The joy of fathering a belly

One of the highlight of my days in this season of life, is at night when Amber and I go to bed, and our little baby wakes up and start kicking and squirming around in her belly. I'm sure we could keep ourselves entertained for hours just looking at it, and feeling those little movements, and trying to imagine what it's up to in there.

It is a tremendously joyful thing, but also one of the most sobering experiences I've ever had. It really shouldn't come as a surprise, since it's universally attested to by everyone who has walked this path before me; that there is something uniquely special that happens in a man's heart when he becomes a father.

It's sobering because this fallen world is a hostile and dangerous place. It's the kind of place one would look at and say "that's no place for children". It's plagued with all forms of sufferings and evil you can imagine, and some that you probably couldn't imagine. Our child will come into a world that conspires to train it diligently in the craft of sinning. And it will find within itself a strange attraction to the allure of evil.

Three decades ago, another brother walked this path and wrestled with these thoughts before me, and wrote this beautiful song for his son.



There's something very peculiar about fatherhood. It's hard work and much responsibility, not to mention that the whole world has conspired to abolish any notion of biblical fatherhood. It's the kind of thing that you wouldn't think of enjoying unless you are a father. But I am one now. And I'm loving it.

The only thing I know about being a father

I am the proud father of a little baby boy or girl, about the size of a lemon. We are eagerly awaiting his or her arrival into the outside world around the end of July. Right now I might not be the man to turn to for parenting tips, because I really don't know much. But I know one thing, and I would dare to say that it is the most important thing one can ever know about being a father. Here it is: 

God has ordained fatherhood as the role by which He would define Himself.

God calls himself father. And one day our child, either through preaching or through reading the Bible, will come to understand God as father. But what will my child understand by the word "father"? That depends almost exclusively on me.

That's right. God--in order to communicate to my child who He is--points my child to me, and say "Look at Your dad. That's what I'm like".

It is a common misunderstanding that the Bible has little to say about being a father. Just a few reminders in proverbs to spank them when they need it, and Colossians 3:21 telling us not to drive them crazy. But in fact everything in the Bible is about fatherhood, because it is about the Father. Everything that is about God is about what I as a father need to be for my children. Their souls depend on it.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name... (Eph 3:14-15)