him for it.

I suppose that’s the risk you take.

“I Like Best to Think of Him that Way.”

The last few weeks at our house have been insanely busy. Major decisions and life choices have taken a back seat to children’s play practice, the air conditioning going out in mid-July, and babies with ear infections. Beth and I became aware of just how little margin we had for “error” in our daily routines. Sometimes it’s tough to keep your cool in those times. I sure didn’t. By the end of it all, I was raising my voice at my kids and barreling past every insight and principle of parenting I had gleaned in the past few years.

I read a book about…well…bad parenting a few weeks ago. The book spends most of his time talking about the psychological impact of  corporal punishment. And I think the book probably ends up unbalanced in its final conclusions. But the more interesting aspect of the book involves where Christianity and parenting intersect. And that was really fascinating to me. It tells a marvelous story about nineteenth century evangelist Dwight L. Moody:

In [Moody's] home, grace was the ruling principle and not the law, and the sorest punishment of a child was the sense that the father’s loving heart had been grieved by waywardness and folly.

Moody’s son, Paul, relayed an incident where he had been caught directly disobeying his father by inviting a friend over to play after his normal bedtime hour. Moody lost his cool and raised his voice:

…I immediately retreated and in tears, for it was an almost unheard-of-thing that [Moody] should speak with such directness or give an order unaccompanied by a smile. But I had barely gotten into my bed before he was kneeling beside it in tears and seeking my forgiveness for having spoken so harshly…Half a century must have passed…and I can still see that room in the twilight and that large bearded figure with great shoulders bowed above me and hear his broken voice. I like best to think of him that way. I had seen him hold the attention of thousands of people, but asking the forgiveness of a disobedient little boy for having spoken harshly seems to me now a finer and greater thing, and to it I owe more than I owe to any of  his sermons. For to this I am indebted for an understanding of the meaning of the Fatherhood of God and a belief in the love of God had its beginnings that night in my childish mind (emphasis mine).

Horace Bushnell is one of my theological “heroes.” In his book Christian Nurture (1861), he writes some of the most piercing words ever regarding parents reflecting the character of God:

[Harsh treatment by a parent] is a great discouragement of piety in children…Anything that puts the child aloof from the parent…will be a wall to shut him away from God. If his Christian father is felt only as a tyrant, he will seem to have a tyrant in God’s name to bear…But there is a kind of virtue which is not in the rod – the virtue of a truly good and sanctified life. So much easier it is to be violent than to be holy, that [parents often] substitute force for goodness and grace and are wholly unconscious of the posture (emphasis mine).

 These quotes cut me to the core. I passionately desire to be this father but often times find that I am not. Yet quotes like the ones above don’t condemn me – they give me a glimpse of what the Holy Spirit can do in my heart as I continue to seek him. They are not hollow or shallow objectives to meet; that won’t change my behavior or impact my children. But they are examples of what “Spirit-led” parenting can look like. Each scenario is always different, but the love of God can be found in everyday interactions with children. Hopefully, my children will look back fondly on a particular memory and be able to say, “I like best to think of him that way.”

Bible Verses They Never Taught You in Sunday School…

I continue to be interested in gender descriptions of God. Talking about this may freak some of you out. Not everybody wants to talk about God outside of male imagery. I personally think of God as father, mother, husband, wife, brother, and sister. He represents all those relationships to me and I respond to him within all of those as well. And though male imagery for God may be most dominant in our culture, that doesn’t necessarily encompass everything we know of God.

Those who only see God as embodying male qualities and only sanctioning male authority usually make a point of Jesus chosing only men to be his disciples. For them, that settles it. But Jesus also only chose disciples of Jewish descent. So does that mean the church should only appoint Jews to positions of authority? No, the rest of the New Testament clearly states that Gentiles get in on the whole salvation thing, too. Here’s another issue: if biblical allegories for God such as “fire” or ”rock” or “tower” are meant to be representative of his nature, why don’t we literally pray “Dear Rock” or “Dear Tower Almighty?” We don’t because we haven’t been conditioned to do so. But it’s just as accurate as our prayers opening with “Dear Father” and that we have been conditioned to pray. Better yet, God describes himself as both a mistress and a slave owner in Psalm 123:2. Does that mean it’s okay to call God “mistress” and believe that slavery is an action God condones? Things just aren’t that simple, are they? The reality is that all of those metaphors (including father) are attempts to describe various aspects of God’s nature and cast anthropomorphic form around an otherwise genderless God.

