Fathered by God

A few weeks back I got the chance to go to Ransomed Heart Ministries Wild At Heart Boot Camp in lovely Fraser, Colorado. I had been trying to go to this for several years and it would seem like one thing or another would keep me from going- we were short on money, I couldn't take off from work, you name it and it kept me from going. This year was looking no different than the past few years. With the help of my wife's cousin, Jonathan, I got accepted into the camp. I got out my planner and marked off the days in question and worked a little extra this summer to pay for the trip. For some reason, the email notifying me that I needed to send payment didn't show up and at three weeks before the camp I was making frantic email and telephone requests to Ransomed Heart hoping to get my spot back. God intervened on my side (yet again). With my reservation in the bag the only thing left to do was pack. And then...

The night before I was to leave, Natasha's dear Uncle "Doc" Torsten Seubold passed away. I was torn, but at the same time I knew that Uncle Doc would rather I go to receive something from God (that I badly needed) than to stay here. Natasha refused my pleas to stay and do what I could for the family. Grass needed to be cut, houses cleaned, and, of course, I wanted to be there to weep at the loss of our family's patriarch. I was weak, feeling compelled to stay and compelled to go. I got up at 4:00 AM and started driving to Tulsa. At the airport I called Natasha and pleaded again with her that I would come home in a heartbeat if she would say the word. She batted away my complaint and urged me to go. So, at 8:00 I boarded my flight and left the rest to God.
The Boot Camp was invigorating and I came home refreshed and filled with revelation about who I am and what I am meant to be. This feeling was so much in this direction that I haven't really talked about it with anyone yet. I wanted what I received to soak in and become part of me, and that had not happened in the few days after the camp. I'm now getting to that point.
With this in mind, it was tonight as I was mowing Uncle Doc's office lawn that I think the import of one of those lessons began to hit home. In fact, the lesson began before the camp. It was the night that Uncle Doc passed away. Like I said earlier, I felt both compelled to go and compelled to stay. Natasha and I talked about what I should do and she wanted me to go. "We'll be fine," she said. Alright. OK. This is what my wife was telling me. I believed her. Kind of.
For the last 6 years of our marriage I had been a whole lot closer to being an LPN than a husband. And for a good deal of that time, this is in fact what Natasha needed. But once a guy, and a hard headed guy at that, gets into some sort of role, like "nurse", he might find it difficult to let go of. I did. And to be perfectly honest, I've not completely relinquished that role of nurse just yet, but I am getting better.
Natasha tells me to go and trust that everything would be OK. So I boarded my flight in Tulsa with the suspicion that the my little bunch wouldn't fall apart without me there. Not a belief, just a suspicion or maybe it would be better to say a dread.
The dread is not that I wouldn't be missed, but that I'm not needed. Someone else will be there to hold my wife while she is crying. My kids will shuffled between the grandparents as needed and they will be fed and loved on. Someone will cook dinner and clean the kitchen and haul the trash out to the curb.
There comes a point where we fathers need to realize that we can't be there for every situation that arises for our family. There are areas where my knowledge and skills will have played out and my son will have to go to someone else for help. For fathering. I am not a one-stop never ending resource fatherly wisdom on all subject areas. If my son comes to me ten years from now needing to know how to wire a light with two switches, I'll have to send him to my neighbor down the street. I'm not an electrician.
So what happens when a father is gone? Or when you had no father or a very bad one? You find fathering in other men, and if one of those men is wise, he will teach you that God is your father. He will point you to Ephesians 1:4,5 to show you that you (all mankind) were chosen before the Earth was formed to be adopted as sons by God, and teach you the full import of this idea.
I have been very fortunate in my walk in this earth-suit to have had some very good fathering done by many different men. Doc Seubold, the man whose bedside I had just been weeping beside a few days ago, was in so many ways one of those men who I considered a father to me. Whatever sonship I feel pales in comparison to what his children feel at this moment, and the loss I feel is infinitely minuscule to the loss Josh, Jonathan, and Jordana feel in these days, as well. But in his going on to be with the Father, I have lost a father as well.
The lesson I have learned, with the help of Morgan Snyder of the Ransomed Heart team, is that I need fathering from other men, but mostly, I need it from God. When I get in a bind on some project that I am not qualified to do, I need to ask my Father for wisdom and assistance.
Morgan said, speaking to his son, "Son, I've tried for three years to be your father." He realized that he was grossly unqualified for the task of fathering a son. At my church, Cornerstone, we have an axiom, part of which says, "If it's all about me, then it's all up to me." I, like Morgan, am grossly unqualified for the position of father to my two children. What I should be teaching them is something I learned some time back but didn't have the term to express the concept. What I need to be teaching them is to let God be your Father. Let God be our Father. Morgan's son said to him that he (Morgan) was his brother really, if God was his father. It is an idea that is so simple that a child can latch right on to it. In my fatherhood to my kids, I need to be showing them my reliance on the Father. Because, if it really is all about me, then it really is all up to me. And I am becoming more cognizant everyday that I am in as much need of fathering as my kids are.

