Like many guys I went into marriage not wanting a ton of kids or wanting them too early. We were on the five year plan and then would only try to have two kids: a boy and a girl of course. That’s the normal, sensible thing to do, right? Sure, my wife was open to having more kids than that but I told her that wasn’t our plan.

In my first year of marriage I happened to randomly listen to a message called “The Centrality of the Home” by a baptist preacher named Voddie Baucham. He was speaking to a baptist convention of pastors and he spent time talking about the biblical value of kids. To say that this sermon rocked me would be an understatement. I literally felt God telling me that it was time to put my opinions on hold and have a conversation with him about this.

We now are three kids into a five-ish kid plan.

I say five-ish acknowledging that I realize it’s not a word and also because we aren’t quite sure where this journey will take us. But I cannot imagine investing myself into something else with this great of a return.

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I was asked a question recently that surprised me, and then surprised me that it surprised me. It was an incredibly simple question.

Who is the model dad in the Bible?

The Sunday school answer is the easy one—God! Beyond that lies a sea of murkiness.

I racked my brain through the New Testament. Nothing with the disciples, nothing spelled out in the early Church, and this is one of the few areas where “Jesus” isn’t the correct answer.

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I’m going to break the rules here and post a link to a fantastic blog I read… about motherhood.

The post is from Rachel Jankovic, a mother of five, and offers a powerful, cross-cultural view on raising kids. And I think it easily applies to us as dads as well.

Here are a few teaser paragraphs below, but you an read the whole article here.

“Christian [fathers] carry their children in hostile territory. When you are in public with them, you are standing with, and defending, the objects of cultural dislike. You are publicly testifying that you value what God values, and that you refuse to value what the world values. You stand with the defenseless and in front of the needy. You represent everything that our culture hates, because you represent laying down your life for another—and laying down your life for another represents the gospel.”

“Live the gospel in the things that no one sees. Sacrifice for your children in places that only they will know about. Put their value ahead of yours. Grow them up in the clean air of gospel living. Your testimony to the gospel in the little details of your life is more valuable to them than you can imagine. If you tell them the gospel, but live to yourself, they will never believe it. Give your life for theirs every day, joyfully. Lay down pettiness. Lay down fussiness. Lay down resentment about the dishes, about the laundry, about how no one knows how hard you work.”

I love books made for the throne room; most of them are full of totally useless (but often fascinating) information. A recent perusal in the privy, led me to this little nugget.

Children don’t have kneecaps – they’re not developed until 2-6 years old!

That seemed hard to believe; but then I remember all the teeth clenching times I’ve seen my kids jump off the couch, landing knee first on my tile floor. After the 1,000th reminder to stop jumping on my furniture, it’s always a challenge to avoid grabbing a ziploc bag & some ice to take care of the psychosomatic pain I feel from watching this routine.

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