Taking It to the Next Level

Something clicked the other night.

Caden had had a rough night. The schedule we had him on (well, sort of), wasn't happening, and, as newborns are wont to do, he was crying and we couldn't figure out why. So I was holding him close in a feeble attempt to calm him down, and he gave me "the look." Dads, you know this look. It's the one where they stare deeply into your soul, so deeply that it catches you off-guard, mostly because it comes from an infant who can barely focus on anything else.

It was during this non-verbal exchange that it hit me. I am his father. He is my son. And as such, I have a responsibility to raise him up in the way of the Lord and teach him how to be a man. And regardless of how great a community he grows up in, and how much his mother - my amazing wife - loves him, God has given me that responsibility more than anyone else. Most of my past decade of discipling college guys has been spent helping them answer those questions of manhood that their father should have answered for them but didn't. For whatever reason, their respective dads shirked that responsibility. For some reason or another, they bailed. And whether those fathers felt like they had a good reason for their actions, their sons were left doubting their ability to hack it.

I don't want my son to need a...me...in 20 years. I want him to know that he is a man. That he can hack it. I want him to be sure he knows how to love a woman, how to treat people, and how to follow God. And I don't want anyone else to have to pick up my slack in those lessons.

So as my newborn son is staring at me with deep blue eyes, taking me in, and his little three week old synapses are beginning to fire, making the connection of my face to "daddy," all of this is going through my head. And, granted, Caden's lucky just to be able to pick his head up, but it's definitely not too early to start thinking about these things, how to begin to help him become the man that God is calling him to be.

I just hope that man begins to sleep better soon...


For those of you with sons, what is the most important thing you can teach him on that journey to become the man that God is calling him to be, tangible or otherwise?