"For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory." (NIV, italics added)
Prayer starter:
Father's Day is just a few days away. Maybe the fact that I had been seeing ads for this annual event everywhere was in the back of my mind as I was reading this verse a few days ago. For some reason, the part about what fathers are supposed to do really jumped out at me. According to the apostle Paul, a father has three main duties in raising his children:
1. encourage them
2. comfort them
3. urge them to live lives worthy of God
In my opinion, all three are part and parcel of the fatherhood job description. Each is important, but works best in conjunction with the other two. Together, they form an almost invincible package to prepare a child for life in this world. But the most indispensable ingredient among the three is the last one. It serves as a lens of sorts through which the other two and any additional fathering task should be viewed. A father should be encouraging. True. But not so much so that he leads his children to think that they are better or more special than others. How can he encourage his children, yet keep them from getting overly inflated egos? By urging them to live lives worthy of God. Lives marked by prideful and entitled attitudes are not worthy of God. A father should be comforting his children. True. But not so much that they start feeling sorry for themselves. How can he comfort his children, yet keep them from focusing too much on their own misfortune? By urging them to live lives worthy of God. Lives marked by self-pity instead of gratitude are not worthy of God.
Of course, being a father does not always present clear-cut choices. There is no "encouragement meter" or "comfort scale" that tells a father when enough is enough. Again, though, number 3 is the gold standard: parents should study what the Bible says about living a life worthy of God and reconcile that with the amount of encouragement and comfort they provide to their children. Reminders like "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31), when taken at face value, make it essentially impossible to get too excited about one's own value and ego. A verse like "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) can lift a downcast spirit and guide us on a positive, God-focused path. Thus, for any parent, the "secret" for any life situation should be to urge our children to live in a way that is pleasing to God.
Be Brightly Blessed!
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