Weekend Retreat

My day on Friday began with God waking me up about 3:30 to spend some time with Him.  I never went back to bed, but enjoyed some great devotional time with the Lord.  However, my day began to go downhill from there.  We nearly backed out from going on our mini vacation.  The enemy blindsided us with a left hook out of nowhere.  Our children were fighting and were not cooperating for us to be able to leave on the trip.  I offered to stay home with a few of the kids and for my wife to get away with a couple of the ones who were causing less problems.  She wouldn’t hear of it.  Either we all go or none of us.  I was praying in my heart against the warfare, but I was about to give up and stay home.  My wife even began carrying the suitcases back upstairs when it hit me what was going on.  The enemy didn’t want us to have this time away.  He wanted us to stay home and continue working and being tired.  We all calmed down, loaded the van and left for Prairie View Christian Camp for their “Family Weekend.”

I am so glad we didn’t give up and stay home!  We were the only ones who came in on Friday night.  We had the whole dorm to ourselves.  I stayed with three of the kids while my wife and our oldest daughter went to town to get some supper and breakfast for the next morning.  There was a long hallway and the kids could run up and down it and be as loud as they wanted to be.  They played hide-and-seek and did cartwheels in the spacious lobby area.  I played trucks with my son for a little bit and then our second daughter came in and just began reading to us from the Psalms.  She had something written in her Bible that was very profound.  It said something like this, “The way of people is swaggy (and then she explained it by moving her hand around in a serpentine fashion), but the way of the Lord is straight and I will walk in His way.”  I thought that was pretty awesome for a seven year old.  She ended up reading to us from the Psalms both nights.

My wife got back with pizza and a veggie tray for supper.  We enjoyed visiting and laughing during supper.  For some reason, my children do not like tomatoes, but I do.  I was popping the cherry tomatoes from the veggie tray like candy.  I asked my son if he wanted one, and he said, “No, they’re yucky.”  I said “No they aren’t.  Just do it like this,” and I popped on in my mouth and said, “Mmmm…”.  He did the same thing and at first said, “Mmmmm…”, but then he spit it out and said, “NO, it’s yucky.”  The look on his face was priceless.  We then did cartwheels in the lobby of the dorm.  Yes, I even tried to do one just goofing around.  I was afraid for a minute that I had done some permanent damage… NO, not to the property… to myself.   I was very impressed, though – my wife did a couple of very good cartwheels after not doing one for “years.”  Not bad for a woman who just turned…oops better be quiet.

The next day we learned that the group who came was very small.  Most only had come for the day to ride horses.  My kids plus the ones who live at the camp were the only ones there, so the people who brought the horses really catered to them and let them have some rides.  We soon learned that there was no set schedule except for the meals and that we were free to do whatever we wanted.  So… along with riding horses a couple of times, the kids played on the playground, we went on a couple of hikes, we threw rocks into the creek, we played basketball, tetherball, and horseshoes.  In other words, we had a lot of fun.  I think we spent the most time throwing rocks in the creek.  I was interested in finding the flat ones that would skip while my son wanted the ones that made the biggest splash.  I think my kids enjoyed having very few boundaries for awhile.

Before supper we carved pumpkins, which was fun.  We had a wonderful meal and then helped pick pears for awhile.  Then, for the surprise… they brought a tractor around pulling a trailer on it and we did a hay rack ride around the camp.  We didn’t even have to force the kids into bed that night.  They were worn out.  I can’t remember the last time I was in bed by 9:30!!

I felt like the Lord was trying to get me up around 3:30, but I was too lazy to get up, and regretted it the rest of the day…  I know I missed out on some good time with Him.  Those early mornings are always the best.

Anyway, we had a great breakfast, and then a Bible study with the camp manager and his family.  There was one other lady who ended up spending the night, and she joined us, too.

Basically, in our Bible study, he pointed out that after Aaron and the children of Israel had made the golden calf that it says that they would worship the Lord (Yahweh) the very next day.  So often, we do that.  We have idols all around us that are visible in the form of anything that distracts us from fully worshiping God.  We can’t fully worship the Lord as long as we give so much attention to our “golden calves.”  We need to be totally sold out, making God the center of our lives. 

We had a nice drive home.  All of my passengers slept for at least a little bit.  Once we got home, though, it was back to reality in a hurry as we tried to get ready for Life Group.  Our children, who didn’t fight hardly at all on the trip, went right back at each other.  No one wanted to help get ready and cooperate.  We had seven messages on the answering machine…  I think you get the picture.  At least, we were in a better frame of mind to deal with it.

