How's Your Threshold?

The darkness is hungry. She doesn't know, but she can feel the danger, so she hurries. He doesn't mind; he enjoys the hunt. He enjoys her fear. He wants her to know he's there. When he is almost upon her, a door opens, and she rushes in. The door shuts behind her, and he can do no more. She is safe from him, at least this night.

In much vampire lore, the creatures of the night cannot enter a home uninvited. There is something about a home that protects us from them. It turns out there's some truth behind the mythology.

Meditations on Being Laid Off

I lost my job. I'm not needed anymore. Apparently I did such a good job I made myself redundant. Even though I tried not to, I find that I had based a lot of my identity in that role, so now I face the need to reinvent myself.

Don't worry about me starving; I have a source of income, but it's just a way to pay for what's important. What's important has become the question. What do I do with myself now?

The Long-Term View

God plays the long game. He has plans within plans. He had our salvation planned out before the foundation of the world. As soon as Adam and Eve fell, he began telling us about it. He worked events out over the course of centuries, having Jesus born into a world perfectly shaped so that he would be put to death merely for claiming to be who he is.

We, on the other hand, are terrible at making long-term plans. My weekly meal plan doesn’t even usually survive intact. There’s a place in Mary’s Magnificat that is both a beautiful promise and a warning. It tells us that we need to get better at planning.

The God Who Wants Your Children

The people of God have always struggled with building a multi-generational faith on the experiences of a few people.

"Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt ..." (Deut 11:2-3).

To our knowledge, Jacob's sons saw nothing like Jacob's vision. That was it until Moses. The generation of the Exodus saw many mighty works of God; their children less so. And their children saw few if any miracles until the time of Christ.

So how were the children of Israel to pass on their faith?

"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth" (Deut 11:18-21).

Fix these words ... in your heart and mind
This chapter, like the whole book of Deuteronomy, says again and again "carefully observe all these commands I am giving you." First and foremost, your children need to see you following the word of God. Let them see it in action, see how it permeates your life.

Some Jews literally tie symbols on their hands and foreheads to remind them of the Law. Like the "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets so popular twenty years ago, the idea is to be reminded to live out what you believe. People say that character is caught more than taught; the Bible agrees. Your children will believe what you say only when it is also what you do.

Teach them to your children
But don't assume they'll "catch" the faith. Teach it to them, too. Surround them with it. Talk about what we believe and why. Often.

This particular passage doesn't mention telling them the stories of days gone by explicitly (though "these words" may include Genesis and Exodus and surely includes the beginning of Deuteronomy which recounts some of God's mighty acts). However Jewish society was built around the great feasts that remembered God's works (eg, Deut 16), and there were other reminders as well (eg, Josh 4).

For Christians, our "Passover" is obviously the cross and the resurrection. Our kids need to know that it really happened and why it matters. And then they need to know what difference it's supposed to make in our lives.

If your kids are like mine, this will be both easy and hard. Kids ask lots of questions. Sometimes it seems like they'll never stop. But Christianity can get lost in all the noise in their heads and lives. Some of their friends aren't Christians; some are "Christians" in name only. This seems unimportant at times; it seems mean at times. It can get crowded out by sports and friends and by Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. And they may wonder why the stories about Moses and Jesus are true but the stories about Hercules and Harry Potter are not. And we have to be able to steer them through that.

If we completely give up, Christianity will march on because God will always have his people. But I really believe God wants your children. And you want him to have them, too. So make sure they see and hear the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Links

I think these will be helpful sites for you to visit:

Do "contradictions" discredit the Gospels?
(This is part of a series of videos that, frankly, try to sell a DVD set, but the short video is still a useful piece.)

Forget About Evolution and Inerrancy (for a Minute)

"The issue of origins and inspiration and inerrancy are very important. We eventually need to discuss them. But they arenot 'make or break issues.' And they can be used to sidetrack the Gospel into endless and fruitless debate."

Raising Daughters in a World That Devalues Them: 7 Things We Must Tell Them
Like this author, I have two little girls, and I'm appalled at what our culture wants to teach them about themselves, men, God, and life in general. There are a lot of good thoughts here.

Slaying Giants

"How do we know there were giants?" my eldest daughter asked, out of the blue.

"Are we talking Jack and Beanstalk or the Bible?"

"The Bible."

The other one chimed in, "Because the Bible's God's word."

