My Sons

I am the father of three boys, five-year-old twins and an eight year old.  They are the pride of my life.  Everything I had done before such as playing college football or achieving a new max in bench press was washed away the moment I first saw my eldest.  It dawned on me then that I was on duty for the rest of my life. 

That’s the tricky thing about fatherhood.  You never stop being a father.  There are always some minutiae that are to be attended to by you.  There is some small piece of the puzzle you need to put into place.  Breaking up a fight, disciplining a child, fixing a broken toy are all other duties as assigned once you become a father.

The unfortunate fact is that so many of us spend our time raising children that we forget to raise men.  We see these little guys who are sometimes cute and some times not as much and that’s what we see.  We forget that like their fathers they will be faced with challenges and trials and heartbreaks that we cannot predict. 

That’s why it is so important that we, as Christian men, respond with the Truth.  Such is the advice of I Corinthians 16: 13-14, “ Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.  Let all that you do be done in love” That’s a tall order, but it’s one given to us by our Father and to our children we are to be the avatar of our Father. 

Our little men need to learn what it is to be a man from their father’s who in turn need to emulate the image of Fatherhood presented in the Bible.  We are to train them in the manner so that they don’t fall into the false manhood of the world.  The false image that values monetary gains and frivolousness over integrity and honor. 

We all want our sons to grow into Godly men, but we cannot do that without the blessing of our true Father.