Matt Kaporal from Dawsonville, Georgia writes in, Pastor John, I have read several of your

books and followed you for a while now.

I would just like to share with you that this past year at the T4G conference, after you

preached, I was able to see you when you went backstage, I saw you weeping and the Lord

used that greatly in my life.

It was refreshing to see a man who does not put up a front on stage, but a man broken

in humble before the Lord backstage.

Here's my question.

What is the one thing you would say to a man about to be for the first time a father

of a son?

Well, I'm not sure the connection that Matt sees between tears behind stage and a question

about what to say to a father of a new son, but one does not have to look far to find

connections between tears and fathering a son.

So the way he asked the question triggers the way I'm answering the question.

Maybe the first thing to say to this dad would be, are you ready to weep?

That is, are you ready to love?

There is no love in this world without tears.

None.

It is a world of sin and sickness and futility and calamity and suffering and death.

All that will touch your son and yourself through your son.

Of course you will laugh and rejoice.

You will laugh more than you have ever laughed and he will make you happy.

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