Failing as a Father

One of my twin eleven year old daughters said to me this morning, "Yeah, you know how I know I haven't been studying my Bible enough? I'm not having those visions from God any more like I used to..."

Yeah, and you know how I know I haven't been doing my job as a father? My daughter is telling me how little she's studied her Bible...

By "visions", she means both in prayer and actual "visions" - she was the one who could talk to (and hear from) my late wife, her late stepmother, in the days following her death. Melissa told her that she was going to give us all a present underneath the left-hand tree the next morning after eleven. When she decided that it was the right time the next morning, we all started to walk out to our front yard...at the same moment that my best friend pulled up with cash, presents and food from the high school staff and students - and parked underneath the left hand tree in our front yard.

But this morning, while we were discussing today's entry in The Daily Bread, her admission came up. And it hit me the way anything does when you already knew it ahead of time but were denying the truth of it.

I've failed these children as a mentor and father in the most important field possible.

Oh, sure, they're all still Christians, and my Scriptural understanding is that they are all saved. But if I'm doing my job as their parent, I need to make sure they're doing more than just attending church on Sundays. They need to crack open their Bibles. They need to spend time in prayer every day. They need to live their lives each day as if God Himself is riding along within you, watching everything you do, think, and feel - because He is, in the form of the Holy Spirit that lives within every Believer.

(If you have never felt the Holy Spirit guiding you, may I recommend you double check that you're truly saved. The obvious issue for those raised as, say, Catholics or LDS, sects that don't strictly follow Biblical teachings but add other "teachings" that contradict the Word, is that you might not have actually accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord. But the same is true for some people who attend a Protestant church of some kind and have never truly accepted Christ as Lord, not just Savior. Read Romans 10-9-10 and make sure that every word rings true for you.)

My children have an impediment to their spiritual journey, in that I share custody of the four youngest with their mother, who is decidedly not saved, although I have prayed for her virtually every day. (She literally had her lawyer send me a letter demanding that I stop praying for her. Seriously. ) They aren't able to have a Bible over there, at least not where she can see it, and they find they need to be careful what they say and do around her. Going to church functions is out of the question when they're at her home. Praying for her salvation is done covertly.

So, when they come home, there's a period of "decompression" that has to take place, where they essentially take off the masks they wear and return to their true personas. Whatever we've done during the week they've been with me at home, much of it has been at best set aside, at worst forgotten in the intervening week away. That battle is simply part of the life we all live together: much of my parenting is "repair-work" as much as it is instruction in faith or anything else.

But that's not an excuse. There IS no excuse. Faith and living in the Holy Spirit are the most important things in every Christian's life, so we have to help our children accomplish those things.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to post this and then join my daughters in studying The Word.