Recently while running the dial on Sirius XM, I heard a song from my teen years sung by Harry Chapin entitled “The Cats in the Cradle.”
This heartbreaking song tells of a father and son who can’t schedule time to be with each other, and it serves as a warning against putting one’s career before family. The verses start out with a natural harmony and depict the tale of a father with his newborn son. Although dad gets the necessities of child rearing accomplished, he doesn’t allow himself to put in quality time with his son because of his career. Initially, this seems like no big deal because of his hectic and oblivious life working and paying bills.
The recurring verse has the son saying, “I’m gonna be like you Dad, you know I’m gonna be like you…”
Over time, both father and son grow into a switching of life roles. The father realizes his son’s ambitions of college, grades, and driving, and wants to spend more time with him, yet slowly grasps the reality that now his son has no time for such things. In the last verse, Chapin illustrates that the son is all grown up with a fast-paced job and kids of his own. In a glaring twist of roles, we see that the son now has no time to spend with his father. With a heavy heart, dad realizes that his boy has become just like him. (Songfacts.com)
Dads, indeed, your sons are watching and learning you.
Making a connection with yesterday’s blogpost, may I ask you dads, are your sons growing up to be just like you when it comes to your relationship with God?
Will they sing in church like you do?
Will they open their Bible and take notes whenever the Word of God is preached like you do?
Will they be totally engaged in worship on Sundays like you are?
Will they be a man of prayer just like you?
Will they be a ready witness for Christ as you are?
Will they know the Word of God like you do?
Will they have the Word memorized like you do?
Will they be a surrendered servant for Christ just like you?
Will stand and testify of God’s grace, faithfulness and love like you do?
Will they be diligent to add to their original faith because you are?
Will they give diligence to make their calling and election sure because you do?
Will they?
Men, we must be all-out, surrendered men of God like Christ, Moses, Joseph, Joshua, Daniel, Paul, Barnabas, Peter, etc. Not only for the glory of God but for the sakes of our sons who are watching and taking their cues from us.
“The cats in the cradle,” and he will soon be gone. Will he be just like you?
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
Train up a child in the way he should go. (Proverbs 22:6a)
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him. (Proverbs 23:24)
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13)
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)
But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:11-12)
From A Pastor's Heart 