Tag: leadership

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I've Robbed My Kids

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.
~Carl Jung

Father-with-kids.jpg

I am just going to say it.

I have robbed my kids blind for years. And really they never even knew it.

Before you turn me into the FEDs to be prosecuted because you presume I have been taking their cash, it has been more my lack of giving rather than taking.

I come from a classic Pentecostal, Bible-believing, Jesus heals background.  (To clarify: I do listen to secular music and I have not yet boycotted Disney).  My childhood faith framework was that of one that God is “able”.   God is able to save.  God is able to heal.  God is able to provide.  God is able to deliver.  God is able to give his Spirit.  God is able to do the impossible.

And I grew up experiencing that divine ability. I saw God do the miraculous. I saw God do ridiculous things that left me with zero doubt in who God was and what he was able to do.

And for most of my adult life the childhood years of my kids have seen their dad live, work and volunteer in the house of God. And while we have always attended church. What they have not never really seen is that move of God I grew up with.

Jesus said this ” no one lights a lamp and places a bowl over it”.  But in so many ways that is exactly what I have done.  Went to my closet to seek the big things of God and kept the light in there.  Keeping my kids in the dark and leaving the miraculous still a mystery to them.

I have robbed them of experiencing the miraculous.
I have robbed them of having their faith made firm by an amazing move of God.
I have robbed them of seeing the BIGNESS of a God in order that they can believe for themselves in a God who is “able”.

So yes, I am guilty.
I am guilty of not being the priest I need to be.
I am guilty of not allowing them to fully see the mighty move of God that lies just on the edge of the prayers I pray.
I am guilty of shading the shine of the Son from the eyes of my kids.

And I had to change that. So this Sunday I did.

I went to my pantry got the extra large bottle of extra virgin olive oil and prayed over my kids.  I get that it’s old school and maybe to some a little unorthodox.  But scripture teaches us some critical lessons about blessings.

Jacob was willing to deceived and trick his father Isaac to steal Esau’s. Jacob wrestled all night with the angel of the Lord just to receive the blessing.  Jacob later blesses the Ephraim instead of the older child Manasseh.  The blessing the father was coveted and sought after.

Now I have been “blessed out” many times.  I told you I have a Holy Spirit filled mama, but this is not that.  This was me putting my hand on their hand and passing the passion infused in me by a loving Father onto them.  This is not a right of passage or ritual duty.  This is the heart of a father loving and longingly desiring his three kids to fully discover the Father and all he has for their lives.

Stop robbing your kids of their blessing.  Yes it was awkward.  No they didn’t understand.  Yet I firmly believe that God has a way of transferring love and passion and callings through a father’s hand.  I believe that in that moment my kids destiny was determined and set into motion.  They may not know it today, but one day they may look back and see that moment as a revelation that God is able.

So quit robbing them.  Bless them.

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Jiggle the Handle

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.
~Napoleon Hill


Sunday dinner in the South is as sacred a sanctuary as church itself.  So to reject an invitation to the feasting festivities is next to turning your back on the Lord himself.  So when a good friend of mine invited to me dinner after church, I had no option but to attend.

Her father is a retired minister.  So like most preachers most everything spoken even at Sunday dinner is on the surface one thing but underneath a neatly wrapped life lessons if you peel the context back like skin on the potatoes.

On this particular Sunday in the South, I heard the story of a locked door. The story was more or less of a door that perpetually seemed to be unlocked despite his instance that he locked the door upon leaving.

In his deep, smooth Elvis style voice, he recounted going to the door, turning the lock, checking the handle.  Returning the next day just to find the door unlocked.   So the following night he turned the lock, checked the handle, turned out the lights.  Next morning, found the door unlocked.

Finally, he decided he was going to solve the mystery of the rebellious door.

So he turned the lock, checked the handle and heard a “pop” as the door unlocked.  Somewhere over a second serving of BBQ the man called Papa said “sometimes you just got to jiggle the handle.”

While it may have been a simple story of a stubborn door, the meaning was not missed.

There are so many seasons we pray for God to “open doors” for us.  We plead and pray and ask God to open the door.  Maybe God has all along presented us with closed doors and just asked us to “jiggle the handle”.

Discouragement often comes disguised in a door that is closed.  Dreams are dashed at the doorway of closed off opportunities.  Callings cease at the appearance of a sealed off passageway. 

Which makes me think there are moments God sits on this throne and face palms thinking “I put you in front of the door just jiggle the handle”.

God lays out a sampling of door handle jiggling moments in scripture.  Moses had to put the staff in the sea to see the waters part.  The priests put their toes in the water before the Jordan swung open.  Countless miracles were completed by Jesus when the one receiving the work of grace put a little work in. 

Sometimes God puts us in front of the door and asks us to “jiggle the handle”. The job application does not fill itself out.  But an opportunity may open with a phone call. Even if the book does  magically get filled with words, a publisher will never see it until you pitch it.  Sometimes your big break is opened with a simple jiggle of a handle you presumed was locked.

