fathering

I must admit that I am easily bored with most of what I am hearing these days in the Christian circles. It's not that it is not good, its just that I have heard it all before. Nothing is new, it is more a reminder of what I have already learned. This is not a new thing, but something that has been going on for years and I could not put my finger on what to do with it or how to handle it. Today I think I got it.

There comes a point when you have learned a skill that you have progressed to an expert level. At this level, while you can continue to learn and hone your skill, you are never progressing at the pace you did in the beginning. Take martial arts for example. Getting a black belt, means progressing through the different colored belts throughout the year. Each belt progression gets longer, harder, and more is required. Once a black belt getting your degrees takes more time to further you progress. It can take years and years to advance in degrees. However, at this stage you are no longer just learning, you are teaching. You are training others in the skill. It took a friend of mine 5 years to get his black belt, 3 years to get his 1st degree, and 5 years to get his 2nd degree and 10 years to get his 3rd degree.

I think what I realized today was that I have been a Christian for a long time and my boredom is the call the disciple making. I have learned and learned well. I am well educated in my faith. While there will always be room for improvement I will never be able to return to the beginning when my faith was new, my mind was ignorant and my courage was naive. At this stage in my Christian faith I am no longer focusing on just being a disciple but rather making disciples. I am not longer drinking just milk or eating meat, I am feeding others.

As a father I do not expect my children to have the skills, knowledge or experience of what it means to be an adult or parent. I am teaching them, guiding them, and helping them grow. I have grown up in life enough to now impart life to them.

I have glamorized the past and found myself wishing for youthfulness again simply because I have not fully understood this stage of life, the direction of the path, or the hope for tomorrow. But today I have understood that just as I am a father, I am to be fathering (discipling). I have always been impatient in wanting to accomplish things, but really that was youthfulness. Now I am older and it is time to recognize that skill is strengthened over time.

I think so many times adults fail to recognize the stages of growth. There is always some desire for something in the past simply because they cannot understand the present.

Life lesson: I am a father in the business of making disciples and raising my children. You would think I would have understood this years ago, but I guess I never did. I get it today. I understand the path I am on with God. No turning back.