So, is there biblical imagery that describes God in feminine terms? Sure. Here’s some:

In Psalm 70:5, God is described as our “helper,” (ezer) – the exact same word used to describe Eve. The word actually doesn’t have feminine connotations, and is used to describe God 16 times in the Old Testament. Now, there’s no problem if we respect the Hebrew meaning of the word describing someone helping from an equal position and never an inferior one. Then again, if we translate it accurately, the game is up and women know the Bible sees them as equal to men. Which is good. Because they are.

Genesis 3:21 describes God as a seamstress, a domestic function primarily ascribed to females. Jesus breaks similar cultural barriers as well. He washes feet and serves his companions (female or slave “jobs” in first-century Judaism) and tells overworked women like Martha to take a break and rest her feet.

The Bible describes God as having a womb and giving birth in Jeremiah 31:20, Isaiah 42:14, and Isaiah 46:3-4. Paul describes the cosmic womb of God in Acts 17:28: “In God, we live and move and have our being.” Job 38 describes God as father, giving birth, and the womb of God all in the same chapter (vv. 8-9 and 28-29).

We constantly overlook the feminine imagery Jesus describes with Nicodemus in John 3:3-7: “You must be born from above.” Jesus uses feminine imagery of birth again in John 16:21-22 and then turns around and prays to “Father” in the garden before his crucifixion.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the nursing mother passages. Isaiah 49:15 and Numbers 11:11-14. Though scholars are still debating, El Shaddai may mean the God of many breasts! God describes himself as a comforting mother in Isaiah 66:12-13. Hosea 11:1-9 says Gods loves us as a mother lifts an infant to her cheek.

And the greatest mixed metaphor for God in the Bible? The distinction goes to Deuteronomy 32:18:

“You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; 
you forgot the God who gave you birth.”

Inanimate. Organic. Male. Female. Ah, what a beautiful, beautiful image of a God who supplies every need and refuses gender categorization.

Answering the “Whys” of Life

I hear too many horror stories. Of course, that’s part of the ministerial profession and I’m thankful I can be available to those who trust me with their personal tragedies. But I never get past hearing about the injustices and sadness of others. Yet, at the same time, every story I hear is familiar in a way. After relaying stories of betrayal, death, misfortune, disease, and suffering, people always take the next logical step: they ask me questions of theodicy. Theodicy is just a fancy theological word for the issue of why evil exists in a world where a caring God is present. I recently finished reading this book and at the end, the author puts down some candid thoughts on this very issue. He says:

I am a theist…and must reconcile my belief in God with the existence of evil. In a word, I cannot. In spite of years of thinking and teaching about this topic…I cannot reconcile the existence of a good God with the existence of evil…I cannot fathom why God does what he does, and thus I will never understand why this God permits evil. The author of Job had to accept his ignorance and trust in his God. So do I.

I talk to people constantly who struggle with their faith in the midst of having these very same thoughts. I also find that behind the hardened exterior of the most objective atheist exists a story of personal betrayal or pain. But it’s those that follow Christ that worry me the most. They say, “I’ve committed my life to God. Why was he not there in the midst of my pain?” Good question. I’ll let you in on a secret. I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe I should, but I don’t. Sure, I’ve got some good theories. We’ll sit down sometime and I’ll tell you about them…and watch your eyes glaze over after 15 minutes of theologizing. But I don’t have one simple, definitive answer. Our world teaches us that by understanding something, we can diminish it’s power over us. Education eradicates poverty or war or suffering, etc. But in moments of tragedy, knowing why something happens rarely numbs the pain of loss. That’s when it becomes clear that we don’t need answers as much as we need healing.

