Saved Fatherhood, Fatherhood Saved
Five minutes ago I was in my four-year-old son’s bedroom, rubbing his back as he drifted to sleep. This is something he asks me to do more often than not. Not sure where he get’s it from…but, he is a wild one, and it is rare that he lays that still for a moment between us like that. So, I am beyond happy to do it.
When I am aware enough, I will pray for him silently as I do. The usual parent-prayer things: save him, make him love You, give him a strong back and gentle hands, let him exceed me in every way. Things like that. But tonight, something odd happened. I became overwhelmed my sheer joy and love for this boy–my son. I felt acutely aware of at least something that approached what the Father meant when he said, “this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
That experience in itself is not odd. Most days while I watch him play or as he surprises us with new phrases or as more and more of his shinning personality begins to unfold before us, I am often struck by just how “well pleased” I am over this boy–my son. And, at least so far, it is an experience that grows in depth. As he grows and becomes, my well-pleasedness grows and becomes as well.
But, again, that is not what was odd. Again, that is a fairly typical experience of fatherhood for the Christian fathers I know.
What was odd tonight was something I prayed. I say, “I,” but I am not sure it was entirely me, though it was my brain and lips the prayer arose and came out of. From whomever it came, I was surprised by what “I” prayed. It wasn’t a request for him or even a request for me (though, I am always making requests along the lines of making me the father this boy–my son–needs).
I “heard” the words come out of me, “thank You for saving me so that I can be the dad I am to this boy–my son.” Immediately, surprised and a little embarrassed by the tinge of pride I thought I may have detected in myself, I added, “not that I am the dad I ought to be or want to be or will be.” But then, to my surprise almost again, I rejoined that rejoinder, “but really, thank You. Thank You for saving me. Because had You not, who knows what kind of father I would be to this boy–my son. With all the yardage I still have to go, without Your plucking me up out of my sin I would not be anywhere near to the dad I am now, because You are the only reason I am the half-way decent one I am.” And as I began to try and imagine what kind of dad I would be without my being saved I erupted–quietly, “Thank You, thank You, thank You!”
I have been a dad for 4 years, having now taken on a double-major with our second. But I don’t know that I have ever had such an explicit realization that in God’s rescuing me I was rescued for fatherhood, and my fatherhood was rescued in God’s rescuing me. And I’m a Kuyperian of all things (some of you got the pun)! Not one square inch left outside his benevolent sovereignty, redeeming it all as far as the curse is found from the blade of grass beneath our feet to the furthest end of the cosmos–all through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is big gospel I believe in.
And yet, I have never seen so clearly until tonight that God saved me for fatherhood, and my fatherhood itself was saved in His saving me. This is surely in part what Paul meant in Ephesians 4:10,
For you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
How blind we can be and how sweet He is to open our eyes ever more slightly. Fatherhood is a work I have been saved for and my own fatherhood–the kind of dad I am, can, and will be–has been saved, redeemed, rescued from what it would have been apart from my being saved.
What good news this is! For me, and for this boy–my son. The gospel of Jesus Christ declares that I have been saved for the purpose of being his father, and that my fathering of him itself has been saved. By God’s grace, I will be a father to this boy–my son in whom I am well pleased that I would never have been apart from my being saved. I am saved for fatherhood and my fatherhood is saved. May that result in this boy–my son, and his sister, being well pleased in me–their dad.
zch