Those of us who are blessed with the ability to see their children grow and mature, also come to realize that as we age those kids are probably doing many things better and more efficiently than we are. So it was on my recent trip to Africa. Fortunately, Micah was with me to calm me when my emotions and anxieties got the best of me at the Addis Abba airport. We were trying to get to a hotel I had booked for an overnight stay. The problem was that we did not have an appropriate visa for leaving the airport. A huge lack of information, the inability to hear and communicate properly reminded me that I am not nearly as quick, effective or even very good at getting some things done as perhaps I may have been decades ago.

Then God reminds me that I never really was that good without a proper support system. My problem was that I stayed so busy with activity and reaching for the stars that it always appeared that my successes came from my own efforts. I think men struggle with this more than women, even in today’s world of equality. I think us guys don’t have the depth at times to understand that it is that support system that motivates us to achieve even if the costs are taxing. I’ve learned that a family’s support system can possess great value when there may be no financial rewards. As a matter of fact, sometimes the support system that has the greatest impact and adds the greatest meaning is the spouse and family who always seem to depend on us, the way we depend on Christ.

However, things make a very challenging turn when we get to be grand parenting age. We have reason to believe that what our experience has taught us and what we have gained through life’s painful mistakes positions us as the authority on most everything and aren’t as willing as we need to be to accept what needs to be accepted. In my life it has been my willingness to cope with the concept of slowing down. Darn it all, I don’t want to slow down. I enjoy my work and I enjoy my family and I don’t want that to change. YET, God continues to exasperate me, break my bones and allow me to live with anxiety because I still want to control my destiny, provide for my family and give them what I may not have had myself.

Reality is often hard to deal with, and this has been my greatest challenge – to “Be still and know that He is God.” To “rest” in Him and realize at even this late stage of life that my family and their support system no longer needs to see me performing for them. I believe many of us have a hard time turning it off because there are less kudos and thanks, because the kids are doing things on their own as best they know how. They are forging their own paths that are very different from mine because that is what I did when I grew up. Transitioning from provider to advisor or simply a loving friend is the toughest thing I think I have ever done. I still want to guide, direct, correct and help and yet it is no longer my job. Acceptance is now even harder than when I was younger, yet God urges me on and reminds me daily that the value is not in the achievement or failure, but the results that it produces. Why is that so hard to see. After almost 70 years I still have to be reminded that He sees us in our finished state, not a state of confusion, anxiety or “position of neediness.”

So it is that my children continue to grow me by experiences that God preordained before the foundation of the earth. My prayers for you kids are that you see His hand in the challenging and stressful circumstances like Micah did for me that day. Know it’s going to be ok and that the end result is all that is important because this learning experience will not be your last, nor will it be (for the most part) the most or least meaningful. There’s always more to learn.

Love Dad