"I think what she's really asking is, 'Why do we believe the Bible is God's word?'

"We verify the things that we can. If those things stand up to scrutiny, we can trust the things we can't verify."

My youngest's approach is unfortunately common. She seemed scandalized the older one even asked such a question and wanted to take the "God said it, I believe it" approach.

I want them to know, though, that we don't take the Bible on blind faith. It's a reasoned faith, a trust in a trustworthy source.

We will never be able to verify every line of the Bible. But every year or so we find more reason to trust it. "The Hittites didn't exist." Oh, wait, yes they did. "There was no written language in Canaan during the bronze age." Yes, there very much was. "There was no King David." "Solomon didn't rule as much as the Bible claims." "Israel wasn't a powerful kingdom." The objections keep getting knocked down. And that's just the Old Testament. The NT case is much tighter.

Does this prove there were people two or three feet taller than what would consider "tall?" No. But if the records are reliable everywhere else, we have no good reason to doubt and every reason to accept the account.

How to Have a Lasting Marriage

Don't get divorced.

We recently celebrated our twelfth anniversary. It's sad that it's almost a big deal these days.

Why is that getting so rare when forty-year marriages were the norm not even a hundred years ago? What changed? It wasn't men. It wasn't women. We don't get along any worse than we did then. We haven't invented new problems for marriages, even if we have put our particular spin on them.

I think our attitude toward marriage changed. People get divorced more because divorce became an option.

Oh, we've always had divorce, but in the past it was a shameful thing. Everyone assumed (or knew) at least one of the broken couple had been sleeping around.

But now it's ok. You "don't have anything in common" anymore? Get a divorce. "Irreconcilable differences?" Get a divorce. Unhappy? Bored? Leave.

Our ancestors' marriages lasted because of a commitment to one particular philosophy: 'Til death do us part.

If divorce is off the table, you have to fix things. 'Til death do us part means when you have money problems, you soldier on through, together. It means when you seem to be growing apart, you do something about it. It means if your husband snores too loud, you get a new bedroom — in the same house.

These days we have so many more options than we have ever had before. We have second honeymoons, marriage counseling, and Dave Ramsey. If divorce is not an option, we'll be committed to making our marriages work and do whatever it takes.

This isn't a magic pill. It won't make all our problems go away. But it will make us face our problems and work on them together — or else the next thirty years are going to be mighty uncomfortable.

It's the Little Things

I decided to make a change in my behavior.

It's a good thing to read the Bible wherever you are, wherever you can. You can read it at work, in the bathroom, and in line at the grocery store. You can get it on your smart phone or ereader and have it with you literally everywhere you go.

But part of parenting is modeling the behavior we want to see in our kids. If I read the Bible where they can't see it, they won't know I do it. If I read it on my phone, they don't know what I'm reading. It doesn't matter how much I talk about it. It doesn't matter how much I know about it.

How will they know Daddy makes time every day to read the Bible if they don't see him taking time every day to read the Bible?

So I'm committing to reading a physical Bible in a chair in full view of my family. It's a little thing, but it's one I hope will make a difference when they start to set their own habits.

Fostering Knowledge of the Gospel

We still haven't adopted any children, but we have been keeping two foster kids for the last couple of months. Getting three kids' homework and four kids' baths taken care of consumes most of our evenings, so when we do get time to sit down and read a story, I want to make it count — enter the Big Picture Story Bible.

Recently we were reading the story of Noah and the flood, and my eldest volunteered that God wouldn't destroy the world again with water but with fire. (Insert happy dance.) The older foster child said everyone would go to heaven then. And I told her no.

"What?!"

She was aghast. She had never heard such a patently unfair thing in her six years — and that includes the times I've grounded her from the tv for hitting her brother.

There are two things I want to say about that experience.

1. In taking these two children into our home, we got to make sure that they heard the gospel — both the bad news and the good — at least once in their lives. A seed has been planted that will hopefully bear fruit in their souls. That's a big part of why we're doing this. It is an honor and a privilege. I encourage all of you to try it. (It's not a lifetime commitment.)

2. These kids have been in some church for at least the last year and a half (between my house and their previous foster home), and they are just finding out everyone doesn't automatically go to heaven. What are we teaching our kids?

Perhaps we think six years old is too young. But when these kids leave us in a couple of months, they may never go to church again. And that may be true of more kids than we know. We have to make use of every opportunity. Their eternity may depend on it.

