Daily Butter (10/30): Mini-Me

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (10/30/11):

    "Our father is Abraham!" they replied.

    "If you were Abraham's children," Jesus told them, "you would do what Abraham did. …You're doing what your father does."

    "We weren't born of sexual immorality," they said. "We have one Father—God."

(John 8:39, 41 HCSB)

Sons are like their fathers to some degree or another; always have been and always will be. If you’re not adopted into His family, you’re still a part of this world. Like it or not, more of the training of our children is “caught” the “taught.” While I understand the principle, I continue to fail in the implementation. Keeping my 3-1/2 year-old son at the dinner table is nearly impossible without inhumane restraints (which have been tempting but never attempted). With my schedule as chaotic as it is, we rarely get to sit down together at the table for a family meal. Even then, I find myself remembering something that seems it has to get done before I forget again so that I get up before my plate is empty. It is wrong of me to expect my son to abide by a rule that I am not modeling for him. I know this is tremendously frustrating to my wife, and yet knowing is not enough. The unfortunate part of living in this world is that we still have fallen bodies filled with imperfections that battle with our new nature and those “good intentions.”  It’s not an excuse, for the call to holiness remains the same as does the Spirit within me to empower me to do what is necessary. But David is like his daddy and we both need to make greater effort to battle the short attention span and the wanderlust, and I should be leading the way.

Lord, I wanna be just like You
´Cause he wants to be just like me
I wanna be a holy example
For his innocent eyes to see
Help me be a living Bible, Lord
That my little boy can read
I wanna be just like You
´Cause he wants to be like me

(Phillips, Craig & Dean –

    - “I Want to Be Just Like You”)

- Andy Jentes