Posts Tagged: parenting
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.”
That Vibrating Demon
What is the vibrating demon? Well for me it is my iPhone. Yes, I know a phone really is quite a necessity in ministry these days. Why? I’m not sure, considering millions of pastors did quality ministry without ever needing to answer a phone, and millions after them did quality ministry without ever needing to answer a text. Yet, here we are, they are for some reason a necessity of ministry; but still for me at times my iPhone is the vibrating demon.
I say vibrating demon because my phone is almost always silenced due to my career being in a constant cycle of meetings and so it vibrates to get my attention. And I am ashamed to say that I respond faster to my phone than I do my wife, my kids, maybe even God. Why? Because we are driven by the immediate and not by what is truly most important.
Well, the other day something happened and I have decided I will no longer let the vibrating demon control me.
I had about an hour free in my afternoon before needing to head out to our school for a meeting and I decided to run home quickly and check in on the family. When I arrived home my wife and kids were hanging out by the pool, don’t hate me because God has called me to Pastor in California 🙂 I sat down on one of the pool chairs, set my phone down on the end table by the chair, and began to talk to my wife. After several minutes of conversation my 4 1/2-year-old and 2 1/2-year-old boys came running over to me and started asking excitedly, “Daddy, Daddy will you swing us?” I told them to hold on while I finished talking to Christina (my beautiful wife) and then I said, “Ok.” My 2 1/2 year old loves to help me get up. Whether it is standing up from a chair or getting out of bed he loves to think he is pulling me to my feet. So he begins to tug on my arm and as I am getting up I reach down and grab my phone. Landon and I take about two steps towards the swing and then he stops me, and in a very serious voice he commands me, “Put that in your pocket Daddy! Put the phone in your pocket!” I looked at my wife and she gave me a look that communicated, “How cute” & “I’ve told you so” all in one. Then I looked back at Landon, he was serious we weren’t budging ’till I put the phone away. He hasn’t learned the pocket doesn’t stop the distraction, but in that moment I learned the phone needs to be turned off!
I would rather be fired or asked to leave my church because people don’t feel like they can get a hold of me than to ever have my boys think again that the vibrating demon is more important than them. If my 2 1/2-year-old has already figured out the distraction the vibrating demon is to his Dad, how is he going to feel as a teenager after years of that instrument of ministry and others taking away his Dad’s attention?
So tomorrow in the morning, when I am with my boys the phone, is going off…not just on vibrate…not just in the pocket…off!
Pastors (and all parents really) if you feel like your phone is a permanent extension of your hand due to calls, texts, twitter, email, Facebook, your kids, and your wife feel it too, so turn it off!
There are enough demons out to get us and our families, don’t let the vibrating one that you have control over be one of them!
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.
November 2012: Top Posts
Education, Politics, & Angus T. Jones helped to make November 2012 the most “visited” month in the history of this blog w/ more than 2300 people stopping by this site to have a look.
So here are the top 10 posts for the month of November, 2012.
- Adventist Education: It is “Something Better” this was the second most popular post in the history of this blog nearly catching In Defense of Ted. It also was one of two Adventist Education posts that made the top ten this month. Which I guess means my readers are passionate about Adventist Ed.
- Faster Pastor: Episode #4: God & American Politics is our second most popular post this month. This fourth episode in our web series “Faster Pastor” I believe was the best of the series thus far. In part because of the content & special guest, Dwight Nelson; but also because the three of us, Albert, David, & I are getting used to talking to one another over a computer screen. Stay tuned another Faster Pastor will be released early in December.
- Angus T. Jones’ Testimony Part 1 & 2 : What can we say? Angust went viral everywhere. I think we all need to pray with for his journey with Jesus right now as I’ve heard he won’t even be able to attend church this Sabbath due to the media presence.
- The Superiority of Adventist Education our second post on Adventist Education in our top ten list was actually something I wrote in May of 2011 but just decided to repost this month & like the first time around it found it’s way into the top ten list.
- Jesus Would Endorse…Doesn’t the Presidential election seem like forever ago? Yet it was this month & thus three posts on politics made it to the top 10 for the month.
- Entitled Lakers’ Fans, Entitled Worshipers I had the idea for this blog while driving back from Union Executive Committee meetings. I actually pulled out my phone and recorded the idea on the dictaphone app. It addresses a problem I think is very prevalent in our society.
- We Can’t Change for Our Kids another dangerous trend within the society of “Christian” parents.
- Faster Pastor: Episode #2: Unity in Diversity this episode of Faster Pastor has remained in the top ten for three straight months now. It addresses the delicate issue that has been floating around Adventism this year, Women’s Ordination.
- Donkeys, Elephants, & a Lesson Learned at Chick-Fil-A has been in the top ten for four straight months holding the #2, #1, #5, & now #9 spots respectively. I think that the political season is now over I’m assuming it will fade away.
- The Ordained Women Pastors of China is holding the number 10 spot by one viewing over another Faster Pastor episode. This is a great video that as I shared last month made me cry the first time I viewed it!
I hope if you missed any of these posts this past month that you will be blessed or at least enjoy the time spent catching up!
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