-------------
Photo by Travis Seitler

A Teachable Moment

Driving home from work after a storm, I saw a beautiful, crisp double rainbow (not the one pictured). I was wishing my kids were with me because rainbows provide a great moment to teach or reinforce some biblical truth:

"What does the rainbow remind us?"

"That God won't flood the world again."

True, and I expect my older child to know that, but if it stops there, I'll be missing out on an opportunity to teach them about the gospel:

"God said he wouldn't destroy the world with water, but he is going to destroy it with fire. Do you know why?"

I don't expect a yes here.

"It's because of our sin. People insist on living by their own rules, on trying to be God instead of obeying him. So he says one day he will destroy the world — saving the people who belong to him and punishing those who won't."

And hopefully this will lead to questions like "who belongs to him" and "when?"

At least that's how I hope it goes.

(photo of rainbow by miri695 via Flickr)

The Insanity of Adoption

In my bio it says, "I'm married with 2 kids and no free time — so, of course, I've got a blog."

Lately I've had even less free time. While work has slowed down (maybe too much), home life has picked up. Besides the usual chores and such, my eldest is in first grade and is struggling learning to read, so she's been the focus of every evening for a while. Our lives are chocked full, with few moments to ourselves for our own hobbies or interests.

So we're adopting a couple more kids.

Are we out of our ever-loving minds? Yeah.

Is it going to be hard? Certainly. Isn't everything worthwhile?

And this is certainly worthwhile. In fact, it's probably more worthwhile than you think. The idea of adoption is the core of Christian theology, but it's also the Christian life encapsulated.

Adoption is...

The gospel in miniature — choosing to love someone you have no obligation to.

Loving Jesus by loving "the least of these."

"Pure and faultless" religion.

Spiritual warfare — opposing the prince of this world who desires to see people left in a hopeless state.

Embodying the Kingdom by giving a home to the fatherless and food to the hungry.

Evangelism — What better way to share the gospel with someone than to bring them into your house and life?

And it's taking care of kids who have no one else.

It's also opposing social Darwinism, living out what we believe. As Alexander Sanger put it,

"Adoption is counter-intuitive from an evolutionary vantage point .... Adoption requires a person to devote time and resources to raising a child that is not genetically related."(1)

Exactly. It makes no sense from a materialistic point of view (in either sense of the word), but it makes all kinds of sense from an eternal perspective.


(1) Quoted in Adopted for Life by Russell Moore.

Saying Grace

Do we need to bless leftovers if we blessed the food the first time?

What about people who show up late — do they need to say their own blessing?

When should we say the blessing — do we need to bless leftovers if we blessed the food the first time?

What about people who show up late — do they need to say their own blessing?

When should we say the blessing — before the bread, the salad, or the main course?

Or maybe the very question reveals the problem: treating "the blessing" as magic words rather than as pausing to recognize that all that we have is a gift, to be greatful for all the kindness God has shown us, and to remind ourselves of those who have not been similarly blessed.

So what do you think is a better name? Saying grace? Giving thanks? What do you call it your house?

Truth and Parenting

"That's not true."

Almost every day my six-year-old comes home from Kindergarten and shares a little tidbit of wisdom she got from a teacher. It's usually something profound like "green means go, red means stop" or "sugar causes cavities" (which didn't seem to impress her when I told her that).

The other day she told me, "Water is healthy; tea is not."

What could I say? "That's not true." (With caveats like "if that's what he really said.")

I was briefly concerned about undermining her teachers, and I certainly don't want her going to school and challenging one, but I decided she should learn early that everyone is fallable, even her teachers. (She already knows that about me.) And given the state of public schools, it can't hurt to start her off early with the knowledge that a teacher that contradicts Mom and Dad can be wrong.

I Think She Knows

My six-year-old daughter asked me if Santa Claus is real.

I think it was a visiting cousin that prompted this. Talk about putting you on defense.

I've never really supported the whole Santa Claus bit, but my wife — and my mother — wanted to do it. And a number of people pointed that telling her all along there was no Santa would cause problems among her classmates. So I put up with it.

But I don't really like the Santa bit for two reasons. One, I don't like giving credit for what my hard-earned money buys to someone else, especially someone ficticious.

