Father Knows What?
By Mark Moormans
I am clueless. But I’m learning, and for that I’m thankful.
A number of years ago, despite a lot of reluctance, I decided to agree with my wife (for once) that we would educate our two daughters at home. Public school was a dangerous disgrace, and as unpractical as it all seemed to me with our busy schedules (and how little I remembered about history, certainly not enough to teach it), I did love my children and thought home schooling was probably the best option.
I had no idea what I was doing. I had even less of an idea where it would lead us.
Five years later, as a result of that decision, I have gotten rid of our TV (not a big deal now but back then it was huge, both the TV and the decision), quit multiple high paying jobs, changed careers twice, sold our home and moved to another state, changed churches, started reading again, and experienced a radical transformation of my faith including what I believe about God, His sovereignty over my life, and His desire and plan for my family. Among the many things I have learned, I discovered that home schooling isn’t about education and the problem wasn’t the public school system. I actually discovered that home schooling was about (can you imagine) home. And I learned that the most vital person in our home besides Jesus is (ready for this) me. Or maybe a better way to put it is that the most crucial person in our home is Jesus, which is who I am supposed to be to my family.
Years ago I was a pathetic excuse for a husband and father, though I didn’t know it at the time. I was doing what I thought was good for my family: providing food, clothing, shelter, occasional family outings, time in church. Fortunately God is gracious. He brought a man into my life who clearly had a better understanding of what God calls husbands and fathers to be. That meeting led to a decision about four years ago to move our family to a place where I could learn better how to be both of these things. I was very excited about what I was learning in my role leading my family. One of the greatest lessons I learned (which took considerable time to accept at a heart level) is that I am responsible for everything that happens in our family. Everything. For years I had fought the notion that in my family, everything that happens is ultimately all my fault. This is the reality before God. God says that as the head of our household, the buck starts and stops with me as husband and father. If we were late heading out to church and I was feeling upset with my family for taking so long to get ready, the real issue was that I didn’t lead us to make sure everyone had the time and focus that morning to be ready to get to church on time. Instead of getting worked up when we were running late, it was up to me to be humble and do something about it. Over time I found that, instead of fighting that everything was my fault, increasingly accepting responsibility brings great peace.
This is where my cluelessness comes in. Accepting responsibility became for me essentially a position of response. There is a big difference between accepting responsibility and taking responsibility. My posture was passive and reactive not proactive. I figured my wife was very competent (and she is) and that as the “responsible head of the family” I would delegate to her all the specifics of the things that needed to get done on a daily basis, from chores, to groceries, to lessons, to…you name it. I would set the overall direction of our home and she would do most of the planning and execution of that vision. (After all, she’s home with the kids all day). She was doing it under the umbrella of my authority and I would check in at the dinner table to see how things were going. I would provide a little feedback here and there and give the stamp of approval to whatever she was deciding to do. Not a very responsible picture now as I look back. And if you asked my wife, it was terribly overwhelming for her.
“Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the Church…” (Ephesians 5:25)
One Sunday afternoon when I was home sick alone, I had a lot of time to meditate and think. Does Christ delegate to us, His bride, all the specifics of figuring out what to do on a daily basis? Is He unclear and not specific with regards to telling us how to prioritize our days? Does the Good Shepherd leave us sheep to figure it out on our own how to fulfill His vision for our family? It struck me that our Shepherd is far more active and explicit in His role than I had been. He gives us tons of specifics on everything: how we should think, look, feel, perceive, understand, speak, work, prioritize, eliminate, etc. He tells us specifically what to do and what not to do. He helps us know how to evaluate our progress and how we should feel about how we’re progressing. He doesn’t leave us guessing and hoping somehow we got it right and met His expectations. That would be a terribly insecure place to live our lives before God.
“For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” (Ephesians 5:23)
When the Bible says that Jesus is the head of His Church, so we too are the heads over our wives. What does my head do for my body? The head thinks and plans and directs. My head governs everything else my body does; it is the command center for the body. My head doesn’t just follow up at the dinner table once a day on how the rest of my body is doing (though it does that too). My body would be in pretty sad shape if that’s all my head did while it was preoccupied with other business during the day.
Jesus loves the Church, His bride. His bride is made up of sheep, easily distracted and needing constant, regular direction and attention.
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord…Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” (Ephesians 5:22,24)
The Bible says wives are to submit to their husbands. What is it they are supposed to submit to? How do you submit to leadership that isn’t explicit, specific, and extremely directive? How does one submit to follow up at the dinner table? The point that I was learning is that I was failing miserably at being like Jesus in my home because I wasn’t really leading, at least not the way our Good Shepherd and Head leads us. Jesus is incredibly specific and directive and it is precisely those things that make us secure, and that comfort us. When He leads us by telling us what to do, we feel the burden of responsibility removed from our shoulders and put squarely on His. This is precisely what our wives are supposed to feel under our leadership. It has not been given to them to carry many of the responsibilities we have left on their shoulders. They have been given to help us. We as husbands are the ones who are supposed to be carrying these burdens, these responsibilities. One of the ways we carry these things is with active, specific, consistent direction in the lives of our wives and our homes.
That day, and in the days that followed, it dawned on me in increasing measure that I had a long way to go and a lot more to learn to take responsibility in our home. To my shame, while I had no problem prioritizing the myriad items on my to do list for our family business (I did this daily lest things fall into chaos), I had completely failed to be like the Good Shepherd in our home in being likewise consistently planning, explicit and specific. As a result my home began to look more like what I didn’t want our business to be, burdened by worry, busyness, and insecurity.
