Do You Witness While You Work?

If you are like me and work in a secular environment, sometimes it can be hard to share your faith. People are always saying that we need to tell people about Jesus, or invite them to church, and those are good things, but sometimes I think that that might not be the right approach. For example, I work with some pretty rough guys. Some of them think that religion is just for people that are too weak or stupid to take life as it is. That Jesus is just a crutch for people that can't handle life. If I start trying to tell them about Jesus or ask them to come to church, they are not only going to ignore what I am trying to say but they might also pull away from me and make it hard for me to have a relationship with them.

This is the way that I try and do things. I live my life differently than them and they can see it. I don't hide the fact that I am a Christian or that I go to church, but I don't shove it in their faces either. If I can respect their choices and beliefs, even though I don't agree with them, then maybe they can learn to respect my beliefs as well. If I build a relationship with the guys I work with out of respect and honesty then when the time is right they will be much more receptive to anything that I might have to say. Especially if they can already see the peace and joy that God has given me.

If I can get to know them on a personal level, I can be a good friend and hopefully someone they can talk to about what is going on in their lives. Then I can pray for them much more specifically and really know where they need God to touch their lives.

Whether God ever gives me the opportunity to talk to them about Him or not is up to Him. But whether it is me or someone else later on, they will be much more open to it if they trust me and know that not all Christians are crazy people.

The Love Of My Life

God has given me the greatest gift I think that any man could be given. And that is the gift of an incredible wife. Without Rebekah things would be a mess. She has more patience and grace than I will ever come close to having.

Raising kids is a huge challenge. Some people think that staying at home all day with the kids is taking the easy way but that is not so. Rebekah does so much for the kids and her days are filled with taking care of the girls and doing projects and helping them learn and grow. It is such a blessing knowing that my kids are getting the best possible care and treatment while I am at work. Rebekah has the best mothering instincts too. She has a talent for knowing what the girls need and if she isn't sure what to do she researches and studies until we can make an educated decision about what do.

If the girls are having a fussy day or a bad day somehow she finds the strength to keep going. I get home form work some days and within an hour I am stress and frustrated with the girls but somehow Rebekah can deal with it all day long. I don't know how she does it and I couldn't do it without her.

I know that I am not always as helpful or as thankful as I should be. I try and help out with the girls and with the house work the best that I can but the little bit that I do is nothing compared to what she does. I work eleven hours a day and then come home and play with the girls and then usually do the dishes. She works around the clock, even in the middle of the night she has to feed Emerald and some nights Emerald keeps her awake most of the night.

I am so thankful that God has blessed me with such an amazing woman to love and care for me. She is always helping me grow closer to God and helping me be a better person. I know that we are perfect for each other and God is so good to us.

So if you have an amazing wife, don't forget to be thankful for her and remember the gift that God has given to you.

Rebekah, I love you with all my heart and I can't imagine life without you. You make me a better person and I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together discovering what God has for us!

Misinterpreting Life

So, we have all had bad days, we have all had things go wrong, days that seem like everything is against us. I have days like that. Everything seems to fight me, everything that could go wrong does. It is easy to think that it is just bad luck, or maybe Satan is just trying to bring me down. I wonder why God is letting this happen, why it seem like He just lets me keep struggling. When will God come through for me? Lighten the load? Why can't things just go smoothly?

What if our struggles aren't some sort of attack or just a bad day? What if God is testing us, letting us fight through something so that we can know that we have what it takes. We can battle through the situation and come out stronger for it. Know that we can solve that problem or deal with that situation. Maybe we need to build our confidence for something else that is going to come our way. Something that we wouldn't have the courage to take on unless we already knew we had faced similar situations and been able to come out ahead.

God never said life would be easy. He wants us to grow and learn and become more like Him. We don't know what is coming next and maybe we need the experience and the knowledge from past struggles to be able to work perfectly in a situation where God needs us to step up and really make a difference. To change a life that we wouldn't otherwise be able to without those hard days of our own.

So let's try and look at life a little differently. Start asking God "How do You want me grow from this? What do You want me to learn?" Try not to get discouraged when a bad day or a tough project comes along. Look for what God is trying to show us about ourselves. Don't be afraid to find out if you have what it takes, and don't be afraid of failure either. Don't be to proud to ask for help. Sometimes there are things that we just don't know how to do without someone showing us the way.

It's all about perspective. Maybe we need to starting looking at life from a different angle. Try and see what might be going on behind the scenes. It is hard to see the big picture and we can't always know what God is trying to do. So before you get too frustrated, step back and see what we can learn and what God has for us in these tough times.