May God give you special times where you can enjoy being with Him and with one another without the distractions of the “golden calves.”

Single Parent Thanksgiving Dinner

I can’t wait to tell you about the amazing day that I have had, but first I want to say that I hope my readers haven’t given up on me.  I apologize for not writing in awhile.  Life has been so busy lately.  I have been doing quite a bit of teaching and counseling and my mentor put it into perspective yesterday morning when he said he thinks I could be dealing with mental and emotional fatigue.  He said when he gets in from a weekend of teaching, he feels drained and has a hard time getting motivated on Monday morning.  Well, I have been that way, too, but have had to try to keep preparing more lessons.  Therefore, I haven’t had the mental capacity to write lately, though I enjoy it greatly.  I am really enjoying teaching and am learning alot, but I need to find a balance.  Dean told me that I need to find things that recharge me, and today was one of those days!

Yesterday was a long day.  I got to the office around 8:00 a.m. and left after 8:00 p.m.  I really enjoyed teaching my class last night on the topic of worship, but I was spent when it was over.  Soon after I got home I left again to be with a good friend who was in the middle of a crisis.  God really blessed my time with my friend, but I didn’t get home until around 12:30 a.m.  I was up again at 6:00 a.m. to meet with my band of brothers at 6:30 (fortunately we meet at my house).  We had some good prayer time.  After that, I was tempted to just get ready and head straight to the office.  However, I decided to just be late and have my time with God before getting ready.  After that, I walked on the treadmill (something I just started over the past week or so since someone blessed us with a nice treadmill!) and read from the book Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy.  I am really enjoying that book.

After that, I got ready and had a good breakfast and came into the office in a much better frame of mind than I would have, although it was almost 11:00.  I decided to not do any studying or preparing for classes today.  Instead, I have been needing to distribute posters for our Single Parent Family Thanksgiving Dinner that will be held on November 23.  I had no idea what God had in store for me today!!

I tried calling a few places first, but that didn’t work so well, so I asked God for direction and boldness and I just took off driving.  I’m really not comfortable doing stuff like this, but it is for a cause I believe in.  Besides, I really wasn’t asking them for money or anything…  I first went to a local Kwik Shop, but they can’t display anything like that unless approved by the corporate office, which is here in town.  I thought, “wow, if they let me put these up in all of their convenient stores and grocery stores, I can get all of my posters delivered quickly and be done.”  No, that’s not what God had in store because they wouldn’t let me do it.  However, God had bigger plans than having our posters at the c-stores and grocery stores.  I just drove around praying and stopping where I felt led. 

The next place I went was Giant Laundry.  Wow, was I blessed.  When I shared with the lady what I was doing she said, “By all means you can hang your poster.  I really believe in things like this.”  Then, she proceeded to remove a Halloween decoration off of the front door and told me I could put the poster right on the front door where everyone would see it when they came in.  I was pumped.  I got a prayer request from her and left excited.

Next, I went to a Family Dollar store and they allowed me to put my poster by the front door.  She also moved a Halloween poster so I could do this.  God was really working, and I was walking on air.  Did I mention that I’m really not very bold at asking to do these kinds of things?  Let me tell you, I was getting bolder by the moment in God’s power.

Across the street from there was Syndey’s Hairdressing College.  When my mom was a single parent, she often got our haircuts at the local “Beauty College.”  In fact, I have bad memories of getting my ear cut there once.  No worries… there were no lasting effects.   I took my poster in there and they were all impressed that we were going to do something like this.  They moved a sign advertising for “Hair Models” and put our poster right on the front of the receptionist’s counter where everyone would see it.  Two of the ladies at the counter are single moms and were excited about the event.  They also wanted to know more about our ministry.  I received prayer requests from three ladies there and went out praising God.

I then went to the mall, and although the management wouldn’t let me put up a poster, I went to a children’s museum in the mall and the manager was happy to put up a poster.  I had a great visit with her, and she let me look around at the possibilities for bringing some of the kids in our ministry to the museum sometime.  I asked her if I could pray about anything and she told me about her mom who was going under Hospice care for cancer.  Before I left, I saw an acquaintance who was there with her grandsons.  I asked her if I could pray about anything and she pointed to one of her grandsons and said he is battling cancer.  Heavy stuff, but what a blessing to be able to pray for others.

I continued to get positive responses from most of the places I stopped:  Snip-N-Clip, two apartment complexes (Commerce Gardens and Porter Commons), the Medical Center, and the YMCA.  As you see, I am naming these businesses because I appreciate their support and we should give them our support if we are able.

