For a better life and a better eternity
I was humbled last night. I don’t know whether to make this post a family post because it had to do with my relationship with my kids or to make it about our individual spiritual lives because it taught me about my relationship with God. I’ll just tell you the story and let you draw your own conclusions.
The top 2 difficulties in parenting…what are they? Well, today, for me they are:
Yes, these are problems and this morning I read a passage in Changes That Heal
[Read more…] about Overcoming the Top 2 Difficulties in Parenting
I know this may shock you, but my family and I have a terrible struggle with keeping a scheduled family Bible study and prayer time. We’ve learned all kinds of great ways to study and pray together. I’ve written about one of my favorites on this blog. But despite how inspiring some of these methods are, we get them started, do well for a while, and then it falls off. The struggle is often with making the schedules work. I don’t have a set schedule. I’ll have meetings come up or studies come up or I’ll have to go out of town. Or maybe something comes up for Marita or the kids. It gets in the way of our Bible study and prayer schedule and then, after a few misses, the habit is broken. A few weeks or months later, we are convicted about our lack of devotion and we get back on the family Bible study bandwagon feeling all kinds of shame and guilt.
[Read more…] about A Great Way to Make Sure Your Family Studies the Bible Together
They have been patiently waiting for you to come home. They can’t wait to see you. You are their Dad, their leader. They want to be like you. They want you to love them. Those first few moments through the door will mean so much. So, here are my top 5 things you can say to them when you walk through the door. Try some tonight and let us know how it works.
Does this actually need explanation? We walk through the door, tired, exhausted and we forget that our kids need this affirmation all the time. Run up to them like they are the greatest person in the world, give them a hug and say, “I love you.”
Your kids are desperately glad to see you. Let them know the feeling is mutual. Let them know they are important to you. When my kids were 2, they would all come running up to me as I walked through the door like I was the most important person in the world to them. I want them to feel that same way every time I walk through the door.
Don’t be so caught up in your own world that you forget about your kids. Ask them about their day. Then listen without judgment. Get down on their level. Sit down with them on the couch. If they are still small enough, let them sit in your lap. Look them in the eye and then listen intently. Rejoice about whatever they are rejoicing. Weep about whatever they are weeping.
Spend some time with them. Let them know you want to spend time with them. Spend some time doing what they want. Do they want to throw the football, do it. Do they want to have a play teatime, do it. Do they want to put together a puzzle, do it. I know you may not be able to do this every night. But do it some time. Do it regularly.
This is one of my favorite things to ask my kids. Certainly, you might answer this with reasons of your own. “I love you because you’re cute.” “…you are funny.” “…you are fun.” But, I don’t like these answers because it suggests if they ever think they aren’t cute, funny, fun or whatever that you won’t love them anymore. Instead, I tell my kids, “I love you because you’re you.” I tell my kids, “I love you because you’re Trina.” “I love you because you’re Ryan.” “I love you because you’re Ethan.” “I love you because you’re Tessa.” As long as they are who they are, I’ll love them. One of the most precious moments in my life was when two-year-old Trina said, “You know why I love you?” “Why?” “I love you cuz you Daddy.” Can’t beat that.
I know you’re tired when you get home. I know you want to slink off into your man cave. I know you want to slip away into a world of televised escape. But first, say something to your kids. Let them know how important they are to you. By the way, don’t forget you are also coming home to your wife. Click here for some things you can say to her.
Maybe I missed something you’ve found that is great to say to your kids when you get home. What do you say to your kids when you get home? You can add your input by clicking here.
I’m really caught up in figuring out how to plan my boys’ training for the next few years. Having been inspired by Robert Lewis’s Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood
Last week, you helped me give some consideration to a Vision of Manhood. What does a real man look like. Thanks for helping out with that. He looks like a servant who is devoted first to God, loves his wife, is committed, honest, sacrificial. You gave me some great help and provided the web world with some great info.
