"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
Love and Sacrifice
Look in the Bible and you’ll find that love, the secret to fatherhood, often gets explicitly tied to the idea of sacrifice.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I Corinthians 13:7.
I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2
Sacrifice is Power
The Lord wills that we be good fathers to our children and good husbands to our wives. Is manliness just brute power and strength and might? Or does it say, “I’m going to lay down my life for you”? On the surface, sacrifice can feel weak and powerless, but it’s not. It’s powerful.
Christ may have looked weak and powerless on the cross during his moment of ultimate sacrifice, and yet that sacrifice remains the most powerful act the universe has ever seen.
It’s another paradox.
Love in the Small Things
We are at our strongest when we lay down our lives, even in small ways, for our wives and children – maybe especially in small ways. It’s hard to do. We get into arguments because we don’t always do it well. But I guess that’s why it’s called a “sacrifice.” If it were easy, it wouldn’t be a sacrifice.
A Common Characteristic
When you look at healthy families, you see one common characteristic – sacrificial men.
Men who talk with their kids – even when some part of them just wants to watch the football game.
Men who deal patiently with their kids – even when they’ve got to mop up the spilled milk from the floor for the third time that week.
When men do the right thing for their families and offer that life-giving sacrifice, it pays big dividends. The families that result from that kind of fatherly commitment enjoy robust health.
Go to bed tired men!
Travis Sellers
MD5 Lab Coordinator
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