I can tell you this. God wants to build relationships with us that are bigger than the “why” questions we face. You see, from what I can tell, God wants to create a dynamic, living, growing level of interaction with you that eclipses that pain and confusion felt in a particular moment. Intimacy that will swallow the circumstances of a moment in time.  But there’s a catch: Christianity, to withstand heartache and tragedy, cannot be nominal. It must be the center of existence for living. Otherwise, tragedy will easily swallow a fledgling faith. The question is not “Why did this happen, God?” but rather, “Is my love relationship with God strong enough that it can absorb the “whys” and unknowns of living on this planet?” In other words, is my trust in God unfazed by what I don’t understand about God? And that, my friends, is why theology only works inside the context of dynamic relationship.

Let me explain it this way. I am a minister at a church. My “job” is to foster a deeper walk with God for my congregation and create chances for them to know God in a more intimate way. But that role as a minister is only as valuable and fulfilling as my role as husband and father. The husband and father roles are much more important. I know, I know. I’m ”called” to the ministry, right? Nope. I’m called to be a Christ-follower, a husband, and a father. My professional life is only a result of those deeper, more important relationships. Some truths have such significance that they inform and shape our understanding of our world. And that’s what matters in the midst of the “whys.” I believe confusion and pain and tragedy in our lives can take a back seat to the overflowing abundance of God’s grace and love. The unknowns can be swallowed up in the definitively known: the security of God’s unconquerable love. That may not tell you why tragedy happens…but it may help you survive in the midst of it.

Marriage Resources

I listen to lots of podcasts. I’ve noticed that many of them lately have focused on marriage and family. I thought I’d pass along some of the links to the ones I’ve most enjoyed.

Andy Stanley’s “Imarriage” series (Nov.-Dec.): http://feeds.feedburner.com/npm

Craig Groeschel’s “Once Upon a Marriage” (started Feb. 8th): http://feeds.lifechurch.tv/LifechurchtvMessageSeriesaudio

Wayne and Sara Jacobsen’s “Living Loved in Marriage”: http://www.lifestream.org/audio-library.php#llim

John and Stasi Eldredge’s “Love and War”: http://www.ransomedheart.com/more_podcast.aspx

I’ve only found one definitive resource for marriage that I constantly refer back to. It’s Jeff VanVonderen’s book, Families Where Grace Is in Place. Some people like Jeff and others don’t due to his role on the A&E show Intervention and his own personal struggles with addiction. That aside, the Christian perspective on marriage and parenting he puts forward in this book is the best I’ve read. In fact, he deals with issues at the heart of marriage that more “formulaic” marriage books (if you do this, your spouse will do this/five steps to a better marriage, etc.) never touch. I’ve read The Love Dare, Love and Respect, and the marriage books that involve waffles, spaghetti, Mars, and Venus. This one is better.

When Beth and I were first married, we really struggled. Really struggled. We both grew up in great homes with both parents present. Both sets of parents modeled a loving marriage well for us. We did all the premarital counselling. We read Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages. We did personality tests. But we had serious trouble learning how to live together without killing each other. As someone on staff at a church where we encouraged people to be honest about their struggles, we hid ours. After all, ministers don’t struggle with anything, right? I was listening to a speaker one day who suggested this book. I bought it the same day and read it cover to cover twice in a week. It didn’t magically “fix” our marriage, but it made us confront our expectations for each other and gave us a different perspective about marriage. And it exposed me for the controlling/suffocating spouse I was. Since then I have bought about 20 copies to give away and have read it eight times over the last decade. Every time I feel myself slipping away from the grace-oriented perspective that is the mainstay of our marriage, I read it again. When I find myself manipulating the behaviors of my children and controlling them for the sake of appearances, I read it again.

In fact, I just finished it.

“Because I Said So…That’s Why!”

I think every parent says this a thousand times. It’s inevitable. And it seems to make good sense at the time. But children rarely understand the reasoning behind this phrase. Adults live in a world where titles and positions determine another’s response to us. Usually, the first thing people ask us when we are introduced is our occupation or someone may cite specific credentialing or educational background to gain acceptance into the group. And to us, titles convey our significance in a world of “average joes.”

