A Father’s Prayer – The Son I Needed

Father,

     Today I wait in anticipation for a wedding service on Saturday evening for our oldest son, Ryan. It is one I will officiate with tears in my eyes, a lump in my throat and joy in my heart. And You’ve known about this all along haven’t You?

     Can it be true that this moment of release has almost arrived? It has been only 25 years since we brought him home from the hospital as a helpless infant. And to his dismay, he was born to helpless parents. We had no idea what to do with him. But You protected him from our stupidity Lord. And we are grateful that he survived physically and emotionally. It was only a short time ago that he was bathing in the kitchen sink with plastic spoons and a rubber ducky. We did know to keep the sharp instruments away from him. Wasn’t it just yesterday that we played ball outside and then played legos inside? And oh those sleepless nights that I thought would never end. But they did. And I am deeply, incredibly grateful.
      And I wonder why You gave him to us Lord. What did You see in us that said, “Those two need a kid like Ryan.” Because we did need him. He has taught me so much about You. How often have I as a dad looked to you for wisdom and found You knew what to do? His giving heart has compelled me toward greater heights of generosity, like You.  And those sleepless nights when he was afraid and we had to shut his door to teach him to not fear the dark. I stood there on the other side of that door hoping he would gain the heart of a champion and conquer his fears. He did. Boy did he!? This guy has slept on a bench in the San Diego airport waiting for his plane. But on those long nights, I thought about how many times I have been in the dark and wondered where You were, only to discover that you were right there, enabling me to gain the heart of a champion as well.
      Really Father? Is it time to release him fully and finally? Wait! Aren’t there still things I need to teach him? Did I cover everything? What if I forgot something? He won’t survive, will he? (And at this point in my prayer, I hear the sound of a small laughter from Heaven.) Yes, Lord, You are right. And once again I am the ever learning student.

      So I wait in eager anticipation for Saturday night and the tears, the lump and the joy. Bring it! They shall stand there with me at that altar as I ask him if he really, really wants to marry this lovely girl named Newt and if she really, really wants to do the same. And we will celebrate with our invited guests the amazing power of Christ to take our broken lives and to unite them as one. And I shall watch them take their first steps of following Jesus into the future. And I believe that somehow I will continue to learn from him and her.
     Yes, Lord, here is our son once again. We gladly laid him at Your feet when we brought him home from the hospital because we knew You loved Him more than we did. We do so again. Thanks for the honor. Amen.

He Is Calling

Weary of the routines,
No more of the status quo,
I am looking for life.
My heart cries out for more than my past.

In my search for more,
There comes silence.
And in the silence I hear a whispering,
It is an invitation,
A calling.
My heart skips,
It is a voice I know.
It is the One who painfully and patiently calls for me,
And waits for me.

Shall I leave my past
With all its pleasures and security?
Shall I pursue the future
With all its uncertainties?

Shall I accept His invitation to follow?
Can I trust His heart for me?
With its bleeding, wounds and bruises?

Promises do not come lightly from Him.
He paid dearly for them.
His word is truth.
And so I wonder:
Can I not follow Him into the future?

A Year In Four Pictures 
2012 . . .
      A mountain climbed – challenges, obstacles, endurance
          A kite that flew – hopeful, encouraging, laughter
      A rock carried – heavy, struggles, discouragement
          A garden that grew – new growth, blossoms, fruit
GOD has been in the midst of my life.
GOD is in the midst of your life.
                                  “I am making everything new.”
That includes me and you.

A poet once used these words to describe a time in his life:
         Anguish
         Groaning
         Dread
         Broken Pottery
Not a pretty picture, but an honest one.
Must have been a tough year.
Then he wrote,
“I trust in You O Lord. You are my GOD. My times are in Your hands.”

Step back for this moment.
See His activity.
Embrace His plan.
Walk the path.
He will sustain you.
Courage, Strength and Inspiration wait for you.
2013 . . .

Loved Til The End

Early this morning I was thinking about the people of Newtown and the tragedy they are living through. And the question we will continue to ask is why Adam Lanza would do such a thing. I have thought much about how a person could conceive of the idea of shooting children. Nothing about that idea is even comprehensible to me. Was it mental illness? Was it evil? Was it both? Perhaps so.
And yet in the face of unspeakable evil was unbelievable good. When evil came against those children, look at what happened. Six adults stood in the way and defended them. People like Dawn Hochsprung rushed toward evil and said, “No, you will not do this without a fight.” People like Ann Marie Murphy tried to protect her students from the gunman. Authorities told her father that her body was found covering a group of children’s bodies as if to shield them.
And the thought hit me – the worst of humanity called forth the best of humanity. When someone was attempting to inflict harm, someone else stood up in an effort to stop it.  Cardinal Timothy Dolan who spoke at Mrs. Murphy’s funeral quoted Jesus who said, “Greater love has no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” And so it was that we witnessed this truth lived out. Those teachers loved their children sacrificially. When evil rose up, so did good. "Like Jesus, Annie laid down her life for her friends," Dolan said. "Like Jesus, Annie's life and death brings light, truth, goodness and love to a world often shrouded in darkness, evil, selfishness and death."
While we grieve with the families and residents of Newtown who are watching a seemingly endless procession of funerals these days, we also give thanks for people like Dawn, Ann Marie, Lauren Russeau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Soto and Rachel Davino. They have given us a picture of what it means to love and I hope we will live in its shadow for a long time. Let’s remember Newtown, not as a place of death, but as a moment when love was shown by the sacrificial laying down of lives for the sake of others. While I cannot imagine the fear those children felt during those moments, one thing is certain – they were loved until their final moment on earth. 