Lastly, I went to see my friend, who is the Executive Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters.  She was excited about what we are doing, and will hang a poster plus send out a mass email.  I asked her if I could be praying about anything, and she asked for prayers for her father-in-law, Tom, who is battling liver cancer.  Cancer and family issues seemed to be the most common prayer requests for today.

What a day!  Seven divine appointments in one day and now I’m sitting here in awe wondering if we should have chosen a bigger venue for our dinner after talking to so many people and getting positive responses!  God is so good.  I am pumped and recharged like only God can do.  This weekend, our family is taking a mini vacation to Prairie View Christian Camp, so by Monday I will be ready once again to study and teach.

Besides all of that, I had a few minutes to blog for the first time in awhile.  Of course, tonight I need to get some things done around the house like repairing the mower…  As good as I feel right now, even that will be fun.

May God recharge you today so that you can serve Him with zeal!

Respect

Where do I start?  I’ve had all these things that I’ve wanted to write, but have been so incredibly busy that I haven’t been able to do so.

Last Friday I substitute taught for a class of fourth graders.  I thought it would be easier than the sixth graders that I had a few weeks ago.  WRONG!!!  I’ll be honest – I had a horrible day.  They were extremely disrespectful, rude, and didn’t care.  I won’t go any farther than that.  In fact, I’m trying to forget that day, except what God taught me through it.

On Friday night and Saturday until noon, my wife and I and a couple we’re good friends with went to the Love and Respect Conference.  I was mentally fried after my day at the school, but I was looking forward to the time with my wife, the time with our friends, and to the conference.  By the time we got to the conference, I was much better.  Anyway, Dr. Eggrichs explained how a man’s deepest need is respect and a woman’s deepest need is love.  We are commanded in Ephesians 5 for husbands to love their wives unconditionally and for wives to respect their husbands unconditionally.  God has to command us in that way because it’s not natural.  Respect is a language that men, for the most part, naturally speak, but love is like a foreign language.  We can speak it, but it will take practice.  Love is a language that women, for the most part, naturally speak, but respect is like a foreign language.  Again, you can learn it, but it takes practice.  God commands us to speak the others language, and it isn’t always easy.  He also talked about how even our churches teach love, love, love, but not respect.  For a woman to ask to be loved and to be upset when she’s not being loved, is common and people come to her defense.  On the other hand, if men are upset about not being respected, it is viewed as arrogant and selfish.  There is much more to it than this, but that is the general idea.

So, I got to thinking about my day.  No wonder I was feeling shot down.  I had not been respected.  I feel respected at home, at church, among my friends and peers, etc…, but this was far different than I was used to.  I’m used to the children at church treating me with respect and responding to my authority.  At our Christian school, the children also respect me.  I didn’t think it was too much to ask for respect in the classroom.  In fact, I told them that respect for me, respect for each other, respect for the other teachers, and respect for school property were my expectations.  Later, as I was licking my wounds while sitting through the conference, it dawned on me that if we aren’t teaching this concept in our churches, our society is certainly not teaching it.  Therefore, these young people probably had no concept of what I was saying.  Where would they hear the message of respect?  Men on television (the only men many of them are exposed to) are, for the most part, lazy, bumbling idiots with no morals.  In other words, they aren’t respectable.  Many of the children come from single parent homes where they live with their moms and their dads aren’t involved in their lives.  At school, their teachers are normally women.  At church (if they go), their Sunday School teachers are normally women.  Women don’t naturally speak the “respect language” so where, I ask again, are they going to learn it?  We men need to step up through teaching our own children and mentoring other children about honor and respect.  It is not arrogant.  It is a God-given virtue.

I wish I could write more right now, but I have other things demanding my attention…

As far as our marriage goes, this past weekend was AWESOME, and I hope to write about it soon.

May God give you wisdom and insight as you love and respect your spouse (and others in your lives).

The Golden Boy

This week and next week we are studying the “gold medal” character traits of Joseph during chapel time at our school.  I am learning so much from studying his life that I’m having to break it down into three sessions!  I think as children, we learn about the stories, but we’re not taught (or don’t remember) the character traits that the people of the Bible had.  Before this week, when I would think of Joseph I would think of the “coat of many colors” and that he was sold into slavery.  There is so much more to it than that.  The account begins in Genesis 37.  Today, I want to focus on his traits of integrity and trustworthiness.

Joseph was “Daddy’s Golden Boy.”  The Bible even says that he was his father’s favorite out of the 12 sons.  His father even gave him a “richly ornamented robe,” which made his brothers jealous.  To top it off, he had a couple of dreams and pridefully told his father and brothers that they would be bowing down to him.  At the age of 17, he was pretty full of himself, much of it probably coming from being the “favorite.”

