You Send Me…honest you do.

My apologies to Sam Cooke…. and yes it’s another small excerpt from “RETOOLED: Shaping your fathering from the inside out”. Love to hear your comments!

Josh, my oldest son, turned 21 on March 7th. With that milestone came the realization that his journey away from home and towards his life adventure is close. The passage from a boy to young man was only the first leg of that voyage. As I was meditating about that mission I thought of the following scripture.

“Then Jesus said to them again, Peace to you. As My Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” John 20:21

Apostello, the Greek word for sent in this verse, pairs up interestingly with Pempo, the Greek word for send. Pembo describes the action to thrust or insert one thing into another. Thrusting and inserting, sounds painful doesn’t it? As I apostello my son into the world, I marvel at the strength it takes. My role as father takes on new dimensions on how to protect, how to cover, and more importantly, how to release. Not always easy and not without its share of pain.

You see, more that I care to admit, I still try (sometimes really hard) to decide and think for Josh. That’s not sending…that’s keeping! In all of this I found out that release is a matter of trust. Not just the decisions of my son Joshua but trusting in the ones of Father God. All these years I knew that Josh belonged to the Father, that I was a temporary steward of God’s choosing. Yet, being at the edge of that thrust into his mission is more of a question of faith for me than my son. What fuels that faith? How about many years of groundwork and foundation building, like the one described in Deuteronomy 6:5-7.

 

(5) “Love GOD, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got!”

(6) “ Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you.”

(7) “and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night.”

What you build into your children will last, that’s the promise of these Scripture and the one in Proverbs 22.

“Point your kids in the right direction-- when they're old they
won't be lost”

As His sons, we can know Him deeply, allowing the Holy Spirit to flow into and through our fathering. Embedded in the mission plan Father God has given us are the tools to know our children, to be able to speak their language. So when the moment of apostello releasing comes it’s a generational one. There is a supernatural release of power, purpose and passion. Dreams gain permission to cut loose and develop into all the Father desires. This release empowers the dad as well, taking our fathering skills to another level. Part of our makeup, our fathering DNA is to release our children into their journey. Like our Father God, sending them out to fulfill purpose gives strength to walk out all God has for them.

Just because God was…well, God. I don’t think it was any easier to apostello Jesus into the darkness of humanity. Driven by love, the Father thrusts His son into our world to deliver us from that darkness. He makes known that same fatherly love into our lives for sending our own children on a similar mission. This step of release is never easy for a parent but it is one step closer to having a heart like our Heavenly Father.

“My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes watch my ways”
Proverbs 23:26

Peace,
Jay

LiveJournal Tags: fathering,God,fruit