©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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6/21/98
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Four Pillar Principles For Papa
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Mal. 4:5-6
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6/21/98 Four Pillar Principles For Papa
This is Father's Day - perhaps the most significant
special day
of the entire year :).
As most of your know,
the Lord understood our limited abilities
and wisely chose to give Sandee and myself
just one child,
our daughter Joni.
Joni graduated from high school this spring
and in just over two months
we'll drive her out of state for college and, apart
from coming up with the $50-$60,000 in college
expenses,
our direct parenting role is over.
I believe I mentioned last father's day
that perhaps one of the easiest things in the
world to do
is to make fathers feel guilty
by preaching on things they should be
doing but aren't,
or by pointing out all the endless damage a dad
can do
in the lives of his children
by not handling his daddy role well.
I want you to know
that I understand the fears,
the guilt,
and the occasional sheer terror that
accompanies being a dad
as well as any of you.
I have my own mental basket of blunders,
some from ignorance,
some from my own sinfulness,
like every dad who has ever lived.
But I want you to know, too,
that, after more than 18 years as a papa,
with the one exception of building my lifetime
partnership with Sandee,
being daddy to my daughter
has been far and away the most
satisfying life assignment my Lord has ever given
me.
Joni was born in 1979.
Jimmy Carter was President,
inflation was out of control,
huge chunks of our nation's moral
foundation were crumbling everywhere we looked.
Drug use among school children was epidemic,
gang wars in many sections of our nation were
common place,
teen pregnancy,
federally funded abortion on demand
without parental notification or consent was the
rule,
and condoms were being dispensed
through school-based health clinics like free
candy bars.
I can remember just after Joni was born
taking the government-issued
projected statistics for the spread of AIDS in
our nation at that time,
extending them out to when Joni
would be 18 years old,
and discovering that at the present rate
something like 4 out of every 5 young men her
age
would be infected with the disease.
I can remember wondering
what kind of an idiot
would bring a child into this world
at such a time as this.
Now, 18 years later,
some of the things I feared
are even worse than I expected.
Some of them are not nearly as bad.
The AIDS statisticians
failed to take into consideration
the fact that most victims of AIDS
contract the disease
by choosing to expose themselves
through their own sexual immorality
and that, in the end,
the spread of the disease
would be limited to that segment of our
population
who refused to exercise sexual self-control.
But my point is
that I remember well
the fears associated with the thought
of attempting to bring up a child
in a such a world.
For those of you
who are right in the middle of the process of
being a parent,
or who are considering the possibility,
and who understand
those same kinds of fears
I want to share some things with you this morning
that I hope will encourage you.
Christian parents
have been successfully raising children in pagan
societies for the past 2000 years.
18 years ago
I looked at the society around me
and wondered how in the world
it would be possible
for a good child to ever come out
of such a bad society.
What I did not realize then
was that God has carefully designed
that special union between
parent and child
in such a way that
no society can ever have
even a fraction of the impact on a child
that dad and mom have.
Our society as a whole
is far worse now than it was 18 years ago.
For the past 18 years
my daughter has grown up
surrounded by this society.
And yet, her perspective on herself,
her God,
her world,
and her whole basic outlook on life
was not shaped by that society -
it was shaped by mom and dad.
And not only have I not decided
that this is a bad time in which
to bring children into the world,
I now believe
that this is perhaps the best time
there has ever been for raising children
because nothing else can speak more powerfully
to our society
than the example of a home and family
functioning under God's design.
So, in the time we have left this morning
what I would like to do
is to offer you four foundation blocks
for successful fathering,
or, if you prefer,
four pillar principles for papa.
These are what I consider to be
the 4 most essential ingredients
in the relationship between
a father and each of his children.
I don't believe any one of them
is any more or less important
than the other 3.
Rather, I think they are interdependent.
By that I mean that the value each one
is greatly intensified
by the presence of the other 3.
And just before I share these with you
I want to offer one other word of
encouragement -
I know that we tend to parent our children
in basically the same way
as we were parented
when we were children.