Opportunity does not always knock.  And there are days we don’t create the door.  Some days God presents an opportunity in the form of a door that seems locked.  In faith you check the handle to see if it is the door God has presented you to walk through. 

As was the wisdom handed to me over some Southern slaw “sometimes you just got to jiggle the handle.”

What opportunity door handle do you need to jiggle?

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Your "their"

If you want to run fast run alone, 
if you want to run far,
run together.
African Proverb


By no means do I consider myself a professional runner.  I am a guy who runs.  Mostly trying to out run age and extra weight I find in the bottom of bag of Chex Mix.  But I have run enough to find this African proverb to testify to truth.

Most times I run alone.  There is a little voice in my earbud that every 5 minutes tells me how far and how fast I am going.  Which triggers another voice in my head telling me to run faster.  In my runs alone like this, there is no pace partner.  It is me willing myself faster.

This a terrible way to run if you want to run long distances. Trust me.  Because by about mile 4 of a 5 mile run, it feels like someone poured gasoline on my lungs then light a match.  Running alone will might be fast, but it won’t get me far.

As I turned the corner of mile 3 yesterday in my unwitting lonely sprint, this thought it me.  It is the “their” in our lives that take us where we need to go.

There is story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man in the bible.  Not an odd occurence in the bible. Jesus healed lots of people in the bible and stil does.  But there is one particular story that stands out.

It’s a fairly famous Jesus story.  Jesus is on his teaching tour going from house to market to boat to synagogue dropping truth and love on people.  Along that road Jesus had a packed house, literally packed a house with people to hear him deliver the message of the Father.

The house was sold out.  In fact five friends were so desperate to get to Jesus they went topside to get to him.  This was the first Wrigley Rooftop experience.  These four friends dug through the thatch and lowered the fifth man who was paralyzed down in front of Jesus and the packed place.

As the mat with the man comes into view of Jesus his vision shifts to the friends.  He looks back to the man.  He tells the man, “Son your sins are forgiven.”  Jesus forgiving sins I get, but it’s how the forgiveness came about that hurts my head.

The passage in Mark says “when Jesus saw THEIR faith…” Hold the proverbial phone one second.  This man was forgiven and healed from not just his faith, but the faith of his friends.  

While it throws itself against my run alone persona, it presses my need for a “their”.   

We need the faith of the “their” when our faith fades.  We need the prayers of the “their” when we lack words.  We need to encouragement of the “their” we struggle to encourage ourself in the Lord.  God designed us to run in a “THEIR” and not alone.

Which leads me to Moses.  Moses stands head and shoulders above many of the men littered in scripture.  He stared into the face of fire to find the voice of God.  He stood up to the king of the world to set slaves free.  He stuck a stick in the sea and saw waters part.  We picture Moses standing alone, white hair whisking in the wind, chest puffed out with the strength of Yahweh.

But even Moses, the man of God, had a THEIR.  In one of the first fights of the newly freed Hebrews, God ordered Moses to stand on the hill and hold up his hands.  As long as his hands were up Gods people won.  When his hands dropped, the Israelites were pushed back.  

Finally some THIERS finished the fight.  Aaron, Moses brother and a man named Hur held up the hands of Moses until the war was won.

I have been guilty too often of running alone.  The THEIR of my life is there to hold up my hands and lower me down to Jesus.  When we fail to run with a THEIR, we may run fast, but we won’t run far.  

Run with your THEIR and you’ll get there.

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Those 4 Words

I may never understand
That my broken heart is a part of your plan
When I try to pray
All I’ve got is hurt and these four words
Hilary Scott, Thy Will

I am just going to say it…I may be the worst patient on the planet. My minor boo-boo is drastically larger than your gaping wound. I know I am a big baby.  But I will own it.  

I have those days where the hurt of my life is more than anything anyone has ever experienced. My knee scrape is bigger than your cancer.   

I hate to hurt.  

In truth, we all run from the pain.

We struggle even more to understand how hurt is part of God’s plan of healing. 

God has a way of dragging me from my place of self pity to his classroom called life.  The father takes me to the Garden of my life   and puts me on my knees. He reminds me that my troubles and hurts are fleeting compared to the weight of the Gethsemane where Jesus kneeled. 

In his most pressing moment, Jesus, knees bent and heart laid bear, blood dropped from his brow, he wrestled the weight of the will of his Father. Jesus prayed the most dangerous and securest prayer he could pray.  Four words that changed his life and changed history: “your will be done”.

The danger lies in living out the will of the Father.  The security lies in…living out the will of the Father.

God plans takes us up mountains of faith and down roads of trust and even across seas of sinking hearts. In most moments we fail to understand how hurt and heartbreak can be in the mix of the plan of a loving Father.

Yet in perspective the cross was the cup that gave me life.  Jesus’pain was price paid to bring me healing.   It’s most often in our moments of hurt that the Father reveals the greater purpose in his will.

As much as I want to understand   the bitter taste of cup before me, it’s often in looking back I see his plan was there all along.

So while hurt may be on the menu, his will is the best place dine.

“O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.”

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