The Good News for Father's Day

This is the column I've written for the Cook County News-Herald for Father's Day 2009. As I researched this column I came across four excellent sermons from John Piper that proved very helpful. If you have not already done so, let me encourage you to check out www.desiringgod.org. Specifically, read or listen to the sermon, "Raising Children Who Hope in the Triumph of God," from which I gleaned several key ideas for this column.

Cook County News-Herald THE GOOD NEWS for 6/20/09

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

There are two verses in the New Testament expressly directed to fathers in regard to their role in parenting. Ephesians 6:4 is one. Colossians 3:21 is the other. Let me make three observations about Ephesians 6:4 for dads this Father’s Day.

First, dads, these words are directed to you. You have a specific role in raising your children beyond simply being half responsible for their existence. God addresses fathers with instructions about their parenting role because he expects fathers to be actively engaged in parenting. Fathers get to provide a family, provide for the family, and provide within the family.

Psalm 127:3-5 says, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Children are a blessing and it is a blessed privilege to have them. And dad, it is a blessed responsibility to raise them, so God points out for you in Ephesians 6:4 one strategy you could use and one strategy you should use.

The two strategies are separated by the little word “but,” indicating that one strategy is superior to the other and is to be chosen over the other. We should do what we should do and not do what we could do. Fathers could “provoke your children to anger,” but they should “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

When God instructs fathers to not provoke their children to anger, he does not mean that a father should never cross a child’s will. Elsewhere God reminds us how earthly fathers reflect God’s own love for us when they discipline and correct us: “We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live. For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:9-10). Neither does God intend for father to never deny a child’s desires. What God means is, dad, don’t cross your child’s will or deny their desires without making that action intentionally part of a greater vision of God’s love and plan for your child and his purposes in the world.

That’s where the “should strategy” comes in. Fathers should nurture and nourish their children in such a way that their children will recognize and come to understand the true nature of God and his love for them, as well as God’s plan for the world and their place in it. "Anger comes from a feeling that a parent’s instruction is petty, trivial, self-serving—that it is not part of something truly great, something really important." And there is nothing greater or more important than knowing, loving, and serving God.

How can a father do what he should and not just what he could do? First, dad has to have a relationship with God that is more important to him than anything else. No kid is going to believe a dad who says the child should love God while dad’s primary love is money, or work, or fishing, or women, or something else. Children grow to love what their father loves, and if their father does not love God it is less likely that children will continue to learn and love God while they are in the home and even less likely once they leave home.

Let your life be God-saturated, dad, and your children will be God saturated as well. Pray for your kids and pray with your kids. Read the Bible yourself and read the Bible to your children. Be a living example of faith to your kids. Be happy, disciplined, humble. Worship together with your children. Be holy, and let God’s love fill your heart, your life, your outlook, and your parenting, and your kids very likely will follow suit. And even if they don’t you will have represented well your heavenly Father to them.

That’s the good news.