Things That Work: Fenix Flashlights

Flashlights have come a long, long way since my childhood. It seemed the coolest TV sleuths (Simon and Simon, Magnum P.I., and others) had a super bright and small flashlight to use on their nightly investigations. So the Mini Mag-Lite was obviously the solution for compact portable illumination. Well, maybe it was 15 years ago, but I would hardly call them state of the art today. The LED is king of the flashlight world today.
I appreciate fine tools that do a job and do it well, like a watch or a camera. For most people the watch and camera has been replaced by their phone and that is fine. I've yet to find a flashlight that was anything but a flashlight that was worth talking about and I still (for the moment anyway) prefer for my phone to be a phone.
Back to flashlights. Good LED flashlights are expensive. Some of them are really expensive. So the desire to have a powerful flashlight that was compact and didn't burn through expensive batteries in minutes rather than hours was being suppressed by the fact that I was not going to spend $150 or more dollars on a flashlight.
One piece of good news was that Coleman came out with their Maxx series of LED lights about a year ago. I selected their 115 lumen 2AA model ($26 Wal-Mart) and haven't regretted it. It is a fine flashlight, bright enough to render someone blind at night for several seconds which is a useful feature if the need should ever arise. What did I not like about it? It didn't offer a low power setting that could maximize the battery life. Who needs all 115 lumens all the time? I don't but for $26, I couldn't complain. Besides, the AAs seem to have a fairly long life in this light anyway.

About the same time I bought this flashlight my best friend began working for Fenix. Fenix is relatively new to the flashlight industry and they build high quality flashlights for consumer, military, and law enforcement. He introduced me to their products and I was thoroughly impressed with what I read about and wished that I had saved my money for one a Fenix light. Beside that fact that the Fenix lights were loaded with features, they were considerably cheaper than light from other manufacturers . So much cheaper that I ruled them out from consideration.
The light that I have ended up with is their PD30 model. Its highest setting is 215 lumens! Yes, that is bright. This is not a setting that you want to leave it on for it can damage the light if it is used on this setting for more than 10 minutes. Fair enough. The high setting is 115 lumens and is more than bright enough for most any situation. Fenix, I suppose, was showing off because they included two more lower settings and an S.O.S function and a strobe function as well. Cool. Very cool.
In fair disclosure I did not buy this light. It was a gift to me by my friend. However, comparing price to features with other popular lights it is easy to see that the Fenix lights are a bargain. This particular light's MSRP is $99. Another brand's comparable light is $150. Yes, I will be laying down my money for other Fenix products as need and generosity arises. I can't think of a better gift anyone could have given me and I can't wait to give one to some deserving guy-or gal.