That can be either good
or bad depending on our past.
But I want you to know
that all four of these principles
can be learned
and integrated into our relationships
with our children
by choosing to do so,
no matter what was or was not modeled for
us in our own childhood.
#1. The first of the four I would mention
is choosing to provide our children
with the security that comes
through providing boundaries
and structure in their lives.
Of the four principles I'll share with you
this first one has by far the greatest
potential for abuse and misunderstanding.
It is also the principle
that requires the most active thinking
and growing
and learning
on our part.
And it might be easiest
if I divide this concept of structure and
boundaries
into two distinct areas.
a. First of all
we are given the responsibility
of establishing the family structure for our
children.
Often we men rely heavily on
the wisdom of our wives
in designing our family structures,
but even then
the degree to which dad
submits to and supports that family structure
will set the tone for the whole family.
By family structure
I'm talking about everything from
what time the family gets up,
to what time dad comes home at night,
to what time the meals are served,
to what time our children go to bed,
to what we do on family vacations,
and how we handle the holidays.
And the key concept here
is to establish a consistent routine.
The lack of consistent family structure
creates anxiety in our children.
The presence of consistent family routine
gives them a sense of emotional security
that nothing else can duplicate.
The really hard part with establishing
a consistent family structure
is not in getting our children to submit to it,
it's in being willing to submit to it ourselves.
Something as simple as establishing
a set time each day
when we quit working
and enter the family structure for the night
can be a tremendous gift
to the emotional security of our children.
I don't know if you have realized it or not,
but the work we have to do
will never end.
There will always be one more client
or one more project
or one more delivery
or one more repair
or one more phone call
or one more sermon to write.
Most children grow up
hearing dad say 4 words more often
than any other words:
"Not now, I'm busy!"
Building into our family structure
some point on a daily basis
when they know they will not hear those
words coming out of our mouth
will be among the greatest gifts
we can ever give our offspring.
b. And the second half of this process of building
security through boundaries
is in the area of communicating
and enforcing moral boundaries for our
children.
And here again I think in terms of two distinct
categories.
a. First of all there are
the moral absolutes given to us by our Creator.
These moral limits are applicable to
every human being.
There aren't many of them,
but they are non-negotiable.
€sexual purity,
€respect and submission to the authorities God
has placed us under,
€not telling a lie
€not stealing
€treating others with respect and dignity.
These are the fundamentals
of all healthy human relationships.
Whenever they are violated
they will always ultimately damage those
involved.
b. Then there is the much broader area that I'll call
the family application of those moral
absolutes.
This includes everything from
whether your children take their shoes off when
they comes inside,
to whether they wash out the tub
following their bath,
to what time they need to be home
following a date.
And my main comment here
is to keep a clear distinction
between the moral absolutes
and their personal family applications.
There are times when a wise father will say,
"You're absolutely right - this is not in the Bible.
This is a house rule I have established
because I think its best for our family.
The day you leave here
you'll never have to abide by it again.
But right now
its part of the structure of our home."
And especially during the teen years
I also found it very valuable
to ask my daughter to evaluate
how she felt about house rules we had
set,
especially if those rules were relatively new to
our family structure.
EX. When Joni first started dating
Sandee and I established an "in" hour for her.
She had to be home at a certain time.
We also had some other house rules
governing the whole area of her dating.
Several weeks after
this new batch of rules
had been introduced into our family
I asked Joni to evaluate our house rules.
I told her there were two potentially destructive
errors dad and mom could make.
We can fail to provide her with the structure she
needed
that would protect her in this new world of
dating,
or, on the other hand,
we can fail to provide her with the freedom she
needed
to grow and learn in an important new area of
life.
Then I asked her how she thought we were doing.
My purpose was two-fold:
First, I wanted her to understand
why we were doing what we were doing.
Second, I wanted to know how she felt about it.
