Posts Tagged: Children
A Pitch-Back Baseball Training Aid, The Sabbath, & the Happiest Moment of My Day!
A story that leads to the happiest moment of my day:
After much pleading I bought Dayton a pitch back baseball training aid today. He said he wanted it because he wanted “to practice [his] baseball catching.”
It was $20, so on the condition, my exact words, “he practice EVERY SINGLE DAY” I bought it.
Well I have to say I was impressed immediately after I put it together; he & his little brother spent close to an hour playing with it.
Then after dinner outside (we live in California 😉 ), he spent another hour practicing.
It was during this second stint of practice as I was sitting at the computer working on something and watching the boys through the window that I saw Dayton suddenly stop and he came running into the house.
Dayton ran up to me baseball mitt and ball in hand–I noticed a concerned, maybe even distressed look on his face and then these words flowed out of his mouth,
“Daddy I will practice all the other days I promise; but I don’t want to practice baseball on the Sabbath.”
I smiled gently though inside I was absolutely beaming!
I said, “Dayton I think that is a good idea. Thank you for correcting & reminding me.”
He got a big ‘ole smile on his face and ran back outside to play some more.
He made a deal with his Dad, he was concerned about breaking the deal, but he was willing to do it for his convictions on the Sabbath. Even though I would have told him I didn’t mean Sabbath too, he didn’t know that. All he knew was that he told his Dad he would practice every day, but then his little 5 year old mind remembered that he had a more important Dad that asked him to “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…” And to Dayton without anyone prompting him, practicing baseball and keeping Sabbath holy didn’t jive and so he had to break the deal with me. His face showed this concerned him, but his convictions were more important.
He didn’t ask, he said, “”Daddy I will practice all the other days I promise; but I don’t want to practice baseball on The Sabbath.”
Sorrows & Grief
Tonight as I was snuggling with my two year old son, Landon, & we were going through our usual routine, “Daddy snuggle me just 2 more minutes,” and ultimately me conceding at least once or twice, the thought suddenly popped into my head,
“How am I going to handle it when a girl someday breaks this kids heart?”
Random! I know!
But there it was, a dreadful thought! I began to remember when I got my heart broken. I was a Sophomore in college, I got a phone call, if there is such a thing as “Dear John” phone calls that was it…I was dumped. I didn’t see it coming & I was heart broken. It was close to 1 a.m., but one of the first things I did was call my parents. My mom answered, I could tell I woke-her-up. “Mom,” I sputtered, “Chad what’s wrong?” “Mom, (Name withheld for protection since this individual may never want to admit to dating me:)) just broke-up with me!” I said through sobs.
Landon is two, he won’t even date for 15 years, but I found myself saddened at just the thought of that potential call.
And maybe it’s because I’m a preacher, but everything turns into a Spiritual nugget; & this was no exception.
Because while I was pondering and sorrowing over my two year old son’s future heart break at the hands of some woman whom fails to see how awesome he is! 🙂
This text popped into my mind,
“He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” –Isaiah 53:3
And suddenly I understood it differently.
In the past I have seen this sorrow and this grief directly related to the emotional and physical torment Jesus personally went through on this earth; and maybe that is still what this text is primarily saying.
But tonight as a Dad worrying about his son’s hypothetical heartbreak and the ensuing phone call I will receive at 1 in the morning, I saw Jesus as sorrowful and grief stricken because He loves me so much that every hurt I have, He intimately felt and feels.
Before I had kids I never saw anything sorrowful or even painful about the life of a toddler. Now my heart hurts when I see my kids wounded physically and emotionally. I’m a man of sorrows & acquainted with the griefs of toddlers because I love them so much!
And one day if we are still on this planet, I will be sorrowful & grief stricken for pre-adolescent children, and then I will feel the sorrow & grief of teenagers, I will feel the sorrow & grief of getting dumped…not because I’ve been dumped…but because I have a son that has received that “Dear John” phone call.
Jesus loves me more than I love my kids, no wonder He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; when my heart breaks, His heart breaks.
My Mom got me through that phone call, but I later learned that when she hung-up her and my Dad shed a few tears of their own.
Why?
Because that is the essence of loving parents, our sorrow is their sorrow, our grief is their grief.
Our sorrow is His sorrow. Our grief is His grief.
We Can’t Change For Our Kids
If I’m honest I believed that when I had kids there would be certain things I would just stop doing, and certain things I would automatically start doing. Why? Because haven’t you heard, “kids change everything.”
While in many ways that is true, “kids do change everything,” there are many ways in which folk think their kids will change things, but ultimately, “Kids have changed nothing.”
