HOUSE OF ROBERTS BLOG

There are a few ingredients that I think make a great dad, one of those is the ability to do what you do for no one else except God. It is the ability to live and sacrifice for God’s approval that I think sets up a dad’s life up to have a significant impact on his family and the world around him. The problem for some of us dads is we are living our lives for others to see and approve of, which sets us up for a rollercoaster ride of a life. If all we live for is the approval of our spouse, our kids, our boss, or our customers then we will have ups and downs and seasons where we don’t get much accomplished. However, if we commit to living a life where what we do we do because of and for God, then our lives will take on a whole new level of meaning and purpose.

I have a few tattoos, but my first one is this pomegranate with the Hebrew word for remember in the middle of it. I know what you’re thinking, “Who in the world gets a piece of fruit as their first tattoo?” It’s not because I am a big fruit guy, in fact, I don’t really care for pomegranates, but this tattoo is a reminder of the truth that I am talking about right now. 

The building of the Lord’s temple is recorded in part of 1 Kings. King Solomon, commissions a man named Huram to help craft all the artifacts and intricate work in the temple. Among the many things that he created were these two pillars in front of the temple. The pillars were around 30 feet high and on top of them was this intricate work of chains, lilies, and 200 pomegranates (100 on each pillar). Huram paid special attention to these objects that would find themselves on the top of these pillars. Here is the thing, with these objects being 30 feet from the ground they could never be truly appreciated by the people who would walk by them. However, Huram did not do that work for others to see; he did that work so that God could see. He was a man, who lived his life to please the audience of one, his God. That idea so resonated with me that I got a tattoo to remind me of a truth that can easily be forgotten. I cannot live my life for anyone else, but for God, and ultimately it is Heaven’s approval I am looking for and no one else’s.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to please my wife; I want to make my family happy. I feel good when I do something that my boss approves of. So that is okay to want that, but we can’t allow other people’s approval to trump God’s. Why? Well, sometimes God has you do things that others don’t understand and it is in those moments that you have to remind yourself that you ultimately live for God’s approval. There will be times that the devil will try to discourage you by saying that no one around you sees your sacrifices or appreciates what you do, and that is when you have to remember that God sees all that you and God is proud of the sacrifices that you have made.

Why spend time with God early in the morning when everyone else in the house is asleep, because you are doing it for God. Why send that tithe in when no one knows what you do with your bank account because you are doing it for God. Why change the channel when something inappropriate comes one even though you are the only one in the room, because you are doing it for God.

Dad, I pray that we all would live lives where we create and build things for the audience of one. May you be a Huram in your home, your neighborhood, and your workplace. May you never forget that even if no one else sees what you do, God does and you actually have the attention of Heaven. So don’t quit and don’t give up. I’m praying for you.