The Substance Behind the Shadows

Over the last two weeks my family and I have been preparing for and celebrating the Christmas season like most families likely are. We pulled boxes down from the attic and began "decking the halls." We put a wreath on the door and erected and decorated the Christmas tree. The fireplace saw its first fire and we prepared the stockings which will hang on it.

This Christmas, however, is different. It will be our daughters first Christmas! She's 8 months old so she won't remember very much this year, but my wife and I will make memory after memory after memory. We've already begun taking dozens of pictures and they will soon be eclipsed by the hundreds which will follow. The joys and delights of the season have always been a joy to me and the memories I have of Christmas past are precious to me. I now have the privilege of creating and cultivating traditions and memories for my daughter and I've been giving it a lot of thought. What do I want her to think about Christmas. About Christ? About gifts and trees and traditions and family and celebration and food and a dozen other "Christmas things?"

The fruit of my contemplation will undoubtedly produce good things for our family's future. One such thing is an intentional concentration on Advent. I don't recall ever focusing on "Advent" as a child, but (my wife and) I decided to make it a part of our family tradition. I found a little book called Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent by John Piper and began on December 1st reading and meditating with my family and filling our home with Hope. Today's reading was especially stirring. Here is a snippet:

"Here’s an Advent illustration for kids (and for those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like). Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? T he happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and seeing that it’s really her? That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing."

As I consider the Christmas season and as I consider my role as a husband and a dad I am overwhelmed by the position I find myself in. I am, in a sense, only a shadow. My wife and daughter look to me to be strong and courageous, gentle and comforting, wise and true. I am provider and protector and priest of my home, but my ultimate aim is that they would look past me. That they would see the substance behind the shadow. That in my loving my wife and raising my daughter, they would see the love of Christ and the care of a greater, stronger more wise and compassionate father. And not only see it, but become overwhelmed with the joy of what seeing means: that they would run to and embrace the real and great God who makes the wonder of Christmas what it is.

So are you looking at the shadows or the substance behind them? I challenge you to look past the "ordinary things" and the shadows and see the "real thing."

IF...

Over the next seven days, my posts will consist of lessons learned from my father. The value he has added to my life is immeasurable. I am a better man today because of him.

Over the years, I've come to realize that some lessons are learned by watching the resilient determination of motivated men. Other by seeing the disappointing brokenness of wounded men.  Most men can probably say they learned the lessons of both from their fathers.

One famous example lessons learned from a father is immortalized in the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling. It is one of my favorite poems. I'm starting this series of posts off with the full text of the poem "If." Enjoy!

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!