Kids Are From Mars (click to comment)

When I was first married, I didn’t wanna have kids. One Thanksgiving dinner I watched my brother Dan’s children put peas in their ears and corn in their diapers. Then they blew Pablum out their noses and wanted a kiss. And—yep—their mother gave them one. That afternoon as I was sleeping off a turkey hangover on the sofa when my one-year-old nephew brought a ripe diaper to rest on my forehead. I made a vow that day: I will have children just as soon as cows produce root beer. I kept this vow intact until the night my wonderful wife stood before me in some rather expensive lingerie and said, “Honey, let’s have kids—tons of them.” And it seemed like a good idea at the time. May 31, 1986 was a Saturday. I paced a hospital hallway with my wife. Or at least I think it was my wife. But whereas Ramona had always been rather sweet and soft-spoken, this woman was more like Attila the Hun in a hospital gown.

“RUB MY BACK!” she commanded. I reached out. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” she hollered. This continued for about 14 years. Until I found myself face-to-face with the first miracle I’d ever witnessed: my firstborn son. “Stephen.” People ask me when I became a Christian. I say May 31, 1986. You see, that night, for the first time in my life, I bowed my head and said, “Dear God, Make me real. I want this precious little boy to love Jesus with everything he’s got. If he won’t learn to from me, he has two strikes against him already.”

One of the best things I’ve ever done as a dad is to spend time in the Bible just about every day. Psalm 103 offers dads 5 characteristics of God that we are wise to display. He’s slow to anger. Abounding in love. Merciful. Righteous. Faithful. Then it says, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” Five years later this same little boy looked up at me one night and said, “Daddy, I wanna be like you.” Tears came to my eyes.

I don’t have all the child-rearing answers. But I do know this: if we want our children to love God, let’s love Him first. If we want them to obey, we need to be obedient to the still small voice of God. And if we want our lives to be changed forever, have children. Tons of them. P.S. Don’t forget the clothespins.