Word Weld

I guess I skipped right to Father’s Day this year. If I was blogging full-time I suppose there would have been more posts throughout the time between May and July, but being a father, working full-time, and writing a book often causes the blog to reside on the back burner. Nevertheless, Father’s Day is coming, and that means lots of ties, pens, gift cards, and gag gifts will be moving off the shelves of department stores nationwide. Don’t get me wrong, I would like any of those things, but as much as America is confused and selfish about motherhood and Mother’s Day, the fact is Father’s Day is pretty much a junk holiday. It’s basically on par with Memorial Day, which is sad for both days. There’s no controversy surrounding Father’s Day, because it doesn’t really matter to most people. Fatherhood in our society, after all, can be summed up by the phrase, “sperm donor.” In fact, historically speaking, it can be argued that Father’s Day was a token holiday, created for the peace-of-mind of the obsessive compulsive Adrian Monks of the world, who need symmetry or their minds will implode. Regardless of how that argument ends up (and yes I’m familiar with some of the story behind it) i’s a fact that Father’s Day was directly inspired by Mother’s Day. But that doesn’t bother me, really, so much as how painfully unimportant it has become these days.

It’s true, I’ll admit: American “fathers,” even when they aren’t 17-year-old children trying to have a “good time,” are becoming a bit of a joke. Even when they’re suit-wearing executives toting Bluetooth headsets and Rolex watches, they’re seldom of more use to their children than the average high school quarterback who felt he had to “get laid” on prom night. Motherhood is certainly under siege in America, but if motherhood is under siege, fatherhood is a smoking ruin. Yes, even in God’s original plan, fathers are to work to provide for their families, but let me be clear, when we are home, dads, our wives and children should have 100% access to us. And what about all that burning the midnight oil at the office, and working weekends? Are we hiding from the families we chose to build? Is work more important than the immortal beings we helped bring into the world, or the woman we dedicated our lives to with eternal oaths? Work is important, yes, and some people have to work a lot of hours, but I’m not talking to those people. I’m talking to people for whom work is fun and enjoyable compared to the difficult nature of home life. It’s no wonder our wives want to be working like us and wearing our pants and shoes (and I mean that almost literally, what with high-heel wingtips): we make it seem like anything is better than being home. Home? *gag* It’s full of whiny, bratty children, messy rooms, and work (you know, the un-fun kind you don’t get paid for, like laundry and dishes).

But as much as I push for women to be mothers and homemakers, I push for fathers to be 100% involved in the home whenever they are home. That means, even if we’re tired, or had a bad day, Jr. needs playing with. He needs his dad. It is not a matter of doing him a favor, it’s a responsibility we have to him. And honestly, if we don’t want the pain and expense of an ugly divorce, we should invest more time in our marriages. After all, you don’t expect a car to keep working if you never change the oil, do you? Do you expect it to keep running if you never tank it up? Why are people we claim to love so inferior in our minds to dumb chunks of metal? We say we love our wives and we say that we love our children but we are unwilling to sacrifice for them (which, by the way, is practically the definition of love).

Hmmm, I’m coming on pretty heavy-handed, aren’t I? Sorry if I sound unloving, but we’re men, and believe it or not, I need this as much as the next guy: Man Up. Take responsibility for everything you do, because whether or not you choose to it accept it, you are accountable for it. Now it’s true, a lot of today’s fathers are yesterdays poorly raised kids, and don’t know anything about responsibility. That’s very sad (no irony implied). It’s sad that your father didn’t teach you what mine did, but here’s what he taught me: with great power, comes great responsibility.

Wait! That’s Spiderman… No, actually, Spiderman didn’t come up with that. In fact, when people talk about what a great line that is, and how profound it is, I feel like asking them, “Please tell me that’s not the first time you’ve been introduced to this concept.” It’s so fundamental to life that I wonder that people aren’t amazed by the words, “falling down hurts” or “he who breathes not… dies.” Any time you have the freedom–the power–to do anything in this life, there is an associated cost. There’s no free lunch. You don’t get to drive a car without taking a test and getting a license, and you don’t get to keep driving it if you keep bumper-car-ing into buildings, trees, and lamp posts. You don’t get to receive money every day or week or month without going to a place or doing a thing which will take work (though the liberals want to change that, of course). It is the nature and definition of responsibility that we are accountable to do something for our power. This isn’t the purview of superheroes, guys, it’s the purview of human beings who aren’t children or dead. Yet, American fathers like to act as if they can have a wife without meeting her needs, regardless of how you feel at the time. We act like we can have children without raising them up, which is the equivalent of a scientist making a robot and unleashing it upon Tokyo without any programming whatsoever. Of course it’s going to rampage… you didn’t tell it what not to do! But of course, that’s it’s mom’s job, right?

We need to grow up. We walk like we are adults and talk like we are adults, but then when responsibility for our actions comes knocking, as it always does, we suddenly stick our tongues out, or writhe on the floor in a tantrum. I am speaking of grown men doing this. No wonder you got the same old token necktie last year, and will this year. Your family is essentially saying, “You don’t care about us, so we don’t care about you, but we’ll say we do because we’re supposed to. Oh, and here, have a neck-noose.” Wow, Father’s Day sounds great, doesn’t it?

