My Little Monsters
Okay, so they seem nice--and sometimes even shy--when you meet them. But at home? They're monsters!
Here's proof.
Giving Thanks
God has been so good to me in blessing me with my family. This season is always one which is characterized by a lot of thanksgiving for me. Over the next month or so we've got a lot of birthdays in our family, so it gives me opportunity to reflect on all God's gifts to me.
Today is Caitlyn's fourth birthday. Because she and Susannah are less than a year apart I've got two four year olds for the next ten days. Just the other day the two of them informed me that this now means they are twins.
While their powers of deduction may not be as finely honed as I hope they will be some day, I'm thankful to God for these two precious gifts. They fill my life with joy, they humble me, and they make me love my God more.
Subduing My Realm
** This is written as part of the series 30 for 30: Reflections on Life at My 30th Birthday **
------------
According to Chandler
A little while ago I wrote a post about some sermons on manhood from Matt Chandler. My reflections for today, on being a man, are largely taken from the content of the first sermon in that series: Defining Masculinity. If you are a man or know a man, I highly recommend you give it a listen.
Farmer & Field
Chandler helped me by setting our identity as men in the creation account of Genesis 1-2. As he describes the narrative unfolding, he details how God creates the whole wild world, with a beautifully ordered garden (Eden), then places man in the middle of the garden and says, 'Now make the rest of the world like this.'
Obviously there's more to the story than that, but the simplicity of that perspective was helpful for me. He laid out the inner competitiveness and creativeness and ambition in man (which drives the rat race the whole world 'round) within the framework of 'subduing' and 'ordering' and 'ruling over' the created world. That's what we were created for, and that's what drives us as men, whether we know it or not.
The trouble, of course, is that in Genesis 3 man didn't keep his world in order, but allowed chaos and disorder to rule (beginning with his own relationship with his wife when he abdicated his authority position when she was being tempted). The result of Adam's disobedience is that now the whole world falls into complete disorder (including his own heart). All is subject to futility.
His work will be hard, and filled with failure. But he is still called to it nonetheless. And, as Chandler draws out, even the futility becomes evidence of God's grace to us as the futility of our work is what drives us to call out to God for his mercy in the gospel.
A Guiding Framework
What has been so helpful to me is the guiding framework that this gives to my life as a man. As a man, I am charged with bringing order to my world. I must subdue my realm. So when I don't know what to do, what decisions to make, what direction to take for my family, or my church, I fall back on this thought: I cam called to set all things in order. All things that are under my charge should be under my control.
And when I lack motivation to mow the lawn, discipline my kids, make things right with my wife, or make peace between relationships in the church, I remember that it is the calling of a man to subdue his realm, to put all things in order. Yes, there are challenges, frustrations, and failures, but having this simple, unifying direction for my life has been helpful.
The Big Biblical Picture
Of course this is all very simple. And yet, somehow, I spent the first 30 years of my life not really having the penny drop.
God created the world and 'ordered' it. He commanded man, his 'son', made in his image, to bring all things under submission to him. But after the first Adam and every man after him failed, a second Adam, the True Image of God had to come, to inherit all authority (Matt 28.19-20), and by his death and resurrection to have all things subjected to him. The end of this creation will come ...
when [Jesus] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15.24-28)
So the beginning is Adam called to subdue his realm, but failing. The end of the story is the second Adam reigning over all things, subduing even death -- the greatest enemy. And we men are called now to live in the in between, still living with the futility of the curse all around us, but called by God to bring peace and order as we reign with Christ and bring his rule to pass, even now.
From cover to cover the Bible calls me to subdue my realm. That sounds like a manly challenge. May God give grace to make me faithful and diligent.
My Kids
** This is written as part of the series 30 for 30: Reflections on Life at My 30th Birthday **
------------
I love my children. I absolutely delight in them. There are so many reasons why; I thought I'd list just a few.
