A Flexible Reading List

If you have noticed a common thread in the stack of books in the above illustration, you have got my drift. About five years and one month ago I picked up a copy of Edmond Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt in the lobby of a Houston, Texas Hotel. I knew virtually nothing of the 26th president. Morris opened my eyes. Roosevelt was a sickly rich kid who grew up to be a man of the world, a man's man, a man that was truly exceptional. I read the first book, hanging on every word, followed in short succession to Theodore Rex, chronicling Roosevelt's Presidential years. By this point I was enamored with Roosevelt and anxiously awaiting the release of third volume which I now have in my possession, Colonel Roosevelt.

Also in this stack is John Eldredge's The Way of the Wild Heart. I've read and been greatly influenced by his book Wild at Heart. This particular volume deals with the six stages of the masculine journey. It is fascinating to see these stages of men's lives carved out and explained. A boy needs to be the Beloved Son. He grows into the Cowboy and from there into the Warrior. As an adult, he becomes the Lover and progresses from there to the King. The last stage in the masculine journey is the Sage. Why is it important to know these things? Because as a father it is good to recognize where your son is at a given time. Becoming a man is not something that one can buy, not something that one can pass time and receive. Manhood is earned and it is bestowed by the company of other men. As an adult it is good to see where you may have been wounded on this journey. And best of all, it provides a way to restore what was lost, no matter what stage you are "supposed" to be in.

One of the books Eldredge cites with high frequency is Iron John, by Robert Bly. Bly is a scholar who is well versed in the genres of fairy tales and poetry. He analyzes the tale of "Iron John", a story where a "wild man" is found at the bottom of a pond, is captured, imprisoned, and released with the aid of a young man. He has researched the traditions of cultures throughout the world in the raising of boys into men. Western society has razed young men while the "primitive" cultures have young men who earn their manhood. It is a riveting account from a secular point of view that faults Western society and the Christian Church in the destruction of manliness as a virtue.

Also on the topic of gender roles are the two books on the bottom of the pile, The Daring Book for Girls and The Dangerous Book for Boys. These two books are full of history, activities, experiments, and advice- all geared for young men and women in the vein of cultural literacy and adventure. My impression of them so far is that they are a survival guide, in both a social and natural sense and a reference manual of great import for the elementary and middle school age child. I am anxious to see my kids explore these books.

I have made a pledge to read daily this year from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest. This work is a daily devotional compiled from the devotionals Mr. Chambers delivered at the University where he worked. The devotionals are laden with meaning and well seasoned, if sometimes hard to swallow, bits of Biblical counsel. It is teaching me much in its daily application.

The only works of literature in the stack is the Elie Weisel Trilogy of Night, Dawn, and Day.

Night, the autobiographical account of Weisel, is his sickening tale his family being marched from the ghetto in Sighet, Romania, the separation of the men from the women (and the implied nearly immediate deaths of his mother and baby sister), the work and experiences of life in the camps, and his long road to liberation. I read this account to my sophomores to satisfy their non-fiction requirement. I hope they are as moved by it as I am. The two other works, Dawn and Day are works of fiction. Weisel says that to write about the philosophical and ethical issues brought up by the Holocaust lead one to write about the camps and he has already written Night... In Dawn he examines the role of the executioner. The executioner, who is a Holocaust survivor, is a part of a resistance movement in Israel who must execute a British soldier. It is a tale told in an abstract fashion and uses name allegory to make certain points. Clever, thought provoking, and sincere. Day takes the Holocaust survivor to post-war America and pits him once again in a struggle between life and death and uncertain future without the ability to trust people.

Not in the picture, but it should be is Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath. I've read the introduction (by Susannah Heshal) and the preface so far and can only describe the book in the terms that Heschel uses to describe the Sabbath, a sanctuary in time. Each sentence is pregnant with meaning and the hand of God. I've decided to read this book when I'm free of distraction so that it's counsel can be better absorbed.

I've got a lot of reading ahead of me. I feel sort of like I've enrolled in a 4000 level non-fiction course at the University- sans the pressure, plus the excitement of growth. Check out your local bookstore or Amazon if any of these intrigue you!

Metaphorically Speaking...

It is easy to talk about something in terms of a metaphor. It is sometimes difficult to give that metaphor real feet.