Now, I've taken far more time
on this first one then I intended,
but the first pillar I would offer is choosing to
provide our children
with the security that comes
through providing boundaries
and structure in their lives.
#2. The second pillar I would offer is to
move your children to the top of your life
priority list
and then find ways of letting them
know.
We pretend that we have 24 hours every day
with which to do whatever we choose.
In reality, most of that 24 hours
is consumed with the necessary obligations of
life.
We have to work.
We have to sleep.
We have to maintain a place for our family
to live.
The truth is
there is just a little bit of time every day
over which we truly have control.
It is that time
that really reflects
where our life priorities are.
My only comment here
is to encourage you
to choose your kids -
with your choices
let them know they are more important to you
than your car,
more important than your boat,
more important than your airplane,
more important than your fishing pole,
or your rifle
or your snow machine.
In my life personally
I'm all done choosing now.
My brief window is all closed up.
This fall, for the first time in 18 years
I'll be able to do anything I want with my
evenings,
anything except help my daughter
with one more school project,
or help her learn how to ride her bike,
or build a snowman with her,
or put together a magic show with her for
mom,
or make her into a sandwich with the couch
cushions,
or do balancing tricks together
on the living room carpet.
But it's fine
because we already did all those things together
and they have become a part of both of us
forever.
#3. My 3rd pillar is far more crucial
than will be reflected by the time I give it.
Learn to recognize when your child's spirit
is closed to you
and do whatever you need to do
to reopen it to you.
It's not nearly as complicated as it may sound.
God has designed a child
so that their spirit is naturally open to their
parents.
They naturally want to drink from us,
learn from us,
model themselves after us,
be with us,
be touched by us.
Their spirit will close up
when we have injured them in some way.
Proper discipline will never cause a child's spirit to
close up,
but physical abuse will.
Humiliating a child will.
Or making promises we don't keep
or treating them in a way
that they perceive as being unjust.
Opening the injured spirit of a child
is extremely simple,
and extremely hard to do.
It involves our saying to our child,
"What daddy just did
or what daddy just said was wrong,
will you forgive me?"
4. And my final pillar for papa
is one I don't know how to teach,
but I know it is perhaps
the most essential of the four.
Learn how to delight in your child
and then let them see that delight.
I think this is what the prophet Malachi was talking
about
when he wrote the last two verses
of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament concludes
with a prophecy about
the man who would come
to prepare the way for the Messiah.
In that prophecy
he singles out one work of God
that would be more important
than all others
in preparation for the work of Christ.
He says,
Mal. 4:5 ¶ "Behold, I am going to send
you Elijah the prophet before the coming
of the great and terrible day of the Lord.
Mal. 4:6 "He will restore the hearts of the
fathers to their children and the hearts of
the children to their fathers, so that I will
not come and smite the land with a curse."
He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their
children.
If I could offer just one practical suggestion,
it would be to build into your life
one-to-one time
with each of your children,
and then give yourself to them during that time.
The crucial thing is to get them out of the pack and
into a one-to-one time together.
Nothing has the power
to bring a sense of emotional security
and healthy self-worth into a child
like their discovering their daddy delights in them.
When my daughter was about 5 years old
I took her on a date
down to the beach in Kenai.
As we were walking along the sand
I had her stop
and I drew a huge heart in the sand.
Then I had her stand in the middle of it
and I took her picture.
When the picture came back
I told her that I had taken that picture
so that she would never forget
that she is always in my heart.
When Joni was a Junior in high school
she went back through our family albums
and found that picture
and made a black and white enlargement of it
in her photography class
and gave it to me for Christmas.
I brought it this morning because for both Joni and
me that picture symbolizes
my delight in my daughter.
#1.Choose to provide our children
with the security that comes
through providing boundaries
and structure in their lives.
#2. Move your children to the top of your
life priority list
and then find ways of letting them
know.
#3. Learn to recognize when your child's
spirit is closed to you
and do whatever you need to do
to reopen it to you.
#4. Learn how to delight in your child
and then let them see that delight.