Kids are different. They aren’t into “marketing” people. They take you at face value, adjusting their image of you as their specific interaction with you increases (or decreases) their respect for you. I used to believe that “because I said so” was an appropriate response to a child. They should respect you simply because you’re the the adult, right? But rarely does this work. Why is that? I think it’s because lasting authority and respect is earned.

I occasionally hear someone promoting parental authority by teaching on the Ten Comandments. They state that in the preamble to the Ten Commandments, God gives no reason for requiring the respect of the Hebrews. He merely declares that he is God and they should have no other gods before him. But that’s really not what God says in Exodus 20. In fact, God went entirely out of his way to earn the respect of the Hebrews through a little event called “the exodus.” God acted first and requested allegience second. As parents we often do the opposite, promising “acts” of kindness, generosity, or punishment upon compliance.

If we take God’s example seriously, we may just have to admit that we are doing the opposite – fostering behavioral modification rather than a true heart response from our children. Of course, the Hebrews rarely responded correctly throughout the Old Testament. But each time, God viewed their disobedience as a breach of relationship first and one of law second. Yet, we often view the behavior of our children as a one of law, rather than a breach of relationship. And that’s understandable. But the real issue is not if our children disobey us, but why they may continue to do so. To see disobedience as a relationship issue means that we need to do more to promote trust in our children that our decisions are in their best interest. Of course, children won’t always see things our way – that’s for sure - but personally I believe I can do more to engender that mutual trust.

Throughout the Old Testament, God requested repentance from the Israelites, often to no avail. Yet in every instance he started by reminding them of his covenant mercy and lovingkindness – his song. In sending Jesus, God did the same thing – he acted first hoping that his benevolence would be returned. Parents have the same wonderful opportunity to draw heart-felt responses from their children each day. It’s fortunate for those of us who believe in Jesus that “because I said so!” has never been enough for God. He demonstrated his willingness to earn our respect and honor in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly” first (Romans 5:8). And it’s this initial “kindness that [eventually] leads us to repentance” (Romans 2:4). Is God’s authority earned? It is – with every drop of Jesus’s blood. That convicts me as a parent to act first and request response second.

Dilettante Dads

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. We live in a world of specialization. The more of an “expert” you are in a particular field of interest, the more chance you have to secure your position as a person of importance and relevance. People spend their lives grasping for that level of expertise and our culture rewards those that give their heart and soul to a discipline, field, or technique. That’s easier for us. We then have a label. “Oh, he’s the medical/business/intellectual expert.” “She’s the manager/attorney/fashion expert.” We feel secure believing that we know everything we need to know about a person with one specialized label. I watch students struggle with this in college. When they ask, “What should be my major?” what they are really asking is “They are asking me to pick a label. What should my label be?”  

Fatherhood flies in the face of that notion. Fatherhood requires us to be well-rounded. A jack of all trades and a master of none. Furthermore, good fathering requires you to be present with your family rather than honing your skills of expertise. You hear this from dads all the time. They often talk about when they used to do something in particular, but the time they spent doing it was only for a few short years. Their areas of growth and knowledge center upon whether their children are into fishing or ballet or baseball or long division. And when their children move on, they do, too. So, for fathers (and many mothers), life becomes a race to cram everything they can into a work day and then shift gears by focusing on their family oriented ”expertise.” So in the end, fully invested fatherhood requires one to choose to not be an expert at anything. To be a Renaissance man. A dilettante. Someone who dabbles in areas of knowledge and skill without formally mastering any particular area. An amateur at everything.

Beth told me a story about a well-known and accomplished businessman and university president who was a guest speaker in one of her college classes. They class asked each visiting lecturer the same question: what is the single most important business advice you could give a college student? This formidable individual thought for a moment and then said, “Learn to play golf. Most business connections and profitable deals are not made in an office or over email. They are made on the golf course.”  I’m praying that this guy is wrong. Or at least that there’s another way to be successful. To me, success at my family’s expense is ultimately failure. So, I’m putting my eggs in another basket: the belief that I can remain professionally relevant and spiritually poignant while spending as much time as possible deeply invested in the lives of my children. The bigger payoff seems to lie there. Call it a hunch…but that’s what I’ll be doing. Check back in two decades and we’ll see if the gamble was worth it.