We often hear of the relationship with Christ and the church spoken of as a marriage. The Bible uses that very term to describe "supper-time in heaven." We are the bride of Christ, His reward when the Father says go get your bride.

Back to the metaphor part of this. If we are a "bride" how, pray tell, are we supposed to conduct our business? And, if this is the case, does this really apply to husband/wife relationships, too?

Paul, I agree, this is a profound mystery. When I look around to see people putting "feet to the Word," I see people who feel led to go to the (growing/trendy/spirit-filled/fill-in-the-blank) church across town. I see people who vote their pastor out on a whim. I see people who, when the preacher says something that offends them, they stop paying their tithes.

I see people who are treat their marriages the same way.

Is it any wonder that people attend the same church for about the same amount of time their marriage lasts? Some would say that the latter has a good deal to do with the former. I say that we (myself included) have a great deal of distance to go before we get to the point where we realize the full import of what Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians.

God is not going anywhere. We have to learn to deal with that. We have to learn to feel the weight of that statement. God doesn't divorce his bride. He doesn't contort and mangle Himself to draw his rebellious bride back to Him. He stands. We learn from him. We humble ourselves to admit our fault. We seek reconciliation and accept His terms.

Men are fallible. Your preacher is not perfect. Your husband is not perfect. But this no one can change: the responsibility for the congregation, and by extension, his family lies solely upon his shoulders. If he is in error, it is his fault and not yours. The church has methods in place to correct preachers who are in error and those methods apply to husbands as well. In other words, if what he is doing is not in line with The Book, there is an action plan to take.

"[A]nd his sheep follow [their shepherd] because they know his voice." (John 10:4)

The sheep don't select their shepherd. They don't rove about looking for a better shepherd, trying this one and that. They listen for his voice. They follow him to water, to food, to rest.

In doing so the shepherd is made happy. And he is even more delighted when one who was lost is found.

Like God, a man is a force to reckon with. He needs to stand. His weight needs to be felt by those around him. He doesn't need to be a bully. He needs to know what direction he is leading his family. He needs to make sure his family is safe and protected along the way so those who would hurt them will feel his weight in the most appropriate manner.

We have to learn to deal with this.

Too bad it wasn't God's idea.

My pastor tells the story of a famous minister

who had a great idea. The idea was revolutionary, highly effective, and not God's idea. Talk about taking the wind from your sails. God told him, "That is a great idea, too bad I didn't give it to you." Permission to proceed denied. Start over. Go back to the drawing board. Or, he might avoid the drawing board altogether and check with God as to what he should be doing. Now there's a novel idea.

Jesus said, "Seek me first." Gulp. What we humans typically do, as my pastor's wife pointed out, is dot all the "i's" and cross all of the "t's". Our inner narrative goes something like this:

"Ok, I want to make 6 figures so I need an MBA- preferably from a good school. Once I work my way into a good company, I'll need a trophy wife, to live in the right neighborhood, join the right church/country club/civic organization...."

And we will not once ask God where he wants us. We implore His intervention when the house of cards we have built comes crashing down. We are in the emergency room needing marriage counseling, financial help, and a real relationship with God. No doubt He will be there to help you, but His best is not the "miracle". His best for us is to listen to what he has been saying all along.

Yes, we should seek God when we have a choice to make. Think of all the marriages you know of that have failed. Might it be said that those couples entered into that contract ill-advised?

To quote Dr. Phil, "How's that working for you?"

God began to speak with me concerning a decision I had made (to be clear, He was speaking the whole time). I had taken action on what I thought I should be doing. As it turns out those actions were going over like the proverbial lead balloon. "Too bad it wasn't my idea," God said to me.

It never feels good to admit that you were wrong and this was no different. I had to admit to myself that I had not sought first the Kingdom, I had to admit that I had lost valuable ground and time in not going the direction God wanted me to go. Like a lost hiker, I had to retrace my steps and unearth the trail. I'm seeking what God wants as opposed to what I want.

To put the verse that I'm alluding to in context I quote Matt 6:25-34

^"25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^{a]" style="font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 0.5em; ">[a]}?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Jesus tells us that so long as our intent is to seek and do His will, our needs will be taken care of. I'll have what I need (more than enough, I'm sure) and I'll have nothing to worry about. If I have the faith that He's given me salvation, is it too much of a stretch to believe that He wants to guide me and in that guiding He will take care of me?

