Pocket Knives, Snakes, and Stinky Tennis Shoes
Three weeks ago I took my six-year-old son Nate on an overnight trip. We clambered on rocks and roots around the James River, whittled sticks, ate ice cream, went swimming, and spent the night in a nearby hotel.
And we talked. We talked about pocket knives, water snakes, and stinky tennis shoes. We talked about what makes us scared. We talked about what it means to become a man. At the beginning of the trip, I told Nate, “This time is just for you and me. I won’t check my phone or answer calls. I won’t work on my computer. If you want to tell or ask me anything, I won’t say, ‘Not right now, Nate.’ I’ll just listen.”
A Fresh Conviction
Why did I take my son on this trip? On one level, I did it because my wife Christa and I heard about the idea from some friends. We thought it was a brilliant way to connect deeply with our children, and we decided to take each child on an overnight getaway at certain milestones—ages six, twelve, and eighteen. Christa did it with our older daughter after she turned six. And now it was my turn to take our older son.
But on another level, I did it because a fresh conviction has been gripping me ever more tightly. It is a conviction that springs from the words found in Proverbs 23:26, “My son, give me your heart.” Before I became a father, I had read those words as a son, understanding my responsibility to carefully observe and apply the wisdom and instruction of my father and other elders. Though I am still a son, now I read these words as a father—a daddy of four eternal souls, a feeble and failing man charged to bring up my children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:3). Now these words strike me to the core: My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.”
“Give Your Heart . . . to Me?”
What self-aware father would dare to invite such an offering from his child? Entrust me with my son’s heart? Invite him to learn my ways? If we fathers do not recoil from this, let us simply consider the tenderness of our child’s heart. Note how easily the sapling bends and soon matures beneath our shaping hand. Observe how the wet cement receives the imprint and rapidly hardens. Remember the worth of his soul.
Then let us consider ourselves and peer into the storehouses of sin within our own hearts—the impatience, irritation, aloofness, and selfishness. Give me your heart? I might easily crush it by my harshness, wither it through selfish preoccupation, or embitter it by arbitrary punishments.
Two Reasons
So why should I tell my son to give me his heart and study my ways? As I tried to process this question biblically, two answers came to me.
My son already watches me.
First, my son already observes my ways. He listens to the tone of my voice when I speak to his mother and siblings. He carefully measures my actions against my words. He remembers my promises—whether kept or broken. If he does not count the hours I am absent, he at least estimates their weight. Very little escapes his scrutiny. Nearly every move I make is a seed pressed into the soil of his heart. No, I do not have the freedom to decide whether he studies his father’s ways. But I can decide whether his father’s ways will be a worthy subject of his study. When I say to my son, “Let your eyes observe my ways,” I am committing myself to a life of integrity. I am consciously embracing the course of education in which my son is already enrolled.
My son will give his heart to someone.
Consider a second answer to the question, “Why should I tell my son to give me his heart?” It is this: my son will give his heart to someone. Someone will capture his affections. Someone will spark in him a thirst for life. Someone will point him to a path he will crave to blaze. The question you face is not: Will my son give his heart to someone? It is rather this: Will the one to whom he gives his heart love him? guide him in the path of truth? inspire him to live the adventure of faith in God? widen his eyes with the untapped potential of a life wholly given to Christ
Or will the heart-snatcher be one who uses and abuses him, who lures him with promises of pleasure, then lands him into a web of deceit and destruction? It is no happenstance that the proverb that begins with, “My son, give me your heart,” continues with this warning: “For a prostitute is a deep pit; an adulterous woman is a narrow well. She lies in wait like a robber and increases the traitors among mankind” (Proverbs 23:26-28).
Yes, your son will give his heart to someone, and a patient and cunning world waits to take it. No soul on this planet should be more passionate about cultivating your son’s heart than the one your son calls daddy. He will let his heart be shaped by someone. Who will it be? If that question does not raise in a Christian father the most desperate prayers and determined action, I don’t know what will.
Give Me Your Heart: An Audacious Command?
So what kind of audacity possesses me to say, “My son, give me your heart and let your eyes observe my ways?” It is not so much audacity as it is a wide-eyed, Scriptural view of parenting. Saying, “My son, give me your heart,” is not a luxury reserved for dads who feel sufficiently mature to lead their children. Rather, it is an imperative for us to wake up to the realization that everything we do shapes our children for better or for worse. It is a call to cast off the childish habits of our self-centered ways, so that we can look into the admiring eyes of our sons as they sit on the cusp of the battle we call life, and say with integrity: “My son, give me your heart.”