The Passion Of A Wounded Heart

Deep in my heart there is a passion that has been there for a long time. But right now it is almost gone. It is discouraged and nearly defeated. This blog is about what I am feeling and also a battle cry for myself. To not give up on what I love, to fight for what God has given me, and keep trying even if I never succeed.

I have been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching lately and that is what ultimately lead me to the realization that I am going to share with you. So let me start at the beginning.

I love music. I always have. Music has always been able to reach into my heart and stir my emotions. I love to worship through music, and I love to help lead people to a place of worship by playing my guitar. I love being in the presence of God, the way I feel His presence when I worship is the closest I ever feel to God. I long to play and sing and write music that will help other people feel what I feel and bring them to the feet of Jesus like they have never been before.

That is one of my hearts deepest longings, and that is where Satan has fought me the hardest. 

All my life I have known people who are amazingly gifted, people who can write and sing and play music in a way that I can only dream about. I play the guitar fairly well but it hasn't come easily. I have worked and practiced for hours and hours to be able to play the little bit that I can and there is always that little voice in my head telling me I will never be as good as they are. 

I have gotten so worn down by not feeling good enough that I haven't played my guitar in almost a year. But I  have realized that it doesn't matter if I am good enough, by my own standards or anyone else's either. If my daughter Mercedes sings me a song because she loves me I don't compare it to other people's songs. She is my daughter and she sang it for me and I love it because I love her. That is how God sees us.

So will I ever be good enough? Who cares! I love playing and worshiping and that is all that matters to God and that should be all that matters to me. If God wants me to share my music with others that is up to Him and He will work out the details. I am not going to let my passion be distinguished by fear of failure or rejection.

So find the desire of your heart and hold onto it. You never know how or when God is going to use it and that doesn't matter. What matters is that our Daddy loves us and He delights in what we give Him.

The Four Parts Of A Healthy Lifestyle

As a guy, whether married or single, it is important to stay healthy. We need to take care of ourselves for many different reasons. As husbands and fathers we need to stay healthy so we can provide, care for, and protect our families as necessary. Now, I will admit that some things are a lot easier to do with the help of a wife, eating healthy for instance, but even so the responsibility for our health is ultimately up to us.

The way I see it, and this is just how I like to think of it not necessarily theology, is that there are four areas to think about keeping healthy: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  They are all part of who we are and they are all interrelated. If one area suffers they all suffer to an extent, so lets take them one at a time.

First the physical. This is the stuff like eating healthy and exercising. Eating healthy is more then just a balanced diet, although that is the place to start. Make sure you're getting all your food groups every day. I used to not eat enough vegetables but since I have been married and Rebekah plans the meals that usually isn't a problem anymore. Here are two things that help me when it comes to food: everything in moderation, and eat until your not hungry, not until you're stuffed full.

Everything in moderation means that I pretty much eat whatever I want to just not to the extreme. I will eat at McDonald's every once in a while but not every day. I eat ice cream but not after every meal. Eat what you like just don't over do it. This may not be true for everyone though so be careful. This is just what I do and it works for me. Second, I learned to eat until I wasn't hungry anymore and then stop. I don't just keep eating because it tastes good. I eat what my body needs and that is enough. Sometimes I have a snack between meals if I get hungry and that is OK. Eating smaller amounts more often keeps your metabolism up and then your body is using most of what you take in.

It is also important to stay in shape. There are lots of ideas out there for quick workouts that are easy to fit into your schedule. I am not very good at the working out thing but I have a pretty physical job that keeps me in pretty good shape. I am still trying to get in the habit of working out though to try and stay in really good shape.

Next is mental health. Keeping your brain active is important to good health especially as you get older. There are lots of ways to exercise your brain. I read every day. I love to read all different kinds of books. My favorites are sci-fi and fantasy books but lately I have been reading through a lot of the books that I have listed on my Resources page.

Another thing that I like to do is play games. I am not talking about video games, I am talking about real games with other people face to face. I love games that make you think, like Risk and Settlers of Catan, and I love games that make you think and react fast, like Dutch Blitz and Set. Whatever it is find stuff you like to do that keeps your brain active. Try and learn something new every day!

