Buildings and Bamboo

November 1, 2000
Michael Evans
  

I quietly walked into Luke and Benjamin’s room at midnight a month ago.  There they were, two precious young boys, eight and six, sleeping soundly, one slobbering on his pillow like always.

As I stood over them my heart ached over a harsh word spoken by me that had been the last word of their long day.   Strange isn’t it how the restfulness of  sleeping children can cause a deep restlessness in our hearts.

I felt awful that even one of the days ordained for them by God ended the way it just had.  I felt awful that I, the spiritual leader of our home had blown it with two impressionable young boys.  So I prayed over them and apologized the next morning. 

Being a father is easy.  Any male who begets a child is technically a father.  Being a Godly father, now that’s a different issue altogether, an issue I intend to explore in more detail in the months to come.

The word “father” (italics for these individual words?) appears between two interesting words in the dictionary, “fathead” (stupid; dolt) and “Father Christmas” (British for Santa Claus.) 

Next to this wonderful word “father” stand the words, “fathead” and “Santa Claus,”  not exactly the two classiest words in the English language, but hey, they are words I can relate to! A fathead is slow to comprehend.  Santa Claus is quick to give gifts. 

Given a choice I would prefer to be more like Santa Claus than a fathead.  Karla and I want to generously bestow upon our three children extravagant gifts of regular blessings. 

One way that I bless my children is by speaking a verbal blessing to them, usually at night after we have prayed together.  I speak the blessings individually, looking  them square in the eye.  The eye contact is extremely important.

The verbal blessing I like to use is the one that the Lord gave to Moses in order to bless Aaron and all the Israelites.  It is found in Numbers 6:24-26, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

Karla and I had an unexpected and almost unimaginable blessing some months after our youngest child, Elisabeth, was born two years ago. 

The boys wanted to pray this same blessing over her.  So, each of them made the bobbly-headed Elisabeth look them in the eyes as they repeated this blessing over her.  I guess four and six year olds catch more than we know!

How I want to heed the advice of James when he instructs Christians to “…be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God” (James 1:19-20 NASV).

Is it not a strange thing that we adults are the ones who need continually to remind ourselves that we are the adults?  We are the ones who are to maintain self-control.  We are the ones called to model what James called the “righteousness of God.”  This is no small task.

But by the grace of God, which is a very real power, we are sustained, healed, forgiven, empowered by the Holy Spirit, rebuked, and strengthened for another day, another day that must be lived by faith from first to last.

Fellow brothers, I write this column today as a pilgrim.  My family and I are on a journey.  Pilgrims haven’t yet arrived, therefore they don’t know it all.  In fact, one of the strengths of a pilgrim is that he realizes his limitations (most of them anyway.)   Godly wives can be especially helpful in this way!

Pilgrim living is not easy.  Over time we accumulate so many things, so much stuff, and I don’t mean material things.  I mean things like bad habits, unhelpful patterns of relating to one another, and lives that are so filled with extra’s that the truly important things get pushed aside.

Dads, we ought to be crystal clear in the top four or five priorities in our lives.  If we aren’t sure, then other things (job, boss, hobbies, friends, even church) will dictate them for us.

Know your priorities!  Know the biblical priorities and build your family around them.   “Unless the Lord builds the house its builders labor in vain.” 

If we do not know our priorities at this very moment we cannot possibly be seeing the Lord build our house. 

And dads, it is our responsibility, under God, to be the ones who model the priorities.   

You see, dad is like the town clock by which everybody else sets their watches. Sons and daughters and wives are impacted by the town clock more than the town clock cares to admit.  I think even pets are influenced by the town clock.

As a home-educating family  I see my role as father and husband and “house clock” as even more important than before. 

Sometimes I’m not wound at all.  Sometimes I’m wound too tight.  For good or ill, however, I see and feel the impact of my leadership in the home. My role as father is either inhibiting the intended harvest or paving the way for it.

In his book, Anchor Man, (pp17-18) Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998) Steve Farrar gives an illustration of a bamboo farmer.  It relates very much to fathering as well.

In Malaysia, there is a strain of very valuable bamboo that takes great wisdom and patience to cultivate.  Here’s how you do it. 

• In the first year, you plant the seed, water, and fertilize. Nothing visible happens.
• In the second year, you continue to carefully water and fertilize. Nothing visible happens in the second year either.
• In the third year, water and fertilizer are even more necessary, yet nothing happens.  There is absolutely no visible indication that your three years of work are even close to being successful.
• The fourth year comes around and water and fertilizer must still be applied, in the right amounts and at the right time.  But you guessed it. Nothing happens.
• In the fifth year you again diligently water and fertilize.  And the bamboo grows ninety feet in thirty days.

Isn’t that awesome!  It isn’t nine inches in ninety days, but ninety feet in thirty days… after five years of doing nothing but what was necessary to reap the harvest!

So brothers, be encouraged!  Your labor in the Lord in this awesome area of fathering is not in vain.  “Do not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

Remember the bamboo!