His brothers had their gut-fill of it and decided to kill him.  However the oldest brother, Reuben talked them into just throwing him in a cistern.  Later, when Reuben wasn’t around, the other brothers sold him into slavery.  They took the robe, dipped it in goat’s blood and convinced their father that a wild animal had killed him.

Meanwhile, Joseph was taken to Egypt and sold to Pharaoh’s captain of the guard, Potiphar.  Genesis 39:2-6 says, “The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.  When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant.  Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned.  From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph.  The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.  So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.”

That is an incredible passage which shows Joseph’s integrity, work ethic, responsibility, loyalty, trustworthiness, and sense of stewardship.  God was with him and no matter what he was doing, he wanted to glorify God.  He would have been “justified” in being angry and bitter toward his brothers and refusing to work.  Instead, he chose to honor God and do his best work.

Now, Potiphar’s wife took notice of him and kept trying to seduce him (spiritual warfare at it’s worst).  He stood his ground, though.  His integrity was more important than physical pleasure.  He did not want to let his master down.  Well, as things go, she set him up and lied, saying that Joseph had tried to force himself on her when the opposite was true.  In his anger, Potiphar sent Joseph to prison.

Once again, Joseph had every right to be angry and bitter.  Instead, once again, the Lord was with him and he found favor in the eyes of the prison warden.  Genesis 39:22-23: “So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there.  The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.”  INCREDIBLE!!!  Even when wrongly put in prison, he kept the attitude that he should honor God in his work. 

Later, Joseph, was freed from prison because he interpretted a dream of Pharaoh’s.  He gave God all of the credit for it.  The end result:  He became second in command of all Egypt.  God honored Joseph’s faithfulness.  When Joseph was reunited with his brothers, he forgave them and told them that it wasn’t them who sent him to Egypt, it was God.  He said that God had brought him to Egypt for the purpose of saving the lives of others (paraphrased).  That gives me chills!  Joseph knew that God had a bigger plan for having him sold into slavery.  This is what I call being eternally minded. 

We have the responsibility to be the best employee and the best stewards of all that God has given us that we can be.  He doesn’t put conditions around that.  In fact, I think sometimes the environment serves as a test.  Are we going to honor God no matter what?

When I was working in my former career but was sensing a calling to ministry, I had a hard time keeping my attitude in check.  I had to remember that I still had the obligation to my current job and had to maintain my integrity.  It wasn’t easy and I failed at times.  I wanted to be elsewhere, so badly.  God gave me this verse to help keep me in check:  Colossians 3:23 – “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men…”  I had to keep reminding myself of this.  I think Joseph lived out this verse.  He was working for the Lord, no matter what the environment happened to be.

One last Scripture along these lines.  In Matthew 25, from the Parable of the Talents, we learn that those who are faithful with a little will be given more.  Once those who were in charge of Joseph saw that he was faithful with a little bit, they gave him authority over everything.  Remember, he went from slavery to prison to second in command of Egypt.  He was faithful and God delivered him.

Faithfulness, Trustworthiness, Dependability, Loyalty, Integrity, – These are all gold medal character traits of a Christian worker / employee, especially when faced with adversity.

May God bless you in your responsibilities today and may your integrity shine like that of Joseph!

Love Letter

I was reading and studying from 2 Corinthians 3 this morning.  Verses 2 and 3 really struck me.  Paul says, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.  You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  What a beautiful and powerful passage.  This, to me, speaks to the power of discipleship.  Not because of what we do but because of the power of the living God working through us.  When we teach and disciple others, the message doesn’t stop there.  The lives of those we disciple become like letters from Christ written by the Holy Spirit on their hearts.  In other words, the Gospel will perpetuate exponentially as we disciple others and teach them how to disciple.  When we plant seeds and help them to grow, in time they produce fruit with many more seeds to be planted.  Just think about Jesus.  Yes, He taught the masses, but he also focused on discipling a handful of men, and equipping them to do the same.

What a perfect passage of Scripture to study before having my first phone conversation with my spiritual mentor / coach this morning.  God works that way!  I am so excited about this relationship.  As my coach disciples me, my life becomes a fruit of his ministry, as well.  I pray that my heart will be good soil for the seeds he plants to flourish into lots of lasting fruit.  I want my life to be read like a love letter from Christ written by the Holy Spirit on my heart to all those God puts in my path. 

May your life read as a love letter from Christ to those around you!