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July 25th 2009
At our church, we’ve just congratulated dozens of kids who’ve successfully graduated to a new level of schooling. Moving into high school or university are huge jumps that bring our children new fears as well as new challenges. They need our prayers as well as our encouragement.
Susan’s and my youngest grandchild is graduating too. Jordan is moving up from Preschool to Kindergarten. Although he thinks he pretty well knows enough to jump straight into high school, Jordy has a whole lot of learning ahead in his new K-1 class.
The truth is that, as psychologists tell us, most of our character and values are formed before we even graduate out of our home into grade one. The next twelve years of schooling and life help set many of those earlier life lessons more firmly in place.
And we parents aren’t finished with our jobs as we release our kids into the school system. Our influence may waver up and down, but we’ll still be our children’s primary shapers until we finally graduate to heaven.
Whether we like to think about it or not, we are, by our example, blazing a trail that our children will likely follow through every stage of their lives. We are walking about twenty to thirty years ahead of them through marriage, family, education, relationships, career, spiritual hills and valleys, and ultimately through their golden years and the gates of death. Both our successes and our failures are providing stepping stones for each of our kids to walk on.
We know well that our children each have a will of their own. More and more, as they reach adulthood they will be responsible for their own choices and the consequences which will follow. They’ll make some excellent choices and many poor ones; but they are registered in a lifelong school, with God as their Headmaster, and they’ll learn from every experience.
There is a principle which is illustrated as the baton is passed in a relay race, called erosion. In that passing of the baton from one runner to the next, a little speed naturally is lost. The second and third runners have to work hard to regain eroded momentum. It’s the same when we as parents pass the baton of adulthood to our children. Unless they pour on diligence and discipline, they will tend to lose a little of what they’ve learned from their parents. But on the other hand, if they press forward with willful determination, they can not only regain momentum, but accelerate past what they’ve picked up over their learning years. It’s so delightful to see our children exceed our accomplishments.
As a dad, I’m constantly reminded, as I read stories of success and failure in the Bible, of my ongoing responsibilities in the shaping of Susan’s and my kids.
Over this week and next I’ll write about six responsibilities that we dad’s carry. Each of them begins with one of the letters of the word, father, so it will help us remember them. They are all indispensable responsibilities for you, me and every other dad to fulfill: (consistent) faithfulness, (positive) attitude, (ongoing) teaching, (practical) holiness, (unceasing) encouragement and (humble) repentance. Let’s consider one of them this week and the other five next week.
If there is one virtue that God requires of every father, it’s faithfulness. The moon doesn’t have much going for it. It’s just a big ugly ball of dirt. But the moon is commended by one of the psalmists because of its one positive virtue—it is consistently faithful to its place. God set the moon in the right spot so that it would reflect the light of the sun to the dark side of our world way back at creation and it is still there thousands of years later. That’s the kind of faithfulness that is required of us dads. Be who God has chosen you to be, so that you reflect his love and brightness to whatever dark places he calls you for the rest of your days.
- Barry Buzza
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