My Beautiful, Smart, Nice, Brave Daughter's Birthday

 Just over a year ago Kobe Bryant, his daughter and their friends were killed in a helicopter crash.  Kobe accomplished a lot in his career.  He was one of the greatest basketball players ever: he won five NBA Finals, two Olympic gold medals and several individual awards.  He won an Oscar, had his own shoe and was known instantly without his last name being needed.

But Kobe's greatest legacy is that after his tragic death the #GirlDad movement began.  Across the globe men showed off their pride of being the father of daughters.  Across continents men were inspired to be great fathers for their daughters.  Many people imagine the political movements that can make a grand difference in this world, but the grassroots change made by fathers loving their daughters can be immense.

I am a proud #GirlDad.  

Two years ago on Groundhog's Day a little girl named Anna Kathleen first exited my wife's womb and entered my arms.  My love for Anna has grown so much since she hurried into our lives that Saturday morning.

I like to do some call and responses with my kids.  Anna's call and response with me is my blessing over her.

If you read the Old Testament you find the blessings given were often prophetic.  I don't claim to be a prophet, but I do want my daughter to know what I think she is now and what I know she can become.

"Anna are you beautiful? Yes.  

Are you smart? Yes.  

Are you nice? Yes.  

Are you brave? Yes."

I want Anna to know she's beautiful.  I want her to know she was knitted together in her mother's womb by God.  I don't want her to go through life questioning her physical loveliness.  I want her to be a girl and a woman that exudes inner and outer beauty with confidence.

I want Anna to know she can be an intelligent woman.  I don't want her to grow up with the false belief that men want dumb girls.  Perhaps boys might be intimidated by smart girls, but men aren't.  I want her to know that there's great reward in gaining wisdom and knowledge.

Love is kind and I want my little girl to be kind.  I say 'nice' now because she understands it, but I really want her to strive to be kind.  I hope Anna is a person with strong, well thought out beliefs that can be kind to those who agree with her and those who disagree with her.  I want her to be a refuge for the weak and disheartened.

I want my Anna to be brave.  I pray that Anna will be a woman of courage.  To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, courage is not a virtue in and of itself; courage is the virtues at the testing point.  I believe Anna can be brave enough to love, brave enough to be kind, brave enough to be right, brave enough to stand her ground, brave enough to be an outstanding woman that makes this world a better place.

Anna, you are beautiful, smart, nice and brave and I believe you will grow even more so and I implore you to invest in those qualities.

I wish I wasn't in self-isolation for your birthday.  I wish I could give you kisses.  But most of all, my wish is to get the honor in playing a role in the person God is still making you into today.

 

 

Ending Your Unsocial Media

 Would an analysis of your online activity prove you a loving person?

I have used this quote in the past and will use it again: "Love... is Christian maturity in action." (Maturity by Sinclair B. Ferguson p. 12).  In 1 Corinthians 13 the Apostle Paul says in verse 12 that he moved from childish ways to the ways of a man.  Love is how he did this.

So, I will ask again: would an analysis of your online activity prove you a loving person?  Would an analysis of your social media prove you to be mature or childish?

My dad recently said something to me.  He said, "I think people think I'm mean online when I don't intend to be."  My dad, and many of you, did not grow up online and this is all new. Sarcasm does't translate well.  There's a learning curve for many of us when it comes to being social online.  But some of you are childish and unloving and you mean to do it.  The bottom line is that we all know that we all need to be better in this arena.

So, let's look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and see what it has to teach us about being online.  Paul had no idea his words would instruct Facebook users, but God certainly did.

Love is Patient.

The King James Version says, "love sufereth long".  Do you suffer long online?  How long does it take you before you can't feel an ounce of love for someone because of what they post or don't post?  Love suffers long, it puts up with things patiently.

Love is Kind:

Are you kind online?  If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.  Mom was right.  Unfortunately, many of the mom's and dad's who said this have a hard time doing it... and the world sees it.

Love does not Envy:

Perhaps you don't say anything bad, but you have that green eyed monster on your shoulder as you look at vacation photos.  Perhaps when the Instagram lives don't match your real life the jealousy festers.  Maybe no one knows it, but you secretly want their wife, their stuff, their job, their life.

Love does not Boast:

Look at me, look at me, look at me.  That's social media in a nutshell.  I'm not saying you should Vaguebook all your problems, but can you have success without posting it?

