November 25,1996
Dear Br. Sweet:
One of the greatest privileges God gives men is to be a father of small children, thus representing Him to our family. I remember, some years ago, when I was having difficulty separating my concepts of God from my earthly father, that He suggested, if I could not call Him my Father, I might trying calling him Grandfather. This seemed to work. I can now call Him “Father” without any hesitation.
It is vital that our children see Christ in us for only in this
way can they truly understand their heavenly Father. When they
see you loving their mother and treating her with kindness and
tenderness they learn that God also has the same attributes. Children
cherish their mother before they have affection for their father
and often have a stronger, more enduring love relationship with
her then with him. This is not the way God intended children to
respond. He desires them to love their father, who is a representation
of God, more then they love their mother, or, maybe I should say
it this way, with a different type of love then they have for
their mother.
Especially is this true of boys who have an extremely difficult
time loving anything aside from themselves. There is a bond that
ought to exist between father and son that is stronger then anything
else in the world, except the bond between Christ and the believer.
The nature and practice of this bond must be learned, but if fathers
did not learn it from their fathers, who did not learn it from
their fathers, and so on, then our heavenly father must teach
us.
I only began to love my own son, in this fashion, several months
before his death. When he died, I was greatly disturbed that I
could not love him for I had failed as a father and as a result
he had a difficult life. God gave him to me when he was eight
years old and for the next 24 years I failed to represent Christ
to him. If I had cherished him, as Christ loved me, both of us
would have turned out better. However, the Lord is faithful and
made up, at least in part, for my failure. He gave both of us
a few days in which to repair the damage of the last two decades.
One of the greatest joys of heaven, that I look forward to, is
being able to finish the work that the Lord began in our lives.
We never had the opportunity to get acquainted as fathers and
sons ought to do, but there is enough time in eternity for that.
One of the best ways for fathers and sons to get to acquainted
is to take them hiking in the wilderness where nature’s God
can be seen more effectively then in the city. Boys should be
taken into the country often and taught, by their fathers, about
the flowers, the birds, the trees and of our Creator and Savior.
They associate these nice experiences with us and with their heavenly
Father. We should often take our entire families into the woods
but especially should we take our sons, alone, on many occasions,
thus, through this means, we may talk with them about God and
other matters that may burden their minds.
I don’t know if you have any sons, but we have the privilege
of taking the children of other parents, perhaps of divorced parents,
under our care and doing for them what we would do for our own
sons.
The country is a wonderful place for children, especially for
boys. Here they can run and yell and work off all their youthful
enthusiasm in a safe manner. As they grow to love the country
and their father, they invariably grow to love their God. It is
almost impossible to learn to love God in the cities and parents
do their children an injustice by living in town where only the
sights and sounds of men can be heard. Take our children out of
the cities into the country, is a message that our churches should
be frequently stressing. The only problem, with this idea, is
that most ministers do not take their families out of the cities
but prefer to live in town where God is obscured by smoke and
city nose.
May God bless you and your wife. Your brother in Christ.
Allen Benson