Had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you so let us praise the Lord! Because I know that we will not be able to get into this article until we finish singing this little song, why don’t we go right ahead and finish it up. I will wait. “Right hand! Left hand! Right Foot! Left Foot. Nod your head! Turn around! Sit down!”
Now that that is out of the way (I hope) let me share with you a random thought that I had this morning. Do you think that Father Abraham is as happy that we are his kids as we are about him being our dad? Do you think he is walking around in heaven singing, annoying Peter and Moses singing “I am father Abraham, I have many sons. Many sons have I, Father Abraham. Carol is one of them and so are you! So let us praise the Lord!”? Is he proud of those he sired and those who try to be as bold and daring in faith as he was?
I would love to know the answer to this because to be honest, sometimes I am not very proud when my kids say they want to do the same things that I did or live their lives the way I did in the past. For example, last year, my elder son went to this college for an entry interview. At the interview he was asked why he wanted to study there. His response “Because my mom went here”. When he came back home, I remember telling him “But you do not know what kind of student I was. Maybe I was such a poor student I was suspended!” For what it is worth, I was not a bad student but that is not the point. The point is for a moment, five actually, I was surprised that the best answer he could come up with to that question was “Because my mom went here”. Later I realized that my discomfort came from not being comfortable with being looked at as someone my son would want to copy.
Our world is full of messages telling us how important it is to be our unique version of ourselves. To do our own thing. We look upon people who imitate others as lacking creativity. Think about it. What conversation do you have when you walk down a street in town and see shop after shop selling clothes from the same country, pub after pub, pork choma joint after pork choma joint, chips shop….. the list goes on. We have all been in those conversations where we speak negatively about people who start the same type of business someone else started a short while before or distance away. We say nothing nice or politely only think disapproving thoughts.
Even when we were children, we were taught that copying is wrong. We sat at desks and placed our bags right ontop of them to obstruct the view of the person seated next to us just in case they tried to throw a glance in the direction of our books. At exam time, we learnt to cover our answer sheet with one hand and bend low over our exam paper to ensure that no one could see what we wrote. Siblings of the same sex who grew up in the era that I did, absolutely hated having their parents buy clothes for them because they would definitely be matching outfits. These were worn reluctantly and under duress because of the ragging they would receive from the neighbourhood kids.
We grow up knowing that copying and being copied is wrong until we get to learn that imitation is the highest form of flattery. We look at this statement and think, yes, imitation could be the highest form of flattery but certainly not imitation of me. Let others be flattered because they are better at being people who ought to be imitated. We on the other hand who fail to think that we are worthy of being copied are caught up in thoughts of all the things that we are yet to achieve, the mistakes that we made and the ghosts that are hiding in our closets.
There is a prophet who shares in the Bible something that I find ought to help us Christians in renewing our thoughts around the idea of accepting the idea that someone could want to grow up being inspired by us and imitating us. A prophet whose name makes him a good place to start looking at the answer of imitating. The prophet is Micah and his name means “Who is like the Lord”, something that we as Christians aspire to grow towards, being more like the Lord. It is said that his life modeled one who is “like the Lord” and he called people of Judah to this same lifestyle of divine imitation.
“He has shown you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly,
to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8 NKJV
In this scripture, Micah declares that God expects us to create healthy environments where justice and mercy reign wherever we are while we walk humbly with Him. Healthy environments at home for our children to thrive, healthy environments in the office for our colleagues and those we lead to thrive and healthy environments wherever we find ourselves placed. When we do that, walk humbly with God and create healthy environments, should we happen to be in a position where someone wants to do what we do, go to the schools we went to and read the books we read, we would rejoice that they want to do so. Because we know then that if everybody in the world did what we do, lived like we do, prayed like we do and thought the way we thought there would be revival in the world. We would be more intentional in allowing others and the next generation to copy us.
This then is what I pray for all of you, especially the fathers who find themselves role models by both accident and intention, that you may be refreshed and strengthened in your journey to being more like Christ. That as you grow in self-assurance in the relationship that you share with God, you enjoy this journey so much that it eclipses any thoughts of mis-steps that you made, failures that others point out to you and insecurities that you may still be battling. That in being yourself, a yourself that is molded to who Christ is, others may be drawn to being more like you and in doing so you will be able to point to them to God. That you will be able to declare boldly like Paul does in his letter to the Corinthians…
“Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”
1 Corinthians 11:1 NKJV