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Parenting isn’t the only area of our life (as if it can be quarantined to one “area”) where God can use what is happening to develop us Spiritually. Every day, God offers to use what we’re walking through to reveal His Kingdom to us, if we’re open to it. Which is why, last week at a hockey game, I was reminded of our need for humility.

It’s really easy to start thinking we’re pretty good at things. We get an idea, even a divinely inspired idea…and “know” that it would be a success…so we move towards it.

In Hockey, most of you probably already know of the term “offsides”. It’s a term that’s called when a player moves towards the goal and crosses the blue line before the puck. When this happens, the whistle blows, play stops…and must begin again from a central starting point. The puck must cross the line first.

So many times in life, we have our eyes on the goal. We know that’s where we need to head….and so we move towards it. Many times as parents, we cross that “blue line” towards the goal without the Spirit moving with us. We may sometimes ignore it…but “offsides” is called. We need to stop the play, and find a new starting point…asking that God would show us where He is moving us.

In hockey, the defensive players don’t have to wait for the puck to enter the zone to stand between the player and his goal. In the same respect, the things that try and stop us from moving towards our spiritual goals couldn’t care less if we move towards that goal without the Spirit. The goal wouldn’t happen.

I think this happens on a daily basis, if we were all honest…in small personal ways at least. But once in a while, I think it can happen on a larger scale. I believe having young children in general is a season of figuring out a new starting point…asking God where He is moving for the future of our family. I believe each of us can benefit from asking that in our own lives.

It takes humility. Whether in a ministry, or a job, a relationship, a family, a life, etc…that we’ve worked at for years….to stop and realize…we’ve relied too much on ourselves, and not enough on the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Humbling yes…but necessary. And freeing.  Advent is the perfect time for us to recognize where we are, and aren’t, waiting on the Lord.  With that I say, “Game On.”

ps. I realize that, as with any cheesy illustration, this one falls short. If you try, you’ll find things in it that don’t work….theologically. But as a hockey fan….I like it. So deal. 🙂

Mr. Ramsey – are you listening?

Dave Ramsey gave away $10,000 today. It was incredible.

The winner said he entered 600 times. Dave laughed. Gave him an audible “high five”. Congratulated him. Encouraged others that we too could be winners like this guy.

It seems Dave Ramsey would advocate better use of time than that. Gambling is addictive.

He said about a million people entered his contest?
Let’s figure each entry took a minute to complete.
That’s over 16,600 HOURS of time donated to entering this contest.

Is taking away 16,600 hours of time people could be spending with family, friends, work, etc…..worth the 10,000 bucks?

Probably not.

Let’s say the winner was fast, and was able to do 3 entries per minute…he still spent over 3 hours sitting at his computer doing nothing but clicking your website. Are you advocating millions of people should waste away their holiday moments like this?

I could just be a sore loser too. 🙂

Rant over.

(full discloser: My wife and I took FPU, and benefited from it.  I’m currently finishing up teaching “Generation Change” to our church’s youth group.  It’s not perfect – but tweaked a bit to touch all the resources we can honor God with – it’s a great conversation/small group starter.)

There was a time we could only dream of walking through the mall together without looking like a small army.  The juggernaut-double-stroller-tank we have pushed around for a long time now, has finally begun to be unnecessary for our average trip to the stores.

Yet there we were, walking as a family, when we realized our youngest was walking/sometimes jogging to catch up….with her hands firmly planted deep in her pockets.  We couldn’t help but smile, pretending not to notice, because as any parent knows – as soon as you look/try to take a picture, they usually stop doing that cute thing they’ve been doing all along. 🙂

A couple days later, as we were enjoying a sabbath day relaxing and wrestling around on the ground, she comes over with a pillow “Here daddy!” she yells, as she slides it under my head.  Next, she grabs a small blanket off the couch and comes over to lay it across me, before patting my head and kissing the side of my face.  I look up at her, and her face transforms into a giant smile that could melt the heart of a mighty Philistine.

These are the “terrible two’s” that everyone warned us about?

I realize, there are also moments of extreme defiance and testing, but over all – our experience with all 3 girls is that the age of 2 is a pretty great year.  A year that severely puts to shame and disproves any assumed sort of “terrible”-ness.  In fact, if we could have an extra year of “2” for each of our kids, I’d sign up easily.

So it continues to make me smile when someone finds out she’s 2, and immediately reveals their reflex-thought, “Oooooh, terrible two’s, eh?”

We make a lot of assumptions about the people around us on a regular basis.  The church is not immune to this, by any means.  We hear a fact or two about someone we’ve shared a pew with, and automatically we know who they are during the other 167 hours a week.  We know they struggle with their faith.  We know they’re a solid family with no troubles to be lifted up in prayer.  We know…..

Fortunately, we have reminders in scripture of what we actually do know.  We know all have sinned, and fall short of God’s glory.  We know that anyone who is in Christ has been made a New Creation.  We have reasons each week, to both be in prayer for – and stand side by side with – anyone else who would declare Christ as Lord.

May this bring us a surprising new experience of worship, as we are surrounded by people who are silently suffering.  By people who are so freshly being transformed, they may not “fit the mold” yet.  After all, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”