Super Dad

The glory of children is their fathers. (Proverbs 17:6)

When I was in grade school, I distinctly remember explaining to my classmates, “My dad is better than your dad!”  I would begin with how smart he was, brag about how strong he was and end by saying something like, “I bet my dad can beat your dad up!” They would always retaliate with weak responses such as, “Oh yeah, well my dad can run faster than your dad and he’s an engineer and blah, blah, blah!”  At this point in the conversation I would tune them out, knowing without a shadow of a doubt I was right and they were disillusioned.  I genuinely felt sorry for the poor lads.

As the years have passed, I am now the dad, and I have become reacquainted with of a simple truth that I learned back then as a child:  Although I am weak and prone to failure, my young children think I can do anything.  In their eyes, Dad is Superman! This is a powerful truth to humbly grasp, but  one that I need to be aware of.

After years of observation, I have come to see there is a small window in life where our children’s hearts are naturally turned toward us,  and during this time, they will naturally be more open to our input and instruction.  I see this when my daughter picks flowers or draws a picture or learns to hop on one leg and then races to me to see my response.  Or when someone is playfully making jokes about me, and I see my son coming to my defense.  To use an old cliché, our children think we “hung the moon”, and as God fearing fathers, it’s our goal to point them to the One who really did!  What a great honor we have!

So if we are going to capitalize on this God given season, we as fathers must fight to have our hearts turned to our children (Luke 1:17) while their hearts are turned towards us (Proverbs 17:6).  For most of us, this does not come naturally.  We must be intentional.  It’s not something that just happens by chance.  We need to rid ourselves of the “kryptonite” that so easily entangles and steals our affections (Hebrews 12:1,2).   This will require us to die to self at times and consider our children more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3,4) but in the end we will have no regrets.

As my children are growing older, they’ve already begun to realize their daddy is really Clark Kent.  They  understand I sin and that even Superman needs a savior. Ironically this actually excites me because as a father, my true joy in life comes from knowing my children are walking with our Lord (3 John 4) and making much of Him.  And this is really super, man! (I know this last line is really lame and cheesy, but it’s late and I can’t think of a better way to end this post!)

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