Love is not Proud:

When you've acted unloving online was it because your pride was hurt?  That's usually what makes me most unloving; the glory of Matt being defamed in front of others.  Can you admit when you're wrong and ask for forgiveness?

Love is not Rude:

Do you have manners online?  Are you snarky or are you polite?  Do you defer to others?  Are you a gentleman or a brute, regardless of whether the person you're replying to is right or wrong?

Love is not Self-Seeking:

When you post something do you feel the urge to check how many likes it gets? (sadly, as soon as I post this I will feel that urge). Is your online presence curated in a way to make much of you?  Do you spend time encouraging others with this amazing tool?

Love is not Easily Angered:

How quick are you to be angry online?  Do you feel every good fight is your fight?  This one is hard because much of the content is designed to engage us through anger.  Angry people stay online longer.  The Twitter mob is on longer than those who are smiling.  Politics is fueled these days by anger and right now much of social media is politics.  How can we be not easily angered online?

Love Keeps no Record of Wrongs:

The internet reminds us of the positives and the negatives.  Many of our "friends'" social media remind us daily of the things that we feel wrong us.  

Love does not Delight in Evil but Rejoices with the Truth:

Are you entertained online by what Jesus would be entertained by?  Or are you entertained and occupied with crap?  Do you delight in seeing what you want to see and reading what you want to hear regardless of whether or not it is true?  How much time do you spend checking on the veracity of what you read and share online?

Love Always Protects:

Do you protect or do you destroy?  The KJV says, "beareth all things".  The Greek word used here means to "cover up" or to "pass over".  Do you pass over the annoyances you see in your fellow church members or do you feel the need to always react?

Love Always Trusts:

Do you assume the worst in others online?  Sadly, we do a book's worth of judging on a paragraph's worth of evidence.  Some people are like I said my dad felt, not as callous as they accidentally come off as online.  Some of us throw away a lifetime's worth of evidence of good when we see a blip of perceived bad online.

Love Always Hopes:

Does your online presence reflect Who is the source of your hope?  Or does it show your hope is in politics?

Love Always Perseveres:

If an audit was done on your online activity would it show an enduring love or a love that snapped?  We must love with courage!  Courage is that place where the virtues are carried over their testing point, to amend a C. S. Lewis quote.  Are you living and broadcasting a courageous, enduring love or a wimpy, temporal, earthly love?

This is not easy.  Love is hard.  We need help to do this.  "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).  We can't love like 1 Corinthians 13 instructs without help and we'll never do it without engaging wisdom online and in-person.

May your online (and real life) interactions prove you a loving person today.

Count the Cost

I'm a person that prefers dogs over cats, but I was hesitant to get a dog.  My wife had never owned a dog, but had always wanted one.  We have two cats, Charlie and Waldo.  Cats are not as good as dogs, but they are far easier.

So, I said no to getting a dog for years.

It's not that I don't like a dog, but dogs are far more work than cats and I wanted to make sure my wife understood that fact.  Loving a dog isn't enough.  Dogs take commitment.

Several months ago I told my wife, after much persuading, that if a dog needed adopting from Retrieving Freedom I would consider that strongly. Such a dog would be mostly trained but still would be work, and since the kids would really enjoy a dog I would be open to that.  Well, months later a 19 month old yellow lab named Reece became available.  She didn't quite cut it as a service dog but seemed like a wonderful addition to our home.  After meeting her and having a trial stay with us, we adopted Reece.

We love Reece but taking a dog without considering the cost is foolish.

Following Jesus is a little like adopting a dog.  A little.  See, following Jesus requires loving Him and loving Him requires a deep commitment.  'Love' without commitment is simply 'like'.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters... yes, even his own life... he cannot be my disciple.  And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.  Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?  For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king.  Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.  In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he cannot be my disciple."  Luke 14:26-33

There is a cost to having a dog and there is a cost to being a disciple of Christ.

On my two mile loop I walk with Reece I like to walk through the campus of my alma mater, Wartburg College.  As I walk through that campus I am often flooded with memories.  It's strange how buildings just blocks away can take me back in time.

Recently as I walked through Wartburg with a frozen face I considered all God has done in me since I was a student there.  It was roughly half a lifetime ago that I was there as a student.  In that half a lifetime God has grown me.  I'm more confident in some areas and less arrogant in many others.  I've been blessed with a career that was different from the one I was so sure I'd have when I walked that campus as a mere boy.  I have a beautiful, caring, devoted wife at home.  I am the father of three children that spark so much joy.  I'm more committed to my God.  I'm less a fool.  

