First Things First

The story is told of Muhammed Ali that once, during the prime of his career, he was taking a flight over the Atlantic Ocean. During the flight the plane encountered some turbulence and the seatbelt lights came on. Everyone returned to their seats except for Ali, who continued to walk around the plane. A small female stewardess approached him and said, “Sir, you need to return to your seat and put on your seat belt for safety.” Ali, in his inimitable style, replied “Superman don’t need no seat belt!” To which the petite stewardess responded, “Superman don’t need no airplane either, so sit down and get buckled!”

I have only flown overseas one time in my life, and that when I was much younger, but I have heard it said that during the preflight safety instructions that are given to all the passengers that there are some specific instructions given to passengers flying with children. One of these instructions is that if the plane depressurizes and the oxygen masks are deployed, that the adult is to place their oxygen mask on themselves before attempting to help anyone else put theirs on, even their own children! I was shocked! I know I can go without oxygen for longer than my kids. They need it more than I do. That is our paternal instinct, to give to them first. Yet when I heard the explanation as to why this is done, it all made sense. You see, those little ones are dependent upon you and if you run out of oxygen then neither you nor they will get any oxygen in the end. You must be able to breathe and think coherently in order to help them breathe. They are helpless without you and you are helpless without oxygen, so therefore you must first get air in order to rightly care for them.

As homeschooling fathers, we have undoubtedly read the words of Deuteronomy 6 on how we are to raise our children. Most of us can probably even recite some of the words. “Teach them to your children when you sit at home, when you walk along the road…”. But what immediately precedes these instructions on teaching Gods Word to our children? Here is the passage:
“Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

What immediately precedes how we are to teach our children is the admonition that first, we must love and worship the Lord ourselves. First, we must breathe. We are to love God with all of our heart and soul and strength. We are to impress his commandments upon our hearts first. It becomes very easy to replace our own relationship with God with our children’s relationship with God. We put our efforts into seeing where they are, into leading them to God and yet we often neglect our own relationship with Him. We often judge how well we are doing in our relationship with God by looking at our children’s relationship with Him, We mistake this for personal closeness when in reality we are ignoring our own relationship and never giving full weight to our closeness with God.

Perhaps the largest stumbling block in my own life has been to make my children into idols, in the sense that I work so diligently and think so often about where they are heading and yet neglect my own relationship with God Himself. In essence, I am starving myself of oxygen. How can my children truly worship God if I am not? Men, our most important practice in life is worshipping God. It is what we were made for. We must grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ because He is our God and we are His people. First we must strive to love Him with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength because He is our Savior. When this is done then we will naturally teach and manifest to our children the true love of God.