1. They Reflect Me
Okay, this sounds really bad. But I see myself in my kids, and that makes me love them. That's natural. That's what all parents love to see. To be honest, I think that's why parents often think their own kids are the cutest... because they look like the parents! I've always thought to myself, 'How narcissistic is that!'
But then I got to thinking about that. Why do parents take so much delight in having children who look like them? Because our heavenly Father delights in having children who look like him. And because we bear his image (even now in a distorted way) we have his heart-impulses. When I see myself in my kids or my wife in my kids and my heart warms toward them, now it doesn't make me think I'm narcissistic so much as it turns my mind to my God who created me in his image and who finds delight in me resembling him (really, this is at the heart of the gospel!). And it makes me hope I can train my kids to reflect their heavenly Father... not just their earthly one.
2. They Don't Reflect Me
Here's the funny thing about kids. Even though they're fallen and depraved, there is still a sense of innocence and purity about them; they are willing to receive and believe what they hear with all their hearts. They trust. They forgive. They are willing to be comforted by words of truth. They believe the best about people and love with all their unbroken hearts. That doesn't reflect me. I'm stubborn and heart-hearted, slow to forgive, slow to believe, slow to respond to truth. I'm jaded when it comes to people; it is easier to look at other people as 'sinners' than it is 'image-bearers.' Jesus commended children as those to whom we should look to know how to receive his kingdom. It's not hard to see why. My kids are not perfect -- far from it. But they do show me how I should love and trust my God and love and trust others.
3. They Give Me An Excuse to Be a Kid
I often 'joke' about this, but it's true. I love being a kid. Playing, running, climbing trees, telling crazy imaginary stories... I love it! But if I did that on my own, people would think I'm weird -- even more so than they already do! So I'm glad my kids give me an excuse to still be a kid. I love playing with them.
4. They Show Me My Weaknesses
Inasmuch as God calls me to father like he is a father to me, my children provide me with ample opportunities to show the world that I am not my heavenly Father. I fall so far short. He is so patient with me; my impulse is to chastise right away. He is so loving with me; my impulse is to be harsh with them. He is so wise in the dispensations of his providence, leading me in ways that I will grow; I give so little foresight to the ways I lead my children. He sacrificed his most treasured possession for me; I ask my four year-old when she'll get a job and start helping to pay some bills. He is endlessly kind; I get grouchy at the drop of a hat when my kids won't eat, sleep, or jump right when I say. He is always available; I'm so often distracted. There is no doubt about it: my kids show me my need for grace every single day.
5. They Are Ever-Present Accountability
And not just because they'll point out every single thing you do that they're not allowed to do ('Daddy, "stupid" is a bad word!'; 'Daddy, how come you are having two bowls of ice cream?' 'Daddy, we're not allowed to climb up there like that!'). They're also a source of accountability because everything I do and say now is filtered through the grid of, 'What example am I setting for them?' and 'Is this the kind of husband I want my girls to look for?' That little check keeps me on the straight-and-narrow many times.
6. They Make Me Laugh Like Crazy
People have actually commented to me that being in my house is like living in a sitcom. A lot of days I can't disagree. I laugh pretty hard in my home. It is full of joy and I have my children to thank for that.
7. They Help Me Understand Women
I had no sisters growing up. As a young man I clearly had no idea how to understand the first thing about women. So God made me live with four of them. One of the things I've learned about girls is that they're definitely female from the time they're born on up. I've had to grow in my understanding of how the fairer sex thinks, learns, interacts, expresses love, receives love, hears correction, processes reality, experiences the world... the list goes on and on. My girls have (I think) helped me to understand women better. I love them for that.
8. They Bring Me to My Knees
They make me pray. My heart is immediately broken before my God when I think of those three tender little souls. I am quickly moved to pray, casting all my cares on my Father, casting all my hope for their protection, for their future, for their little hearts on him. They make me desperate, which makes me pray, which makes me love them more.
