To all those that are still in the midst of making (and perhaps already breaking) New Year’s resolutions, I am happy to report at least one of my New Year’s goals has been met. As of this moment, I am blogging for the second consecutive day, and that makes me more consistent this year than in the three years past. That’s right, I’m two for two – 100%. Hard to beat that percentage, and worth celebrating. If we could just end the year now, I’d be totally in compliance with my goal. Never mind the 354 days left to go. How’s about an early 2010, everyone? No? You sure?
OK, enough silliness. Time to make the subtitle of my blog mean something…so this month I will attempt to leave at least one nugget of fathering perspective a day(not advice, which I am the least qualified to offer).
Our church devotional for the month is to read a chapter of Proverbs a day, and I began reading in Chapter 2 about how wisdom must be sought after like riches. Amazing how the Bible puts things in perspective. Normally we seek hard after riches, and expect wisdom to come out of ‘experience’, as if life and years simply dump wisdom into our laps with our grey hairs and our wrinkles. But we have to work at wisdom, at applying the hard lessons even when it would be easier to name and blame. We only truly become wise when our principles are at one with our practice. Fatherhood is the place where this ideal is most evident. We can’t say because we’ve been fathers for years that we are any better at it. Seeking after the best principles of raising our children is the only way that we truly become wise fathers. Reaching out to other dads and emulating great fathers is not natural to us. We are natural loners, on an island of leadership, but it is clear that we are stronger when we search out those better than ourselves. Another proverb coming soon that summarizes this point – “Iron sharpens iron”. This year I intend to look even more to other dads in the blogosphere, to dads in my church, and yes, to my own dad to see where I can grow in this, the most important application of wisdom I will ever encounter.
This second day of January also marks the second day of my Twitterfast. For those uninitiated into Twitter, the next paragraph may seem nonsensical. But I’m am thankful that I’ve made it two days without checking, updating, or receiving a Twitter message. Around the time that the kids were outside playing, I found myself pining for a moment to whip out my iPod touch and send a SOS to my followers (Help! I’m starving for a reTweet of a witty post from an obscure Norwegian philosopher! PLEASE!), but with God’s help and my elimination of Twitterific on my home screen, I held on.
The day was spent in the morning catching up on Bible study assignments with my wife, while we made the kids fast the day from video games. Yes, the daddy reared his head and declared that vacation is now winding to a close, and the kids moped around like a funeral had just been announced in the den. The perfect antidote? Wash the cars. Nothing breaks up monotony like soap, hoses and well positioned ambushes from behind the tailgate. Mind you, I would have joined them, but the playing of the kids outside afforded my wife and I some very needed we-time, and we instead enjoyed hearing the laughs and yelps of the kids playing from outside the window. Tomorrow we plan to take them out to a U of Miami basketball game, which should also be fun. I’ll be sure to tell you about it. After all, I’m a blogging machine now. If only exercise and money management were as susceptible to my disciplinary prowess. Here’s hoping.
Looking unto the hills,
HsD
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