Not Safe

This video has been floating around on the internet for a while. If you've not seen it, well, now's your chance.

What was your first thought when you watched it? Mine was, "Damn, I wish that I was one of those guys!" I know. Stupid, huh. But then again, maybe not.

There is a lot to say about good shot placement when dealing with dangerous game. They are, afterall, dangerous. And that they are dangerous is reason enough for man to persue them. What is a deer going to do to you? I know that people have been killed by the docile Whitetail before, but I don't think that risk of being gored comes to the top of most deer hunter's list of reasons why they hunt.

Dangerous game must be hunted by a sufficiently powerful rifle and cartridge. It is usually hunted in fairly close quarters by hunters on foot. The margin of error for hunting dangerous game is fairly slim. You want to hit your mark. You want a guide or professional hunter with you to back you up if you miss. You don't want to be too close.

So, this crazy blogger says, "I wish that was me." Not shooting a lethal 1st shot? Not even a lethal 2nd shot? Yep. I have some crazy idea that having a wounded (i.e. extremely pissed off) lion charging me from less than 50 yards is fun. You might think suicidal. I think primal.

The truth of the matter is that I may never get to hunt dangerous African game. But also true is the fact that so many men are walking around as mere shadows of what they are meant to be. We are so much more than what we've become. This lion hunt is a metaphor for life. There are a few men out there taking on challenges, risking it all for the hope of a return, but the vast majority of men are shirking away from this. We wake by the alarm clock, report to the job and have someone tell us what to do for that day and return home. Day after day. Year after year.

What is my desire for this year? It is to come alive, to have some sort of lion come charging after me. As President Roosevelt said,

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

"When a Man is Needed"

And now for something completely different...

the Short Story now makes it's debut on the pages of my blog. Forgive any sophomoric tendencies of the author.

It was raining and a sad, dejected little boy sat down at the table to a breakfast he did not want to eat. He had been waiting for his father to return home from yet another business trip and the news from Mother this damp morning was that his father would not be home until Monday. A weekend wasted. All he wanted was to feel the stubble of his father's unshaven face scrape across his cheek as he embraced him and for he and Father to spend the day roughhousing together.

His father was not an exceptionally strong man, not exceptionally anything to speak of, but the boy indeed cherished every moment spent with his father. Father, equally disappointed, longed to be home with his family. He needed rest. He needed the beauty and comfort of his wife and the life that his son inspired in him. Too often he was away while his family arrived at new milestones. Last year, he missed his son's birthday so that his company might increase their bottom line. He was growing weary.

The morning dragged by and the child pondered Mother's offer: a jaunt into town for a matinee with dinner at his favorite youth centered restaurant. This prospect was not too desirable in the boy's eye, but better, he supposed, than watching the rain beat down upon a yard too sodden to play in. He conceded to Mother's offer and the two went off into the garage, keys jingling in Mother's hand.

As the pair drove down the country lane toward the town the boy thought of his hopes for this weekend. Of course he fancied it sunny and warm and in his dream he and Mother were in the back yard enjoying the Father's regal return to his throne. How appropriate the rain was. It was as if all heaven was weeping at the boy's misfortune.

The boy was now began to fight a feeling of anger, not towards his father, but at his absence. "Surely there were other boys whose father's were away sometimes," he thought. "Perhaps he likes to be away." The boy winced at that thought for he knew it to be a lie. Every time Father was away he came back hungry for time with his son and Mother. Bedtime was always extended with ample grace on those blessed evenings when his father returned home.

As the boy pondered this his mind wandered to Father's display of delight with Mother. He would lift her in his arms and spin her around the kitchen floor. There was, of course, the obligatory kiss and the lengthy embrace that accompanied it. He would then sit down at the table and patiently let her fill him in on all the preceding days' notables. The boy would lose his patience and crawl up in Father's lap just to be close to him. The scent of his father mingling with that morning's dose of cologne, the feel of the rough chin occasionally scraping across his youthful, tender forehead, and the firmness of Father's shoulders and chest are all things that the boy sensed. In addition to this his perception of time would go completely haywire. It would be as if he had only just crawled up into Father's lap when drowsiness would overtake him and he would fall asleep there supported gently by the man who loved him most.

