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Fathers’ Heart to Launch their Children

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I’m starting to sound like one of those sappy old people. However, sometimes it seems those times are so far off and then here they are. I write this as our youngest prepares to graduate from high school. Where did the time go? As a blended family, we have adult children, grandchildren, and a teenager. High School graduation is such a milestone. No more high school! Life will be so different for this 18-year-old venturing into college and work. As parents, we want to launch our children well. Each child is so different. Some have no clue where they are going or what they want to do, and have a difficult time getting launched. Others don’t seem to need as much push or direction. Maybe it’s internal motivation.

I so appreciate Dave who exemplifies what God has called fathers to do. Really it’s the father that pushes the child into life. The mother, by design is more nurturing and would probably coddle the child so that he/she would never leave home or be independent. Contrast the father. He is more patient with a child making mistakes (not too serious) but learning how to live in an adult world. It is Dave’s passion to prepare his children, to teach them skills they need. He wants to launch them well.

Just think of the ways mothers and fathers play with their children. Mothers are more likely to be more careful in their play. A dad will bounce a child higher, higher, higher—much to the horror of mom. A father is willing to risk, to push, to teach, to allow a child to have wings. Dads seem to worry less about mistakes and minor setbacks. He knows it’s all part of the learning, the growing, the preparing. God made fathers to prepare a child for life.

Fathers are lacking in our society. Real godly fathers. Many children have been raised truly without a father. So many fathers were not fathered themselves, so they have not learned or seen healthy fathering modeled. Unless there is good mentoring and these men want to learn from godly men, they pass on the sins of their fathers.

In the Washington, DC, area where we live our lifestyle is not conducive to good fathering. Our area is a bedroom community for Washington, DC, and so many workers spend ridiculous amounts of time commuting on the road. Having the emotional energy and bandwidth to connect with children is hard. These parents (fathers) are away from the home long periods of time.

Then there is the angry father with wounding of his own. Maybe there was excessive harshness or control or perfectionism placed on them as children. That is my story. Father wounds. The only perfect father we know is God the Father. How we all need an experience of the Father’s love! An encounter with the Father that we yearn for!

So back to Father’s Day. I want to give a shout out to my husband Dave, a godly man and father who has tirelessly poured into his children. His work is never done! Our adult children still need his sage advice and council from having years of life lessons under his belt. They do not realize how he agonizes in prayer for each of them (children, sons-in-laws, stepchildren, and grandchildren). We expect a harvest of righteousness to be produced in the lives of our children. We serve a God who is faithful. He has seen every tear and stored them in a bottle. And he has heard and will answer.

So in the meantime, the godly father presses on often times doing the unappreciated or even unpopular teaching or discipline. Teenagers do not have the life experience to understand dad’s wisdom or advice. But it is the father’s heart to teach, to prepare for life, and to launch well. What a beautiful thing it is, the father’s heart!

What is your story with your father? Good or bad, we’d love to hear it in the comments or in an email. And please share on social media if you think this would bless someone else.

5 Ways to Birth Life in Everything We Say

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It’s been several years since my own mom passed into Jesus’ physical presence in glory. Shortly afterward, my brother had a dream where the Lord told him, “She likes the accommodations up here.” Yep. That’s totally something my mom would say.

Mothers have a special place in the heart of God. Mothers actually partner with God in bringing forth life. It’s amazing, and as I guy, I totally can’t understand it, and I don’t pretend to. But I am in awe of it.

It is God’s heart to bring life. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10b) Bringing life was Jesus’ mission.

Although only women can actually birth another physical life out of their own bodies, we can all birth life. We have the opportunity every day, in every situation. We birth life with our words. Or not.

Proverbs 18:21a says, “The tongue has the power of life and death,” and we choose between the two with every word we speak. We have the power, and as Christians the authority, to speak life or death into every situation we face, every minute of every day.

We partner with God when we choose to speak life; we partner with other spiritual forces when we choose to speak death.

So let’s put some skin out it. How do we speak life? Here are 5 practical ways to speak life into our everyday situations.

1) Remember a Kingdom perspective. If we love Jesus, then it’s always about what he’s doing in the situation and not our agenda. It’s good to win the argument, and it’s better to actually be right, but it’s best to accomplish God’s purpose in the situation. That often means laying down our right to win the argument.

