Tag: live with hope

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Being Dad is Not Enough

 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; 
Malachi 4:6

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Cue Michael Buffer and let’s get ready to rumble:  so let me introduce you to Andrew, Isaac and Avery.  These three little loves dominate my TV and pantry.  They are my life, my heartbeat and the thorn in my side some days.  They take more than they give, primarily in the form of money and hot water.  They find ways to steal covers and my heart.  And have this wicked power to melt me like a Popsicle in the heat of summer with the words “I love you dad.”

Within God’s crazy sense of humor he issued the responsibility to me to be given the title of “Dad”. In truth, I probably had a role in creating that but that is a whole different post about parenting conversations.  Nevertheless, it is a huge responsibility that at no point have I ever taken lightly.  I have relished in the role of fatherhood.

I have come to this place where being dad is not enough.

 Anyone can be a father, it simply takes the right tools.  But being a dad is different dynamic.
What I realize is that I do a pretty dang good job of being a dad to Andrew, Avery and Isaac.  I do the things dads do.  I make sticky spaghetti, show up to games and school events, say bedtime prayers, and make really bad dad jokes.  What I also know is that I won’t be there only dad.
And I am okay with that.  In fact I welcome it.  And here is why.
At 21 you know everything, at least I did.  At 24 you start to realize you know nothing.  Between 21 and 24 where a handful of great men to teach me that I everything I thought I knew I never knew at all.  None of them shared my address or even my DNA.  But each of them shared their heart with me.
They took the stubborn clay of my heart and life and shaped it into a man.  Their words chiseled my character.  Their teachings split the old foundations and laid a new one.
This was my introduction into being a dad in a way I did not ever realize was necessary.
 
My belief is even the best dads need help along the way.  And that is why God gives spiritual fathers (and mothers).  These are the men God will put in the pathway of my kids to intersect their journey with echoes of my voice.  These dad come in the form of coaches, youth pastors, teachers, professors, pastors.  They will lovingly guide, direct, speak and encourage them in the times  I cannot.
To the men my kids will never call dad but see as dads.  Thank you in advance for spiritual making a difference in their life like the my “dads” did.
Because being dad sometimes is not enough.
JustbeingJeff

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Wedding Shoes

“For many are called, but few are chosen.”

“Daddy, are you wearing your wedding shoes?”
Those were the sweet words of my precious little girl when she was just 5.  To help you comprehend with this question completely, I had bought a new pair of black dress shoes for a wedding ceremony I was conducting.  
So in her mind there was a significant association between the fancy Steve Madden’s and a wedding.  So everytime I wore those pointed toed high fashion footwear came the question if I was sporting my nuptial kicks.
It’s really a great question.  Jesus tells a parable of the great wedding feast in Matthew 22.  Slid into the story wear none of the invited guests show up is a short snippet about a man not dressed for the wedding.
In Jewish culture this was a big deal, even an insult to the host.  The invited guest was suddenly revoked of his invitation and kicked out into the darkness.  Which makes me think: “am I wearing my wedding shoes?”
The Polaroid picture of the wedding feast we get from Jesus is a parable about the kingdom of God.  It’s the celebration of the Son of God marriage to our hearts for eternity. Which is longer than just til death do us part. 
Not being dressed properly exempts you from the dancing with the groom.  Not being fashionably prepared procludes you from dining as the guest of the groom.  
So the question becomes “are those your wedding shoes?”

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The day I quit

“There is no striving in your love.”
Matt Stinton

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I have a theory about church leaders: most pastors desire to be cool enough to wear skinny jeans and lead worship.  And most worship leaders want to drip words of l knowledge like the church’s primary communicator.  

I honestly got caught somewhere in between.  Fearless flaunting skinny jeans with an ability to speak from the platform coupled with zero ability to continuously clap on the 2 or the 4.  It’s closer to 3 and half at times. Yet in my soul is this deep connection to music.  

Honestly, God knows if I had an ounce of musical ability I would have lived in a van down by the Tennessee River in Nashville trying to break into country music.  

