The young paratrooper stood in the open door of the C-47 transport plane. Angry wind currents battered his army fatigues with the ferocity of a Category 5 hurricane. He paused momentarily, double-checked his static line, and leaped into the darkness below.
Instantly, the darkness wasn’t dark anymore. As he plummeted toward the earth, shells from anti-aircraft cannons whizzed near him, burning up like a thousand falling stars slithering across the nighttime sky, shells that German soldiers propelled into the atmosphere with deadly intent. Explosions illumined the approaching earth below. Drifting intentionally toward the hostilities defied common sense, and he was deeply fearful, but the young soldier was on a mission far greater than even he understood in that moment of moments.
That soldier was my father. It was approximately 2 a.m., June 6, 1944, and he was in harm’s way — big-time. The hedge-infested landscape of northern France, flooded with water by Germany’s paranoid führer, waited below as Dad and his colleagues in the 101st Airborne descended to join the cataclysmic battle known to posterity as “D-Day.”
My father, who died 34 years ago when a leaky blood vessel burst in his abdomen, would tell you God’s mercy alone carried him through D-Day alive. Sovereign grace saw him through the Allies’ Operation Market Garden (not the Allies’ proudest moment).
God preserved him through the Battle of the Bulge, where American troops won despite being hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded (it’s the Airborne’s job to be surrounded, my father once told me) and deep-frozen in one of the coldest European winters on record.
Divine mercy, Dad said, preserved him to V-J Day and spirited him back to Georgia to marry my mother. And it was mercy all, immense and free, that converted my dad to Christ shortly after they exchanged nuptials. Charles M. Robinson the soldier became an excellent husband and father, tirelessly raising three boys to be faithful husbands, fathers, and churchmen. Dad taught me how to throw a curve ball, how to read a box score, to carry my Bible to church and to sing the hymns loud — even with a mediocre-at-best singing voice.
• Quiet, Manly Testimony to Divine Grace
Over the years as I’ve read God’s Word and reflected back upon his quiet testimony to God’s grace in our home, I’ve been increasingly thankful for the Godward values he instilled in us. Unfortunately, godly, committed fathers are the exception in today’s culture rather than the rule, but the Lord blessed me to be raised by one. Though he was far from a perfect man, my father exemplified biblical manhood in many respects and taught me many lessons by example. When it came to life lessons, he wasn’t much for talk.
Here are nine things that my father’s example taught me about manhood that I’ve tried to pass down to his grandsons:
1.The right thing is not always the easy thing.
Ask any of my father’s friends and they will tell you that humble courage, above all other attributes, typified him. If he feared anything other than the Lord, our family never knew it. Dad was particularly adamant about doing the right thing, even, or perhaps especially, when it was a difficult thing. Courage should always display itself in a manner befitting the humility of Christ.
Dad didn’t believe he was courageous. When I asked him if he was scared the night he jumped into Normandy, his reply was an incredulous, “Of course. We all were scared to death.” So, what made you do it? “Because there was something at stake that was far larger and far more important than my safety,” he said. “I probably didn’t realize that till later, when I was older and thought back about it.” That’s humility wed to courage. Read Jesus’s prayers in Gethsemane en route to the cross and you see those things. I want to be like that.
2. The right thing is not always the popular thing.
Like following Christ, making the right decisions will not always win the applause of others, even those who profess undying devotion to Christ. You will often be criticized, opposed, even rejected for doing the right thing. Critique comes with leadership. When you’re over the target, the flack will come.
3. Greatness is found in humility, not in touting one’s own greatness.
I will never forget my father, in the context of teaching me how to play the great game of baseball, said, “When you make a great play, hit a home run (I was a pesky leadoff hitter, so this particular play wasn’t often applicable) or do something to help your team in an obvious way, act like you’ve been there before.”
Dad was appalled at the strutting of professional athletes and was always put off by those who strutted in life, particularly in the church. Lord, guard me from ministerial strutting, especially when it takes a subtle form like social media.
4. Men are called to do hard things.
Men are called to make difficult decisions in the home, workplace, and church. Men are called to do hard things like taking a wife and raising children. My father saw a tendency among young men toward delayed adolescence in my generation and was deeply concerned. That God made men a bit rough around the edges is suggestive, he believed. God has designed them to run to the battle, to fly into the flak.
5. Husbands are called to protect and provide for their families.
Physically, emotionally and spiritually, a man must be willing to lay down his life for his wife and children. Men are called to put food on the table and money into the account to be used for everyday living.
6. Be good at what you do.
That 1 Corinthians 10:31 is quoted regularly in my home is probably attributable to my father. Whether you are a plumber, professor, athlete, student, doctor, pastor, editor, or custodian, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, never stop striving to grow in your craft. You should seek to do your vocation with great skill, integrity and a sense of stewardship.
Dad was a master builder of houses and approached every project as if it were his last. Every sphere of life belongs to God, and all must be done to His glory. Here at The Courier, our staff motto is “Excellence to the glory of God.” I’m grateful he taught me this from a young age.
7. There’s no substitute for being there.
Dad never used such words as “quality time” and “quantity time.” I do not recall a single baseball game (and I played in hundreds), important church or school event without my dad (and mom) in attendance. Often, Dad coached or led the activities himself.
Church attendance wasn’t optional. We went to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night as a family, no questions asked. My parents assumed we would be churchmen — and regular church attendance was expected.
8. Treasuring Christ, not material things, will give you ultimate satisfaction.
The Lord blessed my father with a strong ethic and blessed his work with material means, but I have no doubt they were never an idol. Whatever earthly wealth he had, it never had him. After Dad died in 1991, I learned that he and mom had regularly provided food, Christmas gifts, rent/mortgage money and thousands of dollars in other provisions for a couple of poor families in our community.
9. Authentic manhood isn’t necessarily found in physical strength or toughness.
In the mountains of North Georgia where I grew up, a rite of passage into manhood seemed to be participating in and winning at least one fist fight. This was a huge problem for a runty lightweight like me, who barely tipped the scales at 100 pounds in ninth grade. I often deflected this need for a well-publicized TKO by telling friends, “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
My father, who was as physically strong as you might expect a former soldier, a builder and farmer might be, warned me against confusing real manhood with such boorishness. Real manhood is found in sacrificing your needs, wants and desires in service of others as Christ did on Calvary. The real man is the Christ-picturing servant, not the Rocky Balboa wanna-be. He exhibited both lion-like courage and lamb-like humility. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, summarizes authentic biblical manhood well: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
• Not a Finished Product
I just turned 58, but I still have much to learn about being God’s man. I’m grateful the Lord put such a striking model in my home during those vital growing up years.