Fatherhood can sometimes be walking the floor at midnight with a baby that can’t sleep. More likely, fatherhood is repairing a bicycle wheel for the umpteenth time, knowing that it won’t last the afternoon. Fatherhood is guiding a youth through the wilderness of adolescence toward adulthood.
Fatherhood is holding tight when all seems to be falling apart; and it’s letting go when it is time to part. Fatherhood is long hours at the blast furnace or in the fields, behind the wheel or in front of a computer screen, working a 12-hour shift or doing a six-month tour of duty. It’s giving one’s all, from the break of day to its end, on the job, in the house, but most of all in the heart. – Ronald Reagan
Most of all in the heart.
The heart is the most important because it is the source of life.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
This exhortation is especially important for the Dads.
A father’s heart is the source not only of his own life, but of his household as well.
From a father’s heart flow the springs of his children’s life.
Dads, we keep a lot of things. We keep up our lawns. We maintain our vehicles. We put our gold and our guns in safes. We secure our homes.
Above all, let’s keep our hearts.
Let’s keep your inputs – filling our hearts with truth and filtering out the garbage.
Let’s keep our passions – maintaining our fires for righteousness and holiness.
Let’s keep our hope – refusing to give in to resignation while we fix our hearts on the hope of heaven.
And when the weight of the world and the weakness of the flesh is too much – let’s remember that one much stronger than us is keeping hold of our hearts.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.
John 10:28
Tom Brown is the planting pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Wichita. Tom and his wife, Mandy, have worked together in ministry for 18 years and have four children. More about Pastor Tom Brown