Emotions are next. This can be a tough one for guys. So many of us grow up hearing stuff like: "Real men don't cry!" but the truth is a real man needs to be in touch with his emotions. If we never let our emotions out they get all bottled up and then we end up exploding about stuff because we have all those pent up emotions that are trying to get out. We need to be able to show love to others, we need to be able to cry with others. If we can't show emotions we can't show people that we really care. There is nothing wrong with being able to cry. There is nothing wrong with being angry either, as long as we do not sin because our anger gets the best of us. The Bible is full of examples of God and Jesus being angry about things that are not right. We need to learn to have God's heart towards the world, learn to feel what God feels, what makes Him weep, what makes Him smile, and what fills Him with righteous anger. We can't be in tune with the heart of God if we have shut off our emotions.

Last, but not at all least, is our spiritual health. We need to practice good spiritual habits just like in all the other areas. It is a good idea to do some Bible reading every day. There are a lot of good devotionals out there that can help with daily time with God also. We need to know the Bible to help us hear from God and recognize God in everyday life. We also need to pray every day. The Bible says to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I try to pray all through out the day when ever I think about it. Just little things like, "help me have a good attitude." or, "help me to stay busy at work today." I also try and listen to anything God might be telling me to pray about. I pray with Mercedes every night as part of our bedtime routine which is a good way to help her see God working too.

There is way too much for me to write in this blog about how all of this interacts and how they all effect each other but I will maybe write another blog that gets into all that later. So for now lets work on staying healthy in every area of our lives and see what happens. God wants us to be healthy and He want to helps us live healthy and fulfilling lives too, so don't be afraid to make some changes for the better!

Paths

So, my last few weeks have been pretty crazy. I have been processing some things and there has been a lot of stuff going on with the girls too. So here is a brief recap of the last several weeks.

First we had a doctor appointment for Emerald and found out that she was not gaining weight so after a lot of research by Rebekah we found out that Emerald had a lip tie and a tongue tie which was keeping her from nursing effectively. You can read more about all that on my wife's blog here: My Tongue-Tied, Lip-Tied Baby. So Emerald had a small procedure to get that taken care of and then that same week she got a really bad cold that lasted 8 days. 

Mercedes had dental surgery two days ago because her front teeth were decaying and they had to be caped. It was a pretty big deal because Mercedes had to be put to sleep for the procedure which has a lot of risks for kids that young. 

So all in all it has been a pretty crazy and stressful month. I haven't been sure of what to write about because there is a lot of stuff bouncing around in my head. The point of this blog is to explain my lack of posts lately and to clear my head. 

The thing is, all that stuff has been going on and in the midst of that I tried to make something right with some old friends of mine and was met with a lot of hostility that kind of put me back a bit. Sometimes life keeps throwing things at you and you just have to keep praying and doing the best you know how. I have learned that I don't have to depend on what others think of me or worry about upsetting someone when I am doing what God wants me to do. I guess I have learned that as you seek God your path will intersect with other peoples paths and we can't always see why or what the big picture is. Sometimes paths that cross for a time separate again and unfortunately those partings aren't always easy or even wanted. Maybe some day we will see the bigger picture and everything will make sense but for now I will continue to seek God and hopefully have more blogs up soon.

Keeping It Real!

Now that I am a father of two amazing kids, I have been thinking about my responsibilities as a parent. How it is my job to provide for them and protect them. But also how it is my job to teach them and guide them. It is my responsibility to point them toward God. I can't force it on them, I can't make them believe, I can only teach them what I know and be living proof of the life changing love of God. 

If it is real for me, it can be real for them.

The truth is, if they don't see me living out what I am teaching them, they have no reason to believe it. That is a lot of responsibility! And it is the most important thing I can do for them.

That means I have to stay focused. Listen to God, talk to Him every day. Do my best to show them what it means to truly love and follow God.

And here is the exciting part. The thing that I love to think about and that really drives me and keeps me going. I look back and think about how far I have come in my life. How much God has changed me and how much more I know now then I did when I started following God. I think about how much I have learned and grown from what my Dad was able to teach me and how much further I still have to go. Then I imagine my children being able to learn from me. They wont have to start where I started, they can have a huge head start because of what I can teach them. I can spring them into a life with God that can reach so far beyond where I am because they will have a life time to learn just like I did only they can start so much further along the path then I did. And it will carry over to their kids too!

Are you beginning to see the impact that we can have? How can we afford to pass up this opportunity!

We can't!

We as dads can't let this amazing gift of being fathers go to waste. There is nothing that could possibly be more important! No football game. No job opportunity. Nothing! Our first responsibility is to be like Jesus for our family. We are the head of the family just as Christ is the Head of the church! It is what we were meant to do. 

Be vigilant! Be on guard! Don't be distracted or lazy, be what God has called you to be! 

A leader! A warrior! A son of the true Father!

And a dad!