Before I was a parent I said, “once I have kids we will have family worship every day.” Well I’ve had kids for four years now, and we don’t have family worship every day. We do read our boys individually the Bible each night, and we do pray with them many times throughout the day, but sitting down as a family unit for worship on a daily basis consistently, it hasn’t happened.
I’ve heard future parents say, “I’ll quit drinking,” “I’ll quit smoking,” “I’ll go to church regularly” etc., “once I have kids.” But I’ve discovered in so many cases like my example above, it usually doesn’t happen.
Grandparents will say, “I think you’ll see our kids a lot more involved in church once they have children of their own.” And yet so often this isn’t the case.
Why?
Because if a person is waiting for a kid in their life to change them, more often than not they aren’t going to change, at least not drastically!
If I could give expecting parents or folk that are contemplating having children one day a little advice: If you want to be different for your kids, then CHANGE NOW!
You see ultimatley kids can’t change us, we are inherently selfish, impatient, angst ridden individuals. Yes kids can temper those things some, but they can’t ultimately change us.
There is only one source of change and that is through Jesus Christ–
“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,” –Titus 3:3-6
It is not through a relationship with our children that any of us will be saved or changed, but through a relationship with Jesus our Savior.
Even if a person “changes” for the sake of their kids, if these “changes” are simply in the context of having children then these changes are deceiving and of no ultimate value. They are prosthetic changes
If the premise of an individuals changes are “their children” then that is not a change that is lasting it is in fact the height of hypocrisy.
The term hypocrite in the Bible came from the Greek word “hypokrites” which was an individual that was an actor, “playing a role” for another.
Isn’t a parent that sets standards and goes through the motion of being involved in church and practicing certain Judeo-Christian principles simply for the good of their children without truly embracing them in their own hearts are they not playing a role? Hypokrites? Actors?
How many parents have raised children being involved, active in the church, setting high standards in their homes, only to see their children go off to college or begin their own adult lives and those same parents are no longer involved in church, no longer practicing the standards they had practiced while raising their children? Was the change then through Jesus or the children, and if it was through the children then couldn’t we term that hypocrisy–playing a role for another?
And then the question has to be asked what is being communicated to the adult children, when the parents that had rasied them one way are living a completely different way? They’ll think their parents have changed, but the more probable reality is that their parents were never truly “changed from the inside out.”
I’m discovering in myself that I can’t change for my kids, nor can my kids change me. If I do change in these ways then it is just hypocrisy, it is what Jesus described to the pharisees as a whitewashed tomb, “beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Mt. 23:27)
Potential parents…
Expecting parents…
Parents of young children…
Parents of teenagers…
Parents of adult children…
Grandparents…
Let us all change…
Not for our kids…
Because we love Jesus!
“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.” -1 Corinthians 16:13, 14
Los Banos Is Blessed
Well I never thought it would be so, but Los Banos will always have a special place in my heart! It is a place I’ve passed through many times with not much thought, other than this is a good place to go to the bathroom 🙂 But September 17, 2012 it became the birthplace of my third son (no name at this time).
We had gone to Gilroy Gardens for my oldest son Dayton’s 4th birthday. Dayton’s birthday is actually October 2nd, but since Christina’s due date was October 6th we decided to do a family birthday outing early. And a great family day we had!!! My parents, Christina’s parents, of course our boys, and one of our nieces, enjoyed a nice full day.
Then as we were heading over Pacheco Pass from Gilroy back towards the 99 & home Christina informed me, “my contractions are 4 minutes apart.” She then began to search on her iphone and said, “the hospital in Los Banos has a birthing center.”
And so 1 day shy of three weeks early on September 17 @ 1:22 in the morning our third beautiful boy was born and Los Banos is forever a blessed place!
(I noticed they have a population of over 35,000 people here and just one Adventist church of 200. Maybe we’ll have to help plant a church here someday as a thank you! :))
Our boy weighed in at 7 lb he measures 21 inches. The lightest and the tallest of our boys at birth.
He was quick to eat and quick to pee, all good signs.
We don’t have a name yet, after all we were supposed to have another three weeks.
But whatever his name becomes we know that:
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the sons of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;” –Psalm 127:3-5a
Please pray for all of our sons Dayton soon to be 4, Landon 2, & Baby Boy Stuart #3 may they all be mighty warriors in the hands of their Savior!
Thank you Los Banos, the bathroom stop, for now being a blessed stop in our journey of life!
The Ark Kids
The Greatest Evangelists of the Ark (our church plant) have been…