Ten ways to teach your son to love his neighbor (Part 2)

By Patrick Anyanwu

6. Demonstrate responsible authority over your son.
Model the fact that leadership is about caring. Help him see that having superior knowledge is a responsibility to care for the less knowledgeable. They think of our generation as over-protective, which they consider manipulative possessiveness. Re-write that narrative. Model the gentle, serving leader that Jesus calls us to. Help them see that the call to serve as we looked at in the last post is indeed a noble thing to aspire to.

7. Let him see care and empathy in your actions.
As you model the responsible leader, expose him to what care and empathy look like. Those are in very short supply in our times and particularly with their generation. Use every opportunity to call him up to that. Encourage him to grow; to move his focus from the me-center to the others- center. Help your son fight the growing culture of indifference in their generation and get back the feeling of shock, utter moral repugnance, and sympathy at the sight of pain our world has become inundated by with actionable care projects.

8. Model fidelity and purity for your son.
The divorce rate is increasing in our times and infidelity is no longer frowned upon. People are designing “convenient living” for themselves; agreeing to design what they would consider sin to mean to them. Help your son see the wisdom in keeping romantic relationships on hold until he is ready to get married. Help him push against the tides of our times by making him see the need to divorce-proof their future marriage as he commits to wholesome, pure, and respectful relationships and friendships that will free him from hurting others.

9. Start early to help your son see himself as God sees him.
One of the downsides of the digital age is the loss of the effect of real human connections and interactions in shaping our identity. No generation is suffering it as much as the Z-ers and Alphas. So much so that other agendas are latching on to it asking that children should not be sex-ed. “Let them grow and pick what they feel comfortable with,” those voices advocate. So ridiculous is the idea that Jesse Bering, Associate Professor of Science Communication at the University of Otago in New Zealand, a celebrated voice as an advocate for sexual orientation inclusiveness asks: “It is fashionable these days to say that one is ‘born gay,’ of course, but if we think about it a bit more critically, it’s a bit odd and probably nonsensical, to refer to a newborn infant, swaddled in blankets and still suckling on its mother’s teats, as being homosexual. I appreciate the anti-discriminatory motives, but if we insist on using such politically correct parlance without consideration for more complex, postnatal developmental factors, are we prepared to label newborns as being LGBT?” “Who am I?” is a question every young person in all generations gets to ask, and no time has it been such a pandemic as it is now. The journey to be free to serve others begins with early self-awareness. Like the Bible says of Jesus, “knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that He had come from God and was going to God, (He) rose from supper and laid aside His garments, and took a towel and girded Himself. … and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded” (John 13:3-5).” Let us help our boys to see themselves as God sees them early so, they can lift their eyes to see others.

10. Pray for him.
There is nothing God cannot do. And that includes turning the sense of focus and purpose of our sons. Pray that God will fan into flames the embers of love in his heart in a world where the love of many is growing cold. Pray that God will give him the courage to choose to stand out as a defender of the cause of the oppressed where everyone is concerned with defending only his rights. Pray that he will be one that will choose to bind up the broken-hearted and free the prisoners. Pray that he will not be afraid to be counted as one that is kind-hearted. Pray that his neighbors will be glad to have him in their world. Pray that when he gets married, instead of seeing him as a tyrant or an obstacle, his wife will see him as a blessing; an honorable head, protector, provider, and inspiration.

In closing, as men and husbands, we are instructed to love because that may be one of the most difficult things for us to do by nature (Eph 5:25). Though the dynamics in our times might be different, there is nonetheless no temptation that is coming to our sons that is completely unknown in other ages. The cloak may look different, but the substance underneath is the same. The greatest way, therefore, that we as men, husbands, and fathers can teach our sons to love their neighbors (which would ultimately include their wives) is to model what this love looks like to them.