Real wisdom for dads - A look at Judges 13

While reading through the Old Testament book of Judges recently, I was struck by the reaction of a man called Manoah to the news that his wife was to have a baby. The news had come in a very unusual way.

It wasn't that his previously barren wife had started to feel sick or completed a pregnancy test. The angel of the Lord had come to her with the message that at last she would bear a child to her husband.

And what was Manoah's reaction? Doubtless he was delighted, but it wasn't gratitude that dominated his urgent prayer to God. He prayed: 'O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born' (Judges 13.8).

It is a prayer to which any experienced Christian father can relate. Few tasks ever prove so difficult and testing as bringing up children - whether in the terrible twos or tumultuous teens! Sooner or later most dads come to realise their inadequacy at the task and rue not only occasional monumental failures of judgement or grace, but a lifetime of failure to be the kind of example, support and fount of wisdom and patience that children need. But what is so striking and challenging about Manoah is that he felt, from before day one, his profound need of instruction. Indeed, he knew then that only God could provide the wisdom he would need for the task. Sadly, few Christian dads, let alone dads-to-be, see as clearly as Manoah their deep need of divine help, and few still pray as urgently as he did for divine guidance in this supremely important task.

Not their job?

Sometimes that is because they are content to leave most of the responsibility for the upbringing of the kids to 'the wife'! However, even when fathers take their role seriously they are often far too self-confident in their ability and wisdom to cry out to the Lord for the help they really need. Such prayer is usually left to the crisis moments of serious sleeplessness or teenage rebellion. How we need to heed Manoah's example.

Yet if you read God's response to Manoah's prayer, perhaps his heartfelt looking up for instruction doesn't seem quite so wise. To be sure, God heard Manoah and sent the angel of God back to him and his wife. And yet the awesome visitor never gave Manoah any instruction about the upbringing of the child! He simply repeated the directions he had already given to them about how the mother was to behave during pregnancy!

Why was God so evasive when Manoah was desperate for instruction? Didn't he realise how inadequate Manoah felt or how committed he was to getting young Samson's upbringing right (for Samson was the child to be born)? Why didn't God give Manoah minute instruction about bringing up children? And why doesn't the Bible provide us with a handbook for this vital and demanding task? Actually, a careful reading of the passage in which this incident occurs (Judges 13) reveals that God does teach Manoah three absolutely vital lessons for dads who desire to bring up their youngsters in a way that pleases the Lord, besides the obvious but vital one of needing to seek God's help for the task. What are they?

Obedience to God's Word

1. Serious and wholehearted devotion to God's commands is a vital preparation for being a parent. While Manoah was desperate to know about bringing up his son, God simply told him about the importance of (his wife) obeying the instructions he had given her for her life during pregnancy. God was not being obtuse or unhelpful. He was simply stressing that careful obedience to him is to be the backdrop of bringing up children. So often fathers want techniques for successful child-rearing (and overcoming key problems) but God insists that what you are and how you live are the key things. Children of Christian homes need constantly to see radical obedience to the Lord in their parents. No wisdom in child-rearing can make up for the loss of that. The aim of parents must not simply be to guide their children through the dangerous currents and whirlpools of life, but to make an indelible impression on them as bond-slaves of Jesus Christ.

God's commitment to us

2. Parents need a profound understanding of God and especially of the depth of his commitment to his sinful children more than any technique of child-rearing. Manoah didn't get from the Lord the practical 'how to's' of training up the child Samson that he desperately wanted. What he got instead was a deeper grasp of God's graciousness. That was more important for his role as a father!

While the angel of the Lord said nothing to him about child-rearing, he did expose Manoah's tendency to view God as austere and ungracious. When Manoah saw the angel ascend to heaven in the flame of the sacrificial fire, he realised that he had seen God and was terrified (verses 20-22). Thankfully, a combination of his wife's common sense and his own personal experience of God's tenderness taught him a better theology of the richness of God's grace (verse 23). Christian parents desperately need such a theology. They need to appreciate that God loves them deeply and is not just looking to find fault with them and punish them for their shortcomings as parents and people.

They need to understand the depth of God's love and mercy because there is nothing like being a dad to expose your sins and failings. Interaction with children exposes our lack of patience and profound selfishness. Again and again it brings out the worst in us and can leave you feeling a dejected failure and awaiting God's punishment. How vital it is as a dad to have a deep experience of God's tender forgiveness and utter commitment to everyone of his children. Furthermore, our children need to see our humble confidence and delight in the depth and reliability of the grace of our patient and kind heavenly Father. It will have a greater effect on them than the most honed parenting skills or evangelistic speeches.

The Holy Spirit's touch

3. The way the Spirit of God causes the account of Samson's life to be written up brings home to us a third crucial lesson in parenting, which all fathers desperately need to remember. It is simply this: our children need more than a good, consistent upbringing; they need, themselves, to be touched by the Spirit of God as Samson was (verse 25).

It may be that Manoah was desperate to receive instruction about how to bring up his son because he believed that how the child turned out depended entirely on him. Perhaps that is why God doesn't respond to his urgent request for instruction. Manoah and all godly fathers need to understand and remember that their children have deeper needs than even the best child-rearing can provide. Every child is born a sinner, and no programme of love and discipline can change that. Nothing but the personal, gracious, life-giving touch of the Spirit, stirring up within them a realisation of their need for God's mercy or power, can fit them for a life of usefulness to God. Whatever else parents do for their children, they must surely pray as passionately to God for them as Manoah did for wisdom to bring his son up aright.

It may seem that God's lack of response to Manoah's cry for wisdom in the bringing up of his yet-to-be-born son is both disappointing and mysterious. Yet through that apparent divine apathy we see clearly the most important secret of humble and effective fatherhood. We must concentrate on obeying the Lord in today's situations. We must seek to deepen our knowledge and understanding of God's graciousness and fight our tendency to underestimate his commitment to us. And we must realise that what our children need most is the blessing of the Lord in stirring their souls deeply by his Spirit.

Graham Heaps is the pastor of Dewsbury Evangelical Church, Yorkshire.