Business is Good! or The World Belongs To Those Who Hustle

How many times in the last two years have we heard how bad the economy is? Every day there is a report in the news about some company needing help, going under, or laying off workers. But is this really the truth? In some ways it is. I, myself lost my job this spring as a result economic conditions in rural Crawford County. There are tens of thousands of workers who have been laid off all over the country. Things are bad or are they?
For some folks the answer to that question is going to be yes. But, my friend, it doesn't have to be. Solomon wrote in the Proverbs that we are supposed to pay attention to the ants. A good friend of mine watched the ants one time and he got a unique insight to their resourcefulness and a really cool story to boot. Solomon said that the ants have no king to lord over them and tell them what to do. They just know. They know that to survive the winter, they need to store food while the food is available in the summer. In my buddy's story, the ants were caught in flood water. Thousands of ants linked their legs so that they became a buoyant ball of ants. Naturally some of the ants were under water, so they crawled to the top of the ball and let other "dry" ants take their place. The ants were working hard to survive in adverse conditions. They were doing what they knew to do to make things turn out for the best.
So what is really going on and what do ants have to do with it? I'm glad I asked. What is really going on is a carefully thought out marketing campaign by the media to ensure they have something to write and talk about. Other than that, it beats me. What I do know is that during the Great Depression there were people who retained their fortunes and people who made fortunes.
All we hear about are those who lost fortunes. Let me ask you a question, when you hear about a major sports event, for instance the recent World Cup of football, do you hear stories about the team that finished second? No, you don't. You hear about the victor, in this case Spain. The sports media will be interviewing the Spanish team, their coaches, and their fans, but you won't see to much about, who was it again? Hmm. I forgot. So why do we see news headlines about losers and sports headlines about winners? News "winners"don't sell newspapers. Winners are doing OK, their business is good, and their employees are happy. Sports winners have conquered a great obstacle; they've beaten the man! And more Americans are much more concerned over their sports teams than they are with what is actually going on. We are a perplexing herd who will believe almost anything the media will tell us.
So, who was it that made fortunes during the Great Depression? People who behaved like the ants in the flood. If they didn't make changes to accommodate the changing environment, they would drown like every other creature who couldn't get out of the way. These are people who are resilient and are ready to adapt to the market's changing conditions. By the way, this very thing is going on right now in the midst of our own economic meltdown.
Solomon goes on to admonish the seeker that if he should choose the path of comfort, the Lay-Z-Boy or Serta Perfect Sleeper, poverty and want would come upon his house like labor comes on the expecting mother. Fast and when she least expects it.
When we choose comfort over the things that give us life, things that exercise our faculties, we choose to fail. The failure often does not come right away but rather when we are good and asleep. The alarm is sounded in our depth of sleep and we are jolted out of bed with the house ablaze and no water in sight.
Was I caught off-guard? Not really. Now I do have certain advantages that a lot of folks do not have. I've actually had to depend on God to supply my needs a time or two in the last six years. So when my superintendent came to me and said I was the low man on the totem pole, I knew things would be OK. I would be where I needed to be at the time I needed to be there. Guess what? I still don't have the surety of a "main gig" and I'm not worried about it in the least. I've taken a lesson from the ants and have been more than willing to expand my horizons and exercise my talents. Who knows, I may come out of 2010 without the need for a "main gig" and that would be alright with me.

