Mark and I broke out of the woods and paused for a moment to gaze up at the peak of the mountain in front of us. I was spending a\u00a0summer in the Denver area, and climbing a fourteener was on my Colorado bucket list. Hiking through the woods had been enjoyable, but\u00a0now that we were above the tree line, it was hard not to be discouraged by the task ahead of us. Even as we started hiking again, the top\u00a0seemed to stare us down, ever in our peripheral.<\/p>\n
I feel the same way sometimes about leading my family. My wife and I have a burning desire to parent our amazing two-year-old son and\u00a0his future siblings well throughout their lives. And I have some great role models\u2014my own father and the dads in my community. I see\u00a0their family rhythms and want to emulate them. I want to show my sons their power and responsibilities as men through rites of passage. I\u00a0want my daughters to know their worth and beauty and to work diligently toward being able to run their own household one day. I want my\u00a0family to have a purpose, a mission, to be a part of bringing the kingdom to earth.
\nBut those things seem so far off and out of reach. When I look at my family now, the gap between reality and the ideal is staggering. Don\u2019t\u00a0get me wrong, I love my family and I work hard to be the dad God has called me to be, but I can imagine it being so much better. I\u2019m a\u00a0first-time dad and I feel overwhelmed by the responsibility that\u2019s been placed in my hands. It\u2019s hard not to give up when the ideal seems so\u00a0unattainable.<\/p>\n
But parenting my child is just like climbing that fourteener. Even though my lungs were burning from lack of oxygen and the summit\u00a0seemed so far off, the key to getting to the top of the mountain was focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. One step at a time.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t despair over the gap between the reality and the ideal. I need to take a moment and wrestle with my son, even though I\u2019m not\u00a0sure yet how to teach him to be a man. I need to clean up the kitchen while my wife puts our son to bed, even though I don\u2019t know how to\u00a0ensure all the chores get done every week. I need to take the opportunity to correct my son instead of pretending I didn\u2019t see him disobey,\u00a0even though I don\u2019t know the best method of discipline. One step at a time.<\/p>\n
And God\u00a0will<\/em>\u00a0see us through. He is deeply vested in our sanctification. \u201cLet us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who\u00a0promised is faithful.\u201d\u00a0(Hebrews 10:23)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark and I broke out of the woods and paused for a moment to gaze up at the peak of the mountain in front of us. I was spending a\u00a0summer in the Denver area, and climbing a fourteener was on my Colorado bucket list. Hiking through the woods had been enjoyable, but\u00a0now that we were […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":1735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n