The last year has been one of the most beautiful yet one of the most tumultuous of my life. I truly cannot believe it has already been a year since this blog was officially started and in recognizing that it’s been even longer since Dominique and I started to go through a pruning season which has led to some of the most wonderful days of our lives, however, some of the hardest as well.
We just celebrated our oldest son’s third birthday this past week and I find it only fitting that as I reflected on how this year was different than the last, I figured we’d celebrate the one year birthday of F & F by talking about some of the lessons God showed myself and my wife. I truly believe these points are so valuable to our family and pray that they bless you as you read this. This isn’t a list of steps or lessons to a better you or better family; these are ways that God has illuminated my walk to be more satisfied in Him. I’m extremely excited to get back into the swing of writing and hope you stay tuned to see some of the content that will be dropping in year 2 of F & F.
1. Your wife needs YOU to lead.
I am imploring every man reading this to take a look around at what’s happening around us. Think of the situations you might be finding yourself in, whether you may be single, dating, married, married with kids, etc. This applies to the married man as well as the single man in preparation for being married at some point. The world is an absolute circus. Culture is steaming ahead like a train without a conductor in regards to the demasculinization of a man, moral depravity, and the pursuit of financial comfort over spiritual wealth.
There is a call of God on our lives as men to be the head — to be the leaders. In Genesis after the fall in the garden God does not come looking for Eve first. He comes looking for an account from Adam, the man. Maybe this is only my personal belief, but I do not believe that anything has changed since the garden in regards to accountability in the home.
The non-believer would probably call it being a sexist or domineering to say that man is the head.
“Submission? What’s that? This is marriage not wrestling.”
What the complementation sees as fulfilling a duty in leading as described in Ephesians 5, the egalitarian sees as “lording over” or domineering. I certainly have zero desire to lord over Dominique nor do I ever want the weight of being God to be on my weak shoulders, but you can bet your last dollar I want to be the head of my home. I want to lead our home regardless if we succeed or fail. I want the devotions of my home, the prayer time of my home, to be an overflow of what I am doing and my own spiritual walk. I want my love for God to push my wife to love the Lord even more. I want the standards and decisions made in this home to be made as a team but I never want my wife feeling like she has initiate all things.
Now before we go further I just want to state two things. I constantly mess this up and I probably will never stop messing it up. However, the fact of the matter is that God has illuminated my mind and heart to this desperate need.
We men set the tone. We men set the spiritual atmosphere in our house. That is NOT to say our wives do not play an unmistakable and priceless role in the home. But men, they are our helper as stated in Genesis 2.
“18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
— Genesis 2:18 ESV
Your wife is your confidant, your teammate, your partner, your best-friend, she is worth more than all of the gold in the world. She is worth immeasurably more than all the money the government could ever print. However, she is not the one responsible for guiding the home in a spiritual manner. I am and you are.
“A husband should never use his headship to crush or stifle his wife or frustrate her from being herself. His love for her will lead him to an exactly opposite path. He will give himself up for her, in order that she may develop her full potential under God and so become more completely herself”
— John Stott
That quote from John Stott, in my opinion, paints the most beautiful picture of marriage. It paints marriage in the light of the gospel of Christ in how He lead His life down for his bride, us. We have the opportunity as men to build up our home, build up our children, influence and inspire those around us to go deeper, and to lay down our life to raise up that of those around us.
2. Your children need your love, not your love of other things.
The truth of the matter is that over the last year I have been completely convicted about the way my children (although they are young and don’t completely realize it) suffer. Whether it is because of my schedule, whether it’s because I can’t humble myself and disagree with their mother later and not in front of them, whether it’s being tired and wanting to veg out; they suffer. I pursue my pride, hustle and bustle, and my own rest above their needs at times, and they don’t get what they DESERVE. They suffer from my inability to disconnect my brain when I’m home from work on a day off or what not because I’m too busy thinking about what’s next or what project I need to get done in the little bit of time off I have.
I have been completely convicted by the amount that I have sat on the comfortable couch this year instead of being on the hard uncomfortable floor playing blocks or cars with my boys and letting my daughter drool all over me (quite literally). I’ve chosen to take the comfortable route and just say, they have each other to play with, that’s why we had more than one child.
The problem with that thought is that you cannot replace Dad. I’m not here to get into all sorts of statistics on fatherhood, I’m just simply saying that those moments are truly the moments that build memories in their little lives that tell them in the most resoundingly loud voice:
“daddy loves me.”
Put down your phone, put away the planner, mow the lawn tomorrow, turn off the game, and spend more time in the moment. I’m not perfect at it every day but I’m so convicted of my children ever feeling like they don’t get that daddy play time they so crave.
