BJU Press Blog

family

Showing Dad Love

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homemade Father's Day card with gift coupons

Father’s Day is approaching, and with it comes an opportunity for your children to honor their dad. Honoring fathers is a command that every child of every age (even those who are grown up enough to have children of their own) should take seriously every day, and Father’s Day is a good day to remind your children of that responsibility. It’s also a good day to encourage your children to show their dad how much they love him.

Tokens of love don’t have to be expensive. When I was a child, I had very little earning power, so when family birthdays and holidays rolled around, I usually had to be creative. My parents got a lot of homemade gifts over the years—cards, potholders, wreaths, homemade books, and more. I used to feel bad that I couldn’t give them more expensive presents, but now that I’m a mom myself, I don’t feel that way anymore. Homemade gifts are the best gifts.

Here are a few ways your children can show love to their dad this Father’s Day.

1. An “I Like You” Book

Sandol Stoddard Warburg wrote a book titled I Like You. In the book, the narrator presents numerous reasons for liking a particular friend, reasons such as:

I like you because
You know where I’m ticklish
And you don’t tickle me there
except
Just a little tiny bit
sometimes1

This Father’s Day, encourage your children to put together a book of reasons why they like their dad. Be sure they illustrate it!

2. Coupons

Another low-cost way your children could show Dad their appreciation is by serving him. Even small children can help him with home-related chores (for example, picking up sticks in the yard) or perform some other special service (such as giving him a shoulder rub after a long day at work). Print out this coupon template, and have your children fill in several and present them to him for Father’s Day.

3. Recordings

Toddlers and preschoolers might not be able to create a Father’s Day card or any other gift, but they can still encourage Dad. Technology has made it easy to make audio and video recordings. So why not record your small children singing a simple song, reciting a Bible verse, or just saying, “I love you, Daddy!”?

What are some other ways your children have shown love to their dad on Father’s Day?

1. Sandol Warburg, I Like You (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), 10.

My Commitment to Biblical Worldview Education

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family reading the Bible together

As a dad, I’ve appreciated Karin’s posts on family devotions. Family worship offers me the opportunity to disciple my children with intentionality. As I gather my three daughters daily to read God’s Word, I’m trying to obey the command in Deuteronomy 6:7 to “teach them diligently.” So it’s encouraging to hear about others practicing family worship and to learn that they’re experiencing (and overcoming) the same difficulties.

Of course, our obligation to diligently teach our families to love God isn’t fulfilled in a routine Bible time. We’re supposed to teach God’s Word when we’re sitting, when we’re walking, when we’re lying down, and when we’re waking up. It’s an all-day, every-day commitment.

For my girls, a large part of their daily life is education, so it’s important to me that their education is contributing to their discipleship. In fact, since education is worship, I want to give my daughters a biblical worldview education.

Education Is Worship

It’s easy to look at teaching kids how to subtract or read as “neutral.” After all, 2 + 2 = 4 whether you’re a Christian, a Buddhist, or an atheist. But education is far too foundational an undertaking to occur without a purpose. From age five to eighteen, my girls will spend over fourteen thousand hours learning math, science, history, and language arts. All of that effort has to be for a purpose, or it’s a waste of time. Even children know that education needs a purpose. While answering their twenty-three math problems, they will ask the critical question: “Why do I have to learn this?”

In his book The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, Neil Postman observed that education is worship when he said, “For school to make sense, the young, their parents, and their teachers must have a god to serve, or even better, several gods.” He argues that American public schools are dedicated to serving, among others, the god of consumerism. Worshipers of consumerism learn so that they can get jobs and buy the best cars, houses, and vacations. If Postman, who was a secular humanist, sees the religious nature of education, we Christian dads need to think through the worship implications of the education choices we make for our children.

The Purpose of Education

After my wife and I got engaged, we would take long walks where we’d discuss how we planned to run our household. Since both of us received a biblical worldview education, we wanted this same education for our children. It was and still is important to us that we teach our children to glorify God and love their neighbor as themselves through math, science, history, and language arts. My daughters need to know that math isn’t the key to financial security and prosperity; it’s a tool God gives us to obey His commands. That context is crucial for using education to serve God instead of the god of consumerism. If I am going to obey Deuteronomy 6:7, I have to diligently teach my daughters that the purpose of their education is serving God.

Before I was born, my dad determined that his children would be homeschooled so that they could receive a biblical worldview education. I owe so much to my dad for that gift. Now as a dad, I want to teach my daughters that worshiping God isn’t limited to Sunday church services. We serve God through the right kind of education; therefore, my wife and I are committed to providing our daughters with a biblical worldview education.

The Servant Father

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book cover of Family: The Making and Remaking of a Christian Home by Ronald HortonIt is the father’s responsibility to rule his family in a loving, considerate way while maintaining the necessary firmness. He leads in sacrifice. He asks more of himself than of his family. He leads in love. He is energetic in generosity, delighted to provide those extras he knows will please his family as he is able and to the extent he can.