He saw that Mother was as sad as he. She spent the better part of the morning in the same gloom that he was in. Mother dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief and on several occasions and looked into the mirror to regain her composure. She pulled her shoulders back, smiled, and, on at least two occasions, said, "Only two more days," to the reflection looking back at her in the mirror. In a moment of forced elation, she made her proposal to the boy in the hope that the trip into town would elevate their spirits, even if just a bit.

Mother's sad face belied her smile on a particular stretch of their journey and, as he noticed her sorrowful expression, it took the boy rather by surprise at his accompanying thought. He had always been sensitive to other people's emotions, but this time he felt compelled to act. Before he even realized the depth of his thought, he spoke to his mother.

"Mother," he boldly stated, "I don't want to go to the matinee." Before she could protest he continued, "Can we go to the University," he hesitated, "to the library?" He had often heard Mother and Father mention this place when they talked to each other in hushed tones.

Mother, a bit shocked at her son's question, paused for a slim moment before returning an answer. "What do we need to do at the University library?" she asked instead of the more obvious questions that passed into her mind.

The boy, not quite sure what to say, once again referred to those hushed words Father spoke to Mother. "To get to know each other?" he asked more than stated. He was now in new territory. His mother, sensing something out of the ordinary, did not seek to retire the boy's subject. "I just want to be somewhere that makes you think of Father," he said finally.

Her eyes moistened once again, though this time for an altogether different reason. She guided the car onto the street that led them to the University. There was no difficulty in finding a parking space this drizzly Saturday afternoon. Before the car had stopped completely the boy had unfastened his seat belt and was racing around the car to open Mother's door. He had seen his father do this all of his life. The smile on his mother's face told him why. Mother was quickly in sync with her son. Delight spread across her face, washing away all of the disappointment and gloom in an instant.

They folded their hands together and directed themselves to the path that led to the library. By the time they arrived at the grand doors they were practically skipping! Mother smiled as she took her son to the fiction study nooks- the very place she and Father met not all that long ago. She explained a few details of her attraction to the boy's father and the boy, who was bursting with excitement reached up to Mother's hands. He knew no dance steps, but did his best to improvise Father's routine there on the carpet of the University's library.

These two went on to enjoy a splendid afternoon together. The boy, aware that something inside of him had changed, was enjoying the charm he had on his mother, yet he missed his father all the more. The smile on his face never revealed it, though. He took Mother on a date. They danced in the library, they went to eat at a grownups' restaurant, and had hot tea (with lots of honey and milk) together afterward. The sun was very low in the sky when they made their way back home. Both were beginning to feel that familiar loneliness of Father's absence.

It was nearly dark by the time their car settled in their drive. Mother noticed that several lights were on in the house. "Son," she said, "why are all of those lights on? Didn't we turn everything off when we left?" The boy was sure they had and bravely suggested that they call on the neighbor to open the house with them. But before Mother could get the car into reverse the front door opened. The cause of the door's action stepped into the faint light. Excitement burst through the air as Mother and child exited the car each racing to Father.

By: Moshe E. Weisman

The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon!

2nd Timothy 2:4 Reads:
"No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier." (NASB)

William Wordsworth wrote:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

We have given our hearts away? Really? To whom and for whom? I would propose that noise is a possible answer to this question. Noise is cacophony, discord, unrest, business, work, leisure, new toys, achievement, passivity, and loneliness. It is a lot of other things, too. In fact, it can be nearly anything you want it to be. Noise, in the auditory sense, is what distracts our attention from something or makes it hard to hear clearly. In terms of oral communications (i.e. Speech Class) it is anything that is going on that takes your attention off of the speaker. This can be literal noise like microphone feedback, crying babies, or a neighbor's sneezing attack, or it can be non-auditory things like how (good, bad, poorly, splendidly) someone is dressed, the temperature in the room, the stature of the speaker, etc. The end result of noise is that it can cause a person to lose focus on what is important. The good news is that it doesn't have to.

