Guest Post #2

The Mans Perspective: Lessons from Life.

Due to the overwhelming popularity of my first guest post, Lauren has asked me to do a second. This may become a recurring thing. She may have to hire me as a columnist for her blog.

If you have been following Laurens Blog (which she has done a wonderful job with) you have most likely seen the pictures she posted of Reid and I cutting the grass. I absolutely love this. I use to not like cutting the grass so much but now I enjoy it. It is one of the cutest things you will ever see. I also enjoy spending the time with him. The funny thing is that he will copy every move I make.

Once I was cutting around a tree and scattered some pine straw from around the base. The next pass I made I kicked the pine straw back up against the tree. When I looked back, I saw Reid kicking the pine straw as well. He had no clue what he was doing, but he saw daddy do it and knew it needed to be done.

The first time I realized that there may be an issue was when I was edging the gutters by the street and looked back and saw Reid right behind me, walking in the street. This was when I was hit hard with a dose of reality.

You see, our kids are watching us and they are observing every move we make, especially at Reid’s age. They copy what we say and they copy what we do. If we’re not careful, we can lead them into danger with our actions, whether intentional or not. This is true with relationships (how we treat our spouses), financially (how we spend our money) and most important, spiritually (how we live our lives in accordance with the Word of God). The good thing is, is that if we do these things right, we can lead them into great prosperity as well (in all three categories).

One thing that I have to constantly remind myself of is this: whatever characteristics I want Reid to posses and whatever goals I want Reid to accomplish, I have to reflect these back to him through my own words and actions. I have to first be the man that I want Reid to be. If I want Reid to be a devoted husband and father than he must see me fulfill this role. I can’t spend all of my time away from home working or playing and expect him to learn what it means to be a family man.

If I want Reid to follow the Lord and serve God, than he has to see me do that as well.  I can’t expect the Church to teach him this. This is my responsibility.

As men we have so many roles.  Provider, protector, leader, disciplinarian, the list goes on and on. We have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of things rest upon our shoulders. But we have to learn to prioritize our time and put our lives into prospective. I could allow my work to define who I am, but instead, I choose to allow my family to define who I am. I don’t want to allow my career to be the judge of my success in life, rather, I want my marriage and the development of my children to define my success. I hear a lot of things throughout the day, some good, some bad. But my most favorite thing to ever hear at the end of the day is Daddy.