William Belle (excerpt from the book Man-U-Script)
I think the ultimate joy of fatherhood is to be able to raise a son to be a successful man. A successful man is a man who grows up to love the Lord, to be a good husband, to be a good father. One of the most successful coaches in the history of football once said that if his son grew up without knowing the Lord and if his son became anything but a man of God, then he himself had failed in spite of the many accolades and great accomplishments in his football career. I stand in agreement with this world-class coach by saying again that a man’s ultimate joy in fatherhood is to see his son live as a man of God. At the same time, that joy is tied to the importance of manhood, and that being to lead by example.
As a parent I started out with the belief that you could simply say all the right things to your son, teach him the correct things to do, and then he’d follow suit. Then I matured and discovered that more is caught than taught. I regret not having this insight when I was raising my children.
The lectures and brilliant speeches turned out to be mere lectures, in one ear and out the other. The things that became a part of my son are those things that he repeatedly observed in me; one being my thought processes, be they good or bad. If what he saw was a critical spirit, that’s what he caught. If he observed a judgmental spirit, that’s what he caught. When I see him doing negative things, I look at myself and recognize that he caught that too, and that’s the challenge. He caught more, good and bad, from watching my actions than he did from listening to my words and unpersuasive speeches.
Guiding children is something that’s done on purpose. Although you have to be intentional about parenting, the guiding doesn’t so much happen with the intentionality of a father’s words as it does with how a father operates. We would like to think that it all happens with words and lectures, but the ultimate evidence of guidance is seeing your son walking as you walk.
3 Yochanan 1:4 (3 John 1:4) I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.