“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.” Psalm 103:13
Why would God choose us to be examples of how He works? Because it is so obvious… a father must have compassion on his children.
The father has been there since the beginning of the relationship with the child’s mom- your wife. We were there before the relationship began, and we were the reason, from a purely mechanical perspective, that God used to bring the child into the world to begin with… not to denigrate the position and role of the wife at all. Obviously children wouldn’t exist without both.
We understand our wives’ frailty, and then we see our children born into the world… more frailty… and that in a world that suffers from the curse and the fall. We as men must see ourselves as the protector, but the protector of what? The protector of the weak and frail against those things, forces, elements that would destroy them or render them incapable of both surviving and thriving. We are the reason that our wives can nurture. Yes, she has her role, but that doesn’t diminish ours.
And that role is compassion.
Because we have compassion, we deal kindly with others’ weaknesses, especially with your wife and your children. We have compassion because we also know our own weaknesses. Compassion isn’t weak, but is mindful of weakness and responds with strength in relationship to that weakness.
There is a time and a place to “stand up and be a man” in terms of the rock-like steadiness that is expected of a man. But the hardness is a reliability, like a rock, that serves as the basis for your wife and children to be able to have a life that is capable of surviving in this world. It isn’t a harshness that results in animosity and ostracization, but trustworthiness. It is a shield to them that protects them and gives them a bubble of protection against that which is ugly, perverse and evil in this world.
This rock like nature is derived by men from their relationship to the Father through the LORD Jesus Christ.