Fathering Beyond Hate

The sin that shocks God is the thing which is highly esteemed among men—self-realization, pride, my right to myself.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.  If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from hell.  My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad.  My inmost being will exult when your lips speak what is right…. Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. 
~Proverbs 13:13-16,24 

Oh beloved, it is true.  Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.  And today, this writer had to beat some of that foolishness out of his youngest son.  It was the first real beating this boy had sustained.   And a beating it was, for he struck another woman in anger, simply because she would not obey this little boy’s orders.  He had been warned an appropriate number of times.  So, to the “woodshed” this boy went.  And seeing the streak of foolishness and egocentricity in this beautiful little one, it may not be the last trip he takes to that place.

There is a part of a father that dies when he loves a son enough to break him.  Oh G_d it hurts.  This writer is not sure who was more panicked when we went in the direction of the out-of-the-way porch, the son or the father, where the son was about to get his first real fill of his dad’s right to impose right action on a situation.

Perhaps these are the days when a dad stops being a dad.  Perhaps these are the days when a dad becomes a father.  And it is on these days where my Best Friend only gives one judgment on what I really am – naught but evil and ill-equipped to be the father I need so desperately to be.  

It is, however, this same Best Friend who has said that even us evil fathers know how to give good gifts to our children.  For if we, by His grace, are willing to bear the disgrace and the anger of others we can move beyond our hatred of criticism and our yawning complacency and move into a place that no other man can rightly occupy on this earth.  We become the one person in a son’s life to whom this son must fully surrender in order to be free of fear and running in the open fields of obedience.

Can we see it?

Fathers.  We are G_d to these young children.  We are showing them how to live the Christian Life they will indeed live if we train them up in the way they should go.  We are the one man in the universe who must be willing to do whatever it takes to put our sons and daughters into a right relationship with ourselves.  And sometimes, in the rare case (and in the context of absolutely unconditional love and acceptance), this includes giving a child a beating they will never forget.

For in a child, as in adults, there is something that must die in order for real, true and powerful life to begin.  And for us both, what must die is this desperate self-centeredness that takes our own feelings and desires and gives them dominion over any other consideration – including the life and well-being of others.  This writer surely had to have his share of beatings from his Heavenly Father to be able to see the truth, and there are still bruises healing from the loving rod of discipline that He laid across my back to enable my full surrender to His Love.

Oh how i love my sons and daughters.  Oh my, how much He must love us!

As i now type the ending to this entry.  My son lays peacefully beside me taking a nap. Something has broken in him, but it is a beautiful fracture.  Might we all fathers, be willing to love these little boys and girls beyond our ability.  May we be the very channel of His grace to them in all ways.