He also leads in sensitivity. A wife needs continuing reassur­ance of her husband’s love and of his appreciation of her role. Children need continuing reassurance of their parents’ love and of their own importance in the family. The father leads as a pro­vider of the physical and emotional needs of the family but also of its spiritual needs, situating his wife and children agreeably in a church where they can spiritually grow and be blessed. Wise fathers are sensitive to these needs and endeavor to satisfy them.

In the family order described by Paul, who then serves? The children serve upwardly. They are charged with obedience to their parents. They must serve their parents if their parents are to serve them. The wife serves both upwardly and downwardly. She is charged with submission to her husband and with the care of her household. The father, the earthly head of the family, serves upwardly his divine Head and reports to Him directly. But he also serves downwardly. He serves his wife and children and the family in aggregate. He is charged with their well-being.

His obligation rests mightily on his shoulders. It includes more than his family’s subsistence. He is its giver-in-chief. To serve his family as he should he will need to join with his mate in seeking the help of the greatest Servant of all.

That great Servant put the question of service and status bluntly to His disciples, who from their behavior to one another needed to ponder it. “Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27). Jesus shamed them by washing their feet, a lowly task they would not have considered doing for one another. To resist service for the sake of status is to resist the example of God.

[Excerpt adapted from Family: The Making and Remaking of a Christian Home by Ronald Horton (Chapter 6, pp. 27–28).]

Benefits of Reading Aloud to Your Children

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WP-JourneyForth-Books-3-2015

As I look back over my childhood, I’m thankful that many children’s books play an important role in my memories.

I can get quite nostalgic thinking about curling up next to Mom on the couch—back when my feet couldn’t reach the floor—and hearing her read aloud. She was (and still is) a great actress, and the books came alive in my mind over and over again.

Some of my favorite books are still easily available: Blueberries for Sal, The Snowy Day, The Story about Ping, Caps for Sale, Harry the Dirty Dog, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel . . . and the list could go on.

What made those books so special? I think their beauty lies in their simplicity. And attaining simplicity is more difficult than it might seem!

What do I mean by this? I mean that a book for children must intrigue the child by hooking him into a situation to which he can relate. It may or may not be something he has actually experienced, but it should be something he can imagine happening to him.

What if my mom and I were picking blueberries and I saw a bear?

What if I woke up one morning and saw that the street outside was covered with beautiful, clean snow?

What if I were a little duck that got distracted and wandered away from the group . . . and then the boat left me?

Or it may be something completely outside his experience—but if he can enjoy the humor or sense the suspense, he will love it and want to hear it over and over.

Where did all those caps go while that man was sleeping?

What if the family doesn’t figure out that the dirty dog at their doorstep is actually their Harry?

What if Mike and Mary Anne can’t dig that basement in just one day?

Learning to love those read-alouds as a youngster contributed to my ongoing love of reading throughout life. As I grew older, I developed a similar love for The Borrowers, for My Friend Flicka, for Misty of Chincoteague. . . . Again, the list could go on and on!

I encourage you to take some time out of your busy homeschooling schedule to read aloud to your children. Books that tell intriguing stories but also promote character traits that you’d like to encourage can have lifelong effects. And they don’t have to be just the “old” classics either! Include some new(er) classics in your repertoire—such as these titles:

My kids have all grown past the age where they’re interested in those early read-aloud stories. But that’s OK. One of these days when the grandkids come along, they’ll be hearing about Harry and Ping and Mike and Mary Anne . . . and cap-stealing monkeys!

• • • • •

Steve serves as director of content development for BJU Press. He and his wife are the parents of five adult children. They homeschooled for over ten years.

Sustaining Grace

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In my determination to sort out and simplify my life, I decided to have a yard sale. While excavating through my mounds of boxed treasures, I found a plaque that had been a gift from a woman whom my children lovingly call “Grandma Mary.” The words once again challenged my heart.

The will of God will never lead you
where the grace of God cannot keep you.

book cover of A Life Exalted: A Women's Bible Study by June KimmelI have desired to walk in God’s will since I was a little girl. Being saved at a very early age, I grew up wanting to know and obey God’s will for my life. But there have been times that in spite of my confidence that I was in His will, I felt the burdens seemingly overwhelm me. During a particularly difficult time, I was unable to define God’s grace. Yet this grace of God was what I heard would carry me through whatever I faced. I began a study—a searching—to understand what the sustaining grace of God really meant. I found many—sixty-three definitions—all of which described this commonly used biblical term. But my inquiring heart was settled when I put the various definitions into a nutshell: God’s grace is His enabling power that is given to me, His undeserving child.

Now as I read the words on this forgotten little plaque, the meaning is deeper. I realize that He’s proven it again and again in my life. I may not think He’s keeping me in the midst of the trial, but never has He forsaken me, never allowed me to be crushed by the burden He has permitted. He is there moment by moment—guiding me. Keeping me. Sustaining me. In spite of my resistance and fear. The words on this plaque are unchanged as they hang on the wall of my office. But the meaning is clearer to me now than ever before.

The will of God will never lead me
where the . . . [power] of God cannot keep me.

[Excerpt adapted from A Life Exalted by June Kimmel (Lesson 8, pp. 62–63). A free study guide can be downloaded from bjupress.com.]