But more than that, I don't want her to wonder if she should add God to the list of imaginary people we told her about. True, my outgrowing Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy didn't cause me to wonder about God, but it still strikes me as asking for trouble.

So I've been very non-committal about the whole thing from the beginning.

And when she asked me if Santa Claus is real, I told her, "Santa Claus is a game we play that makes Christmas more fun."

"Like the Tooth Fairy?"

"Yes."

"Cool!"

Yeah, I think she knows.

Toddlers with road rage

Every morning we drive through this intersection with a very short green light. It's currently under construction, and that causes many drivers to go very slowly which often results in only two cars making it through. Traffic backs up quickly.

I have been known to ... encourage the other drivers to proceed quickly through that intersection. My youngest has picked up that trait. Now whenever she sees a green light (at any intersection), she yells, "Go!"

It's so easy to teach a twenty-month-old road rage. Will it be that easy to teach her about Jesus? She picked up my attitude toward traffic just by watching me. What will she pick up regarding caring for the poor or the lost or the life of faith?

I've heard before that kids do what you do, not what you say. I have to say, that's become crystal, and frighteningly, clear to me.

Be a quitter!

Jesus talked about a man who wanted to build a tower. He would, Jesus said, carefully plan to see if he could afford to finish the tower, because if he ran out of money half-way through, he would be ridiculed (Luke 13:25-30).

But what would you say if part way through the project something changed and he no longer had the money to finish the project. Which would be worse – to be ridiculed for not finishing or to kill yourself on an impossible task?

Of course we don’t want to quit, but sometimes it would be far worse to continue.

This was the case for me. Though not a pastor, I wanted to learn more – lots more – about the Faith, so I embarked on a graduate program, though a somewhat less rigorous one. It probably wasn’t the best idea when I started – time was short, and my daughter was small. As she got bigger, she made it clear that she wanted more of my time. Then my second daughter was born, and she, her sister, and her mother required still more of my time. Then I realized that what I was giving was still not enough. Things had changed to the point that the graduate program that would have been difficult to complete in a reasonable amount of time was now going to be impossible. So should I continue to pour time and money into it or accept that it was no longer viable?

If I was going to be a fool, I was going to be a fool with an intact family and daughters who knew their father.

No one wants to be a quitter, but sometimes needs or priorities change. Sometimes you just realize you were wrong. We’re all human, and we’re going to make mistakes. But, as the saying goes, when you realize you’re in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Just some food for thought: Don’t be the person who never finishes anything. Also, don’t be the person who refuses to accept that success is not possible. Sometimes you really do need to just quit.

Dancing with Cinderella

I recently heard Steven Curtis Chapman perform a song off his next album during a radio interview. The chorus says:

So I dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone
(find full lyrics plus video here)

It's one of those parental tear jerkers, and I was barely maintaining my composure.

Then my not quite four-year-old piped up from the back seat, "Daddy, I'm Cinderella."

Composure gone. As much as I don't like tear jerkers, it's never a bad idea to be reminded that our kids are going to grow up way too fast.

That said, these days it's all too common to find people who've made their kids their idol. Life is not meant to be about our kids. As Christians, we should know what life is about, but in the midst of trying to know Christ and make Him known, we occasionally have to remind ourselves that the most important place to make Christ known is at home. If you lead a million people to Christ and fail to do the same with your kids, I don't think that's a life well lived. Do you?

My Jesus, her Jesus

Our neighborhood Wal-Mart, like many grocery stores, has a Roman Catholic icon-candle section. It's in what strikes me as an odd place -- next to the trashbags, across from the paper towels -- and I'd managed to miss it for quite a while. One day when my oldest, Virginia, was with me, we noticed it and stopped to look for a moment. The next week, as we passed by, Virginia wanted to stop, but I was in a hurry and didn't want to let her, until she said this: "I want to see my Jesus!"

Oh, how I loved hearing "my Jesus" come out of her little mouth. Even though I know that she doesn't have a clue what Jesus really did or what He means to me, I delight in hearing her tell me that she loves Jesus and that she wants to go to church and talk about Jesus. I think it is a taste of what it will be like when He really does become her Jesus, and more importantly, she His Virginia. After praying for that day for... how long will it be, six, eight, ten years? Hopefully no longer, I don't think I could bear it. After praying for that day for years, how sweet will it be to see my little girl at the foot of the cross and know that I will see her one day in glory?