Growing Up Together

Did you grow up hearing, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say”?

What a foolish statement.

The older I get, the more I realize kids rarely do what we say for long—but they almost always do what we are. And nowhere is that more obvious than in our homes, our churches, and all the “family firms” we belong to.

If you’re studying Paul’s counsel in Colossians 3 and 4 about how to live with each other—husbands and wives, parents and children, church members, coworkers—you’ll notice something: the emphasis isn’t on having the perfect script; it’s on having a transformed life.

And for me the place God has most exposed my gaps and trained my heart has been through what were once three little boys, who are now three young men that didn’t sign up to be sermon illustrations—but keep becoming them anyway.

We Ask Children to Do Things We Won’t

Years ago I was standing at the front of the sanctuary for our announcement time—still technically “church,” but casual enough that everyone felt free to chat. I was trying to get the adults to settle down so that I could let them know what was going on.

It was like trying to quiet a flock of “holy geese.”

People were chatting across pews, catching up on life, laughing (which, to be clear, I’d rather have than a silent, cold church any day). But as I stood there waiting, I had this thought:

When I was a kid, this was exactly the moment my parents told me, “Shhh! Someone’s talking up front—pay attention.”

We expect children to do what we, as adults, don’t bother doing.

• We tell them, “Look people in the eye when they talk to you,” while we half-listen to them over the top of our phones.

• We urge them, “Go say hello—be friendly, introduce yourself,” to the child on the playground, while we stand 10 feet away pretending not to see the other parent.

• We say, “Be polite. Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Don’t interrupt,” while we cut off our spouse midsentence or talk over people in meetings.

Paul writes, “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord,” and, in the very next breath, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (Col. 3:20, 21).

We quote the first part a lot. We live the second part far less.

If our homes and churches are “family firms,” then our kids are junior partners watching very closely to see whether this whole faith thing is real. They hear our words, but they live in the atmosphere of our habits—how we talk to each other, how we treat people when we’re tired or criticized, what we do with our phones, our work, and our Sabbaths. Are we modeling what kids can rightly obey before God, or are our careless actions actually provoking them to sin?

Learning God’s Heart From the Nursery to Teenage Moodiness:

I’ve learned more about God’s love from my three sons than from all my theology books combined. Here are a few of the lessons God has drilled into me through them:

1. Grace Comes Easy to God
When one of my boys disobeyed as a toddler or as a teenager, I realized something: I had already forgiven him before the apology ever came. My heart was waiting for him to run back into my arms. That’s how God feels about me.

2. God’s Discipline Is Done in Love
I won’t pretend not to have disciplined in anger, but fortunately most of my moments of discipline, even when that discipline was firm, came from a deep desire to help my sons grow. Hebrews 12:6 says God disciplines us for the same reason—to share His holy love, not to vent His temper.

3. God Is Obsessed With Saving His Children
My most consistent prayer has become “Jesus, please help me raise these boys to love You.” I want a lot of good things for them—but nothing more than seeing them in the kingdom. If I feel that way as a broken father, what must God’s heart be like toward His children?

4. God’s Love Is Limitless
Before I had kids, I wondered if I’d have to “divide” my love between them. Then they showed up, one by one, and I realized the love doesn’t divide—it multiplies. There’s always more. No matter how many children God has, He never has to ration His affection.

5. God’s Love Is Not Fragile
One night one of my boys cried for almost two hours straight. (To my knowledge, this was not in the brochure.) My patience wore thin; my love did not. I was exhausted, but still his dad. Many years later I received the silent treatment from that same son, now a teen, for all of dinner and into the rest of the night; it was just as exhausting as the two hours of 2-year-old screaming, but my love never wavered. Our tantrums don’t scare God away, either.

6. Jesus Would Have Died for Just One
I know, without hesitation, that I would step in front of a car for any of my boys. No debate. No pause. Calvary tells me that God already did that for me.

If Paul tells us to “walk in wisdom toward those who are outside” (Col. 4:5), surely a lot of that wisdom is gained from the people who share our last name.

If our homes and churches are “family firms,” then our kids are junior partners watching very closely to see whether this whole faith thing is real.

The Night My Critiques Met a 2½-Year-Old Pastor

One evening I came home with a heart full of criticism. Not from myself—this was feedback from others about my ministry. That comes with the territory of pastoring, but some days it sticks deeper than others.

I vented a bit to my wife, Christina, then sat down to decompress. That’s when I saw a picture of my 2½-year-old son.

Earlier that same day, as we were driving, he was strapped into his car seat in the back. I had sports talk radio on—nothing spiritual happening, at least not that I was aware of. Out of nowhere he said, “I going to be pastor too, Daddy.”

I turned the radio down. “What did you say, buddy?”

“Daddy, I going to be pastor too.”

Nobody had prompted him. No one had guilted him. He just looked at his dad’s life and decided, for that moment, “I want in.”

Suddenly all the critiques from grown-ups faded into the background.

Perspective.

