The Joys of Being A Dad

Just a quick note tonight.  I’ve been trying to teach Ariel how to join with us in the spiritual things that we do.  Christy lived with a woman named Ana who taught her four young girls that prayer, prophecy, and the supernatural were just part of every day Christianity and because of that her girls (including the four year old) would regularly participate with their mom in supernatural ministry. Getting my daughter in that same flow in prayer and worship remains a high priority for me.  However, with my not-quite-two year old, I’ve also been working at her not being distracting to others during the prayer meeting.

So, before we started worship and prayer, I said to her in front of everyone: “Ariel, we’re going to start praying.  We really want you to pray with us.  Do you want to pray?”  “Yeah!” was her reply.  If you’ve ever met my daugther, you’ll understand the excitement and joy that came with that one word.  But what came next was about two minutes of her jabbering on in her own little language while she imitated little hand motions and actions we sometimes use during prayer.  For the first time I knew she really connected with the idea of being part of what we were doing, even if she only understood it a little bit.  It was awesome.

Can I just say that there is no greater joy than to be a dad and see your daughter (or son) wanting to pursue God like you pursue God.  I’m not perfect (actually I’m far from it) but I’m paving a way for my daughter that was never paved for me.  I’ve said this before, but I have no idea what it looks like to grow up in a family truly centered on Christ, but I’m excited to see the kind of lives that my kids will lead when my race has been run.  I know this will be more painful and less cute in the future, but the fruit will definitely be worth it.  I love being a dad!