Humans have to be taught nearly everything. We are taught to be distracted. Yes, on the desk of our enemy is this mandate, inlaid in gold under a sheet of glass, "Endeavor to lead the chaotic life, attend to everyone's business, and give up the work or your hands." "How?" you ask. Look around you. Look at yourself. Spend more time looking at yourself. How do I get myself going in the morning? How many hours a day is my TV on? How many hours do I spend online? What do I do to wind down? Does any of this involve silence or meditation? When I ask myself these questions, I find the answers troubling. My students are amazed when I tell them I don't watch TV. I always clarify that we have a TV, we just don't pay for or receive any broadcast transmissions. But, I would be kidding myself to think that I don't waste too much time on the internet, or reading, or listening to music. I seldom, if at all enjoy good, quite, alone time.

I have been taught that it is a bad thing to be without something to occupy my time. When did it start? Early in life. There was the TV and those Saturday morning cartoons. Then there was sports and practice during the week with games on Saturdays. There was music with hit after hit pouring out of the speakers of my Magnavox ghetto-blaster. There was the endless pile of FourWheeler magazines that littered my floor, worn out and covers long ago lost. There was the computer with its access to all manner of knowledge siphoning off countless hours of my life. From the time I was a little boy to now I have been trained to occupy my time and waste away. Ouch! This is damning. I was missing the point the whole time and was too busy to notice it.

I suppose it needs be said that these things I'm enumerating are not bad things. Playing competitive sports, watching some TV, listening to music, surfing the internet, or reading magazines can be very appropriate ways we can relax or enjoy ourselves. Temperance, however,is the key concept in not allowing these things to become a burden in our lives. These things become problematic when they take a foremost priority in our daily lives. When I can't foresee anything other than sitting down in the recliner after supper to watch __________ like I do every night or turning the radio on in the car before I pull out of the drive-way I am placing this thing between God and me. John Eldredge said that worship is whatever you dedicate your heart and time too. I believe he is right.

So I turn on the noise without even thinking about it. I check myself out. I drift off into the realm of the impotent. I am neutralized.

Paul tells Timothy that this should not be so. Timothy has his hands full and Paul, speaking with analogies, tells Timothy that soldiers are trained to ignore those everyday things that tend to distract us civilians. Think back to any good war movie of your choosing. I'm thinking about Saving Private Ryan. Omaha beach is bathed in blood and Tom Hanks' character is leading a group of men around a bunker. A machine-gun nest is raining down fire upon them. Let's think about what these men had running through their minds. "Keep the sand out of the action," "Keep covered," "Watch my buddy's back," "Objective- take out machine-gun nest." There probably wasn't too much contemplation going on about the fact that they were wet, or their boots were a tad to big or small, or that what-his-name has a prettier girlfriend waiting on him back in the states.

Paul does not use this analogy by accident, and its intent is not to be taken lightly. When we get weighed down by earthly crap we are guilty of gross dereliction of duty. We have lost sight of our number-one goal as Christians: to exalt Christ, evangelize the lost, and edify the saints. When we are preoccupied with distractions of our own making or lost in the drama of others we cannot possible perform our orders with any authentic sense of allegiance to Christ. Our lives become a shell game. As Shakespeare wrote in MacBeth, "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." We put on our Christian suit and go to church. We scurry around one-hundred and sixty-six hours a week with our own agenda on our minds and expect a two hour church service get our senses and sensibilities restored.

We know that God has our hearts in mind. We know that He won't ask us to do what we can't. But how will we ever know if we never give Him time to speak to us?

Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote in "The Charge of the Light Brigade",

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

This is us. We are surrounded (whether we know it or not) by an enemy that is in full war against us and our families.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:

We have orders, simple orders to follow. Take Tennyson's plea to heart along with me, knowing that in God's economy "do" is backed with the full authority of heaven and our "die" is the consummation of our commitment to the covenant He made with us (We get to go to heaven!).

Fathered by God

A few weeks back I got the chance to go to Ransomed Heart Ministries Wild At Heart Boot Camp in lovely Fraser, Colorado. I had been trying to go to this for several years and it would seem like one thing or another would keep me from going- we were short on money, I couldn't take off from work, you name it and it kept me from going. This year was looking no different than the past few years. With the help of my wife's cousin, Jonathan, I got accepted into the camp. I got out my planner and marked off the days in question and worked a little extra this summer to pay for the trip. For some reason, the email notifying me that I needed to send payment didn't show up and at three weeks before the camp I was making frantic email and telephone requests to Ransomed Heart hoping to get my spot back. God intervened on my side (yet again). With my reservation in the bag the only thing left to do was pack. And then...