Counter-intuitive to most Americans, the Kingdom of God is not about claiming our just rights, it’s about sacrificing them and laying them down. It’s about letting go of our right to be right. And in giving up our rights and instead focusing on what God’s doing, we often win something much more valuable than the argument. We win the other person’s heart.

Can we serve a person who’s wrong today? Can we ask God how we can honor the person we like the least today?

2) Focus on healing not punishment. A good friend recently posted on FaceBook, “To rescue people from the natural consequences of their behavior is to render them powerless.” While this is probably true, I commented that, “To rescue and to bring healing are two different things.”

It seems to me liberals are always wanting to ride in on the white horse and rescue everybody. Their mantra seems to be, “The Government as Salvation.” Conservatives, on the other hand, want people to fry for their actions, emphasizing “personal responsibility.” As Christians, though, IMHO, we shouldn’t target either rescue or justice. We should target healing. We should be bringing life.

Liberals address people’s situation, while conservatives address their behavior. As Christian’s we should be addressing their heart. We should be bringing life to their wounded places.

So in a godly confrontation, the right question is not, “How can I help them?” nor “How can I avoid further conflict?” nor “What do they deserve?” nor “What threat of punishment will be scary enough to control their behavior?” The right question is, “What is the real problem here? What is the wound?”

3) Ask for God’s help. This seems like a no-brainer, but how many of us, every day before exiting our car and going into work, actually ask for God’s help us bring life to our co-workers today with our words?

Honestly, this is one of the most practical things we can do. It starts our day focusing on God’s perspective, on what he wants to do. And in that frame of mind, we just might interpret (and hence respond to) the events of the day differently.

4) Sometimes the right word is hard. Life-giving words can be unwelcome to people stuck in destructive behaviors and lifestyles. For example, homosexuals, transsexuals, and heterosexuals sleeping together outside of marriage typically aren’t in a rush to hear the life-giving message of sexual integrity. But often a lack of sexual integrity’s not the issue, it’s just the bad fruit. The real root of the matter is wounding down there somewhere deeper. And that’s what life-giving words from God go after.

So often in the church, we go for the low-hanging fruit. We’ve been taught to address the bad fruit in people’s lives. People’s bad behavior is an easy target. If we can get them to clean up their act, their bad behavior no longer makes us uncomfortable, and we feel good about ourselves. But they’re still hurting inside, and that unaddressed bad root will just pop up somewhere else.

5) Intercession brings strategy. We’re all busy, but when we set aside time to pray, really pray for specific people, when we sacrifice our schedule for God’s heart, he gives it. When we have God’s heart for the situation, and more importantly for the person, we have life-giving words to bring. We have words that pierce hearts, jump over defenses, and bring godly sorrow unto repentance.

We all have a choice, with every word we speak. Will it bring life, or will it bring death? I pray this post has brought life.

A mother partners with God and births new life from her own body. Can we all partner with God and birth life with our words?

Does this resonate? How have your words (or others) brought life to a situation where it seemed impossible? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share on social media if this post would bless someone else.

To Be Right or to Be Jesus, that Is the Question

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“To be or not to be, that is the question,” asked Shakespeare through his character Hamlet, in the play by the same name. That’s probably both Hamlet’s and Shakespeare’s most famous line. But the question is incomplete. “To be or not to be WHAT?” What are we going to fall on our swords over? Being right or being Jesus?

When I was a teen, I was one opinionated bugger. Why shouldn’t I be? I thought. I’m right! And often I may even have been right, politically, morally, and spiritually. I was a Reagan-Republican, after all. I knew my Bible backwards and forwards. But I was missing something. In my self-righteousness, even when I got it right I missed the best. I so often missed Jesus’ heart.

If just being right is our goal, then we get really angry because everyone else is just so wrong. Just spend an afternoon on FaceBook and you’ll see what I mean. Being right, as an end in itself, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It takes a lot of energy arguing with all those people who just won’t get it, no matter how right we are. Maybe there’s a better way to change the world.

The Pharisees were totally right. Always, just ask them. They were conservatives who knew the Law, chapter and verse. They brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11), who according to the Law of Moses should be stoned. That was the “right” thing to do. (BTW, adultery’s not a solitary crime. According to the Law of Moses, the man also should be stoned [Leviticus 20:10]. I guess they rationalized that bit away – first clue they missed something – selective application of the Law. Being all men, the Pharisee’s probably rationalized excusing the man.)