Here are some of the particular things I learned, and the decisions we have implemented in our home, driven by me, to change to be more like Christ…
“Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way…dwell with them according to knowledge…” (1 Peter 3:7)
The importance of meditation
The head, as simple as it sounds, does all the thinking. Other than involuntary actions like breathing, thinking happens before everything else we do. I needed to spend more time thinking. A simple day alone had a radical impact on my walk with my Shepherd and on the life of my family. Too much of my life, and subsequently my family’s (remember, it’s all my fault) wasn’t deliberate or purposeful; it was just busy. Way too busy. I need to think and meditate as a regular part of my Christian walk. Truthfully, I needed to spend less time doing (read: being busy) and more time deeply and thoughtfully considering God’s plan for my life and family. Without regularly considering the course of our family, I was completely unable to set priorities or provide specific direction for the activities of our days.
Meditation, which comprises much of the center of our Bibles, is essential in the Christian life but has largely been lost in our modern world, even the evangelical one. This is time alone, in quiet, and in quantity. (Jesus often withdrew to lonely places, Luke 5:16.) My most lucid thoughts have come as I have learned to be still and meditate, on God, His Word, and our lives. We are working hard as a family to make times of meditation a regular part of our Lord’s Day together. Unfortunately spending several hours in quiet meditation, even on Sunday, doesn’t come easily, and we are realizing as a family how much we have to fight to protect this time. It needs to be truly quiet time so we can hear and listen to God. My wife and I have spent more time in the early morning hours reading, praying, and thinking. (Early morning for us is naturally a whole lot quieter and less hectic than any other time of the day). It has meant getting up every morning while it is still dark (Mark 1:35). This has been a huge building block towards transforming me, and our family.
“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years…’” (Genesis 1:14)
The importance of structure, especially structuring time
We desperately need order and structure. We cannot live life purposefully without it. My family, and especially my wife, was being tossed around by the waves of interruptions, distractions, projects, must-do lists, etc. and I was oblivious because I had abdicated true responsibility in this area. It is my job to create structure. This is what God did for us right from the very beginning. I began by setting the schedule for our family. Your situation may be different, but our lives were so busy with good things (see Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42), we were missing Christ. Instead of living within the seasons that God was giving our family (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), we were trying to cram too much into one “big season” (or day, or week, or month, or year). We started ruthlessly cutting things out of our schedule so that we could focus more on Christ and fulfilling His law in lives. Our biggest sin in this area was not going to bed on time so we could get up early enough to have the time we needed in God’s Word, in prayer, and with each other. My biggest sin in this area was in not saying “no” enough and over-committing our family. Those over-commitments invariably consumed our evenings, particularly after our children went to bed. Bed time, especially for mommy and daddy, became much more rigid so that we could protect the time we needed together in the mornings. By protecting our time and creating a rhythm for our days, I was protecting my wife and family from the weights and sins that so easily entangle (Hebrews 12:1-3).
The importance of daily specific direction
My wife would tell you that one of the best changes I have made has been committing to providing her a daily list of priorities each morning. Whether written or verbal, nearly every day (I’m still growing!), I give her a list of what I consider important for her to accomplish in and with our family that day. The list is very specific and very thoughtful. It covers things as seemingly insignificant as having the girls help with emptying the dishwasher to visiting with grandma to shopping for groceries. I give her direction on what to read with our girls, both in the Bible and in other books. I tell her what not to do as well, and what not to let distract her. I prioritize things for her so she doesn’t have to carry that burden; she can rely on me to determine what’s important that day and what’s not. As we have developed routine, some things don’t need to be on the list because they are becoming a part of who we are and how we work together. By structuring and directing my wife’s days this way for her, she has found much greater security, fulfillment, and peace in her role as helper. Above all she feels more loved because she feels more led. Recently when we missed a few mornings talking through things in person (I left her notes) she wrote to me “I feel lost without our morning times together.” This was a sobering, and encouraging reminder for me to fight to maintain consistency in this area.
“and to present her to Himself as a radiant church…” (Ephesians 5:27)
The importance of consistency, and perseverance
I began this article over six months ago. It is sobering as I look back and realize how furiously the serpent wages war against my consistency in leading and taking responsibility for my family. Simple things like thinking, structuring, and directing are hard work. In the busy-ness of life and the selfishness of my sinful nature, they are easily lost. Because I spent so many years not leading my family, these things are not naturally a part of who I am (not yet). The real battle for me has not been in the initial passion of leading the charge forward for my family. The real battle has been in the minefields and foxholes of everyday living to not lose focus and to not forget to keep leading.
One of the best reminders God has given us as husbands is the radiance (or lack thereof) of our wives, if we’ll just honestly pay attention to them. The simple question “Is my wife radiant today?” lends itself to a simple, straightforward answer. When I start coming up with a qualified answer, or when I have to think about the answer, I’m not really being honest about my failure to lead. My wife is radiant when she feels secure. She is secure when she feels led. Being led makes her feel loved. While we all have our tougher days, it’s pretty obvious when my wife is radiant and when she’s not. I am learning to be sensitive to my wife’s “radiance level” and letting that convict, inspire, and motivate me to repent (again) and keep leading. Paying attention to her “splendor” (how the ESV translates it), helps me to be more consistent until this new level of leadership becomes who I am.
That lucid day home alone during church has thus far proven to be the beginning of a new chapter in the life of our family, one where daddy took a big step towards Christ and being like Him in his family. Being the head of my wife and my household takes a lot more thought, and prayer, and planning, and communication, than I ever realized. On a daily basis. It takes having a whole lot more than a clue. This is what I have learned it means to be responsible for my family, to be their head. This is what it means to be Christ in my home. So I’m thankful I’m learning, and now; even more, so are my wife and children.