As for me and my house

OPINION:

The home is the world’s oldest and most vital institution.

Civilization’s other two great institutions, the church and the government, find their roots in the nurturing influence and subsequent trajectory of its members. Without strong families raising tomorrow’s confident and capable leaders, a nation will suffer internally and become increasingly vulnerable to outside threats.

Collectively, we have a vested interest in protecting and promoting the importance of family from the heights of domestic policy to the daily interactions of social routine. The current state of the American family is a precarious one. Like a wrecking ball to a watchtower, unfaithfulness, divorce, abuse, abortion and addiction erode the strength of the family in each of their uniquely unforgiving ways.

The family is the preeminent conveyor of virtue, truth, charity and justice. Inside the quiver of the home, arrows are sharpened to alter the world for good. A mother and father’s influence in their child’s life is more potent than any school curriculum they will encounter.

Throughout my childhood, I remember my father saying that a man should be the priest, prophet, provider and protector of his home. As my family has continued to grow, I have come to understand and fully realize the importance of his words:

As a priest, he is the spiritual shepherd of his family, nurturing them and regularly interceding before God on their behalf.

As prophet, he humbly strives to lead, admonish and discipline, always directing them not by his own opinion or the trends of the culture but by the truth of scripture.

He is the head of the house, responsible for providing for his family’s needs: food, clothing and shelter, but even more importantly, giving them the unconditional love, confidence, respect and security they need to live in a healthy relationship with each other and those outside their walls.

The primary protector, he is charged with shielding his family from physical, emotional and spiritual threats that would be harmful, negative and destructive to individual family members and the collective unit.

There are so many things a father’s love gives — and so many things that a lack of it destroys.

God gives us the greatest example of a father’s love. His love is sacrificial, patient, kind, humble, honest, forgiving, faithful and selfless. It is constant and unchanging. Though we do so imperfectly, we train up children in the way they should go, not only because we are commanded to but because we have a long-term perspective that understands the multiplication effect tomorrow of our diligence today.

We, as father and mother and husband and wife, love and serve each other so that our progeny feels the security necessary for them to flourish. We sacrifice one more moment of “me time” for “we time” because we have committed to guide them through life with a relational intimacy built on the transparency and trust that successive moments together can produce. While their bodies mature and grow with each passing week, the love, discipline, kindness, perseverance and ambition that we purposefully demonstrate and instill in them will mature in like manner, until the time comes for it to overflow into the children that will one day sit in car seats behind them.

Through war, natural disaster and moral relativism, families have weathered countless storms throughout America’s history. In many ways, the living room is still more powerful than the court room and the kitchen table more influential than the halls the nation’s most hallowed institutions. What happens within purposeful, faith-filled homes, will reverberate for generations.

Even today, exhausted young parents are raising someone else’s mom or dad, cradling an opportunity to impact generations they may never see. Assuredly, there is no such thing as the perfect parent. But it is not our perfection that makes us dynamic parents; it is our honesty when we make mistakes and our mental, spiritual, physical and emotional presence in a world of distractions.

And though they can sometimes seem less than forgiving of our chronic fatigue, bedtimes and rules, our children should expect us to pursue the very best for them in preparing them to one day leave the nest and soar into adulthood. This reality should fill our sails and chart our course as caretakers of the boys and girls we have been graciously given to steward.

The way we pour into our children matters because our intentional actions now can have life-defining ramifications on children yet to be born. Likewise, the posture and policy of this nation now, toward both family and faith, will similarly deliver a proper return.

• Benjamin Watson is a former NFL tight end. He was drafted by the New England Patriots in 2004 and went on to win Super Bowl XXXIX with the team over the Philadelphia Eagles. Before retiring, he played 15 years in the NFL for the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens and New Orleans Saints. Today, Mr. Watson is an outspoken Christian and activist. He’s written two books, “Under Our Skin,” which addresses the racial divide in America, and “The New Dad’s Playbook,” which is a must-read for any father with a newborn. He and wife Kirsten have seven children.