But, fortunately for us, Jesus isn’t after right. He’s after best. The best does not violate what’s right, it supersedes it. You know the story, Jesus saved the woman without violating the Law of Moses. We should, too.

Jesus talks about dying to ourselves. In fact, he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). But wait, that means denying my rights! That’s downright un-American. Was Jesus a communist or something?

No, but he’s after what’s best, not just what’s right, something better than what’s right. Sometimes, often, love means dying to our right to be right.

In high school, a certain bully was going to beat-up my friend Don. After successfully evading the bully one hot summer afternoon, Don drove past him walking home carrying a load of books under the hot sun. Don could’ve honked and waved as he drove by in his air-conditioned car. But he didn’t. He pulled over and offered the bully a ride.

No one was more surprised than the bully. The guy almost fell over. It took him a minute to realize the offer was genuine and Don wasn’t just goading him. “Why are you doing this? Why would give me a ride?”, asked one surprised bully.

“Because it looks like you need one,” my friend Don simply replied. The bully accepted, and they became close friends after that. (And nobody dared mess with Don again or the bully would pulverize them.)

My friend would’ve been within his rights to pass by the bully. But he correctly discerned the Kingdom of God had something better in mind.

This doesn’t mean we don’t hold people accountable when necessary. It’s actually love to hold criminals and abusers and narcissists accountable (1) to prevent future victims, and (2) so they have the opportunity to get help (if they don’t take the opportunity, that’s on them). It’s also love to discipline our children.

But in the common everyday stuff of life, mercy triumphs over judgement (James 2:13). The best triumphs over the right.

What about you? Does this resonate? Have you shown mercy and had it be better than the “right” would’ve been? Or have you had someone show you mercy when you didn’t deserve it? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share if you think this post would bless someone else.

The Pig I Have

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A rural pastor was out visiting his peeps. In the course of chatting with a local farmer, he asked him, “If you had two cows, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

“Why, of course, Pastor. Absolutely. Wouldn’t even think twice about it,” responded the farmer.

The pastor asked another question. “If you had two sheep, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

Again, the farmer answered confidently and without hesitation, “Pastor, you know I would. I love Jesus and when he blesses me with a second sheep, of course he can have it.”

The pastor asked one more question, “If you had two pigs, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

This time, though, the farmer scowled and said, “Now just hold on a dadgum minute there, Pastor, that there’s not fair. You darn-good-and-well know I have two pigs.”

Sound familiar? Do we do that? Do we promise God what we hope he blesses us with, while withholding what he already has? I bet we do it more than we think, without even realizing it.

I’ll tithe once I can pay my bills. The truth is, you will never be able to pay your bills until you tithe.

I’ll spend time with the Lord once my schedule settles down. You will never be able to spend the time you don’t have with the Lord until you spend the time you do have.

I’ll take a Sabbath with the Lord once I get everything done. You will never get everything done until you start taking Sabbaths.

God doesn’t want the cow or the sheep we don’t have. He wants the pig we do have. God doesn’t want the 2 hours a day we don’t have to spend with him. He wants the 15 minutes a day we do have to spend with him but are choosing not to.

So often we take for granted what we have. We think, “Oh I’ll serve God when ________.” Fill in the blank for you. But he doesn’t want our promise to serve him later. He really doesn’t. He wants our obedience now, with what he’s already given us.

Jesus put it this way. “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10). And remember the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30)? The servants who were faithful with little were given more, and the servant who was not faithful with little, even what he had was taken from him.

So it’s really an opportunity to bless ourselves. Out of God’s great grace and mercy for us, he will never be give us more if we’re not faithful with what we already have. If we aren’t faithful with what we already have, more would destroy us, so out of his great love for us, he withholds it.

Ask the Lord, Is there anything I’m unconsciously withholding from you? Is there anything you’re consciously withholding? Will you go on this journey with us and offer it to the Lord, take the chance, and see where he leads it? It may not go where you expect, but it’ll be good.

So what do you think? Will you give the Lord the pig you have? Tell us in the comments and please share on social media (convenience buttons below). We look forward to hearing from you.