I’m working on something and fifteen-twenty years from now it’s going to be absolutely beautiful. It’s going to take my daily dedication and one wrong move might mess up the whole thing. But it will be worth it. I’m confident that this thing that I’m building will bring me great joy.
You see, what I’m building is a reputation. In fifteen to twenty-years when my children are adults they are going to say, “My daddy was amazing”, and then they’ll list off all the wonderful things that I have done as a father.
This might sound like a noble desire. After all, it’s not a bad thing to desire being a good father to your children. I want my children to see in me a reflection of God’s fatherly love. So my desire here isn’t all bad, but in reality I believe I’m just carving an idol to display on a mantle twenty years down the road.
Surely 1 Thessalonians 2:4 applies even to our future children.
but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
Am I shepherding my children for their good and for the glory of God? Or am I shepherding my children so that down the road they’ll acknowledge my faithful shepherding?
People-pleasers don’t do the hard things. They won’t discipline when it is needed. They’ll let their itchy-eared children (2 Timothy 4:3) dictate the direction of the home. Because they cannot bear the thought of their children’s disapproval they’ll willingly endure the disapproval of the Lord, for the smile of their children.
I want my children to smile when they think of their daddy. But I want them to smile because they are godly and they know that their daddy did everything he could to make much of God. I don’t want them to smile simply because I was a cool dude that did everything I could to make much of them.
Time to stop carving out that idol…
