A Real Christian Man

My dad was my first hero. As a child, I thought he could do anything. Oh, I knew he could not fly like Superman, but he was certainly more capable than Batman. After all, he could preach, teach, ride a motorcycle, fly an airplane, play a ukulele, sing with gusto, build houses, fix almost anything, and teach us cool stuff like how to fish, swim, and ride a bicycle.  He could even read us books and change his voice to sound like the characters in the book.

Dad planing a board for our house.

We learned a lot from his teaching. He taught us how to mow a lawn, plant a garden, wield a hammer, build things, and use power tools. He spent hours with my brothers rebuilding a car engine. He was at home in the kitchen.  On our birthdays, he made a tall stack Norwegian pancakes so that we could eat until we waddled away from the table, holding our bellies and declaring to the others how many pancakes we wolfed down. Now when we make Norwegian pancakes for the next generation, we use Dad's recipe, perfected through years of birthday celebrations.

However, the lessons I learned by observation were even more special. While I may not have admitted it while I was growing up, he set a standard for me of what it meant to be a real Christian man. When I got married, these were the things I wanted in a husband. I wanted someone who was authentic in his faith and who was a real Christian guy.

1. A real Christian man spends time alone with God.

In the morning when I arose, I usually found him in the living room. His Bible lay open on his lap and when he was done reading, he took out a list, scrawled in his own handwriting. As his prayer list covered the page of his Bible, he closed his eyes and talked to God about his concerns.  Occasionally I watched him, wondering how he could pray for so long.

One morning he was missing at breakfast. Later I asked him where he was. "I so wanted to stay up all night and pray like Jesus did when He was on earth," he told me, "but at about three in the morning I had to go back to sleep. One day I will try again." There were times when he was missing from the dinner table because he was praying and fasting.

2. A real Christian man loves his family.

Many pastors take Mondays off because they find Sundays exhausting. For him, Sundays were filled to the brim with teaching, preaching, counseling, prayer, and hospitality. He must have been tired on Mondays too. Yet because his children were in school on Monday, he chose to take his day off on Saturday so that he could spend more time with us.

His favorite stories to tell and retell were often about his children. Whether it was Steven's exposition of Scriptures, Dan's miraculous recovery, Tim's natural leadership, Joel's cute antics, Andrea's inexhaustible energy, Reza's adoption, or my fear of monsters in the night, his stories remain with us as part of our heritage. They give us a sense of identity and belonging. They tell us we belong to him.

While there was not a lot of money in the house, we knew that he considered us a priority. Birthday and Christmas gifts were simple and practical, but they were part of our celebration and a reminder that our parents cared. Vacations were spent as a family - either camping or visiting relatives. When special events like graduation arose, there was always a celebration and Dad was there, laughing and smiling with us.

3. A real Christian man tells others of Christ. 

My dad was shy, but he was also determined to let his light shine for Christ. At a gas station, he'd ask the attendant, "If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go?" Depending upon the response, we might be there a while as he continued to share his faith with him. At restaurants, he'd say to the waitress, "We're going to pray in a minute. Is there anything I can pray about for you?" He kept gospel tracts in his pockets when he was traveling so that he would be able to leave information with people he encountered along the way. He was always ready to tell others of the hope he had in God.

I remember the day that he called me to tell me that Marcus, an Indonesian pastor, had died. "Now I know for sure that there will be someone to greet me in heaven when I get there because I introduced him to Jesus," he said with a mixture of sorrow and joy.

4. A real Christian man stands up for what he believes.

It would have been so much easier to keep quiet than to let people know his convictions were different from theirs. He could have kept his mouth shut when he saw people straying instead of encouraging them to go hard after God. He could have preached safe sermons rather than stepping on their toes. How he longed for people to take sanctification seriously and to do what they could to walk as closely to God as possible. So he chose to call sin evil and warn people of choosing the wrong path.

I thought it was normal for Christians to take a stand and to pursue heavenly goals with dogged determination. I thought every Christian tried to put God first in their lives. After all, all of the men I admired were like that, but especially my dad. Now I realize that his commitment is more rare than I realized. While it may be "normal," it is certainly not common.

5. A real Christian man is authentic all the time.

There was no difference between the man we saw at home and the man others saw at church. What he preached from the pulpit, he preached to us at home. If he said he hated sin, we heard him say it first at home. We never had to wonder what mood he was going to be in or how he would react to us. His moods did not affect his behavior. If he was wrong, he admitted it.

Sometimes I meet people who tell of a very different home life from what we see in public, and I grieve with them. It is hard for me to imagine the weight of having to put on a face in public to cover up what is really going on. I am glad that my dad taught me to be genuine at home so that we did not have to be hypocritical.

6. A real Christian man leaves a lasting legacy.

My dad is 91 years old now. He is weak and can no longer climb mountains to find jungle tribes that need the gospel. He tires easily just from daily activity, let alone the stress of juggling the myriad responsibilities of those many years of being a missions director. So I am glad that he spent his strong years doing things that would matter long after he is gone.

Fifty years from now, when he is celebrating in heaven, his legacy on earth will live on. An orphanage in the Philippines and a Bible school in Indonesia may still remember his part in their inception. Grandchildren may recount stories of his life. But even if they don't, there will be people in heaven who will thank him for his steadfast faithfulness to the God that he worships. I know because I will be one of them.

Fathers

Today I want to give tribute to my dad, a man who blessed me in many ways through the years.

First of all, I appreciate his dedication to God.  That dedication was demonstrated to me as a child in many different ways.  One of my clearest memories of that commitment was my father's morning ritual.  Every morning I could find him sitting in the living room with a Bible open on his lap.  Then his prayer list would come out and his eyes closed as he prayed for his wife, his children, and so many other people God had placed on his heart.

It also saw his dedication in his willingness to stand for what he believed.  As a young man, it meant giving up a lucrative career as a mortician to go serve God in the jungles of Dutch New Guinea.  Later in life, it often meant standing alone.  Sometimes it meant being misunderstood and rejected.  At home, it meant having definite standards for what we would and would not do as a family.  During difficult times, when God's voice was not clear, I saw him pursue God in late-night prayer and fasting.  At every turn, if you were to ask him why he had made a decision, the answer was the same.  It was what he believed God would have him do.

One of my treasured memories of my father was when he taught me to play softball.  We had arrived home on furlough, and I was playing the game for the first time at a family reunion.  I was eight years old.  While I could play soccer and shoot a bow and arrow, I had never encountered a softball.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not make contact with that ball.  I ended up in tears, feeling like a failure and rejoined my family.  My dad took me aside and taught me to watch the ball.  Under his direction, I made contact.  From that day on, I could hit that ball.  I never did very well as an outfielder, but I could hit and run.

Reading to his two eldest children

Another favorite memory is storytime.  Both my parents read to us, but when my dad read, he took on different voices for the various character in the story.  He roared like a lion or purred like a kitten.  His version of the story was so dramatic that we were immediately pulled into it.

Yet as much as I adore and respect my dad, he does not come close to my heavenly Father.  Dad could not provide eternal salvation for me.  He did not give His Spirit to be with me constantly to guide, convict, and direct me through life.  His advice was not flawless.  He will not be with me here in this life forever.  While there are times when Dad is only as far away as a phone call, my heavenly Father is always by my side.

I am thankful that my dad taught me to trust my Heavenly Father.  I can think of no greater truth that an early father can teach his children, and I can think of no better way to teach it to others than to live those truths each day.