Step Up and Lead Dude
As we stated in our What Is a Family? article, fathers (that’s you) play a crucial role in God’s Prescribed Family Plan. Namely, they’re the leaders. We humans can generate creative and fascinating reasons for this not being applicable or directive of our particular families. Some of us are so determined that this order not be true for our family that we vie for it not being true with any family. We are EXCELLENT at rebellion, if you haven’t noticed. Those reasons may include:
- I’ve never thought of myself as a leader
- Others don’t really think I’m much of a leader
- My wife is a better leader than I am
- My wife is regarded by others as more of a leader than I am
- I think my wife and I should share all duties equally, including family leadership
- My wife doesn’t really love me making decisions and leading
- My wife says she will follow me, once I become a better leader than she is
- I feel insecure about taking the lead and subjecting myself to her approval/disapproval
- I just don’t like this idea so God probably doesn’t intend for me to lead
If you’ve been dealing with God for any amount of time (or have read accounts of his dealing with people for millennia) then you probably already know that God remains unmoved by our tantrums. He seems downright stubborn about His ways, regardless of whether we’re applying self-protection, self-glorification, fear, or any other number of motives. He sits in Sovereign Certainty, unwilling to edit His perfectly declared statutes. On the contrary, when we swim upstream of His laws, for whatever reason, He seems satisfied to just color the whole thing as “lawlessness”. Hmph.
PRO TIP: If you want to be an Abrahamic leader, you’re going to want to root lawlessness out of your scene. First of all, being on God’s bad side is no way to live. Secondly, having lawlessness in your home’s culture is a particularly bad idea if you happen to be the one who gives and executes laws in your home. What I’m saying is that your running afoul of God’s laws is a sure way to sew rebellion in your children. As a parent, you want to avoid rebellion in your kids. Your life will be longer and happier without rebellion. Also, their lives will be longer and happier.
One of those basic “laws” of God is the leadership of the home. And who, pray tell, is supposed to execute said leadership? It’s you, dude. There is no Plan B. Step up, sweep your objections aside… and get ready to (gulp) lead.
WHOSE FAMILY IS THIS, ANYWAY?
I am a huge fan of leaning on the wisdom of previous generations. I want active input from both my blood relatives (father and mother, grandparents, uncles and aunts) and my spiritual elders. What fool wouldn’t want their oversight? However! My family is not their family. It is MY family, and I will be held accountable for its spiritual maturity, emotional culture, rhythms of rest, etc. My elders will not stand before God concerning my family. I will.
And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24.
Genesis 2, reiterated later by Yeshua, tells us that men will have to actively LEAVE/uncouple from their parents (interesting that it was called out, since Adam didn’t even have any parents, anyway) and be united inseparably to his wife. “It’s me and you from here on out, baby!” is a living truth in a godly marriage. There must be a definitive breaking away from the family of origin and a “going it alone” for a newly married couple.
It was readily apparent to early Bible readers that women would be leaving their families and joining their husbands’ families*. If the Scriptures didn’t specifically articulate the men leaving their families, though, they might think that things would continue on as they had been, with their new wives basically acting as siblings under the direction of their fathers. Nay nay, says the Bible: your father won’t be in charge of your home any more. YOU will. Your home will have its own budget. You’ll have your own vision and values and goals (which will, in degrees, reflect your family of origin). These will all have to be negotiated with your new spouse, as you create a new home together. And you, my son, will lead. Your family will continue the godly personality traits and traditions that you inherited, and break the lingering strongholds and lawlessness that also flowed down your generational river. A fresh start! A family born again! And a huge responsibility. With that end in mind:
- Commit to being a leader in your home, whether you’re comfortable in that role or not. You can grow into your destiny; I’m 100% certain of that. Repent of any time that’s gone by during which you shirked your duties spiritually, emotionally, relationally, or financially.
- Take the first year of marriage to figure these things out. It’s one of the largest transitions you’ll ever make in your life, living out a role you’ve never experienced before. Getting your head around vision, values, and goals will take some time. Give it appropriate space and attention.
- Know that the possibility of abusing leadership is not sufficient reason to refuse it altogether. “But some men have dominated their wives!” “But some men are tyrannical with their children!” “But Genghis Khan was a cruel leader!” Yes, yes… good to remember… and nothing to do with you. Execute your leadership role with gentleness, patience, humility, peace, and grace… but execute your leadership. Even if you have, yourself, abused your office as leader (and what leader hasn’t done that from time to time? I can only think of One), you still haven’t lost the right to lead. You retain that right because it’s expected of you. Leadership is your responsibility. If you’ve blown it, repent, learn how to do it right, then re-engage.
- It is never self-promotion to accept what God calls you to. He declared that David would be the King of Israel. Was it vanity for David to accept the job? No, it was humility: “May it be unto me as You say” is a great prayer coming from Mary, David… or you. The LORD calls you into leadership, husband. Accept it.
*This has become less obvious over the years. Women are more apt to question their husbands than they were 50 years ago (not an altogether bad thing), and may be more willing to say, “You’re an ok leader… but I prefer my dad’s leadership.” A woman with this attitude will repeatedly refer back to her father for guidance when her husband’s guidance is what’s needed. It’s important for women also to break definitively with her parents and join herself to her husband, “for better or worse.” She may well be signing up to worse leadership than she had with dear old dad… but dad cannot be the leader of her new home. (Of COURSE, if her father is a great family leader, her new husband would be well served to ask for his counsel…)
So let’s all stop the rebuttals, telling God why we’re not the best guy for the job. We are the ONLY guys for the job. With God’s help, and maybe a goals guide or somesuch, develop a home and culture and family that inflicts the Kingdom of God onto a lost, hopeless world that desperately needs the light your home shines. Be trained as a leader, and lead!
