Stay the Course

I had a very interesting experience as a substitute teacher last Friday.  I took the assignment of going to the juvenile detention facility.  Contrary to what you might think, it was one of the easiest days I’ve had yet as a substitute.  I was there along with two other teachers, and we had twelve students.  In addition, there were three guards with us to make sure nothing happened.  With it being a Friday, the students wanted to be on their best behavior so they would have weekend privileges.  In many ways, it was much easier than being in the regular classroom.

I couldn’t help but wander about their stories.  Why were they there?  What was their home-life like?  Do they have dads in their lives who care?  How can I help?  My heart was breaking for them. 

One of the guys told me that between 5 and 10% of the youth who came there listed the father as “unknown.”  He also told me that well over half of them came from single parent families.  I’m guessing that 90% or more of them don’t have a good relationship with their dads, no matter if they are from a single parent or two parent home.  I felt like I was witnessing another consequence of fatherlessness in a very up-close way.  I really believe that most of them would turn things around if they had a good mentor, a father figure… at least someone in their life who cared.

Now, let’s spin the globe to the other side.  This morning, four of us met to talk about the trip to Thailand in October.  I learned more information about the village of Tee Po Kwah.  This is the village I spoke of awhile back that consists mostly of single parent families and widows.  I had assumed that the men were dying at the hands of the Burmese army, couldn’t get out of Burma to be with their families, or were trying to find work somewhere.  Unfortunately, much to my dismay, I learned that a great many of them had abandoned their families to find new wives and had succumbed to many of the same temptations that the men of America have.  It is a grim reminder that fatherlessness is a universal problem.  

I feel like God has placed me here for such a time as this.  I want to be used by God to stand in the gap and help hurting families, and to be on the frontlines of the battle against fatherlessness.  I often marvel at how He has brought me from a career as a meat scientist to being a minister and has giving me my heart’s desire of showing Christ’s love to people.  I have the greatest job on earth, as far as I’m concerned.  I get to carry out my life mission of ministering to single parent families locally, and it looks like I will get the chance to do this in Thailand in October, as well.  At the same time, I have opportunities to help strengthen marriages and minister to men, so maybe there will be fewer single parent families.  Not to mention, I have been given the privilege of leading and helping lead other ministries, such as the Small Group, Outreach and Shepherding ministries.  I pretty much get to minister to people of all ages at one time or another in the church and in the community.

If that wasn’t great enough, God has allowed me a unique way to minister to my own children, as well.  I get to teach chapel two days a week at the school where my daughters attend.  I can walk downstairs three days a week and have lunch with them, and I even get to substitute teach in their classes from time to time.  I know each of their teachers and see them daily when school is in session.  While we often have a busy schedule, I’m still home more than I was when I worked in the meat industry, and I’m at least home most evenings to help put them to bed.  This is so important to me because if I don’t father my own children and take care of my family well, everything else will be for nothing.   

Now, I say all this only to add this:  I’m thrilled where God has me, but I don’t want to just settle here.  I want to continue to grow.  I want to get more education in counseling so I can minister to people more effectively.  I need more ammunition for the battle, and I’m seeking God’s wisdom and guidance in how to do this.

Yesterday morning, in my time with God, this phrase came to my mind, “Moving from rhetoric to reality requires resolve.”  I don’t think I’ve ever heard this phrase before, but it sounds too complex to actually have come from me, so I’ll just give credit to God.  We need to get past fancy and glittery words and move toward actions.  It’s easy to say we will do something, but it takes resolve to make it happen.  We must be purposeful and intentional, and remember it won’t happen overnight.  Of course, it won’t happen at all, if we don’t come up with a game-plan and stick with it.  Just like with my Ten Key Moves.  If I write them down and don’t act on them, they will go down as more useless rhetoric.  Rhetoric doesn’t change lives and make a difference, action does.  With so much to do, I often get distracted from staying the course.  It seems like good things keep popping up that I allow to keep me from the best things.  That’s why it’s so important to put God first and listen to Him constantly.  When the children of Israel listened to God and obeyed, amazing things happened.  When they didn’t, disaster occurred.  I don’t know about you, but I want God’s best, not what I think is the best.  Let’s stay the course…

May God give us all the resolve to stick with the gameplan He has given us!

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 Greatest Compliment

I don’t have much time to blog because I’m on my way to Wings of Love, but I have to share this story.  This was my first day to substitute teach, and it was not without it’s challenges.  My prayer this morning was that God would help me to encourage someone today and that I would find someone to be praying for.  God blew me away with His love because out of the challenges came one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.  One of the girls in the class listed out all of the initials of the stuff she’s been diagnosed with that keeps her from focusing on her work.  I was trying to encourage her to keep trying.  One of the boys said he was just dumb and I told him it wasn’t true.  Anyway, as I walked by the girl’s desk that I mentioned, she asked, “Are you a Christian?  Because you talk like a Christian?”  Wow, I wanted to jump up and down and scream YES!!  I kneeled down by her desk and said, “Yes I am.”  To that she said, “Me, too, but I don’t get to go to church except with my Grandma in another town.  I just worship at home with my mom and sister.”  She is the one God wants me to pray for.  She made it a point to tell me her first and last name, while I only remember first names of the others.  While I will pray for some of the others, too, she will go on my long term prayer list.  God is good.  I can shine the light of Jesus in everyday life.  I didn’t even have to say the words ”God” or “Jesus” and someone still noticed.  I hung onto that moment for the rest of the day!  At the end of the day, one of the boys who had been trying to pick fights with others gave me a big bear hug before leaving.  There is no telling what all is going on in the lives of these young people.  I just pray that I will be salt and light, as Jesus has called me to be.

May the love of Jesus shine through you!