For those of you men who are older I’m sure you remember what it was like when your father said, “meet me in the woodshed.” You knew immediately that it was not to stack wood because you had just disobeyed your dad in some way and the “board of education” was about to be applied to “the seat of knowledge”.
Friend, how do want to finish your life? Nobody wants to end their life in disgrace or failure. But is there a higher goal in the Christian life than to keep our noses clean? Can we look forward to more than a sigh of relief that we made it?
Courage is a must to live life well. Certainly, we need courage to live out our faith for Christ in a hostile world. But have you ever thought that courage is also needed to pray?
We’ve all seen a squirrel dart across the road, then for some reason stop, hesitate, change direction a couple of times, then if he’s lucky, escape the tires of an oncoming car to the safety of the ditch…
One of the biggest lies Satan sells folks is that freedom equals no restraint. To be truly free, he whispers, is to not be subject to anything or anyone. Be your own man! As Frank Sinatra boasted, I did it “My Way.” THAT, my friends, is the theme song in hell!
Ever feel like you need a brain transplant? You set down to accomplish a task and the neurons don’t want to fire correctly and nothing seems to connect, or they fire all at once and your thoughts resemble a swarm of bees buzzing around in your head. The Word of God calls this confusion, and there is a solution.
The rock group the Rolling Stones is not exactly a bastion of wisdom you can rely on; however, they did get something right when they sang “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” While we know that in our heads, yet as Christian men we often struggle when God tells us to wait, or worse yet, when He says “No”.
There is no such thing as a perfect parent. That being the case, a goal to shoot for, men, is to avoid the extremes of parenting styles. Scripture gives us clear information on these two extremes in Ephesians 6:4 and the book of Proverbs.
Every area of life has its extremes. Religion has its liberals and conservatives, politics, as well. In sports you find the fair-weather follower and the fanatic. Parenting is no different. In between the harsh parenting style and the permissive style, you will find the balance, a noble if not somewhat elusive goal.
