The story is told of a factory worker in the mid-1930s hustling to wrap up his work as the day neared its end.
“What’s your big rush?” asked his co-worker. Looking up from his station, the colleague responded, “My president is going to be speaking to me in my living room tonight.”
President Franklin Roosevelt engendered a rare loyalty, a characteristic of his tenure that reflected both the times and circumstances. Could a modern-day politician still elicit such widespread affection?
While some presidents of late have invariably enjoyed this same abiding love and devotion from their most faithful of followers, cynicism limits a similar broad appeal. As a parent, it’s this cynicism (among other things) that worries me. It has a corrosive effect, especially on young people who lack an ability to discern and make sense of nuance. It runs down both people and ideas. It sows bitterness. It undermines intent and elevates ignorance.
As a pastor friend of mine says, “Cynicism makes life small.”
Cynics think the other person has an ulterior motive. In doing so, they’re often just projecting their own selfishness and sins. Cynicism is social media’s soundtrack. It provides a platform and microphone for everyone, including those who know so little about so many things.
As a father of three sons, I regularly try to pass on the biblical wisdom my own mother and father shared with me, not to mention the many nuggets I’ve gathered from my own study of Scripture sitting under strong teaching, fellowshipping with other believers, and from drinking up the gems in books, articles, and podcasts.
Presidential elections don’t define us as Christians, but they are nevertheless cultural tipping points. Walking through this 2024 campaign has been a wild journey, and as a dad, there are several truths I’ve tried to impart to our boys, ages 12, 14 and 19. Here are just four:
“There’s no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans”
That’s a famous line from Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian Dutch watchmaker who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. She spent the years following her liberation from the Ravensbrück concentration camp preaching the Gospel and talking about the power of forgiveness.
Corrie Ten Boom had seen the worst of humanity, and she could trust the Lord with the outcome. Although the news is often a daily exercise in lunacy, nothing is happening here on earth without God’s permission.
Don’t Think the Way the World Thinks
It’s been called the “Power of Inversion” – a mental model of thinking in reverse. The apostle Paul didn’t coin the phrase, but he certainly stressed a similar sentiment, urging believers at Rome: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2).
Christians shouldn’t be championing or cheering the world’s values but instead the virtues emphasized by Jesus in His “Sermon on the Mount” and elsewhere – love, humility, forgiveness, and righteousness. Just because culture is marching one way, Christians don’t have to join in the parade.
Be a Man of Action
The world is hungry for leaders, men who will bravely and courageously confront the world’s wickedness and evil. Men who will lead by example – husbands who love and are faithful to their wives, are loyal and caring with their children, who can be trusted at a job and are a joy to be around.
President Eisenhower had a paperweight in his office. It stated: “Gently in Manner, Strongly in Deed.” That’s a good adage not just for the nation’s chief executive, but also for Christian men.
Bring Hope, Not Fear
The late Peb Jackson, a friend and former Focus on the Family executive, liked to say, “He who brings hope, brings leadership.” He was right. A Christian man leads with conviction – and there is nothing more convicting or hopeful than communicating the saving power of Jesus Christ.
Christian hope is not wishful thinking – it’s the rock-ribbed assurance that God will do what He says He will do.
It was the Reverend William Jewett Tucker, the ninth president of Dartmouth, who observed, “No great cause ever moved far until it had taken possession of the imagination of men.”
Christian fathers have an obligation to not only teach these virtues to their children but model them.
Image from Shutterstock.
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