RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

Being a Family Man
Sammy Tippit: Monty, thank you again for being with us in our devotion time. I want to talk a little bit about family life. I know (and I’ve heard from several sources) that you’re really committed to your family. Is it because your wife beats you over the head, or what? Tell me where that comes out of? What is the deep thing in your heart about your family?

Monty Williams: Well, they’re mine. You know, they’re mine for a short time. God has given me stewardship over my children. He has given me an unbelievable helpmate in my wife. We’re in partnership for the rest of our lives here on earth, and we don’t want to waste that time.
Parenting for me, I didn’t get a manual for that. I didn’t have a dad in my house growing up, so… That’s not to disrespect my father. I don’t believe in doing that publicly. But my dad wasn’t around to show me how to be a dad. So I’ve had to rely on the different people God has brought into my life.
They’ve been able to tell me based on God’s Word, “This is how you, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go…'” The Bible says children are born with folly, so it’s my job to redirect that and make sure they submit to the Lord. It’s fun too. I mean, it’s hard when all your kids look just like you. I just take that as my main job. My number one job is to steward my family into a relationship with God and not let that go to waste.
Sammy: You know, my father was sick. He was absent because he was in the hospital more than at home, so I grew up basically with a single parent home too. When I got married, I remember feeling so inadequate. You know, “How do I do this? I don’t know how to be a husband. I don’t know how to be…”
I remember praying a prayer, “God, teach me through Christ how to be a husband. Teach me through your fatherhood how to be a father.” How much does that play into your relationship (looking to God as your Father or Christ as the husband of the church)? How much does that play in your relationship with your family?
Monty: Yeah, I had those same prayers. They usually went like this: “Lord, I messed up today badly. Please cover my kids. Don’t let what I did today scar them for life.” He always does. Then I pray God would send me godly men who were committed to their wives and committed to their kids so I could watch them. But nothing has been more powerful than studying God’s Word.
When you study the Word and you see how King David wasn’t a great dad and you saw the ramifications of that, or you see Paul and his spiritual sons (Timothy, Titus, and Onesimus, guys like that), you get a blueprint for fatherhood. I just think the Lord covers my mistakes because (you ask my oldest child) there’s a number of them. I have a wife who is more than adequate to come alongside of me and help me along as far as fathering is concerned.
Sammy: Thank you for sharing that. We appreciate that.
Monty: Thank you!