Maybe I’m not alone living in my love and lack when it comes to music chops.  Just somewhere in my soul is the heart of a Biel Street music maker.

With that love and lack came a Sunday sucker punch a few weeks back.  Our extra-skinny jean wearing worship pastor was introducing a new cut from the folks at Bethel Church.  The first power chord strum was chased by the chorus “there is no striving…there is no striving in your love…” 

Like the quick peeling of a bandage over an exposed wound I found myself ripped open.  It was as if the pen and guitar of the songwriter had peered into my soul and found the perfect blend of lyrical melody to tear the veil off my life.  In that moment the words to describe the constant chasing of discontent finally had language.  I had for years been “striving”.

All my consistent and constant striving had led to a life of strife.  My soul and life had been poisoned by a self induced dose of bitterness and anger.  I had been chasing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.  I was striving with God, in relationships, in trying to reconcile my career with my calling.  And here is the thing no one will tell you, striving never leads you to the places you want to go.

While, I would set my destination for joy, peace, happiness and contentment, I constantly found my arrival point as a place of unsatisfied and distant.  No matter the chasing, I just found my soul emptied of the things I desired.  I had become a hostage to my own struggle.

In that moment of finally feeling exposed I started walking out of the cave of discontent.  I knew that in order to arrive somewhere different was going to require going about it a different way.  The striving had to stop.

I would love to say it was miracle moment with Jesus that I just walked away and never went back to.  But like most things in life that we get tangled up in, it takes time to untangle.  So I went to work on unwinding the tangled mess I had made.

The outcome of leaving behind the insecurities of all the striving was coming to place I had always wanted.  A discovery of peace and truth and acceptance.  I no longer had to live in the lie that I was not enough.  I no longer had to face the man in the mirror that saw only imperfections in the master design of a creative God. Suddenly I saw through the eyes of a loving Father who’s love I did not have to work for.

James the brother of Jesus penned it best when he said “come near to God and he will come near to you.”   All the striving got me no closer to the one who was chasing after me.  It is when I realized that I did not have work for his love, that it was freely given I found freedom to be Just Be Jeff.

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It's Time To Go

“ The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Get ready, and go..” Deuteronomy 1:6-7

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It should have been a day of celebration.  Moses’ declaration should have kicked off a party.  Put the fattened calf on the barbecue, slap some Sweet Baby Rays on that thing and starting dancing!
God had miraculously moved over a million people from 400 years of bondage to the side of mountain.  God put all of Israel on an 11 day hike out of slavery across a desert to lush lands of his promise.  Only problem was the journey had been detoured for 39 years, 354 days. And now, finally, they were staring down the promised promise.
It is the very next words that are in the passage that seems to keep hitting me in the face. “Get ready”.
My first question is after 40 years of waiting how are you not ready already?
But it is the second question that requires me to peer deeper into my own soul:  “am I ready?”
There are delayed promises in all of our lives.  Dreams, visions, healing, deliverance and blessings that are still unrealized.  This is the side of the mountain a lot of us stand on.  In truth, my tent has probably been there for far too long.
I’ve often lived in long stretches of wandering in eager expectation of the God’s fulfillment of a promise, but the reality check is in if I am ready to walk into that promise?  I pray and pray and pray some more for what it in faith I have believed God for.  Then God in his infinite whacked out timing says “Okay, get ready.”
Then panic sets in causing me to ask “God am I really ready?”
The season between the promise and promise realized is a period of preparation.  Often God’s “get ready” is a reminder of what he has already had you walking through to get you to the side of the mountain.
Then he says next…
“and go…”
All the “get ready” leads to this simple command, it is time to leave the mountain.  God has prepared you, readied you, walked you round and round the desert so that when ready you walk into the promise.
Hesitation and disbelief cost the children of Israel over 30 years of not living in the promise.  They did not make the same mistake twice.
And neither should you or I.  God’s go is the moment to leave.  God’s go is the very instant of the realization the promise.  Don’t miss the moment of the “go”.  If you do it’s gone.
It’s time to leave the mountain.
 

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