With age comes wisdom

Reading through Proverbs 16 and 17 this morning as part of my daily devotion, I came to chuckle a few times. It also reminded me of how the vision of my dad has changed as I have aged, having a family of my own, and realizing just how right he was so many times.

It is funny how a son's relationship with his father changes. As a very young child, we look up to our fathers as ever powerful, all-knowing, the protector. Then we become rambunctious teens and we are embarrassed by our dads, we think we know more than they do and we start to take on our own masculine role, attempting to prove that we ready to lead.

Eventually, after years of sowing our wild oats, we settle down, have families, and slowly start to come to the realization of just how incredible our dads are. We find ourselves saying things to our children that we swore we would never say. I constantly find myself stopping and uttering the words "I sound just like my dad".

But I am here to say that it is not a bad thing, becoming our dads. It is what God prepares us for.  We learn life's lessons by experiencing first hand the trials and tribulations of life. If we knew how smart our dads were and did everything they said, what would we learn. I know my dad let us learn from mistakes. Oh, he wanted to step in on many occasions, but instead let me fail and then would begin to show me how to learn from that failure. I fear that today's fathers may not be doing that, afraid to let their kids fail. But know that we learn so much from failure, much more than we do from our successes.

"Gray hair is a crown of splendor;
     it is attained by a righteous life."
                (Proverbs 16:31)

I love this verse, but I do have to ask, what does it mean if I am losing my hair faster than it grays?

God Bless your Friday.