What matters most is not that everyone thinks I’m doing an amazing job. What matters most is that I’m faithful to God’s calling and that my boys never grow up believing ministry was a curse that stole their dad. I want them to see that serving Jesus—even on the hard days—is a joy, not a punishment.

If one day they choose a different career, that’s between them and the Lord. But my responsibility is to live and minister in such a way that when they’re little, “being a pastor” looks like something connected to joy, not bitterness.

Paul says, “Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (Col. 3:23). On nights full of critique God sometimes sends a 2½-year-old to remind you whom you’re really working for—and who’s really watching.

Sabbath, Baseball, and a 5-Year-Old’s Conviction

Then there was the day a $20 pitch-back trainer turned into a Sabbath lesson.

After much pleading, I bought my son Dayton a baseball pitch-back so he could “practice his baseball catching.” Being the wise, frugal, deeply spiritual father that I am, I said,
“I’ll buy this on one condition: you practice every single day.”

He agreed. We shook on it. I assembled the thing, and he and his little brothers ran out back and played with it for close to an hour. After dinner he went back out and played for another hour. During that second session I was watching from the window while working at my computer. Suddenly he stopped, dropped his glove to his side, and sprinted into the house. He came right up to me, mitt and ball in hand, with a concerned look on his face. “Daddy, I will practice all the other days, I promise, but I don’t want to practice baseball on the Sabbath.” Inside, I was absolutely beaming. Out loud, I kept it simple: “Dayton, I think that’s a good idea. Thank you for reminding Daddy.” He broke into a huge smile and ran back out to play.

Here’s what struck me:

• He remembered our deal.

• He remembered the Sabbath.

• And he realized, in his 5-year-old mind, that those two things conflicted.

Rather than negotiate or bargain or ask permission, he just said plainly, “I don’t want to do this on the Sabbath.” He was willing to “break” his word to his earthly dad to remain faithful to what he understood his heavenly Father wanted.

In Colossians, Paul talks about wives submitting to husbands “as is fitting in the Lord” and children obeying their parents, but always within a higher loyalty to Jesus. Our kids remind us that our family covenants are always nested inside a bigger covenant with God.

Sometimes the most faithful thing a child—or an adult—can do is say, “I love you, but on this point, I have to obey God rather than people.” And sometimes that holy resistance is the exact encouragement a parent needs to reexamine their own priorities.

The Vibrating Demon and a Kid Stubborn for His Dad’s Attention

One more story, this time about my phone.

I jokingly call it the “vibrating demon.” Not because smartphones are evil in themselves, but because mine has an uncanny way of demanding my attention at the worst possible moments.

As a pastor, my phone is almost always on silent. It vibrates through meetings, meals, and, if I’m not careful, through dates with my wife, free time with my sons, and dinner conversations. And if I’m really honest, there have been seasons I’ve responded quicker to that vibration than to the sound of my wife’s voice or my children’s laughter.

One afternoon I had an hour free before a school meeting, so I swung by the house. Christina and the boys were out by the pool. I sat down on a pool chair, set my phone on the little table next to me, and started talking with my wife.

A few minutes later my two older boys came running over.

“Daddy, Daddy, will you swing us?”

I told them, “Hold on a second,” finished my sentence with Christina, then said, “OK, let’s go.”

My younger one at the time loved to “help” me stand up—he grabbed my arm and pretended to lift me to my feet. So he did his part, tugging on my arm. As I got up, I reached over with my free hand and grabbed my phone.

We took two steps toward the swing; then he stopped dead, planted his feet, and in a very serious little voice said:

“Put that in your pocket, Daddy! Put the phone in your pocket!”

He wasn’t moving until I put the thing away.

In his mind, phone in hand meant Dad wasn’t really going to be with them. He was too young to understand that the pocket doesn’t magically erase the distraction—but he had already learned that the glowing rectangle often competes with him for my eyes, my attention, and my joy.

In that moment I realized: I would rather be seen as “hard to reach” by church members than for my boys to grow up believing a vibrating piece of glass was more important than they are. (I’ve had to learn this lesson on several other occasions in the years since that day.)

I turned it off.

Paul’s words echo here, too: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” A dad physically present but emotionally tethered to his notifications is a slow, steady discouragement.

If Colossians calls us to “walk in wisdom toward those who are outside,” surely we should also walk in wisdom toward those who are inside our homes—choosing, when necessary, to disappoint the digital world so we don’t disciple our kids (or our spouses) into thinking that they come second to a screen.

Conclusion

So what does all this have to do with “living with each other,” as Paul describes in Colossians?

Everything.

When I read that our homes are meant to be “little heavens upon earth,” places where every family member bears a share of the load and where love, patience, and courtesy are practiced daily, I realize my three sons have been helping me learn what that actually looks like every day for the past 17 years.

So as we consider what it means to live rightly in this world with others, maybe for some of us the first step toward living with others is to stop saying to our kids, “Don’t do as I do, do as I say,” and instead invite our kids into a life in which—by God’s grace—we follow Jesus together.

They’re watching. They’re learning. And by the mercy of God, they’re teaching us how to live with each other, too.