Jeremy:
Why does the book of Proverbs say, the glory of children is their fathers? Kind of an interesting statement. Probably, the first thought I’ve had about this is, you know when you get a couple of five-year-olds together and they say, my dad could beat up your dad. Why do they say that? Why do kids naturally really glory in the strength of their dads? And is that a good thing?

And I really think that it’s important for us dads to embrace this reality that, oftentimes, our kids do look up to us, right? They should, but they glory in their fathers because children tend to root in the love and presence and strength of their dads. They’re incredibly vulnerable, right? They live in a dangerous world and the only thing standing between them and all of the dangers of the world is their dad. And if they sense the strength of their dad, the peace of their dad, then they become a very peaceful person. This allows them to not, kind of, go into survival mode, but to really be relaxed, to be accepting of a lot of the things about their life, and the way they’re doing that is, they’re glorying in their father.

And a lot of times I don’t think we really realize how important this is to hold our kids, allow them to feel our strength, to feel our peace, for them to sense that, hey, I’m going to stand between you and all those crazy dangers in the world. And this is really the beginning of their understanding of what it’s like to have trust in God as their heavenly father. And when they begin to get older and realize, man, the road really is dangerous, my dad isn’t the strongest person in the world and I need something else to anchor in. Then we introduce them to their heavenly father like, I was just a stand in. But in that period where kids are young, they glory in their fathers and I think it’s actually a good, normal, peaceful, necessary part of their development.

Jeff:
Totally. Totally. And I love… Yeah, my dad can beat up your dad’s the classic. I don’t know if Kannon will ever be able to say that about me, but I feel like maybe he’ll say… I’ll hope that he says, my dad can outgarden your dad, maybe outcook, maybe outbuild your dad and probably outread your dad. If I can get those ones from Kannon, if he can brag on me for those, I’ll take that, those are my goals. But it is true, I think what you said at the end was, it is the biggest thing, which is that we have a really cool opportunity in their small child-like, finite mind to really paint a beautiful picture of the father as such a shepherd and a guarder of their heart, their mind, their actual physical safety, their body, their life.

That we just can sense breakdowns before they can, we can see danger that they can’t see and we will actually help them with it, guard them from it, protect them from it. And that that’s just a picture of God in Jesus who protects us, who dies for us, who sacrifices for us and who ultimately is for us and for our goodness and for our blessing. And that’s the main thing, is like for our good, because even when you do encounter some suffering and pain, the thing that always is the balm to the soul, especially speaking to anyone who’s gone through really serious tragedy but walks with the Lord, they would say that he is for their good. And they still know that and they still know that he is near and they still know that he is present.

And that is that cool opportunity we have, is that we are for the good of our children. And when they can continually… when they can almost know that in a knee-jerk reaction like they just know that as a given and they don’t have to think about it, that is a blessing, not only for our family and for us ourselves, but mainly also for our kids.