Lessons from Fatherhood

From Dave.

Having a Father taught me much about my Heavenly Father.  Of course, most of it went over my head, but God is a patient teacher.  Some of what I missed from watching my dad be Dad is finally becoming clear now that I'm Dad.  My hope now is that I can articulate some of these lessons well, so that you might share in them. 

Life Lesson: We Don't Understand the Good Our Father Intends for Us

I wonder how often Sarah thinks we have her ill in mind.  Putting her in her car seat, which she always likes once she's fully in it, probably makes her see me more as a tormentor than a protective father.  Changing her clothes doesn't seem like an act of service to her when we're doing it.  Bathing doesn't seem all that loving to her.  Only now has she realized that changing her diaper is not punishment.  But we have her good in mind through all of it. We're serving her and loving her, but she thinks we're out to get her. 

How often God's children do the same to Him.  Sarah doesn't have a baby-version of Romans 8:28 to remind her that her Father is working all this together for her good, and the good of our family.  But we do.  God tells us plainly that the sufferings we go through and the discipline we receive are for our good.  If only I could teach that to the 26 year-old single man who stared at his ceiling the night before he met Emily Howell, wondering of God had any plans for his life.  I still don't know why he delayed bringing her into my life for so long, but I know that he will work that with everything else together for my good.  That's what fathers do for their children. One day it might be a very good thing that I put Sarah in that car seat, and she may not even realize it then.  But I'll do it.  Because that's what fathers do for their children. 

Surely Sarah doesn't understand all I intend for her.  I want to give her an inheritance, teach her the things of God, marry her to a good man, feed her for decades, teach her about chocolate, write songs for her, and so much more!  She doesn't even know what the stuffed frog in her crib is, much less what my plans for her are.  Likewise with us, no mind can comprehend what God has prepared for us. If only we would realize that there is so much more to life than the scary car seat God is patiently strapping us into. 

Apologetics Lesson: Relativism Is a Sensible Outcome of Spiritual Blindness

One thing I was not ready for when it came to having a baby was the smorgasbord of conflicting opinions that were thrown at us.  I was ill-equipped to lead us through it, because I had no idea the seriousness with which people take pregnancy, birthing, and child-rearing strategies.  Not only does every doctor, college, book, and friend disagree with all the others on everything, they all seem to believe that Sarah and Emily will die terrible, immediate deaths if we follow someone else's method.  Just when we think we've got something figured out, our Doctor tells us that what we're doing is bad for her.  Then our friend tells us that our doctor is an ignorant liar.  Eventually, we just wind up having to say "this works for us, get over it," and shutting out that well-meaning friend who thinks he knows the only way to have/raise a baby.  Somewhere in there I realized that this is the same experience the lost go through when it comes to the things of God.

I may not have any more respect for those who try to preach that your idea of God is right if it works for you, but I do have more pity for them now.  It's awful not knowing what the truth is and putting up with conflicting opinions from people who think they know more than everyone else.  If it weren't for the revelation of God through His Scriptures, I would be in the same place spiritually.  And I can see why "to each his own" teaching about life-or-death matters are so appealing.  They certainly are to me when it comes to scheduling Sarah or feeding her on demand.  I can see why, to a lost man, I'm just another man shoving an opinion down his throat, convinced that he will die if he doesn't listen to me.  If he can't see that God's word is true, that's exactly what I will look like to him.  What will he do?  Shut me out and file me in with all the other preachers he's heard.  The same thing I've come to do with baby-raising books.  This is why just hearing the Gospel isn't enough.  It takes the Spirit of God showing us that the Gospel is true, and opening our eyes to see it.  Without that, the blessed Gospel preacher looks no better than the preachers of Satan's Kingdom- probably worse.

Marriage Lesson: Love Is Not Made To Die, but To Bring New Life

I can remember, before Sarah was born, listening to Paul Simon sing a line from "April, Come She Will," about a love that had grown cold.  He compared it to Autumn's chilly winds, and it had a corresponding effect on my own heart.  "Am I a young fool?" I wondered, "Or am I right to sense something wrong with that?"  I guess this is an effect of a genre that sang about love all day but never sang about marriage.  I got to thinking, and I realized that the opposite was happening in my own life: our love was making a new human being.  New life was here.  Chants of "We don't die, we multiply," went through my head, but I quickly went on to something more productive.  I wrote Emily her Valentines Day present, a song with a chorus of "They say love just grows old and dies, but all I've seen it do is bring new life."

I'm blessed to get to live in it, but I do believe this is what marriage was made for.  It's not made to grow old and be moved on from.  It's not made to die until one of its participants does.  Rather, it is made to show new life: the new life of the Gospel it models and new life in the children it can create. It's a bouquet that keeps on blooming, not a fall leaf that will soon fall off. 


So that is a bit of what I've been learning.  My hands have learned many lessons of serving, love, patience, ect.  But my heart is learning, too.  God really does love his children.  I am thankful He is a patient teacher.