We Need Christmas This Year

We need Christmas this year. 27 families in Connecticut are struggling to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And the rest of our nation is walking with them. I cannot imagine anyone in America being untouched by the horrific events of last Friday. The Christmas message of hope has never been more needed than it is right now. Or maybe not.

It was early on a December Sunday morning about 70 years ago that the future of America was totally changed. The first Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor killing more than 2,400 Americans. Throughout that day, the news spread across the mainland. It was a December that was later to be called “the most remarkable Christmas of the century” and “a holiday season few would ever forget.” It was the last normal Christmas for a very long time. I cannot imagine the grief that many families felt during the holiday season of 1941 and for the next four years as thousands of sons, fathers and husbands would give their lives on foreign fields defending our nation in World War 2. Certainly they needed a message of hope during that time. 

It was almost another 70 years before then that Christmas was celebrated in the midst of a great conflict called the Civil War. In 1863, Americans gathered around Christmas trees, read the Christmas story and made the best of a very difficult holiday season. They too grieved the loss of their loved ones. Specifically, it was a very difficult holiday for a writer named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His wife had died just prior to Christmas and his son, Charles, was seriously wounded in the war. On Christmas day, Longfellow penned the words to the song, “I Heard the Bells”.  Two of the verses read: 

And in despair I bowed my head;
 "There is no peace on earth," I said;
 "For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
 "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail,
With peace on the earth, good-will to men."

He needed the message of Christmas desperately. And this year so do we. We need it because the message of Christmas is that GOD is with us. We live in a world where hate is strong and the wrong seem to prevail and GOD appears to be either dead or asleep. Our lives are marked with death, fear and hurt. And it is hard, very hard, for many to face another day of sadness, funerals and grief. Yet in the midst of this dark valley, there is a light. Light in the dark is the message of Christmas.

An early follower of Jesus named John described the Christmas story in a single phrase when he wrote that He, Jesus, “moved into our neighborhood.” We live in a world where people kill innocent children. And Friday is not the only day that happened. Innocent children are held in slavery every single day of the year around the world. That is our neighborhood and Jesus moved right in. Christmas tells us that our tears do not go unnoticed. Our broken hearts are not foreign to GOD. He has felt the sting of death as a Son and as a Father. It is His presence that comforts us and His love that gives us the strength to endure such a great darkness. He always has and He always will.

On December 25 we will wake up to presents and family. When we do, we will remember the Newtown families and the grief they are feeling. And we will remember that they are not alone in their sadness. GOD has come and He has made Himself known as the Great Comforter. He will be with them. He will take them through. Immanuel – “GOD With Us” – is the message of Christmas.

The Risky Life of Destiny
To discover your destiny, step away from your security.  
- Craig Groeschel

Living destiny sounds exciting & romantic like a James Bond thriller where the secret agent lives on the edge of disaster all the time until he finds the enemy and amidst explosions, crashing cars and gunfire, he destroys him and his weapon of mass destruction. The world is saved every time. And Mr. Bond lives to tell the story and gets the girl.
Destiny is certainly an exciting adventure with risks involved. Unfortunately those risks don’t always pay off like they do for James Bond. When he jumps off a building, he is able to extend his arms to reveal a flying suit that allows him to descend softly onto a landing pad three miles away. It’s all preplanned. However real life is different.
 The scripture tells of people who lived out their destiny. When their story is told, it tells us that some of them “shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames.” However some of their stories tell us that some “were tortured to death . . . faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained . . . “
 That is the risk of destiny. You don’t always know how the situation will end. All you know is that GOD is calling you to something significant. It is a beckoning you cannot escape and it will lead you away from your convenience, comfort, security, support, assurance, confidence, well-being, ease, refuge, safekeeping and self-assurance. Destiny can never be experienced in safety. It is a risky venture and it is not always pretty.
 However you can resist that beckoning voice of GOD’S destiny. You can choose safety over destiny and keep your life in a neat and orderly fashion. And live surrounded by the safety of airbags and helmets. You can live the American Dream of success and retire early.
 Then what? ?
 Destiny never includes comfort and convenience. No one ever changed the world from their recliner. Destiny means blood, sweat and tears. Yet it is full of meaning and significance and joy and peace. It means a life well-lived. After that, what else really matters?  

A GOD Shaped Life
The task for every parent is to help their children discover their destiny. King David, a man of destiny himself, wrote this poem to GOD:
    Oh yes, You shaped me first inside, then out; You formed me in my mother’s womb.
    I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
    You know me inside and out, You know every bone in my body;
    You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing
    into something.
    Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    All the stages of my life were spread out before you,
    The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.  (Psalm 139, msg) 
In a sentence, every single life was created for a divine purpose. No child was haphazardly birthed. Destiny is not something that comes to us, but rather it is something within us. Destiny is who we are, not what we do, because in the words of David, “You shaped me.”
Therefore the path of destiny means discovering who we are. It means connecting to our own hearts. And as we do, we begin to hear the voice of GOD directing our lives into the great unknown future. And we go there because something inside of us tells us, “This is what you were made for.” GOD made you for a purpose and the key to discovering your purpose is knowing your own heart.
Help your child discover his/her heart. How? 
     - Model it for them. Discover your own heart.
     - Talk to them about it. Ask them at bedtime, “What’s been on your heart today?”
     - Pray with them and for them. “Lord, show my daughter/son Your plans for         him/her.”
     - Spend time building the relationship. Playing games with children builds bridges   to their heart.
     - Create the environment of living in destiny. Talking about GOD’S plans for the
future is a routine conversation in your home. 
And watch as a butterfly emerges from its cocoon to soar into the great plans of GOD.