And, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.
EPHESIANS 6:4
KJV
In the course of writing these
encouragements over the last few days the Holy Spirit has brought
me back to my son, Eric. Eric will be eleven in April. Hard to
believe. It has been such a pleasure to watch him grow/to
watch his personality develop. As most fathers know, there are
times when our children do something/say something and it
seems like an echo. An echo of what we did/ how we behaved at
that age. Sometimes the echo that comes back can worry us,
particularly if we have not fully accepted who we are/where we
have been. If there are doubts or worries or regrets about our
childhood that have led to doubts about whether or not we are good
or worthy we may shudder when we hear our past echo in our
children.
Eric at times shows much of the
sensitivity that first showed itself in me when I was a child. That
sensitivity made me different/ made me feel different from my peers
but I was unable to see it as a strength. I viewed it as a
weakness/ as a disability and believed that the world felt the same
way about this part of me. So sometimes my
traits echo at me through Eric. At these times my
first instinct (not born out of prayer but my first
instinct) is often to immediately protect him/ to shield
him from the ridicule that I received as a child by encouraging him
to not be who he is.
This is a trap. In an attempt to
keep him safe/ protect him from the indifference or cruelty of
others I could be causing him to do the same thing that
the off-handed comments of my childhood did. I could be
causing Eric to doubt who he is/ to doubt that how God
made Him was and is a part of a plan that he may never fully
understand and ultimately does not need to understand.
As I glance back at the scripture
above I am drawn to the word " provoke". Do not get me wrong.
Provoking our children is not in and of itself a bad thing.
Provoking them to think and analyze and grow closer to God? Yes.
Provoking our children to wrath? Look this word up and then
see if this is even remotely something you are drawn to do to
your children. I know I often mention the necessity of
transparency/ of being transparent in our interactions with our
Christian brothers. How and when are we transparent with our
children? Transparent about what we have and do struggle
with?
Ministries 