God has been faithful to do what He's promised to do and more.  Every cost I have paid is mere chump change when compared to what God has done and will do for and in me.

There is a cost to owning a dog, and there are great benefits.  There are costs to following Jesus, and His benefits are boundless.

Count the cost.  Count the benefits.  Do the math and choose to follow Jesus today.

Top 10 Posts of 2020

 Happy New Year!

We're nearly done with 2020 and into 2021.  Each year I post a "best of" of the year's posts from this blog.  Looking back at the post from this year allowed me to remember the turmoil and the blessings of this year.  I pray our 2021 will be less wild than 2020.

Enjoy 10 top posts from 2020:

1) She Didn't Want to go to Australia

2) How to Think Biblically About COVID-19

3) My Miscarriage Prayer

4) I Saw His Face

5) Can You Say Black Lives Matter?

6) Skin in the Game: A Conversation with White Mothers of Black & Brown Children

7) Dear Worship Leaders

8) Hallowing our Heavenly Father's Name

9) Little Big Prayers: Praying with Kids

10) New Life, Nausea & Answered Prayers

Advent: Peace

 What brings you peace in dark places?

December is the darkest month of the year and for some of us this has been one of the darkest years in our lifetime.  Advent is about how God brings light into our darkness (Isaiah 9:2, John 12:46).  Fittingly we celebrate Advent with candles: Candle one of Advent is Hope, the second is Love, the third is Joy and the last is Peace.

Peace means many things.  It can mean the absence of national enmity.  It can mean no personal conflict.  It can mean, like the Hebrew word Shalom, the wholeness and rightness of the world.

So, what do we do with the "peace on earth..." proclamation the angels gave the shepherds at the first Christmas?  What is peace on earth when Boko Haram kidnaps hundreds of boys and girls, when communities and police can't agree on how to best protect cities like Minneapolis, when those who pledged to protect and teach instead molest and use, when we can't stomach even calling a relative due to past pain, when we see a virus infecting and killing and our response to it is arguing and name calling?

What do we do when peace has been proclaimed but the world still looks and feels dark and scary and chaotic and dangerous?

My three-year-old son Joshua has recently become scared of the dark.  Children being scared of the dark really isn't as silly as we think it is.  Naïvety wears off and children realize some things want to hurt them.  They, like adults, become afraid of the unknown. They insert monsters into their unknown and we insert expensive car repairs or floods or muggers into our unknown.  

Today I asked Joshua, "Are you afraid of going into a dark room when you hold my hand?"  "No," he replied, "I'm afraid when I go into a dark room alone."

Holding Daddy's hand calms whatever fear cripples Joshua from entering the dark playroom.  This reality is precisely the peace that Christmas offers us.

God promises to be with us.

"Even when I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."
-Psalm 23:4

We see this promise littered all over the Bible: Isaiah 41:10, Joshua 1:9, Romans 8:38-39, Hebrews 13:5, etc.  God promises to be with us, before us, behind us, within us.  God can give us peace through His presence.  Christmas confirms this.

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' ... which means, 'God with us.'" -Matthew 1:23

When we walk in the dark places we can have peace because Jesus was born to be Immanuel.  He came to be God with us.  He came so that we can have the Holy Spirit indwelling us.  Jesus came so our hands can be held in the dark.

Jesus will come again to make the full peace He provides a full reality.  He will come again to end injustice, violence and all malevolence.  Until then, we hold on to the promises tight enough to have tranquil peace in a still dark world.

The peace proclaimed 2,000 year ago is here, but not yet.  During Advent we meditate on Hope here but coming, Love felt but not fully, Joy experienced but wanting more, and Peace here and now but also not yet.

2020 has taken us all into to rooms darker than we would have chosen.  Rooms lonelier and scarier.  2020 has brought hundreds of thousands of my countrymen to the valley of the shadow of death.  Latch onto the promised Immanuel.  Peacefully hold on to your Daddy's hand in the dark today.

Advent: Joy

 What brings you joy in 2020?
What brings you joy when you're at your breaking point?

Perhaps those seem like the same question after the year you've had.  If so, then you need to look at the third Advent candle.  Candle one is Hope, candle two is Love and candle three is Joy.

