Misunderstood

You know the saying, "he/she is just misunderstood"?  It is intended to say that someone is not what they appear to be.  There are verses in the bible that are not what they seem at first glance as well.  One verse that has really been on my mind lately is Proverbs 22:6 "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it".  I hear this verse used time and again as to why parents "force" their children to go to church.  I do have a firm belief that while your child is under your authority (i.e. they live under your roof, eat your food, spend your money, etc) they should abide by your rules and if one of those is going to church, great!  However, I feel they are missing the essence of this verse.  This verse means that you should train your child up in the way THEY should go.  That means identify and call out the natural gifts God has given that child.  This means NOT trying to fulfill your childhood dreams vicariously through your child, NOT trying to fulfill your financial security through your child, NOT letting the culture, society, or anyone else decide what is best for your child.  It means you help them develop their unique identity and set them up to succeed in their unique gifting.  In the mean time if you have to drag them church, then by all means, drag them to church, but help them become who they were created to be.  Then when God calls their name and Christ reigns as their savior, you will have raised a well shaped and fully developed tool that God can use for his glory.  You should help them define who they are, not confine them to who you think they should be.

Family Fridays

I think on Fridays, I will try to share my favorite family story of the week.  So here we go, the story for this week.  Jeremy (our oldest son) is a very social 3 year old.  He loves his "neighbors", "small group", and his "friends".  The kid genuinely bubbles over with excitement when people come over to our house.  We host small group here on Thursday nights.  Luckily enough for us, there is another couple who has a child in our group that plays with Jeremy.  He is significantly older, he's almost eight, but he does a good job of playing with Jeremy and Jeremy just LOVES him.  So last week, that family couldn't make it to small group, so Jeremy had to play upstairs by himself while small group was going on.  Laurina put on a dvd and there are a TON of toys upstairs.  He comes down just before group is over and I didn't go check out upstairs until the next day and this is what I found....

Needless to say the child is bored when he doesn't have friends to play with.  He is a great kid, but apparently cannot be left to his own devices!

Personal Perception Vs Divine Destiny

We often see ourselves as much less than what God has planned for us.  Our personal perception can stunt our development and distort our destiny.  When God looks at you, He sees the powerful world changer He created you to be.  Unfortunately, so many times we do not believe everything that God says through his Word even though we try.  We don't fully believe that we are forgiven of all our sins.  So much so that if we have accepted Christ and asked forgiveness, they have been cast as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:11-12).  God has great plans for you, look at Jesus' interaction with Peter and the difference between what Peter sees in himself and what Jesus sees in him.  When Peter realizes that he is in the presence of Jesus, the Son of God, in Luke chapter 5 (8-11), he tell Jesus, "Go away from me, for I am a sinful man!"  But Jesus does not see only a sinful man in Peter.  He sees the man who has enough faith to be the disciple that claims Jesus is the Christ (Matthew 16:13-16), to be the man who walks on water to meet him (Matthew 14:30), to be the man who will lead the disciples after his death and resurrection and preach so powerfully at Pentecost that 3000 men will follow Jesus that day alone (Acts 2:40-41).  Jesus doesn't see a sinful fisherman, he sees the man who will be the foundation for the church's early movement.  If Jesus saw all this in a common fisherman, what does he see in you?  What great heights will he have you climb?  Here's the catch (ha, get it, catch... he was a fishermen... oh, never mind), to find out you have to let go of everything you hold sacred and cling to everything HE holds sacred.  The encounter with Jesus ends like this: "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything they had and followed him."

Flying Solo

For the past three years I have blogged rather sporadically on my wife's blog.  We mostly blog about family, kids, and everyday adventures.  This will be my first attempt at maintaining my own blog.  I don't yet know what the format will look like or if there will be recurring themes.  I will share my thoughts and hopefully you can take some encouragement out of the things I share.  There will be some family stuff added in of course.  My original intentions are to have about two updates a week, so we'll see how it all pans out.  Here we go....