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It’s Tough Being A Dad

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I know that title sounds pitiful. I also know that 6 little people are going to say “Happy Father’s Day Daddy” to me in the morning. That little ritual never gets old and I am confident it never will.

This year I’m really pondering this Dad thing. I’m reading a great and challenging book (which I will review later) and have been re-evaluating with my wife where we are with our children. My oldest daughter, Briley, will be 13 soon while the next two, Caleb and Isaiah, will be 11 and 9. These are the pivotable years. They are right now forming views that will define who they are and who they will be through life. The other three, Audrey, Macey, and Elisha, are still in that more innocent and simple time, but those older three are thinking some pretty grown-up thoughts.

So, I said, it’s tough being a Dad. Why does the Lord address so many things to we fathers? Why does he single us out to not “provoke” them? That’s spooky. We are given a unique authority in our home, not because we deserve it, but because the Lord chose it. At first glance that sounded like a lot of fun, but once you read the fine print of what we are to do with that authority that gets a little hairy too. Since the Lord gave us a role that reflects His role as Father, we are the key to our children’s viewpoint of God. That means my children’s view of God is shaped by me more than anyone else on Earth! Of course the grace of God is sufficient for those with no father or a bad one, but still here I am and this the Lord expects of me. That is somewhere between sobering and terrifying. On reflection, it’s a little closer to terrifying!

To make it worse, our culture misplaced the blueprint God gave us. No one even knows what a man is good for anymore. The feminist movement has been far more effective in its indoctrination than people realize. It’s not that men and women are equal (because before the Lord of course they are), but that men are unneeded, incompetent, and perhaps, pointless. Add our culture’s disdain for a man doing what he ought to do with the Lord’s high expectations, and WOW, it’s a mess! The Lord convicts me on one hand and the world tells me I’m not even needed on the other. I told you it’s tough being a Dad.

I know what you’re thinking, and you are right. Philippians 4:13 (“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”) is as good for Dads as any other Christian. Tough or not, it must be done even if I’m riding Christ’s strength all the way. Men don’t like to admit their lack of strength, but it’s more true than you will ever know.

So I must spend time with my children. That’s as far as most fathering advise goes these days, but it’s true. My Dad, Gerald Reagan, invested so much time in me that to this day he is both my Dad and one of my dearest friends on Earth.

Then, I must mold, teach, and train. I must prepare them for life with its brutal twists. I must convince them that Christ is the Rock in all things. Most of all, I must love. Love will always cover a multitude of sins!

As I said, my children will say happy Father’s Day to me no matter what tomorrow. If it had to have Christ’s approval before it could be said of me, would I get His vote of confidence? Lord, help me to be what you ask me to be and what I want to be. Even if it’s tough.

Happy Father’s Day!

A Book Our Children Need Before They Leave Home

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It’s not academic analysis but real life that confronts us in “How Do We Know The Bible Is True? Volume 1”, edited by Ken Ham and Brodie Hodge. Yes, it passes the academic test, but it wants us to be able to face an antagonistic world. It addresses the questions the world is asking Christians today. Not only do we have little effect on a world for which we have no answers, but these are the type of questions that pull our children away from Christianity.

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The chapters are 28 relevant questions answered by various authors. The first one had me hooked as it answered the question “How Do We Know The Bible Is True?”  How would you answer that question? We might answer “by faith”, but that means nothing to the non-Christian. Here and at other places in the book the laws of logic are brought to bear. What could be better in a world that says we believe the Bible against reason. Find out here that though faith will never be taken out  of the equation, our belief is not against reason!

In chapters on the reliability of the Old and New Testament we get answers (really good answers) to questions Christian young folks hear on college campuses or at the workplace. I heard these things attacked when I went to the University of Tennessee several years ago and I had to dig hard. I want my children to read this before they get in such a situation. I saw others then have their faith crumble as they had no answers to such things. But there are answers, and this book lays them out beautifully.

Some questions are not as critical as others–like the 3 days of Christ in the Tomb and so which day was Christ crucified on, or issues like polygamy. Others are great! People throw up Bible contradictions, or who wrote Genesis, or how to view evidence. In several places you will learn that carbon dating doesn’t prove a thing because of the assumptions made, that the assumption of uniformity is not legitimate on the part of evolutionists, or best of all, the strongest arguments that evolutionists make is only possible if God exists. You’ve got to read about that great fact.

I highly recommend this book. If Christian young people mastered the contents of this book, far fewer of them would drift away. May the Lord use this book to that end.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 . 