Now that I’ve beat all us dads over the head, let’s take a look at what fatherhood should be. Because, let me tell you, the reality of it is as powerful and moving as motherhood. Mothers are meant to be tender, gentle beings, watching over their young with care and concern. Fathers, however, while they don’t nurse babies or cuddle with them as much as mothers do, are no less powerful or meaningful to their children’s lives. We are protectors, providers, and teachers. We’re essentially to be old retired superheros that train the superheroes of tomorrow. To them, we’re legend, even if in reality we’re not very smart, skilled, or interesting. To our kids, we’re actually like Jedi Masters. No matter how much we might think we’re not up to the task of raising children, if we have children, we need to keep trying, because they are worth it, and because the way we treat them will never be forgotten. Did you catch that, dad? This is a person who is going to grow up with your words, good or bad, and your actions, good or bad, etched forever upon their minds. What am I saying? A father’s actions are recorded forever.

In the Bible, Jesus refers to God as His “Father” many times, a humbling thing, for it creates a picture or an analogy between God and fatherhood. God is pictured as a father, as a way of helping us understand who He is and what He does, which in turn gives meaning to what a father should be like. That’s pretty heavy. No wonder fatherhood is such a marvelous, powerful thing. And it’s no wonder that, no matter how selfish we behave, our actions will live on through our children. Paul zeroes in on a few other things fatherhood entails in 1 Thessalonians:

Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe:

As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children,

That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.

– 1 Thessalonians 2:10-12 (KJV)

It’s clear that fathers are meant to be good examples, and that we should not be ignoring or tearing down our children, but this passage zeroes in on three things fathers were known for it Paul’s day, to the point he could casually mention, “as a father doth his children” and assume everybody in Thessalonica wouldn’t think a think of it. He says fathers exhort, comfort, and charge their children, specifically to walk “worthy of God,” but I believe it holds in general. What does that mean? Well, exhort means to “emphatically urge” someone. before we can do that for our kids, we have to have to have report with them. We have to treat them right, firmly and lovingly, so that they will want to listen to us. What we exhort them to do will be taken seriously, good or bad. We’re pleading for them to do right, imploring them for their own sakes, and the sake of others.

We also need to comfort them when they fail or when they don’t walk walk worthy of God, as we often do not. Fathers are meant to be firm, and to teach discipline and responsibility, just as God teaches us, but just as the father in the prodigal son’s story was compassionate, so we should be also.

And we need to charge them. Charge is a really interesting word in that passage, because it has a lot of different meanings. Firstly, and I think most strongly for Paul, it means to “entrust (someone) with a task as a duty or responsibility.” (Man, there are those words again!) We’re passing them the baton, if you will, as if we were passing on a legacy or a fortune, or our life’s work. Our children need to know how seriously we take our walk with God, and how seriously we take our responsibility, and that it’s important to us that they carry on that legacy and tradition, not for our sake only, but for their own.

That, I think, is the most important definition of the word charge, but it isn’t the only meaningful one. Maybe Paul didn’t intend to say the rest of this, but I think it’s a pretty strong message itself. To charge also means “to demand (an amount) as a price from someone for a service rendered or goods supplied.” Love transcends personal debts, of course, but it’s worth pointing out we owe a debt of gratitude, love, and service to God. How often do we take what God offers and give Him nothing? Our children should see our grateful service and giving back to God, and we should teach them that, in fact, they do owe it to Him also. As Paul says again in Romans:

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

– Romans 8:11-13

We owe God our service, love, and time. We owe Him our money, and our possessions, and our families, and our very breath. We are debtors, and as fathers we need to charge our children with this same debt, and remind them that they owe God everything too.

Charge also can mean “to accuse (someone) of something, especially an offense under law.” Just as we need to be called out on our sins, our children need us to lovingly tell them when they are going astray, not to condemn them, but to help them back onto the path. It’s not a popular idea to bring up a person’s failings, especially since it’s often abused, even in Christian circles, but we are to hold each other accountable, and because a father is responsible in a large way for his children’s behavior, he has that much more duty to call out their failings and help them overcome their weaknesses.

Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

– 1 Timothy 5:20

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

– Revelation 3:19

Remember, God is pictured as a father rebuking his children. We ought to oppose sin, especially in the people we love, because our love for them causes us to care what their sin is doing and can do to them.

Lastly, and perhaps Paul did intend this definition to be used, charge means “to load or fill (a container, gun, etc.) to the full or proper extent,” or “to fill or pervade (something) with a quality or emotion.” We’re supposed to charge up our children with fervor and zeal for God, and respect for responsibility. I worked for a time with troubled, abandoned children, and I can say from personal experience that a father can cause his child damage that can never be reversed. But as the Bible also says,

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

– Proverbs 22:6

There you have the other side of it. What we teach our children will stick with them, good or bad. Our words will make impressions in their hearts like someone stepping in wet concrete. Let’s take our responsibility seriously, and realize the permanence of our role in our children’s lives. Let’s appreciate what a tremendous impact even a single conversation or word can have on our children, and as a result upon the future itself. We can bring up Godly men and women, heroes, and leaders, and we can tear down old walls and places of idolatry and evil in our family line. We can do that, because we are fathers. This is something that even mothers cannot accomplish to such an extent. We can charge them, like a battery filled with electricity, to be more than our fathers were, and more than we are–to be electrified in their walk with God, and in their work, and in their relationships. We can charge them to be filled to the brim with truth and knowledge. Responsibility is not an evil thing, but rather a privilege, and we can teach them that the work of responsibility is worthwhile, noble, and rewarding.

Happy Father’s Day, guys. It may not mean much to our country, but it is meaningful. Let’s show the world why, as we walk with God, and take our responsibility as a gift and not a burden. Who are we? We are fathers.