God Will Help You Be a Dad (or Mom)

When my wife and I got married, she wanted to have kids. I did too. Sort of. Eventually.

At least, that’s what I told myself (and her). 

We had agreed to wait a while, and honestly, I was excited about that. I loved being married to her. I loved our life. I loved getting time with just the two of us. I wasn’t in a hurry to change that. As the years started ticking by, her desire to have kids grew stronger, and mine didn’t.

This all came to a head one evening. We were standing on the stairs and the conversation got serious: When are we having kids? 

A better question might have been: Why don’t I want to have kids? She wasn’t asking it but I was and the answer surprised me. 

I was afraid.

I was afraid that if we had kids, the great marriage we had wouldn’t make it. My parents got divorced when I was around four years old. Would that happen to us? Was having me the reason things quit working? I was afraid that becoming parents would change us in a way we couldn’t recover from.

And I was afraid I wouldn’t know what to do.

My dad had been in and out of my life. So when I thought about becoming a father, all I could think of was all the ways I could mess up. 

What if I didn’t know how to be a good dad?

What if I passed on the very things I was still trying to heal from?

I think that fear is more common than a lot of dads admit.And honestly, I don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to have a healthy respect for fatherhood. Being a dad matters. It should feel weighty. There’s nothing wrong with a little pause. 

BUT

There’s a big difference between a healthy understanding of the role a father and a fear that paralyzes you from moving ahead. Fear will tell you that you’re just like your parents. You’ll make the same mistakes they did. If they couldn’t do it, what makes you think that you can? 

Doesn’t sound like God at all, does it? 

Here’s the good news in the middle of all that fear: you and I have access to the single greatest father of all time. God Himself. 

In Romans 8, we see that we have been given the “Spirit of sonship”. We are God’s KIDS. He is our DAD. He can teach us how to do it and He doesn’t do it from some far off place. He is right there with us every single day. 

Jesus says in John 16:13 (MSG) 

But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.

If God’s Spirit is taking us by the hand, we know He isn’t far from us because our hands are attached! 

And James 1:5 says that if any of us lacks wisdom, we can ask God, and He gives generously “without finding fault.”

That part matters to me.

Because sometimes when you ask for parenting help, you already feel like you’re failing. You don’t need a lecture first. You don’t need someone to sigh and say, “You should know this by now.”

And God doesn’t do that.

He gives wisdom without finding fault.

The Holy Spirit may be one of the most underutilized resources we have as parents. Not because God is hiding the help, but because a lot of us forget to ask. We muscle through. We panic. We repeat what we saw. We overcorrect what hurt us.

Meanwhile, God is willing to take us by the hand and show us how it’s done. It doesn’t mean that parenting is easy but it does mean that you aren’t doing it alone. 

Will you make mistakes? Absolutely but remember: you have a Father who knows how to father. He is going to teach you how its done while also taking care of you. You’re a dad but you’re His kid, too.