The night before I was to leave, Natasha's dear Uncle "Doc" Torsten Seubold passed away. I was torn, but at the same time I knew that Uncle Doc would rather I go to receive something from God (that I badly needed) than to stay here. Natasha refused my pleas to stay and do what I could for the family. Grass needed to be cut, houses cleaned, and, of course, I wanted to be there to weep at the loss of our family's patriarch. I was weak, feeling compelled to stay and compelled to go. I got up at 4:00 AM and started driving to Tulsa. At the airport I called Natasha and pleaded again with her that I would come home in a heartbeat if she would say the word. She batted away my complaint and urged me to go. So, at 8:00 I boarded my flight and left the rest to God.
The Boot Camp was invigorating and I came home refreshed and filled with revelation about who I am and what I am meant to be. This feeling was so much in this direction that I haven't really talked about it with anyone yet. I wanted what I received to soak in and become part of me, and that had not happened in the few days after the camp. I'm now getting to that point.
With this in mind, it was tonight as I was mowing Uncle Doc's office lawn that I think the import of one of those lessons began to hit home. In fact, the lesson began before the camp. It was the night that Uncle Doc passed away. Like I said earlier, I felt both compelled to go and compelled to stay. Natasha and I talked about what I should do and she wanted me to go. "We'll be fine," she said. Alright. OK. This is what my wife was telling me. I believed her. Kind of.
For the last 6 years of our marriage I had been a whole lot closer to being an LPN than a husband. And for a good deal of that time, this is in fact what Natasha needed. But once a guy, and a hard headed guy at that, gets into some sort of role, like "nurse", he might find it difficult to let go of. I did. And to be perfectly honest, I've not completely relinquished that role of nurse just yet, but I am getting better.
Natasha tells me to go and trust that everything would be OK. So I boarded my flight in Tulsa with the suspicion that the my little bunch wouldn't fall apart without me there. Not a belief, just a suspicion or maybe it would be better to say a dread.
The dread is not that I wouldn't be missed, but that I'm not needed. Someone else will be there to hold my wife while she is crying. My kids will shuffled between the grandparents as needed and they will be fed and loved on. Someone will cook dinner and clean the kitchen and haul the trash out to the curb.
There comes a point where we fathers need to realize that we can't be there for every situation that arises for our family. There are areas where my knowledge and skills will have played out and my son will have to go to someone else for help. For fathering. I am not a one-stop never ending resource fatherly wisdom on all subject areas. If my son comes to me ten years from now needing to know how to wire a light with two switches, I'll have to send him to my neighbor down the street. I'm not an electrician.
So what happens when a father is gone? Or when you had no father or a very bad one? You find fathering in other men, and if one of those men is wise, he will teach you that God is your father. He will point you to Ephesians 1:4,5 to show you that you (all mankind) were chosen before the Earth was formed to be adopted as sons by God, and teach you the full import of this idea.
I have been very fortunate in my walk in this earth-suit to have had some very good fathering done by many different men. Doc Seubold, the man whose bedside I had just been weeping beside a few days ago, was in so many ways one of those men who I considered a father to me. Whatever sonship I feel pales in comparison to what his children feel at this moment, and the loss I feel is infinitely minuscule to the loss Josh, Jonathan, and Jordana feel in these days, as well. But in his going on to be with the Father, I have lost a father as well.
The lesson I have learned, with the help of Morgan Snyder of the Ransomed Heart team, is that I need fathering from other men, but mostly, I need it from God. When I get in a bind on some project that I am not qualified to do, I need to ask my Father for wisdom and assistance.
Morgan said, speaking to his son, "Son, I've tried for three years to be your father." He realized that he was grossly unqualified for the task of fathering a son. At my church, Cornerstone, we have an axiom, part of which says, "If it's all about me, then it's all up to me." I, like Morgan, am grossly unqualified for the position of father to my two children. What I should be teaching them is something I learned some time back but didn't have the term to express the concept. What I need to be teaching them is to let God be your Father. Let God be our Father. Morgan's son said to him that he (Morgan) was his brother really, if God was his father. It is an idea that is so simple that a child can latch right on to it. In my fatherhood to my kids, I need to be showing them my reliance on the Father. Because, if it really is all about me, then it really is all up to me. And I am becoming more cognizant everyday that I am in as much need of fathering as my kids are.