Father and The Wolves: A Guide to Elevate Fatherhood, Fix Families, and Save the World!

By B.T. Higgins

This book is for fathers. Most of us are not doing a great job and the world has noticed. We've garnered a bad reputation. Spend ten minutes around a group of wives and you are likely to hear a handful of criticisms about some guy's fathering skills.

Being a good father is not easy. It doesn't come naturally. Why should dads bo

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Cottonwood Project
• Release date: Mar 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088024942

B.T. Higgins

B.T. Higgins lives in the wild urban jungles of Alaska with his wife and four children. As you might expect, he is an avid fan of long naps and noise-canceling headphones. He has been a garbageman, a propane technician, a teacher, a tu- tor, a musician and an exotic-bird-cage scrubber, but writ- ing is, by far, his favorite job.

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INTRODUCTION

I have been told that men don’t read books anymore. Certainly, dads won’t read a book about fatherhood. If this is true, then all the pressure is off of me. No one will read this book, so I don’t have to worry about hooking the reader’s interest with this introduction. Maybe this book is just for me. You see, I’ve come to believe that being a father is the most important work of my life. Perhaps I just needed to collect my thoughts on the subject into one place, to get them down on paper. Why are my kids important? Why am I a necessary part of their lives? Why should I prioritize my kids over my hobbies and work? Do I have some goal I am working toward with them or is parenting all just haphazard and random? Wouldn’t my kids be better off without me? Everyone knows that kids need their mom, but no one ever says that about dads.

Most of the time, I just hear complaints about dads. Spend ten minutes around a group of wives and you are likely to hear a handful of comments about what he didn’t do right this week. A lot of their criticisms will be about his poor fathering skills. Being a good father is not easy. It doesn’t come naturally. So, why should dads keep trying? I believe our legacy as a father is one of the few things that will outlast us. It reaches far into the future and across the globe.

This book is for fathers. Most of us aren’t doing a great job and the world has noticed. We’ve garnered a bad reputation. What do you think our wives would say if we started taking more of an interest in our kids? How might that change our family dynamics? Did you know that as a dad, you have the power to build up your kids or crush them with a few words? That’s sobering!

Fathers have a unique influence and sizable power to make the world a better place by investing time and energy into building stronger families. What would the world look like if dads stepped up to the challenge of fatherhood? What if they protected their kids from negative influencers instead of inviting them into the cave? In this book, I refer to these negative influencers as wolves. It is a good metaphor for the job of a father. Protect your kids from the wolves and prepare them to thrive in a dangerous world. Take up your spear. Step between your kids and the wolf pack.

On the outside chance that you are reading this, know that there is at least one other guy that reads books and wants to be a good father. I encourage you to continue reading. Discover how to elevate fatherhood, fix families and save the world!

CHAPTER 1

ELEVATE FATHERHOOD

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21 NIV

THE UNPREPARED GUARDIAN

Imagine Luke Skywalker before he met Obi-wan Kenobi, Frodo Baggins before Bilbo gave him the one ring, Eragon before he found the dragon egg, or choose one of your favorite characters. At the beginning of their stories, how would you describe them? Naive. Immature. Green. Preoccupied. Unprepared. Unaware. This is the image of every man just before he hears the words, Honey, I’m pregnant. He is about to become a father. The trumpet call of adventure sounds different than he thought it would. The scene doesn’t feel right. There is no dramatic music. No epic backdrop. No old, wise wizard. The unprepared protagonist is probably standing beside his wife, in the bathroom, peering down at a positive pregnancy test. Checking. Double-checking. Looking at the box and checking again.

The call to adventure has been given, but it doesn’t match his expectations. So much so, that he might miss it altogether. Many men do. If he is anything like Luke, Frodo, or Eragon, then he is clueless. He is about to embark on a quest filled with danger and many opportunities for valor. The moment his wife says, Honey, I’m pregnant, is a man’s first step into the unknown. The greatest challenge of his life.

Whether or not he answers the call to fatherhood with honor and wisdom doesn’t change the facts. His life just changed forever, and he is completely unprepared.

PARENTING INSTINCTS

I consider myself lucky when it comes to my parents. They are by no means perfect, they are human after all, but they did a great job in the ways that count. They stayed together. They loved each other well. They loved Christ and prioritized His plan in their decision-making. They taught me the foundational things about life. They mentored me through the many crises caused by my chronic back problems, and they released me like a well-aimed arrow.

Today, I consider them friends and mentors. I call them every few weeks to catch up and on holidays when my wife reminds me. I trust that when I ask them for counsel, they will shoot straight with me. They don’t tell me what they think I want to hear for the sake of ease. They don’t manipulate my decisions to serve their agenda. They mentor me as they parented, with the wisdom of the Bible as the compass to guide the ship. That’s a pretty lucky combination of numbers on my lotto ticket.

Much of our instincts about parenting are forged in us by the examples we grew up around. How did they handle a given situation? Reflexively, I will probably do the same. For good or ill, much of our behaviors are ingrained in us. Sometimes that works for us. Other times, not so much. It’s the work of a lifetime to change our habits if they need to be rewired. It requires daily effort, hard self-examination, difficult choices, intentional adjustment of our priorities, and some minor miracles. Be thankful for every good habit and value that your parents instilled within your heart. They are assets that pay daily dividends for a lifetime.

