Raised in the Dirt

There is this compelling argument that we need “new”. That in order to discover our internal happiness we need to obtain or experience the feeling of arriving at something we have not yet experienced nor obtained.

Newness or the seeking of newness is the very thing that has us window shopping online without searching for anything specific. Some people call this retail therapy. It’s the pressure for new ideas or innovation that has us uncontent with what we produced just last week. It keeps us up at night, scrambling to write down anything that comes to mind that is considered as a “fresh take”. Even just the latest update on gossip will satisfy our need to feel current. It’s why we have multiple media subscriptions and scroll through endless entertainment selection yet gravitate towards only what is labeled “new”. It’s all in hope of finding contentment…once we find that new thing, of course. Even those that hate change still like receiving new gifts and new things they like. In fact, that is a criteria for anything new…for everybody. New makes us feel purpose. It makes us feel connected. It’s as if we have found life again and quickly cures our boredom.

Now “new” is not bad nor the inherent evil we need to exterminate. New is simply that… “something new”. And with it comes all sorts of internal emotional responses. But to chase those emotions in the form of consumption, that is - to find peace in the act of consuming, we depreciate the value of everything. No longer does anything hold weight. Nothing has lasting worth and the feeling of contentment fades. It is tossed away in a sea of discarded objects or experiences that were all once something considered new.

This duality lies especially within our children. They endlessly persist in the need for the “new” thing, yet are perfectly satisfied in the old. The old cardboard box lasts longer in our house than any other toy found impulsively on the store shelf. Yet they consistently hammer the notion that the “new” thing is what will bring them complete fulfillment.

The conflict of finding true contentment and a sense of feeling fulfilled is being played out right before us in the development of our kids.

Fathers, there is this innate desire within us to provide for the needs of our children. The responsibility we carry is to discern between their needs and their wants. Do not let your developing child dictate to you their need as if they can fully distinguish between the two. My son communicating that he is hungry but asking for ice-cream, with a half eaten dinner in front of him, is unaware of what his “need” truly is. We need to accept the uncomfortable role of not giving into their wants. However, there is a long term responsibility at play than just the immediate discernment. Our greatest responsibility is to train them to discern this for themselves.

Fathers carry a torch of preparation. We innately desire to prepare them for the realities of this world, but it means walking through the difficult confrontation of our children and ourselves not finding our peace in consuming the “new”. In our heart, we want to provide and give them everything. This is our own battle with the difference between our wants and needs. As Fathers, what we need to provide them is understanding; cognitive discernment of the truth, so they can function in life. In order to do so, we ourselves need to have a clear grasp on understanding life, as well as clear goals in what we desire our children to understand.

Even in our desire to prepare them, we can cloud our understanding of our goals by thinking all we are doing is introducing them to “new” things, “new” experiences, and “new” understanding. What we are actually doing is establishing for them what is “old”. Most of what we want them to understand is something that has come before.

When we introduce them to morals, although a “new” concept for them, we are anchoring them to something that even predates ourselves. What they need the most is to discover where they come from. The biggest issue, that fathers need to equip their children for, is the resolve of their identity. And this isn’t a matter of societal criteria that asks for new definitions of identity every generational decade. This is an understanding of their identity in the larger picture of creation and existence that allows them confidence and encouragement to navigate life.

And this is possible through an introduction to what is old, not new.

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn;

// Isaiah 51:1

You want to know who you are or find a righteous life that will be pleasing to God?

Then look no further than to where you came from… the origins of you.

In many regards this has layers and layers of insight.

On one hand… Your kids are you. They come from you. They inherit genetics, traits, experiences, conditional behaviors and tendencies… all from you.

They are a chip off the old block. Cut from the same “rock”. Kids need to know who their dad is. More than dates and events, share with your kids the inner workings of how you navigate life. They look up to us more than we think. Which is why it is so depressing to us, when they witness us making mistakes. But they need to see those moments too. Making mistakes is part of learning and growing. They need to see who you turn to for grace and how you respond to that grace. They also need to experience you extending that same grace, to them. Part of our children being cut from us includes their identity holding the inheritance of the same sinful nature that plagues us.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more;

and we bear their iniquities.

// Lamentations 5:7

Even with the greatest of intentions in how we raise our kids, the reconciliation needed for sin is not something we can provide for them. Dads don’t have the ability nor the strength required to eradicate the curse of man for their children. This is part of our identity that needs understanding in order to appreciate the full weight of what is discussed next.

We are claimed by Christ because our identity is cut from the image of God.

Since Adam, all have sinned and fallen short of living up to that image we were created to bear. God, in His glory, chose to take from His image and create mankind. We were to live in His character and all that wisdom we want to teach our kids. In the beginning, our identity was in its purest form. It is the oldest understanding of our identity. Although unattainable today, simply by our will, Christ makes it possible by once again carving us from Himself, the solid rock that He is. He hewns us. Jesus digs up our new identity out of His own quarry - the same Image we were to bear so long ago. No longer defined by brokenness, we arrive at a new kind of “new” that comes from the oldest of olds.

For our kids to understand what Christ has done and how He transforms our identity, they need an understanding of the old markings of our identity that came before; that we were made in His goodness yet stained in sin. We rejected the old in the endless search of finding contentment in “new”. They need to understand the difference between searching for “something new” and being “made a new”; a transformation in Christ that restores, reconciles, excavates, and regenerates us in the “older than time” image of God.

Our children need a historian to rise above their own clamoring for “new” in all the short-term solutions the world conveys. A father’s preparation starts with an introduction to dirt. Showing them the origins of their making and the journey of redemption along the way.

Get Activated

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