“The father of a righteous son will rejoice greatly, and one who fathers a wise son will delight in him.” (Proverbs 23:24 – CSB Read the chapter)

If you are doing the math and puzzling over why we have jumped from chapter 10 to chapter 23 in our journey through Proverbs, bear with me because there’s a method to my madness today. I remember being in a conference one time with a guy who had written a book about parenting when he still had young children at home. Fortunately, this was many years later, and he was looking back at his effort with some wry humor at how much he had learned since then. I feel the same. In eighteen years of ministry, I have never preached a sermon about parenting. Honestly, I haven’t even thought about it more than once or twice. Perhaps I will yet someday when I don’t have anymore children at home, and I can be more properly reflective of the whole endeavor. Well, today I am officially a third of the way there, and I can’t help but be a bit reflective.

As far as the world reckons things, I lose a child today and gain an adult. I’m really not sure how I feel about that. I think part of me is trying to avoid feeling about that. Like it or not, though, the day has arrived. My oldest is officially 18. I still remember the day he arrived. We had gotten to the hospital early that morning. And when I say, “we,” I mean everybody. He was the first grandchild on both sides, so all the grandparents were there. If that sounds very planned, that’s because it was. Unlike the third one who decided to try to kick his way out early and in the middle of the night, this one was happy to continue baking, so we had to give him eviction papers.

So, after a 4:30 wake up call, we pulled into the hospital about 5:15. Shirley, one of our wonderful deacons who was also a labor and delivery nurse (and who personally made sure she was there for the delivery of all three of our boys) met us out front with a wheelchair, whisked us up to the third floor of the hospital that was so new it still didn’t register on our GPS, and we got the process started.

By “getting the process started” I mean doing nothing all day but waiting. And I do mean all day. They officially started the induction process at about 7:30 that morning, and by 7:30 that evening we were still twiddling our thumbs. Actually, that’s not quite true. Dr. Smith had announced his intentions to go get him, but we were third in line behind two higher risk cases including the delivery of what turned out to be a 14+ pound behemoth.

I won’t ever forget standing there in that delivery OR as the team did all their wonderful work, taking more pictures with our digital camera (I wouldn’t have a smartphone for several more years) than I probably should have taken. But when all was said and done, the room was filled with the joyful sounds of a screaming newborn who they soon placed in my arms for the very first time. It was one of those moments that sits up there almost as high as saying, “I do,” that left me irrevocably changed. Literally nothing would be the same after that. It couldn’t be.

Figuring out how to be the parents of a newborn was no small task. It was at one and the same time terrifying and absolutely enthralling. He was an easy baby who grew into a strong-willed little boy who just kept growing into a thoughtful, hardworking, kind, bright as a bulb, faithful young man. And now I have an adult of whom I am immensely proud. When Solomon said that the father of a righteous son will rejoice greatly, he was right. When he observed that one who fathers a wise son will delight in him, he couldn’t have been more on the money than he was.

My son checks all the boxes. That’s not the same thing as saying he’s perfect. He’s not. Nor have I been the perfect father. Far from it. There’s only one of those. But the list of things of which I am proud of about my son runs long. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share a few. And even if you don’t want to indulge me, this is my blog, so I’m going to do it anyway.

My son is smart. He’s going to finish high school with one of the highest GPAs I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there have been higher ones, but my church gives out college scholarships every year, and I have seen a lot of GPAs during that time. I don’t honestly remember seeing one higher than his. But he’s not just “book smart” as they say. He knows how to navigate life, and what he doesn’t know, he is able to figure out using the tools that are available to him. If he were dropped on a deserted island with a few basic tools, I feel pretty confident that he’d make it a lot further than a lot of young men his age.

Yet as smart as he is naturally, he has achieved what he has with a lot of hard work. He works hard at everything he does. I don’t know that we’ve ever had to stay on him about his schoolwork. Oh, we’ve gotten onto him about schoolwork here and there because as a parent you feel like you should do that every now and then for good measure, but we haven’t had to do it. He has been working the same job for almost two years now, and the amount of responsibility they have given him continues to grow because they know they can rely on him.

At home, he is a regularly and thoroughly contributing member of the household. Yesterday, for example, without being asked, he raked up a pile of leaves that had been sitting in the yard for far too long, cleaned the garage, cleaned his room, and prepared dinner in the crockpot for his mom and me to eat when we got home later that evening. He was actually asked to do only one of those things. I’ll let you guess as to which one it was. And that kind of thing is pretty much par for the course.

Unlike so many teenagers today, he doesn’t only think about himself. For four years now he has been helping to coach the robotics teams at his middle/elementary school. Last year, one of those teams (which happened to have one of his other brothers on it) made it all the way to the international competition for the event. That would not have happened without his coaching.

He serves faithfully at our church as well. And perhaps you could say that he just does what he does because I’m the pastor and he’s my kid, but he volunteered for the work he does and he sees it as his ministry. Our audio and video team relies heavily on his faithfulness to the various tasks he does as well as the knowledge he has gained about how to do it.

And speaking of faith, perhaps the thing I’m most proud of is that he owns his faith for himself. He doesn’t parrot things simply because he’s been told to. He doesn’t engage with the Scriptures regularly because I’ve forced him to do that (I haven’t). He strives to grow and deepen his own relationship with God because he wants to do that. He lives out his faith in practical ways because he wants to do that. He loves Jesus, he doesn’t simply talk nicely about Him because I’m a pastor.

As he begins to transition over the next few years more and more fully into adulthood, he’s going to be fine. Actually, he’ll be more than fine. He will thrive. And while I’d like to think his mom and I get at least a little bit of the credit for that, he’s done more than his fair share of work to pave his own way. If I could do it all over again from holding him in my arms for the first time to the day the world says he’s officially an adult, I’d probably do some things differently. I can think of glaring mistakes I’ve made along the way. But if I knew in advance that any of those changes would result in his being someone other than the son I have today, I wouldn’t dare change a single one of them. I don’t want him to be anyone other than he is. That’s my son. I love him, and I’m proud of him.

And if he’s read this far, happy birthday to you.