The Divine Crash

Yesterday, my 3 year old son had a play date at a local fast food place. It is winter here and this place has an indoor play area.  While there another little boy, not part of the play date, wouldn’t let my son on one of the slides and called him a “big baby.”  My son started crying.  I wasn’t at the play date but when I got home from the office that evening my son was still visibly shaken up.  After my wife told me what happened I had a couple options.

1. Play the stereotypical dad and tell him to grow up/get over it/move on.
2. Play the aloof father and ignore that anything is wrong. “He’ll get over it on his own.”
3. Just hold on to him. Hug him and remind him that he is precious to me and even more precious to God.

I went with number three.

I got down to his level, wrapped my arms around him and let him cry a little longer and then I reminded him that I loved him.

Is this the right option? The best option? I don’t know but I can’t imagine it would be worse than the other options.

When I read the Bible I don’t see a God who says “Get over it” I see a God who sees our little and insignificant hurts and still wraps His heavenly arms around us and reminds us we are precious in His sight.

Pastors, when was the last time you were in church and you weren’t in charge? When it wasn’t a learning event or work related but was a time for you to sit with your family and just worship the God of the universe? God created us to worship in community.  Pastors are not exempt from that.  (more…)

My son, Samuel, is three years old and is awesome! We play, wrestle, and have a great time, all the time. We go to events and he helps me in church. We run, jump, sing, dance, all kinds of great stuff.  When I go anywhere he wants to come with me, he grabs my hand and walks with me everywhere.

However, when I walk my stride is four times longer than Samuel’s.  He literally has to take 4 steps to my 1.

I know when I walk too fast because he is running and will trip and fall over small things that he could easily navigate if he weren’t trying to keep up with me. It means I have to stop, pick him up, and make sure he isn’t hurt.

Right now he can’t keep up but someday he will and someday he will even walk faster than me, but for now the only thing I can do to keep him from tripping and falling is to slow down.  I have to walk slower than I would like to make sure my son doesn’t get hurt.

This is Discipleship.

Discipleship is to slow down so that those with you don’t trip and fall on something insignificant. Then, as they  learn and grow we can speed up and take them new places they have never been.  And eventually those walking with us, our spiritual children if you will, take off and leave us in the dust.  They will eventually make their own disciples and start the process all over again.

So, like Jesus says in Matthew 28, go and make disciples.  Go walk with others and teach them to run so they can show others how to run.

I wanted to share this video with you. It has nothing to do with faith or spirituality but has everything to do with my kids.  Enjoy! 

Really? So once again God’s timing is absolutely impecable.  After a fresh move and still having a house full of boxes we got the phone call that my grandfather passed away.  11months after my uncle passed away I find myself back in a place surrounded by death.  I won’t be preaching on Sunday because of the memorial service but I do have some scheduled blog posts going up and may post things in the mean time.

In the midst of all this chaos all I can do is trust in the one who holds tomorrow. We will see what tomorrow brings.

We are currently trying to potty train our son.  However, we are also moving.  Potty training is difficult to begin with and to add the stress of moving on top of it makes it even harder.  My son was almost entirely potty trained before we started moving and now he has having more accidents.  Everything we have read said that his backsliding into accidents is because of the stress of moving.  Suddenly his house is filled with boxes and everything is in chaos.  That made me wonder how we respond to chaos?  Typically there are 3 ways we respond to chaos, and they are all related to the ways children respond to potty training. (more…)

Sorry this is late, dealing with the internet all week made this take forever.

Today, I took my son to his first movie.  We spent the day together getting his hair cut and opening his first savings account.  Then we went to dinner and then we saw Cars 2.  It was a cute movie but what really got me was the amount of firsts that we had today.

(more…)

Having children has turned me into a giant weeping baby.  Before I had my children I could watch any show ever and I was tough as nails and didn’t cry…..Ever.

But now, if I see any sitcom, drama, movie, infomercial or musical that involves a child getting hurt I cry like such a baby.  I sit there silently blubbering away pretending a speck of dirt got in my eyes.

Shows like Law & Order: SVU or the local news are out for me.  Even movies like Up! make my eyes well up.  Letters to God was the worst movie for me to watch. (more…)