First off, I apologize for all the grammatical mistakes in yesterday’s post. It looked like a government educated person wrote it or something. Oh, wait.
Well, I fixed them, so if you go back and read it again, it might make a little more sense.
Today I wanted to emphasize something that I have said before. I write a post a few times a week trying to encourage dads to be godly, biblical, hard-working disciple-makers in their home. What I want to reiterate is that I am a young dad and am still learning a lot of this as I go.
Men, what we are trying to do, the vision we have set for our families and the hopes that we have for what they will become, it’s all rare. It’s rare because it’s hard. I mean it. Many men are not willing to sacrifice and put in the work that is required to be a faithful husband and dad. You know what I am talking about if you are trying to lead your family in a godly way. I struggle with what I am called to do or even know what to do. We are given guidelines in Scripture in regards to being a godly man, but there is no checklist given. Oh, how I wish there was a checklist, but it is because of God’s wisdom and grace that there isn’t. He has given us freedom in Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit to live and lead as our conscience dictates. The reason is because all of us are different. I have modeled a lot of what I do after other godly men, but there have been things that I have had to adjust. Some things that I have learned have been a blessing from God, while other things haven’t worked out very well.
You are the leader in your family, and it is important for you to take initiative in discipling them, but it’s just as important for you to make adjustments when they are not working quite right. Every family is unique. We all have different quantities of children with different genders and different age differences in between. Right now I have a three and a half year old boy and a sixteen month old girl. What I am doing with them now is not what I will be doing when they are teenagers. Right now, I expect much more from Jack than I do from Evie. We just want Evie to close her eyes while we pray and sit at the table and not scream while I read the Bible. Jack, on the other hand, must sit still, listen to my words and be able to answer the questions I ask him. We have to balance their two ability levels. Sometimes we have to stop because Evie is on the verge of spontaneously combusting and I have to finish with Jack later.
Another difference from where we started compared to now is how much Scripture we read. Initially, my goal was to read four chapters a day, but I have since found that, presently, that is a little too much. In the mornings we read Proverbs. Sometimes it is a whole chapter, but sometimes it’s only half. What I had to ask myself was, “Do I want to read all of this just so I can say that I did, or do I want to hide it in their hearts and teach them to love it?” So now, as I prepare beforehand, I choose two to four verses that I want to review with Jack and we work on memorizing them. Then we just see how it goes.
At night, I wanted to read a whole chapter of Luke, but I found that I wasn’t dealing adequately with the text in the amount of time that I have their attention. So now, I usually just go through one or two paragraphs or stories in the gospel narrative. Sometimes, though, the stories go together so that we are able to read a whole chapter, like Luke fifteen.
And finally, I want them to have good understanding of the Bible as a whole. To do this, I am reading a chapter of Genesis and a chapter of Romans a day, but in a different way than Proverbs and Luke. I am not as strict about them being perfectly still and focusing just on me. We do this in the living room while in my recliner or sometimes I let them sit where they want. When in my recliner, I start with both of them in my lap and let Evie hop down when she wants to, but I usually make Jack stay. He can have a snack or play with a toy as long as he is still paying attention. I read through the whole chapter, but I do it loud and in a more animated voice so as to be somewhat interesting and harder to tune out. And that’s how I plan to get God’s word into them, at least for right now.
Last night was a good night that God really blessed me with. Everything went well. I had the starting of a migraine when I got home, but I took some medicine and it went away. Then I played in a tent with the kids for a while, read a chapter of the Chronicles of Narnia to Jack, clipped the kids finger and toe nails (found most of them), had a good dinner, Evie was quiet (mostly because she stuck both hands in a yogurt cup and spread it all over her body), Jack listened and asked really good questions about the Bible, watched the kids wrestle with Cricket (our dog) and Jack and I had chocolate chip cookies while we watched a couple of episodes of Man vs Wild.
These are the types of nights that give me encouragement and help keep me going, but even if there were never any good nights, I am still called and commanded to disciple my family. It just shows us how good and gracious our Father is to us.
I thought it was necessary for me to write this post because I don’t want to ever seem like I have it all figured out. I am just starting out and I have so much to learn and grow in, but I want to encourage others, especially young dads. It’s time to put away the childish things that are so commonplace in our culture and start investing in eternity; our children’s souls.
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