Man Up, Boys

A Father’s Day Guest Post by my Wife (It’s a little personal but I like it. So forgive me. I didn’t write it. … And remember, if you are going to be a man don’t blame someone else for stuff.)

Who is teaching our boys of today to be the men of tomorrow?

Social media is splattered with pithy statements of “Just because you are a male it doesn’t make you a man.”

My heart is heavy as I look around our community and realize there are an astronomical number of homes with out a dad these days and so many little ones never know who their “real “ daddy is. Of course, many times when there is a dad present in the home he is often an absentee member of the family for a myriad of reasons…Fatherhood by proxy. There is quite a difference between donorship and ownership; isn’t there?

My heart especially aches for the precious little ones that never experienced the strength and comfort of their daddy’s hand folding around theirs because their mother made a choice. Created in His image and just discarded like common waste. It gives a new and heartsick meaning to one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Oh, what precious precious treasures. Yet, there is a certain comfort knowing that God promised when your father and mother forsake you, the Lord will take you up.

Some fathers, whether in life or death, are promoted to a convoluted form of sainthood. Sometimes because they are missed and memories fade (at least the bad ones) and there is an insatiable need to hold on to the hope that they are in a better place whether they are or not. Sometimes they want what they never had or maybe don’t want to lose what good they did have. Nevertheless, many fathers near Father’s Day achieve merit second only to Superman.

What about my Daddy, you ask? When he passed away there was one word that was reoccurring: Faithful. I know now that was the word he planned on ringing into eternity. Oh, he had a cause for which to be faithful. Faithful to what or to whom? His friends? His work? His church? His child? His wife? The one and only God? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and above all YES! He wasn’t perfect and he never claimed to be. He rested, he functioned, he thrived in the knowledge that he was a poor undeserving sinner snatched up in his Father’s grasp of grace. He taught me what my Heavenly Father looks like—His essence, attributes and character. He opened his heart wide to a little girl that needed the comfort and protection of a home; he provided himself as the example of unconditional love and the longevity and permanency of adoption. That proved useful as I began to appreciate my relationship with God as one of His children. He taught me the power and the patience of prayer. He taught me who my husband would be years before I ever met him … Ironic how they are similar in so many ways. Father’s Day is a celebration but not because of who they are but because of who they are in Christ and what He has done!

As I am writing, my “little man” of 7 years is next door doing yard work for our 80 something-year-old neighbor lady. He wasn’t asked. He wasn’t told. He just offered to help because…well, just because…just because he has witnessed his Daddy countless times help, fix, serve, and honor others without expecting seeking, or even wanting anything in return. I guess you could say, being a man is becoming a family tradition.

We are raising our boys to be husbands one day and ultimately fathers, if God so chooses. And someone out there is undoubtedly raising a little boy that one day will marry our little girl. (A thought that my husband might not want to process yet).

So, please teach your little fella to love God and serve Him with everything that he has; teach him to love his wife as Christ loved the church.

Teach him to be a MAN…a man after God’s own heart! Because we are teaching her to wait for that man.

A Word About Fatherhood

A few months ago a postcard came to my house addressed to someone I have never heard of and who has never lived here at least in the last fifty or more years. There is no indication of who might have written it. No return address. No personally identifiable information.

The front of it is covered with Snoopy graduation stickers.

The back of it reads:

Just reaching out again. I know I told you about his graduation but since we didn’t see or hear from you for his b-day, I wanted to remind you its this Friday July 10th at 4 pm at his school. He keeps asking about his daddy. It’s been over a year since he saw you so please try to make it. He would love it.

I wanted to cry when I first read it.

I still want to cry.

It is a sad reminder that way too many children are growing up without a dad to hug them, tuck them in bed at night, and wake them up in the morning. Every night. Every morning.

And it is a challenge to remember that we, the church, should take seriously the chance we have to impact these young lives. The men in their lives up until now have let them down.

Where we have opportunity, let us do good to them for Jesus’ sake and for their own sake.

In the Diner

I am in the diner this morning thinking about men, women, marriage, knives, murder, and bars. Strange combination, eh?

On Monday night, a few blocks from my house and the church, a woman was stabbed to death, left in an office in a bar which was then set on fire. I heard the sirens that night and wondered what it was about, but was too tired to go find it. (On Tuesday, the Michigan State Police helicopter landed almost in my back yard during the investigation. My son loved it until it was time to take off and the noise was frightening to him.)

Reports are that the woman who was stabbed was in an abusive relationship with the man and he had threatened to kill her if she left.

It reminds me of just how bad people are at relationships. Men are not being taught to be men. Women are not being taught to be women. The basis of male/female relationships is so fundamentally misguided in our world that it can lead to things like this. Real men do not do this to women. Tough men are tough with themselves and tender with women.

What’s the cause? I think we lay this problem at the feet of dads who have not taught their sons the gospel, and have not lived the gospel with their own wives. Sons see it, and see the world around them, and learn how to be men. And it’s not pretty.

The reality is that most relationships will never rise (or sink) to this level. It is doubtful that your wife will be found in a burning bar, having been stabbed by you.

But our potential for abusive relationships is still there.

We are fundamentally self-centered people. Our aim in life is to be satisfied, and we will use people to achieve that. Too often our marriages are built on this principle—that she (or he) exists to satisfy me. And so we use and abuse, subtly to be sure, but use and abuse nonetheless.

We don’t stab with knives. We do it with words. And then with silence. We don’t take the life out of them all at once. We take it little by little, day by day, destroying their spirit through unkind words and actions, through selfish desires.

We aren’t found in Kentucky after a nationwide manhunt like this man was. We aren’t facing prison time (for the third, and hopefully last time).

We go on about our lives, slowly sucking the life of those that God has entrusted to us to love and to care for in his stead.

The only answer to this tragedy is the gospel—that Jesus, in an act of real love, gave his life for the sake of petty, abusive, selfish God-haters, to redeem them from the penalty and power of sin over their lives. He does not abuse those who are his. He gives us what we do not deserve, and loves us in the midst of our many failures.

So men, love carefully and sacrificially—just like Jesus did. Honor your wives as fellow heirs of the grace of life.

Watch for the warning signs of subtle abuse—the kind that will not get the police to show up at your house on suspicion of domestic abuse, but will have effects that are just as damaging.

Love her like Christ loved the church. Give yourself for her to make her holy by the washing of water with the Word. Prepare to present her to Jesus with her being more holy and more godly because you were in her life (Ephesians 4:25-27).

And dads, remember that little eyes are watching. For the sake of the gospel, and generation of women yet to be married, teach them—by what you say and by what you do—teach them the gospel for relationships.