Our Second Job
Jesus and Jiu-Jitsu // Devotional #77
It’s been a day, and it isn’t over yet. You pull into the driveway after a grueling ten hours at the office and a harder-than-usual training session that morning. The day’s residue is still thick in your mind and on your heart, but you know there’s more you still have to accomplish. You just haven’t decided whether you’ll follow through yet.
There’s a gap between the moment you pull in, turn the car off, and walk through the door, a moment when you exist between the day’s stress and the knowledge of what’s waiting for you on the other side. Much of the evening’s outcome is decided in this brief moment. Will it be an evening when you’re present, engaged, and contributing as a father, or will it be an evening when every noise, inconvenience, and disturbance grates against the sense that you exist to be served?
If you asked us at any other time whether our wife and kids were given to us to be our servants who simply do our bidding, we’d give a strong, emphatic “no.” Yet when we passively carry the day’s burdens with the expectation of clocking out of all assigned duties and responsibilities, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Without ever giving thought to our second job waiting on the other side, we often walk in shocked, surprised, and ill-prepared for the scene unfolding in front of us.
If our kids are little, we’re walking into the chaos of toddlerhood. Cheerios spilled across the floor. High-pitched crying from a bathroom somewhere in the house. The dog licking up a substance smeared across the wall. And if they’re older, we’re often walking into a flurry of competing schedules, attitudes in need of adjustment, and wondering where the time went even as it slips through our hands.
Make no mistake: the second we become a father, we’ve taken on a second job, complete with a full list of duties and responsibilities that shift with the seasons. There are no days off, no promotions (unless you count becoming a grandparent as one), no promise of success, and no room to simply phone it in. It’s likely the most consequential job any of us will ever have, impacting generations, most of whom we’ll never meet.
And yet, if you were to ask most of us what our job as a dad actually is, we might struggle to answer. We might say something about raising our kids in the fear and instruction of the Lord. We might even say it is to make disciples. Or we might say it is to make them productive members of society. But the truth is, our role as a father is ultimately to be an imperfect picture of our perfect Father, pointing our children to Him.
In Luke 11:10-13, Jesus has just taught the disciples the Lord’s prayer, and then teaches them the heart behind the prayer; not only what ours should be, but also what the Father’s heart is towards us. He says this:
10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (ESV)
In this teaching on prayer, Jesus wants to reveal the Father’s heart toward us by giving us a perfect picture of a perfect Father. In this picture, Jesus contrasts us, as earthly, imperfect dads, with God’s far greater perfection as a truly good, heavenly Father.
Baked into our DNA, however corrupted by the fall, is a desire to care for and love our children. This isn’t by accident or by the deterministic acts of Darwinian selection, but instead by God’s good design. Etched into our souls is an innate desire to love, care for, and provide for our children, yet we know that desire only goes so far because it’s not the only desire at work in us.
Jesus doesn’t mince His words: “If you then, who are evil…” We want to give our kids good gifts, but we keep bumping up against the competing, evil desires in our souls to make ourselves the point. Even in our conflicted and meandering desires, we still cling to this good impulse to give our kids what we deem good.
It’s here that we get into trouble, because we so often fail to properly identify what is truly good, and it’s here that Jesus wants to point us to Who is ultimately good. In all our striving to be good dads and to give our kids good things, we create all these different versions of what it means to be a good dad, largely falling into the categories of provision and protection. And yet, here is Jesus calling us to the one thing needed to be the father our children need: the Holy Spirit. Although Jesus isn’t explicitly speaking to our role as fathers, He’s speaking to the posture we should have toward our Father: as kids who expect not just provision from our Dad, but His very presence.
As dads, we can be tempted to think that what we need to do our second job is more discipline, creativity, control, or effort. Yet our Heavenly Father freely gives us the greatest gift we need to be the father He’s created us to be. We don’t need to give our kids more provision. We need to give them a dad filled with our Father’s presence.
In the space between our car and the door, we aren’t simply reorienting ourselves to a task list or to our duties as dads. We are reminding ourselves that we’ve been given access to the very One who can change us to be and become the father He’s calling us to be, fully dependent on Our Father, who is in Heaven.
Take time to consider these questions:
When you come home from work, what situation do you expect to walk into? How does that expectation shape how you view your role as a dad?
How does Jesus contrast our desire to give good gifts as earthly dads with God’s greater desire as our heavenly Father? How does Jesus describe God as our Father?
If we’re going to show our kids the Father’s heart for them, who do we need to be filled by? Why isn’t it enough to gear up for our role as dad by simply reminding ourselves of our fatherly duties?
As you end your time, lean into Jesus’ words from this passage. Ask the Lord to give you His very presence by giving you His Spirit. We ask not because God’s presence is quantifiable, but in a posture of wanting nothing more than Him. Ask Him to equip you, as a dad, with the one thing needed to be the father He’s created you to be: Himself.
