Articles
Lean on Me
By Butch Shramek
Printable Version
One blistering hot July afternoon while sitting at my oldest son’s
baseball game, wishing I had worn a hat so my bald head wouldn’t get
sunburned, thinking of all the things I had to do and places I had
to be, but realizing that I needed to be there, to watch and support
my son as he played.
This day I had to bring my youngest son along. My wife
was working and there was no one to watch him, so he begrudgingly
had to come to his older brother’s game. I’m sure he was thinking of
all the other things he could be doing on a hot summer afternoon as
well.
After what seemed like 100 “is it almost over?’ or “why
don’t they have a snack bar?” he decided his lot was cast, and he
was destined to sit out the game and wait, at least until his Mom
got there to rescue him, he turned sideways and reclined against me.
Immediately the 90 degree temperature seemed like 150,
but as the words, “sit up Hoss it’s to hot to lean on me” started to
escape my mouth, I stopped. I was here to support my oldest son at
his baseball game, and I couldn’t even allow my youngest to lean
against me. After all isn’t that what being a father is all about?
Supporting your kids? Allowing them to lean on you when they need
to? This simple act of a son leaning on father was not a life and
death matter. It was not going to end world hunger, or bring the
Cubs a World Series. My son probably won’t even remember it. But at
that moment it was the most important thing to him, and to me.
At that exact time I thought, “ This is how I rely on God”. Without
thinking, without any plan or motive behind it. Just “God hold me
up. Let me lean on you.”
Sons look to their fathers often, and often we let them
down. Not deliberately but because we are to busy, or too tired. I
have been guilty of that far too often. Putting my own “needs” ahead
of those of my sons. I thought, “What if God was to busy or to tired
for me?” How much it would hurt for me to hear God say, “Not now
Butch, I’m beat.”
Now I am not comparing myself to God, but until
my sons are old enough to understand the father-son relationship
that God desires with them, they will look to me, and I have the
ability to hold them up, or let them crash and burn. Too often I
have let my sons go down in flames. Not being the father God
intended me to be.
Being a father to our sons and helping them along the
way to find their own masculine identity has to be a priority for
us. For a boy to find his masculine identity he must go to God. Only
God can tell a boy he is a man. Not his parents, not his Pastor, not
his friends.
So how do they find their way to God? We have to show
them. We have to lead them to God and let them search their own
hearts for the masculine blueprint God has put there unique to them.
It is our responsibility as their earthly fathers to
introduce them to their true father. God. With our actions, with our
words, with everything God has given us. Even though my sons may
look like me, and even act like me at times, they were created in
the image of their true father. They were created in the image of
God. Until they find the masculine heart that God has given them, I
will do the best I can to show them what it’s like to live from the
heart that God has given me. I will show them what it means to be a
son of God.
So until then, until God unveils the masculine heart in
my boys, they can lean on me whenever they want. After all, that’s
what it means to be a Dad.
Printable Version
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