Before laying out the specifics of establishing a Christian household, we first want to make sure that our efforts are effective, resulting in the kind of flourishing household described by Psalm 128, and not something resembling the household version of the French Revolution. I say this because some men go to a conference or hear a sermon or read a book about this topic and then go home and put it ALL INTO PRACTICE in the dumbest way possible, resulting in whatever the opposite of harmony looks like.
The basic mistake here is to think that being the man of the house is just a matter of getting the formula right and then, presto: the perfect family. This is the alchemist’s approach to the household, in which the stressed out wife turns into an award winning baker in the kitchen and a generous lover in the bedroom, and in which obnoxiously unruly children are transformed into delightful tchotskys to be displayed for one’s friends or at church. But God did not make the father of our race an alchemist; God made Adam a gardener.
When it comes to the household, we do have to address things like functions, schedules, rules, and priorities. All of these are necessary for the peace and productivity of the household. Sometimes we have to tinker with the way things are running, and sometimes big changes are necessary. The basic contention of this post is that if one undertakes the endeavor of running the household in the spirit of an alchemist, failure (or worse!) is inevitable.
One reason for this is because we are not dealing with inert objects, like metal ore. We are dealing with living things that will have their own responses. The alchemist goes home from the men’s conference, experiments on his family, and then is shocked that his efforts result in lumps of coal becoming radioactive dynamite (as opposed to purified gold). The gardener goes home with a completely different mindset because he is trying to grow something, not mutate something.
In alchemy, the basic task is to change the essential nature of a thing into something totally different. But in gardening, one wants to work with the nature of a thing in order to make it more fruitful. It is understandable for a father to want to change his disobedient children into obedient children, which on one level could be accomplished by coercion or bribery. But surely a Christian father wants more than a response motivated by fear or by greed, which tend to result in children that are either fearful, or greedy, or self-righteous, or just waiting for the day they can leave home. The gardener knows his children each have a nature all of their own, and by God’s grace he can be a part – a significant part – of ensuring that the beauty and fruitfulness for which each was intended comes to fruition.
It is true that gardening can be frustrating, but it isn’t nearly as frustrating as alchemy. In gardening, one deals with seasons of uncooperative weather, pests, soil that needs amended, etc… In alchemy, one deals simply with failure. The failure of the gardener is never final, because there is always another season to plan for. The gardener labors in hope of the harvest, while the alchemist lives in the inevitable despair of the present moment. The gardener embraces the idea of rising at sunrise and working until sunset, and that there is always more to do because more fruitfulness is always possible. The alchemist lives like a man taking his minimum-wage earnings to the local gas station to buy lottery tickets in hopes that he will never have to work again. The gardener knows that all his labor will be in vain unless God gives the increase, while the alchemist rests upon his own ingenuity for accomplishing the impossible.
Differences abound, but let us tease out a particular one: the gardener and the alchemists differ in regards to their perspective of time. The alchemist is looking for an immediate and spontaneous change. The gardener must have a much longer view of not only one season, but the field he is cultivating over years and decades and even generations. Parenting is a long term proposition. While it is possible to procrastinate the work that needs to be done, it is also possible to get frustrated and angry because you wanted to reap the harvest of what you sowed last night, and gardening doesn’t work that way.
Let’s take the issue of obedience. Lest I be misunderstood, it is certainly my aim that my children should obey. If you came to me as a frustrated dad and said, “I’ve been trying to get my kids to obey and they just won’t!” there would be a lot of questions to ask. For example, are you trying to get your eight year old to put his shoes away and he keeps leaving them in the kitchen, or are you trying to get your fourteen year old to stop lying, or are you trying get your sixteen year old son to get a job? You can’t treat an eight year old like a sixteen year old, nor a sixteen year old like an eight year old. They are at different places of development in life, and the level of disobedience may range from willful forgetfulness to stubborn rebellion.
Secondly – on this matter of obedience – did you just become a dad who decided he wants obedient children after years of indifference? Is your wife on the same page about the running of the household? Are you demanding your family honor you after you publicly made a spectacle of yourself, or are you asking your children to keep a promise you made them make but you don’t always keep the promises you make to them? See? Lots to think about there.
What I like about this gardener vs alchemist metaphor is that it broadens our perspective; the petri dish of the immediate is broadened to the horizon of family history. The onus shifts from the object of our immediate frustration to what we – as heads of our households – are or are not doing. The chaos of the moment can reveal the chaos of a lifetime. It requires us to take responsibility for more than demanding people behave the way we want them to behave.
In short, all that I want to say about the running of the household in future posts I hold to be true, but I don’t want anyone to apply it in the dumbest way possible. I don’t want the truth of the man’s calling to be the head of his household to be a reason for laziness, but for effort, nor a reason for frustration, but of consistent hope over time. But do not despair if the garden God has given you to work is overrun with weeds, lacking in nutritious soil, and desperate for water. God takes us from where we are, not where we should be. By all means start today planning, preparing, and praying for a harvest.
A Song of degrees. Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon Israel. – Psalm 128
Nathan Writes 