Randy Winton

My youngest son Jonah got one of those battery-powered John Deere tractors, and it is truly very authentic looking.

It shifts into low or high speed and even goes in reverse which, as you will see, comes in handy. There’s a hand-grip power loader that controls the big front-end shovel thingie that can pick up dirt and even has that trademark green and yellow coloring that everyone – even non-tractor, non-farming guys like me – recognize.

The interesting thing about this tractor is that even for a 23-month old like Jonah, there is so much this thing can do: steering wheel, gas pedal, and of course that front end loader with the shovel thingie on the front. With a fully-charged battery, this miniature machine has the potential to keep him busy for hours. If he so desired, he could spend all day on this thing and really get a lot accomplished.

But here’s the thing. Jonah gets bored with it because he has yet to fully understand what all this thing can do. At such a tender age, he hasn’t figured out that if he handles the steering wheel just right he’s not going to run over the river birch his daddy just planted, or scrape the side of his daddy’s truck, or clip the side of his daddy’s house and scratch his leg on the brick. He mostly just goes in one big circle, never realizing that if he turns the wheel left or right, or holds it in a straight line he can plot out a life of adventure.

I’ve tried to show him. I’ve walked beside him and turned the wheel for him at the last second to prevent him from jumping the curb and ending up in the street, or slamming into the front porch, or running over the other river birch I had just planted.

Still, it simply hasn’t registered. If he could just understand the potential this little machine has, he could navigate over to the neighbor’s yard, where there sits a pile of mulch in the back yard and a mound of dirt over on the side, and he could utilize all that John Deere has to offer and really get something accomplished.

However, he’s not there yet so he just does not understand.

The result is that boring, nonsensical circle … or the crash that results in squaring up the brick wall and being stuck, wheels grinding in one place while he looks at me for help with those piercing blue eyes and he says over and over, “Daddy, pweeze.” And, I come rescue him.

Again.

I don’t really get tired of helping him, because I know someday it’s going to click and he’s going to … finally … get it. He is going to learn that there is more to this thing than riding in a circle or getting a headache when it slams into the house at full speed.

At that point, his riding this tractor will no longer be an aimless endeavor … but something exciting that opens up a whole new perspective and provides him with purpose. There will come a day when he will control this machine to ride the correct path that takes him to move mounds of dirt and mulch and provides him some freedom to roam about in search of the next job that needs to be done.

Purpose.

Our lives are like that tractor; equipped with all the tools needed to do what we were created to do. Just as there was a purpose behind the design of that battery-powered John Deere, we too are designed with a specific plan.

Paul gives us a blueprint look into what God created us to be … consider this the purpose for which we were made: Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called (I Timothy 6:11-12).

If we could only remember what God requires of us; if somehow we can realize that from the beginning of time God had a specific, unique  purpose already mapped out for each of us individually; if we can just be convinced that it’s more than simply being a ”good guy”. Our kids need us to be more than that, and to show them how to be more than that.

I imagine a lot of times God looks at me - wandering aimlessly in a big circle, sometimes getting bored with this ”Christian” life - and shaking His head. He’s thinking, “I’ve created you for so much more. You are equipped, but you just don’t get it.”

Dads, God created us with talents and gifts; and while there are times He’s like a daddy protecting his son from jumping curbs and hitting walls there are other times He watches painfully as we rumble out of control over the river birches.

Question: Do you think if God is watching over us like a daddy, providing in every possible way the correct map to guide us on our journey and the instructions to use each tool and gift He has given us to work out His plan  … maybe, just maybe, He expects us to pass that on to our own children?

Could there be more to our “purpose” than the thought that throwing baseballs, and catching footballs, and making good grades, and being a good citizen … just isn’t enough?

I think God wants us to help our sons and daughters navigate life with a faith that can move mountains (Matthew 17:20). I think God wants us to experience His plan for us more fully, so that those we hold closest to our hearts will learn a very valuable lesson - God has created us to be more than we could ever think we could be on our own.

It won’t be long before Jonah will figure it all out. And that day will change his life and his perspective and a whole new world will open up to him which will be exciting and new and incredibly satisfying.

Dads who understand that God’s purpose for us far surpasses what the world could ever recognize, would bookmark Philippians 3:8: I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.

If we were to claim that verse and use it as part of the map that plots our life’s journey, it will change us forever. It would open a whole new world for us and it, too, will be exciting and new and incredibly satisfying.

May we dads recognize that God has purposed us to lead our families in Faith, that they would not grow up to lead meandering, aimless lives. That we as dads and they as our children would fulfill God’s great plan.

And live our lives with purpose.