I love being a dad. I love even more being a daddy. But I worry both as a father, and especially as a father of three girls. This world is not very good at coming together to raise females in a healthy way. In fact, most places…even the ones considered to be “fun” or “innocent”, want to take advantage of, sell things to, and teach my daughters as much untruth as possible.
Chapter 9 of Donald Miller’s newest book is surprisingly good and captures some really good stuff, for him not being a parent himself. You can read it yourself for the specifics.
But the essence of it talks about how we as parents who know the God-given identity of our children, have a responsibility to tell a story with our family that captures and lives that out. How if we’re simply existing day to day, even if we’re growing and learning….but not purposefully living out a Kingdom story together, children will look elsewhere for their story.
I love my daughters. I want them to know who God has made them, and who God has called them to be. Not in a strict, demanding they have to follow these rules and walk this path. But in a free, God has released them from many of the chains of this world, and they’re made able to live/exist differently by His Spirit.
But if I desire that for them, and for my wife, and my family as a whole, I need to be purposefully looking for ways to illustrate that is the story we are living. Experiences for my family, and for my girls, where they exist in that way, and develop their identity as a character in that story.
May God guide me in experiences of love, grace, mercy, sacrifice, etc; and may I seek them out purposefully as someone who is called to not simply exist within a story, but to help tell it by the Spirit of God, and to know where this plot is taking us…
words from wick 