Wednesday, June 20, 2012
A GOOD START
Ever notice if you don't get the first button right, all the other ones end up wrong as well? Ever notice that if a child doesn't have a good start in life, the rest of his life often goes bad?
God wants children to have a good start to life. From God's perspective a good start means bringing children to Jesus. "Let the children come to Me," the Savior says, "and do not forbid them."
Dads, we need to take charge in getting our children off to a good start. From day one our children's eternal welfare needs to be our chief concern. We need to be the ones who make sure the TV gets turned off and the family is gathered to hear God's Word. We need to make sure Johnny knows his Bible passages, and Sally knows her hymn verses. We need to show our son the importance of Sunday morning worship over the Sunday football game. We need to show our daughter what the Lord is looking for in a Christian father and husband so that she will look for the same qualities when it's time for her to marry.
But more than anything, we need Jesus. We need our Savior's forgiveness, His strength, His wisdom. And we have it. Christ paid for all our sins as fathers. And Christ, with His Word, gives us all we need to carry out our high calling as Christian fathers.
In speaking of the public ministry, St. Paul writes: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God." In shepherding our families, we fathers must rely on the sufficiency of our Lord and Savior.
All that self-reliant, tough-guy stuff has to go. Only the Lord can give us the wherewithal to be faithful Christian fathers. Only He can turn our hearts in Christ-like devotion to our children. Only with His grace and blessing can we get our children off to a good start.
-- Abridged from the "Lutheran Spokesman," June 1999