Because of my parents, I had a good track laid out for me, not that I was aware of it at the time. I felt like I was strapped into an untested rollercoaster. Michelle and I were at the summit anticipating the rollercoaster’s plunge into motion. Excited. Scared. Uncertain. What will it be like? What do I do? How did this happen? Well, I know how it happened. But, am I qualified for this? What if I ruin this kid’s life? What if I do everything wrong?

I remember a thousand conversations with my wife. We were pregnant with excitement and more nervous energy than we could contain. We stared down at this rollercoaster’s tangle of loopty-looping tracks and corkscrews and couldn’t make sense of all the conflicting advice. Time kept ticking. Time to pack a bag for the hospital. Then…It’s time to have a baby! our OB/GYN announced. Gut wrench. Hold on. Before the first drop, no one knows what to expect. No one is qualified. And yet, the coaster doesn’t stop. Congratulations! You have a beautiful, baby girl! Whoooooooa! Down the track, Michelle and I plunged, and at that moment, everything changed. I became a father.

What does it mean to be a father? I’m a dad now, I said the words and they sounded strange in my ears, but the proof lay in her arms. Michelle beamed. She took to motherhood like a duck to water, but I wasn’t so confident about myself. I wondered what I had gotten us into. What should I do now?

FLEDGLING GUARDIAN

The transition from married to married with kids is dramatic for dads. Suddenly, these babies are depending on them, like no one ever has in their life. New dads find themselves being more watchful than before, thinking about the future more. Like the man building a fire at the mouth of his cave, they listen for the howling wolves and prepare to beat them back.

The fledgling guardian inside of me rose to keep watch. It seemed natural and instinctual, but it was a dramatic change. Even as my wife’s God-given nurturing gifts budded during her pregnancy and blossomed at each of our kid’s births, my heart aspired to the guardian’s challenge. I wanted to be a good father. But what did a good father look like? What did he do? How did he do it? Who could I look to for guidance? My mind cast around for answers.

I realized my good fortune. I had two father figures to pattern myself after. Both my biological father and my Heavenly Father provided me with a template for fatherhood. My dad had shown me the balance between firm and caring. (More about Authoritative Parenting later.) He provided for us financially through hard work. He built our family on the strong foundation of Jesus Christ. He broke the patterns of his father’s generation by being emotionally accessible and expressing his love for us often. He had high expectations for our behavior and achievement. He would get down on the floor to play with us. He urged us on to greater levels of maturity, and much more. These models and behaviors were ingrained in me. (Do you remember the moment that you first realized you are becoming like one of your parents? You use the same phrases. Or you use the same hand gestures. Weird, right. This is the same thing.)

Beyond what we learn from our fathers, God the Father is the perfect model for all earthly fathers to mimic. As the parrot imitates human speech, an earthly father can pattern himself after the Heavenly Father as revealed in the Bible. Though any man’s best efforts are indeed poor imitations of the original, he will be nearer for having tried. So, I thought back to Sunday School. I thought back to Bible study. I thought back to a thousand conversations and lessons about God. How had He dealt with mankind? I began to synthesize all the stories I had learned through a new filter, the father filter. God the Father had modeled fatherhood, a perfect balance of justice, love, and mercy. I had the model. Could I live out those same principles? Did I have it in me?

For those of you who did not have a father who ingrained these Biblical principles in your heart, don’t worry. And don’t stop reading. In this chapter, I will tell you how to begin. As you work through the concepts in this book, you will find that the characteristics and priorities of a father are simple to understand. Once you learn them, you can put them into practice and step up in your kids’ lives.

FOUNDATION OF FATHERHOOD

The first of my Fatherhood Principles comes from Matthew 6:19-21 NIV. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

According to this scripture, I am supposed to store up for myself treasures in heaven. As a rule, nothing I possess will come with me when I die. Many ancient people disagreed. They buried their dead with their treasures, but those things could not cross the gap of death into the afterlife. What happened to all the gold, jewels, and fine clothing buried with them? It rotted or it was dug up by thieves. Failing that, archeologists unearthed the remains thousands of years later and sold them to museums.

Things are useful for provision in this present period of our lives, but physical riches have no usefulness once our heart stops beating. So, how do I get my treasures to cross the gap of death into heaven? This verse seems to indicate that we can enter eternity with a treasure in the bank. I am familiar with retirement accounts, bank accounts, and other investments, but this eternal safety deposit box sounds strange. Send my treasures ahead. How?

Think of treasure in terms of time and energy. Money and stuff are derived from these two things. When I spend my earthly wealth on eternally-valued things, I store up treasure in heaven. When I serve my family with my time and energy, it doesn’t disappear. It is not spent. It is invested. This even includes the tedious aspects of parenting. Like doing laundry. I think of the time and effort spent on this and other monotonous tasks as an eternal investment on behalf of my children. Heaven values people highly, which means that my kids are a high priority for God. People are the only thing that can cross the gap into eternity. When I scramble an egg or cook pancakes for my kids, I’m investing for eternity. My time is not wasted. It is invested.

An essential foundation of fatherhood to remember is this: Investing in