I need some more help. Lewis went on to get a little more specific. The Vision of Manhood is about over-arching concepts of manhood. He then provided a Code of Conduct that he and his buddies developed to pass on to their boys. He listed 10 things, but I don’t want to muddy your thinking with all 10. But I’ll give an example. One aspect of his code of conduct was “Kindness.” A real conducts himself in kindness.
So, within the vision of manhood that we are developing, what are some aspects of everyday conduct that you would teach a boy to help him become a man.
How does a real man conduct himself?
You can provide your input by clicking here. And again, thanks for your help.
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This page does contain affiliate links. Here’s another one. If you’d like to learn more about Lewis’s vision of manhood for his boys, make sure you check out his book. Click the link below.
What is a man? Have you thought about it? Have you told your son about it? Have you modeled it for him? Have you paved the way for him to be one?
That is the crux of Robert Lewis’s book, “Raising a Modern-Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son to Authentic Manhood
Fathers and Grandfathers alike need to read this book in which Lewis relates a journey he and three friends travelled together in their own personal manhood and that of training their boys to be men. The basis of their plan is to resurrect knighthood. In the middle ages, a certain class of men received specific training to be men. When they started developing into men, they were assigned a mentor, becoming his page. They progressed to being a squire. Eventually, if they pursued their training well, they were dubbed a knight. The most profound aspect of this was none of these men had to question whether or not they had become a man, a knight. They knew it. They had seen knighthood modeled. They had been trained to be a knight. They had been inducted without equivocation into the ranks of knighthood.
Our society seems to be missing that today. Boys rarely see a vision cast for manhood. They are infrequently trained in any way to be a man. What most get today is a government-run education whose only goal is to supposedly prepare them to have a job someday (probably so they can pay taxes). Further, they are inundated and pummeled with media images of pathetic manhood as fathers have become the butt of most sitcom jokes. They are left to wonder even after they have left home and stepped out into the world to care for themselves whether or not they have ever become a real man.
What we need today is a brotherhood of knights. Men who have been taught what being a man looks like. Men who have been taught what a real man acts like. Men who have seen modeled how real men treat others, especially women. Lewis sets forth a plan of action tested and tried in the crucible of his own fatherhood.
In this book, he establishes a four-pronged vision of manhood, a three-legged code of conduct, and an over-arching transcendent cause to accomplish. Finally, he spikes the whole concept home by showing how to make this process unmistakably clear to your boys through the use of a series of ceremonies as they grow up to manhood, knighthood.
This book only scratches the surface. As I considered my own plans, mostly prompted by this book, I felt that it didn’t go far enough. But at the same time, it seems that having this plan, even if it didn’t seem to directly declare as much as I wanted it to about real manhood, ended up getting the job done better than I’ve been doing. Of course, that may be why Lewis has a ton of other stuff on manhood and raising boys. Additionally, while the book mentions baptism as a great ceremony, it neglects to demonstrate its essential nature to salvation and being in Christ. Further, the whole concept is predicated on the ideal theory of chivalry and knighthood, while it glosses over the real savagery and immorality committed by many knights. Someone buying into this idea may do more study on knighthood and find himself disgusted rather than uplifted.
Having said that, I’m excited about what I got from this book. I’m excited about bringing back the ideal of knighthood and the theory of chivalry. I’m excited to pass this book on to other fathers. I’m excited to start developing my own community of knights. I’m excited to start casting a vision with my boys of real manhood. This book will not be the end-all be-all of manhood, and I don’t think Lewis expects it to be. But it will be the springboard to propel me on a journey that I think will benefit my family, my boys, even my girls, and me.
I’d like to invite you on that same journey. If you are looking for a plan to help you raise your boys into men, I suggest you start right here.
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*Yes, this post contains affiliate links. If I’m going to raise my boys to manhood, it is going to take some fundage. Help a father out. Click on the links and purchase the book. You’ll be helping you and me at the same time. Thanks. By the way, in case you missed it. Here is another affiliate link to help you purchase the book.