"my path has changed"

"Thank you Father for Your forgiveness, mercy, and love. Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and my path has changed."

~author unknown

It's amazing how two sentences can so capture the essence of what Christ does in the heart of the believer.

"my path has changed."

No explanation given or needed. Just a simple statement. A declaration of faith, and it's evident results.

I don't know who wrote this simple statement, other than they are a member of my church. As I read it tonight, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, shout, jump, or run laps around the little room that I was in, so I did a little bit of everything.

Not bad for a life-long stoic Baptist, huh?

Each week as I go into my church's prayer room I expect to meet God. It is a quiet place, a refuge, an anticipated place of peace in my busy life. In the stillness of that moment I find my Savior, the one who cares about each detail, each burden, and each moment of joy that is shared there. I leave there blessed, renewed, burdened, and convicted. I almost always leave knowing that I have reached the throne room of God.

"Thank you Father for Your forgiveness, mercy, and love. Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and my path has changed."

Enough said.

I don't wanna be superdad....

Do you ever see the "perfect" family - they live in the perfect house, drive the perfect cars, have perfect kids, perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect lives.

They drive me nuts! We can't seem to pull that off, no matter how hard we try!

I grew up in a "southern" home, and as any good southerner knows, a southern home must be perfect. The house be perfect, the kids must be perfect, everything has to be perfect.

Honestly, my personality pushes me to be the superdad with the perfect family. It's who I am. Reality, though, has taught me that being a superdad is both exhausting and impossible, and that the "perfect" family probably isn't so perfect after all.

My kids will occasionally lie, fight, say a bad word, yell, scream, disobey, and be disrespectful. They're not perfect. Our house isn't perfect, our cars have dents, and our life is sometimes screwed up.

I'm not superdad.

As a dad, I want to hear my kids laugh, know when they cry, and recognize when they need help. I want to provide for their needs and some of their wants. I desire that my home be a refuge, a place where they have the freedom to experience success and also failure, and reap the consequences of both. I want to teach them to be responsible for their actions, because someday soon they will bear full responsibility for them. I desire that my home be a place of laughter, a place where my boys want to be. I want to provide leadership that is consistent, loving, and patient. More than all of the above, I want our home to show my boys Christ.

Sometimes, all of the above describes our home. Sometimes, though, none of the above describes our home. Many times my wife displays all of the above, and I display none. I'm not superdad....

As I age (read - get old! Ha!) my priorities are changing. I'm learning that I don't have to be superdad. I'm learning that my years with my boys are much shorter than I realized, and that I don't have very long to impart my values, my beliefs, my God.

I'm learning that I just want to be "dad".

a King and a Servant

Can you image the queen of England scrubbing toilets? Or the President of the United States mucking out horse stalls? How about Donald Trump scrubbing his penthouse floors?

Servanthood isn't something that most of us aspire to. As kids, we didn't dream about performing menial tasks our entire life. We dreamed about being kings, queens, princesses, rich, famous....

Most of us aren't content with our status in life - we love our job, hate our job; love our house, hate our house; love our spouse - ha! just seeing if you are paying attention. But you get the idea. We always want more, bigger, better - myself included.

I read a story recently about a servant whose goal was to clean feet. Feet!

I hate feet. I can't describe how much I hate feet. Ask my wife, or especially my boys. Feet are disgusting - do not touch me with your feet!

Back to our dreams of how life should be... Sometimes during an especially difficult day, I tell the Lord that He must have gotten my life mixed up with someone else's, that there has to be more. He has reminded me on several occasions that I'm right - there is more, but I'm not listening, not following the playbook.

Alrighty, then! Show me the money! I'm moving on up to the east side!

Then, as only He can, He reminds me that my "more" may not His "more". You see, that "servant" was a King - Jesus - washing His disciples feet. So I ask, can you picture a King with a towel wrapped around His waist and a bowl of water in front of Him, washing feet?

I can't image myself washing feet. Yes, I serve, and most of you do too, but I serve on my terms, according to my plans, usually within my comfort zones.

Jesus very simply wants us to serve others - on His terms, according to His plans, and within His comfort zones.

John 13:1-17; Philippians 2:3

through His eyes....

My little man, Grayson, has been struggling in school recently with his perception of how he's progressing. No - he didn't describe it this way, but this is my interpretation of what was going on in his head. He was acting as though everyone was "against" him, when in truth, he has devoted parents and 2 wonderful teachers. And when I say struggling, I mean that he was being a little monster towards his teachers and classmates, which is always a wonderful thing to hear. lol.

After much prayer, and several conversations with Grayson's teachers, Lisa & I realized that we had to change his perception of school. I'll finish this thought a little later....

We have an ongoing joke around our home - that I'm OCD, and Lisa's a hoarder. Garrett's like his mom, and Grayson's like me. Fortunately, we seem to balance each other out, and have a peaceful home.

If you've ever dealt with a compulsive disorder such as OCD or hoarding, or struggled with anxiety, depression, or a host of related issues, one of the things that you were probably told is that you had to change your perspective, how you "see" things vs. how things really are.

Christians are challenged to match their life's perspective to His perspective - to obtain a Biblical worldview. We are commanded to filter everything through His eyes, and to continually become more like Him.

Back to Grayson.... I constantly remind myself to see things through his 5-year-old eyes. It's hard to be in "parent" mode and do so. I'm constantly reminded that to reach him, to change his perspective, I must get down on his level.

I do mean to physically get down on my knees and see the world through his eyes, and to listen to what he is saying about his world. Only when I understand his world can I help him change his perception to match reality.

I picture my Heavenly Father, in His infinite wisdom and patience, doing the same for me. You see, my perspective is marred by the world's viewpoints, by my hurts and frustrations. My thoughts are not His thoughts - but they should be. He is reaching out through His Word and through the Holy Spirit into our lives - He knows our perspective, but He desires that we know His.

By the way, my little man is doing much better....

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways..." Isaiah 55:8