Here's to you Ma!

Today is mother's day, and happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I'm very thankful for mine, for her constant love and support and encouragment. If you have the chance to talk to yours, let me give you some advice my old high school football coach used to give us every day after practice:

"Go home, kiss your momma, tell her you love her."

So, as they say in the good book, go and do likewise!


P.S. My daughter has played hard with her cousins all weekend long, no naps, just serious playtime. And it's 10pm and she's awake singing in her bed like nothing's been going on. She'll be a little bear tomorrow, but she's having a ball right now just chirping away like a little bird...

Darlin', can I have this dance?

Our campus ministry, the Longhorns for Christ, were in charge of leading our worship service yesterday at church. It was really a great service, I was proud of the ladies and gents who participated, their hard work and preparation was very evident, and I was thankful that I got to be a part of it. One of our interns preached a great sermon about learning to see Jesus in the everyday areas of your life, how easily we can get so caught up in what we're doing that we often don't even notice God's presence with us. He was teaching from Luke 24, the story of Cleopas and another disciple on the walk to Emmaus, when Jesus appears and walks with them and they don't notice him. He also spoke about how sometimes even when we're paying attention, we don't think that God can do much with what we have to offer. Here he used the example from Abraham and Sarah, when God comes to visit disguised as three strangers. Abraham offers them hospitality, and they respond by telling him that he and Sarah will become parents in the next year, to which Sarah laughs --- no way this could happen, right? Wrong. My friend challenged us to think about areas in our life where we're tempted think that God couldn't possibly work, no way He could make something out of our nothing. There's no way he could use a two step to bring someone to His name...is there? That's when he told us about his experience in the school dance club.

Come to find out, he joined this group after being invited by some other folks, and through a series of "coincidences" that really weren't coincidences, ended up discovering some other Christian folks who had also joined the club, with the goal of having a great time dancing, but also to see if God might provide some opportunities for them to reach out to others who don't know him.

So my friend is sharing this from the pulpit and I remember thinking to myself that this was really cool. It's cool that he can share about how God is working in his life, through something that even he thought would NEVER be a way that God would work in his life. I'm also thinking this is cool that he can share this story and in church, and not get thrown out on his keister. I was also thinking that it's really awesome when you get to see ways that God is working in and maturing people all the time.

Lord, thanks that I get to serve you in a church where we can talk about reaching people in your name while we're dancing. Thanks also for your grace in growing us up and teaching us, using things that we might simply look past or, like Sarah, laugh at, and instead you go and do something amazing. Thanks for being a God that is way bigger than I/we can ask or even imagine.

This one's going downtown

So my daughter is 3 yrs old and was sent to the principal's office today for saying no to the teacher...alright world, brace yourself, little Hallie D has officially had her coming out party!

Listening to a little Passion Worship album tonight before I head up for bed. On it is a great song called Wonderful King. Here are the words, they are very simple:

You are here because of grace, because of love
We are here because of You, because of You
You fill our hearts with more than we can hold inside and so we sing
Beautiful Savior, Wonderful King

Great song if you haven't heard it, it's on the Our Love is Loud album. Reminds me of the truth that we serve a God who loves us desperately, so much that he would send his son to die for us. I can't imagine doing that, I can't possibly understand...all I can do is accept. Lord, thanks for being a God who can't be understood, who loves far beyond what we can even imagine, who is wonderful.

Need a little grace here.....

So I'm learning that I'm not the perfect dad...and that's a big blow to my ego. Can I confess here a minute? I think I was living in this delusional world that I was going to be the best dad ever --- my kids would love me and respect me and honor my wishes all the time. I don't know that I ever consciously thought that, but deep down inside I'm pretty sure that was my goal.

My son is 4, about to be 5, and my daughter is 3. And in the last 2 months, they have quite convincingly exposed me for the fraud that I am. What is that about kids, they can see right through the garbage and can push your buttons and all of the sudden, you're exposed, the truth is out there. There are times when I feel like the Emperor who has no clothes on, at the moment he realizes he has no clothes on. Not good.

I discovered this because I was noticing how easily I was getting upset with my kids when they disobeyed me or my wife. It seemed like I went from fine to "hot and bothered" in about 1 minute. Later on I would sit and ask myself, "Why are you so mad?" And I couldn't honestly come up with an answer. I didn't know. My kids were being kids, they were pushing the limits, testing boundaries, all the stuff I did at their age. Why was it bugging me so much?

Well, as the Lord usually does, it came clear to me in a conversation with my friend Eddie. We're reading through Romans and got to that great part in chapter 7 where Paul says:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I
do not do, but what I hate I do. 7:15


Eddie asked me if I ever felt that way, if I've experienced what Paul is talking about. And I related to him my struggles with my kids, how I want to be a great dad but I keep behaving like a knuckle-head. As soon as I finish, Eddie looks at me and says: "Karl, sounds like you're trying to be the perfect father. Your kids don't need you to be the perfect father; if you were, they wouldn't need God would they?"

Well, that one cut to the core. I could feel the Holy Spirit leaning on me a little bit after that. And it started to become more clear --- all my frustration that I was expressing to my kids was really my own guilt and shame for not being the dad I wanted to be. And instead of working this out with the Lord, I was trying to work it out with my kids. I was trying to be the perfect dad and was really messing it up. In fact, I wasn't even close. And this was killing me --- but I had stopped talking to the Lord about it. I was praying about the situation, but it was that God would help my kids stop misbehaving --- seems like now it should have been, "Lord, humble me. Help me to love my kids and discipline them, and not have my self worth wrapped up in how much they obey and respect me. Help me to find my worth in you, so that I can love my kids genuinely."

Alright, lesson learned...at least for now. So here we go:

Lord, thanks for being a God who loves a silly, foolish, arrogant, knuckle-head like me. Thank you for still allowing me to be a father. Lord, thanks for not giving up on me, the way I seem to give up on myself. Help me to be a humble, gentle, and loving father, more like your son Jesus, willing to sacrifice himself for the better of others. Help me to find my identity in you and not in how well I parent. Help me to be the dad I want to be in my heart of hearts, to do what your Spirit prompts me to do. Lord, thanks for my friend Eddie who can speak your truth with great love into my life. Thanks for a wife who loves me and supports me and challenges me to do and be better. Thank you for two kids who are teaching me all the time about grace and forgiveness. AMEN.