Enjoying one's children

It's true, my kids are young--the oldest is 13 and the youngest is 8. I am fully aware that the waters just ahead of me in this stream of parenting are tumultuous and fraught with potential trouble. The words I am about to write in no way minimize the task that lays ahead of me, nor do they suppose that I have really figured anything out. I am a regular, Christ-following dad who has this confession to make to you: I absolutely and utterly enjoy my children.

A couple years ago I would have thought this to be an understood and rather inconsequential thing to write about. Everyone enjoys their children, right? So why put this confession into print? But it seems that many do NOT enjoy their kids. We often love them, we're simply not certain that we always like them.

To be sure, our children can try us on many levels. They magnify all the things we dislike in ourselves, naturally re-produce all the thistles that we despise in ourselves, confront us with harsh (yet all-too-often accurate) comments regarding our own motives and selfishness, and they even sometimes disobey.

If we are to be true to our calling to raise children in the "fear and admonition of the LORD," we must deal with these things--not first in THEM, but primarily in ourselves. If I demand obedience and respect from my children (which I should), then I must demand it (more) from myself (and demand this obedience and love toward God, especially reflected in the way I treat my wife). If I don't I will not like my children. I will see only my failures and shortcomings in them, I will demand only obedience from them, and I will miss out on the beauty of the opportunity I have to give myself to them.

I recently heard a man describe the task of being a father this way (and I love it!): "To be an effective father you must get a life [which tells God's story] and then share it with your children." That's it. That is parenting. That is the task of discipleship, fathering, and enjoying your children all wrapped up in one succinct sentence. Your children are not a burden to be endured, they are the people whom you have been entrusted with to train and live life with. God has given fathers the glad task of having our hearts re-made by Him daily and then to learn to effectively share that heart with our wives and children.

In short, I hope your children (no matter their age) are not a drag to you. I hope, because of God's faithfulness, that they are a delight to you. I hope that they will always teach me to praise God because of His grace (where they walk with Him), and cast myself on His mercy (where they don't). Hey, "children are a heritage from the Lord!" Enjoy!