Guard Your Tongue and Tone

To see a video on this part of the Father’s Mandate, click here.

“As a father, I must guard my tongue and my tone

and learn to measure my response against the excitement on their faces.

The more excited THEY are; the more excited I am!”

The Father's Mandate is a mindset that I quickly adopted some 24 years ago. One of my favorite mandates is to "be the encourager" of the family. When I was growing up my dad did a lot of good things, but he was not the "family cheerleader" at all. So when children arrived for Julie and me, I wanted to be the cheerleader that my dad wasn't and this offered that opportunity. It gave me great joy to hear and see the expressions of our five young children when I would shout "isn't it GREAT to be a Keating!!?" and "I'm so pleased that the Creator of heaven and earth placed you in this family as one of the children", or "I'm forever grateful and humbled that He gave me a wife that loves Jesus, loves me, and loves you so much!!"

It isn't easy for me to be intentional as the cheerleader because my propensity is to be abrupt and too harsh at times, so guarding my "tongue and tone" was essential to establishing this mindset for me. Needless to say, I work at this each and every day but with no regrets or second thoughts about the Father's Mandate as a guiding principle for being a Godly, and encouraging, dad.

Don Keating