Whatever season of life you may find yourself in, I pray you are challenged to invest more in your children than yourself if you have kids. I’ve been so worried about not being a “great” dad for so long. The truth is though that the only way I am a great dad is if I realize how amazing my dad is who formed me in heaven before the foundation of the world is. That He bore my sins to give me life. That’s what causes me to love my wife and children out of an overflow and never run dry. That’s what causes me to lay down my life for theirs.
3. Your family needs you to be in community, not on an island.
I used to be a semi-avid and almost decent golfer; then I got married and then I had kids. I hadn’t played golf before this year in a little over 2 years. I have to say, I now understand why muscle memory is such an important aspect of the game. You would have easily been able to tell that I haven’t played in awhile to say the least if you saw me at the range and on the course in the one round I played this year.. Earlier this summer I went to the driving range for just a little bit and the truth is it went horribly wrong. The funny thing is every so often I would figure it out for a second and have a good shot but then another guy would walk up and my guard went up. I would starting thinking some stupid thought such as:
“crap, another person is going to see that I’m awful”
And then I’d duff it again being too nervous.
Doesn’t that seem so applicable to our walk as men? Golf is one of the many ways we have a nice facade. A Titleist bag, sweet and expensive clubs, Pro V1 balls, the polos, and the shoes. We look the part, but holy cow do we duff it. Every man looks the same pulling up to the range or the course with the sweet set up. It’s only when the person steps on the tee or their range area that we realize we are all the same — awful.
Before you think that I’m condemning let me put it into perspective, it’s when you see the other guy duff his shot that you take that massive sigh of relief and say THANK GOD I’M NOT ALONE. We try to do everything ourselves. We think that we can figure out how to stop slicing the ball in life all on our own. We think that we can figure out how to best lead our families and pursue holiness all by ourselves. The truth is we can’t. We are wired to need other people around us and I have found this year that as a man, this isn’t an option — it’s a life sustaining necessity.
The problem is we are normally too dang insecure to actually talk about our emotions, problems, or fears. We see that as something for the women. But guess what, the women in our lives NEED us to be doing just that. Community is such a gift from God. I recently started getting together with some guys and going through the book of Romans together as a group. It is honestly so refreshing to just sit with some other guys early in the morning and talk about the word of the Lord and life. Not even playing Augusta National or Bethpage Black on the finest of summer mornings could compare to the feeling of sharing each others burdens on a sunny morning all laughing and sharing in the ways we duff it as men but are trying to set the foundation for our homes. Nothing can replace the joy of sharing when we get it right (although that’s rare, at least for me).
One of my favorite quotes from Spurgeon goes like this:
“the idle man tempts the devil to tempt him.”
Do not be idle, get involved. On top of all of this, your church needs servants too.
4. Your family needs you to love the truth, not run away from it.
This is basically an extension of the last point because I wanted to include it because a buddy of mine has given such a great analogy in our last few Romans meetings. I’ve constantly been reiterating a point made by many that is: who do we have in our life that can tell us no?
He takes this a bit further and shares from the story of King David in that after he sinned and committed adultery and then murder — he was then confronted by his trusted counselor/prophet, Nathan.
“7 Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 9 Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight?”
— 2 Samuel 12:7-9 ESV
The focal point of this is to look at his response:
“13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.””
— 2 Samuel 12:13 ESV
And this is where my friend’s explaining the significance of this comes in. King David could have had this man beheaded, tortured, poisoned, etc. He could have had a response that would have puffed his chest out in pride. However, this man takes the counsel, THE TRUTH, and accepts it and allows it to impact his life. Our wives and families need us as men to LOVE the truth.
The truth is a hard thing to wrestle with — it hurts, it cuts, it offends, it damages our manly pride.. The problem is we only see those momentary afflictions when the cut happens. We don’t see the fact that we are being cut by a master surgeon so that HEALING might take place. The devil wants you to keep believing that you’re fine just the way that you are and that you don’t need to change anything that you’re doing.
Those are lies. If you don’t move from isolation, you die.
This has been a year of isolation for many families, and many men. It’s time to come back to community. Whether it’s in person or via Zoom — whatever and however; we need one another. We need people to walk out our burdens and growing pains with. We are not meant to be alone.
As always, there are links below to our Men’s Ministry webpage. We have an awesome bonfire night being planned for October. Small groups are also starting back up, feel free to click below and look through them.
I pray this has encouraged you in some manner. The truth is that we are not going to get it right all the time, and I’m barely putting any of this together now. But instead of running from that truth I’ve made a decision to run towards God, His truth, and His grace. I pray you’ll run towards the same grace. Stay tuned as Year 2 will be a great one on the site. Thanks for checking it out.
God bless you,
BMT
The Fire & The Flood 