The Christmas season is very often described as a season of joy.  Many of our most joyful moments have come at this time of year.  But what is it about Christmas that brings us real joy?  What is it about Christmas that is so joyful this year?  What is it about Christmas that promises to bring us joy in whatever circumstance we find ourselves?

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining
'Til He appears and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."
-O Holy Night

If we honestly look at the world we can see and feel that it is lying in sin and error.  We can see that it is full of souls searching for worth.  If ever in my lifetime, this year the world feels weary; weary of sickness, infighting, politics, racism, isolation, fear, etc.

What is this hope that makes the weary world rejoice?  What is it about Jesus that makes our soul feel its worth?  What is this new and glorious morn that is breaking into existence yonder?

Our world, we, need what Christmas inaugurated.  We need to hear the good news of "New Management Coming Soon".  We need to know that a king has been born into the world.  We need to know about the humble baby that has come to earth and will return to earth as triumphant king!

The joy of Christmas isn't just that the Savior came to earth to save us from the penalty of our sins.  Oh, it is that, but it is much more.  Christmas is about what the magi said: a king has been born.  Jesus is our king who has come and will come again to rule perfectly.  This good news is so poignant, so relevant, so important for us to hear in 2020.

"No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found..."
-Joy to the World

This oft skipped verse of Joy to the World holds a key to finding joy in this Christmas during a pandemic.  Joy to the world is found in the good news that Jesus' reign reverses the curse.  No sins, no sorrows, no thorns.  The New Heaven and New Earth will not have pandemics, will not have infighting, will not have racism, will not have election cycles, will not have fake news: This is good news!

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.'" 
-Luke 2:9-11

This is Gospel.  Jesus' birth is good news of great JOY that will be for all the people.  The Gospel that Christmas announces and reminds us of is for all people.  It is joy to a weary world.  This truth is gives us lasting joy at our breaking point. This is a tried and true source of joy, even in 2020.  

Let your mind understand and your heart be filled with this joy today.

Christmas Letter 2020

 Merry Christmas!  We hope this e-card finds you well.

2020 has been a year for our family like no other year, but that's been true for everyone.  The year has been strange and trying, but it has been good.

Anna and Joshua had birthdays, but the birthdays were very different.  Anna turned 1 on February 2nd surrounded by family.  Joshua turned 3 on May 14th celebrating with grandmas and grandpas on video chat.  Joshua was very excited though that a firetruck came to the house to help him celebrate and he really handled the disappointment of not having a big party in stride.

Joshua hit a big milestone.  He began preschool this Fall. He's really loved school and his friends and has been learning so much.  Unfortunately, he's done some preschool from home recently but will most likely go back in-person in January.  Joshua has been so resilient with all the changes in his world.  Luckily, Anna has little idea how different life has been this year.  

2020 also brought us severe sorrow and great joy.  In March Christine found out she was pregnant with our third child.  We were very surprised and excited.  Sadly, just after Easter Christine suffered a miscarriage.  We had always feared a miscarriage and known statistically that it was likely to happen to our family at some time, but it hit us hard.  That child's due date just recently passed and though we miss him or her we are thrilled that they get to celebrate their first Christmas with Christ Himself.  Our sorrow soon changed to joy in September when Christine became pregnant again.  We were fearfully excited.  This pregnancy is going well and the baby is due to be born on May 25th.  We've decided to not find out the gender until birth.

This year is a year we will never forget.  We've had highs and lows.  We've been cognizant of the moments that will eventually be in history textbooks.  We've palpitated between anxious and trusting.  We've added words and phrases to our lexicon, like social-distance and church on the couch, that we never saw needing.  Matt's prepared, unprepared and re-prepared to cover various sports seasons.  The kids discovered how exciting parks re-opening could be.  Christine wore more P.P.E. than ever before at work.  2020 will definitely be burned in our minds even though it's felt like the world's slowest blur at the same time.

2020 has also been different because it has mostly been spent with just our nuclear family in another way.  Our foster sons left us in January.  Our teen went to live in Texas with his dad and our toddler went to live with our wonderful friends who are inching closer to adopting him and his sisters.  

This year has offered us many chances to drown in worry, but thankfully we know a better way.  Christmas reminds us that Love Himself came down into our mess to deliver us.  Jesus has come and Jesus will come again!

The little baby in the manger grew up to be the man who gave us a great promise that we cling to in 2020:

"In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world." 

-John 16:33b