Fatherhood as Mentoring...

 I went for a walk in the Peaks yesterday with my boy.  My boy is 3.  He only has little legs.  I was so proud of him walking all that way.  We started at Burbage car park, walked up to the top of Higgor Tor and then straight down the slope into the forest - out the other side and back to the carpark on the path under the Edge.  It was interesting that at certain points he got upset about stuff I wouldn't think twice about - he found a big puddle and really enjoyed splashing around in his wellies until some water got on his knees (not even down to his feet!) and he got really stroppy.  I told him a bit of mud just shows you've had a great time but he wasn't convinced...

             At another point I noticed that he just thought all of this was normal.  Whether he's at home in the lounge or out in some of the most dramatic and breath-taking scenery in England it's just life.  There was I - literally astounded
and overjoyed at the sunshine and incredible views - I wanted him so much to be wowed and inspired by them too.  I guess he's not yet learnt the difference between things - I'm his point of reference - as long as I'm near it doesn't matter where we are!

              Similarly as we walked he had absolutely no idea where we were going.  At times we could only see as far as the next rise; at other times we could both see right down the valley to where we were headed, but he just never had a sense of the bigger picture of our route - he just followed where I told him to go.  At one point I told him to decide which route we took to the top of the hill - he ended up arguing with me because he wanted to go back down the way we had come - not because he'd had enough - just because it looked a fun way to go and he simply didn't comprehend it was the wrong direction!  All the time I had a plan about what we were up to and where we were going; he was just along for the ride; totally dependent.

                We stopped and sat on a rock and looked back down to the forest from where we had just come.  It was beautiful and so encouraging to see how far we had walked and all the different types of terrain behind us.  It felt good to point this out to my son, and he seemed to enjoy it too.  I made sure we kept looking back periodically after that to see our progress.  As we sat on the rock and nibbled some sweets we stopped talking - which is rare for a three year old at the best of times - we had talked non-stop all the way round and now that we weren't walking we just got lots in our own thoughts and enjoyed sitting together, watching.

                The most beutiful thing that struck me about our walk however, was the fact that he never let go of my hand all the way round.  At times I told him to be brave and tore my fingers from his grasp but it wasn't long before he'd stop and refuse to go on unless he had me with him, holding him up, giving him the support he wanted.  It was clearly a security (and hopefully a love thing too!) as he didn't really need my hand to help him at all.

                Then God popped into my head; "Joel - I'M your father, too!  Can you see all this a picture of how things are between me and you?"

                I won't bore you by going back through the whole story - but why don't you - and read it as an analogy for the love of God and his story with us, his children?!  I found it a pretty immense thing to think back over these things and see myself as the boy and God as my Dad! 

And the chance to/challenge of talking that through with him was pretty fun too - he's a bit young yet, but I'm enjoying feeding him with whatever provocation and encouragement I can about discovering God for himself already.  That I suppose is the difference between just enjoying your son and actually trying to mentor him... 

Thankyou God!  What an awesome afternoon!