40-Day Devotion, Day 23

PREPARATION: READ TITUS 2:1-8; 11-14

Practice What You Believe

It was the challenge of teaching that came to me first, grabbed hold of me and overwhelmed me because it was not what I would have expected. But then, how can you predict the thoughts that will flood your mind when you first set eyes on your newborn child?

The labor was over and our baby had made her entrance in the typical fashion: squalling and adding to the already elevated stress level of a first-time father. The doctor had made his initial assessments and left the room, leaving the nurse to her myriad of chores that follow a birth. As I did my best to stay out of the way and internalize all that had just happened, the nurse beckoned me to come over and “meet” my new daughter. There she lay in a warming bed, still agitated, and more than happy to share that emotion with anyone in close proximity.

Looking back, I think the nurse enjoyed seeing new fathers completely overwhelmed and I proved no exception. I approached timidly, forgetting every instruction from our childbirth classes on how to handle this part of the process. With a voice choked up with emotion, I whispered her name, and leaned over to see if, by chance, children come with a volume control. To my amazement, as soon as I spoke, she quieted. With wide eyes she tried to locate the source of that voice.

I confess: I was dumbstruck—even more so—when the nurse explained that this reaction is common among newborns. Hearing a parent’s voice that, up until then, had only been heard through her mother’s body grabs a child’s attention.

That was the moment the full weight of parenthood fell on me and I felt the burden of Titus 2: my child is watching and listening. I must teach.

For all of us, whether we are parents are not, the obligation to pass on our faith to the next generation is a heavy one. We must equip our children with everything they need to make the huge transition from childhood into adulthood with their faith intact. God has given that responsibility to us which means in the Church, on the ball field and in the home, God’s people must train up the next generation. What a huge task! With my own children, I would have felt indescribably inadequate, except for a lesson my father taught me.

Reminiscing on the flash in time that was my childhood, I cannot recall a single instance when my dad actually lectured or specifically used what, today, might be referred to as a teachable moment. Still, there were plenty of life-lessons to be observed in my house and observe we did.

I should point out that, for the first dozen years of my life, none of those life-lessons were very spiritual in nature. My siblings and I went to Church fairly regularly, but my father did not join us.

Providing was not easy for a young father raising four children on one income and there were times we literally did not see Dad for the better part of two weeks (depending on how much overtime he was offered). As you can imagine, our relationship with him became strained and, as I entered my early teenage years, some of the lessons I had absorbed left me unsettled and questioning.

That was when Dad inadvertently taught his family the most valuable lesson ever: one that shaped everything that followed in my life. It was a lesson in refocus, rebirth and the renewing power of God’s love.

Looking back, it makes perfect sense to me now that if God could not get my father to Church, He would bring the Church to my father. This is how it happened:

The only Church in our very tiny town had changed pastors, and the new one, recently married and fresh out of seminary, “happened” to move into a fixer-upper home just around the corner from ours. It also just “happened” that my dad was an expert handyman. Our new neighbor... well, he wasn’t so much. You can see how their relationship developed.

With what I am convinced was a softened heart, my dad helped the young pastor out of one emergency after another and, although their backgrounds were vastly different, a friendship formed. As my father worked on his neighbor’s house, God used our neighbor to work on my father’s heart. Slowly but surely, Dad’s eyes were opened to God’s love and grace. Before long, his heart opened as well.

From the viewpoint only a child can have, I saw a dramatic rebirth in my father’s life that left us children with an indelible impression of the power of the cross. We had lived the “before” and witnessed the “after.” Grace overcame anger, patience calmed frustration, priorities were re-ordered, and broken relationships were healed.
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