Train Up A Child?

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train up a child

Here’s a verse every Bible-believing parent knows: Prov. 22: 6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

If you are like me, you could quote this verse, but you wonder exactly what it means.  Is it a guarantee that if I raise my child correctly he or she will go through life and never stray from the Lord? Or is it, as I have heard it said, if he strays he will return? In meditating a little deeper on that this morning, I concluded a few things. The meaning must be wrapped up in the meaning of “train up.” The word originally carried the idea of “a narrowing.” This world, with help from the Devil and our own flesh, throws a wide stream of thought about life at us. Much of it bad, some of it is ridiculous, and most of it is worthless. The parents job, then, is to narrow that flow to what is true and right. We train them to see the world before the Lord as it really is, not as most are deceived to believe it is. This task is daunting (or at least it seems so to this father of six), but this verse surely says good things can follow the effort.

So the question becomes, how do we “train up?” Are you like me and are ever trying to “teach up?” Hey, it makes sense to me, so why can’t these knucklehead kids see it like I do? Think of how the military trains up soldiers. The trainers are out on the field with those being trained all involved in what soldiers do. Those drill sergeants are battle hardened and train up in what they live and breath. I don’t think our military today would be as efficient as it is were the new recruits trained in a classroom by out-of-shape guys who had never fired a gun! Run the gauntlet ahead of me and let me follow is the way to train me.

I recently read and reviewed a book about troubled teens (https://reaganreview.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/hope-for-parents-of-troubled-teens-by-connie-rae-book-review/) and quite frankly, it spooks me. I love those six rascals of mine and so want the Lord to use them and see that they follow Him all their days. I “teach up”! I’ve told them everything imaginable. I wonder if the greater need is for me to run ahead and let them see me exercise faith, or demonstrate the victory the Lord can give our lives even in daily living. Will 5 minutes of inexcusable impatience undo an hour of careful teaching? Of course the teaching should stay, but does the trainer even know what he is talking about? If the Lord is making no perceivable difference in my life, does my teaching ring hollow? What I might make you believe about my spiritual prowess will never fly with those who live under my roof. Whatever this verse really means and promises is tied to my training up my children.

The other word on which the meaning of our verse hinges is “depart.” That word originally meant “to turn off.” If I train by teaching and real demonstration, the Bible says they will not depart. Perhaps the verse means more, but at the bare minimum it says they can’t turn off what they learned when they were truly trained up. If they stray from the Lord, or take up drinking, or live with sexual looseness, there will be something deep inside them that is probably not true of the wild peer group around them–they know the truth. They know (if it is real in me) that my God is real, that I wasn’t just “whistling Dixie”, but the Lord is the focal point of my life, a life that is better than the one lived far from God. Perfect? Far from it! But somehow far better than I would have been without the Lord? Obviously (or so it should be).

I guess this dashes the cold water of reality right in our faces. It comes up in every area of life —everything Christianity has to offer me is tied tightly to my relationship to Jesus Christ. There are no promises in the Bible that will do me much good with a disengaged fellowship with Christ. No good can spring from my life to anyone else, including my children, outside of what is real between me and my Lord. A lot rides on it too. The lives of my children being at the top of the list.

Lord help me to train up my children.

Why Men Hate Going To Church by David Murrow

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why men hate going to churchWhy Men Hate Going To Church—the title says it all. It’s the question we have all had, on a subject we have all noticed, without ever asking. Perhaps you imagined that there was no answer. It is just one of the mysteries of life. Read this book by David Murrow and you will have answers that will make you wonder that you never noticed them before. He gives answers that stem from the fundamental differences of men and women. We see some of these ideas in marriage books to our advantage. I will confess to being skeptical as I began, but this book is compelling. As a pastor I found his marketing/media perspective unique and thought provoking.
He shows that we have feminized church. Our services are much more favorable to women than men both in comfort and service. He gives a fascinating history of how this developed. As I read, I thought there is little than can be done about it, but in the last half of the book he gives practical advice. A new mindset is the key one.
He is friendly to the contemporary style of worship and I am firmly of the old fashioned variety, yet where his type of worship fails men he minces no words. I appreciate that kind of candor. This work doesn’t pretend to be theological at all. If some idea he offers sounds like a marketing ploy to give them what they want with no regard to God’s glory,  that is the reader’s problem. For what it is, this book could hardly be better.
I received this book free from the publisher through its book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255