9. They Make Me Love More
I could go on all day, but I'll end here. They make me love my them: their smiles, their joys, the way they look to me for care and guidance, their little quirks. They make me love my wife: as I watch her care for them and treasure them and bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, I grow in my love for her. They make me love my God: Who am I that I should be blessed with such wonderful little blessings as them? I am a man too blessed for words. They increase my love a hundredfold.
My Identity as God’s Child
** This is written as part of the series 30 for 30: Reflections on Life at My 30th Birthday **
------------
A father's hands
One of the grounding realities to all of life is identity. Who am I? Where have I come from? What is my value? Am I loved? What is my purpose? As I look back on my life to this point I realize that much of the reason why I have been so easily swayed in my affections is because I haven't fully grasped and applied truth to these basic questions of identity.
As I reflect on the significant seasons of growth and change in my life I see a consistent pattern: these were always times when I was beginning to connect the dots between the gospel that has saved me and my current identity. In other words, the most life-changing seasons have been those times when I realized that the gospel was not just God's means of giving me a ticket to heaven on some future day, but rather, the gospel is God's means of grace to me now. In the gospel I find every comfort and every assurance of God's love for me. In the gospel I find my identity, my value, my purpose.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is a message of how God's True Son was killed in order that we might become adopted sons & daughters, indwelt by the very same Spirit who was in Jesus. The same Spirit who was in Jesus, moving him to pray, filling him with compassion, giving him direction, comforting him through the weakness of his humanity, reminding him of his mission, empowering his miraculous works -- that same Spirit is in me. He's in every Christian, every son and daughter of God.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4.4-6)
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.... (Romans 8.14-17)
I'm not alone, I don't think, in coming to see just how important the doctrine of adoption is and how essentially it is bound up with the gospel. JI Packer was once asked to sum up the gospel in three words. Here was his response:
“... My proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God [Downers Grove, IL: 1993], 214)
Here's the thing: while, like any Calvinist, I see that the gospel is about God making much of God and acting for his righteousness' sake, I have now come to see that his righteousness (shown in the propitiation accomplished by Jesus (Rom 3.23-26) means a lavish display of fatherly love towards his adopted sons & daughters. His covenantal promises through all generations to be our God, and to have us as his people, is bound up in adoption -- dwelling with us, in us, in our midst, as a father with his children:
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor 6.16-18)
If God is so committed to loving me and being with me (for his own righteousness' sake!) that he is willing to bear all his wrath on his True Son to adopt me and have me conformed to his image (Rom 8.29), then I have a meaningful identity: I am a child of the King. I have a purpose: to reflect my Father. I have value: I have been purchased with the blood of Jesus. And I am loved (Gal 2.20; John 3.16; John 15.13; 1 John 3.16; Rom 5.8). I thank God that I can never undo that, no matter how much I mess up. No matter how much I fail, no matter how much other people value me or don't, I know who I am in Christ. I am a son of God.
I have learned that the gospel takes care of the big questions of my identity. That gives great freedom to live with joy, hope, and expectation of God doing great things in me and through me... because he is my Father and I am his son. I pray that however many years I have left would be one continual season of growth in living in light of the reality that God has made me his child.
The Word of God
Subscribe
Click the logo for posts by e-mail
Recent Comments
- Bersiya on On the ‘Inadequacy’ of Language
- Julian on My Little Monsters
- Don on My Little Monsters
- Celebrating beauty - Words of Eternal Life on The Beauty of My Wife
- Luciana Hamilton on Why Do You Hide Yourself, God?
Blogroll
- Darryl Dash
- Ian Hugh Clary
- Jake Rivers
- Louis Tullo
- Nick Mitchell
- Paul McDonald
- Paul W. Martin
- Tim Challies
- Trevor Peck
Other Useful Stuff
Pages
Our Church
Sermons from Our Church
- God, His World, His People (Part 2)
- God, His World, His People (Part 1)
- The Foundations of Understanding
- Praying to the Triune God
- The Battle for Humility