Avuncular Repentance

This is a post, to be honest, that is partially, maybe 50-50, motivated by my love affair with the word "avuncular." One rarely gets a chance to use it, so when this one does, he jumps out on it like a 4th quarter fumble. In case you're not in the know, avuncular means "like an uncle." That's about it.

Yesterday Amy and I spent much of the day with my nephews, who are 7 and 9. I love those jokers; they're a blast. Anyhow, the younger one opened my brother-in-law's car door, the wind caught it, and it slammed into another car in the parking lot. After some quick teaching from my brother-in-law about wind and car doors, I figured we would be good to go.

Then an hour or so later, the older one opened our car door, and the howling wind did the same thing: door slammed into truck. No damage was done, but my frustration was verbalized a bit too much. So I had to apologize to their dad. When in the car, I felt convicted that I needed to apologize to my older nephew.

So I did, and he accepted it, and all was well. I think apologizing to little ones is very important. If we don't model repentance before them-and we certainly screw up a lot-then I really believe we'll see an even more silent generation spring up. After all, they're not going to learn it from their friends. Even more, they'll not see the power of the gospel producing repentance in our lives.

Avuncular repentance is good practice for fatherly repentance, which will soon be coming to a theater near me. It actually already has, though Connar doesn't understand it quite yet.