Seasons

It was not all that long ago I chided my friend for not updating her blog. It's been well over a month now for me. Not that I have anything all that interesting to say, I have just been lazy. My mind has been going a thousand different directions at once while my fingers have left the keypad alone. Sound and fury signifying nothing.
What have I been thinking about? I've had questions- more than I care to answer, not that I can answer them to begin with. Yet not knowing what lies ahead and walking there by faith is one of those things that is easy to tell others to do. So, be it declared to all and singular, I am waking up tomorrow to do what needs to be done for that day and for all the days to come.
Artistically a statement by Jack White (of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather) has been floating around in my head and I can't get rid of it. What's more- I think he's right! His statement was that when we have all the colors of the rainbow to work with, our creativity is stifled. Of course his application of this statement comes in his own medium, the guitar. His typical guitar is less than perfect, hard to keep in tune, bent neck, or some other defect. He doesn't toss it in the dumpster and pick up a made to order Whatever Ltd. brand guitar, he just picks up his old favorite and wails on it. This idea has caused me to question how I pursue my hobby/profession of photography. What parameters am I going to limit myself to so that the creativity will turn on instead of stagnate?
So that is what I've been thinking about. Well, not all of it. Nearly a year ago I found out that the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith was bring both Jesus Christ, Superstar and Garrison Keillor to town as part of their twenty-ninth Season of Entertainment. Without a great deal of consideration I picked up the phone and orded two pairs of ticket for each event. Finally the time has come for those events. In fact, Jesus Christ, Superstar played on April 15th to a packed house. We are awaiting An Afternoon with Garrison Keillor. We won't have to wait too long- it is this Sunday!
Superstar was and is an amazing story. For those who want to see blasphemy and heresy and decry its production and lambaste those who enjoy it as unsanctified godless heathens- knock yourself out! Savor every moment of your bundage to your grave. Rice and Webber simultainiously had their fingers on the pulse of modern day religion, present time angst and interpretations of the times, and history without the benefit of hindsight.
Modern day religion wants to see the show and know "when do we ride to Jerusalem" without taking into account the price that was paid for our ticket. Is the world troubled now? Oh, is it ever. Just like it was when Jesus ate, drank, sweated, and defecated with humanity. Some folks then and now are listening to the voice of the Shepherd. Most are blissfully unaware that we are really sheep and indeed we do need a shepherd. And some of us get so caught up in living for heaven that we forget that we are here on earth. Let us all not forget that Christian living is a direction, not a destination! Jesus in his time on earth did not have the luxury of two-thousand years in which man could contemplate his divinity and create doctrines by which He would be interpreted through. No, he walked and talked with people just like you and me, especially like you and me. Remember, the organized church kicked his butt out! With this in mind, is it really heretical to think that people didn't quite have a grasp on who He was? Hind sight is 20/20. We really do dumb things when we don't know how they will turn out. (So Peter told Jesus the one about the two rabbis and the priest that went into the bar...) Count yourself fortunate to seek and find beauty and art.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

It seems I have immersed myself in all things Islamic this last two weeks. I have been reading my Koran, reading Is Fanatic Islam a Global Threat by Victor Mordecai, going to lectures on the subject, and watching films dealing with the general agenda of Islam- one specifically set to tell the human drama, the other to tell the bloody and troubling realities Sharia Law. The Stoning of Soraya M. is the true story of a beautiful Iranian woman stoned to death on the testimony of two men. That is all it takes. It doesn't matter who the men are; the fact that they are men is sufficient justification for any allegation they make. It's good to be a man, if you are a Muslim!
This story- and I hate to call it a story for it is certainly not fiction- takes place about twenty years ago, about 10 years after the Shah of Iran was ousted from power and the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime had forced its way into power. For Islam government and religion are the same thing, and the cards are stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the male members of society who have the authority to tell the masses what their religion demands, which is justice in its purist and most barbaric form.
Why was Soraya stoned? She was caught in the sin of adultery. Yeah, right. She was married to a sack of pig excrement who had eyes for a fourteen year-old hottie, the daughter of a man who was in Mr. Excrement's care in the local jail. Mr. Excrement was to delay the man's execution in exchange for a young piece of you-know-what. Obviously Mr. Excrement needed to get rid of his wife. Like many Western men who want to trade in a used woman for a new model, he didn't like the idea of using his money to prop up his ex and their two daughters (they had four kids, two boys,two girls). So the best solution for the muslim in a fix was to call AC/DC and have their "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" man give Soraya a jingle. No. Better than that, he calls on the local clergy to assist in his time of need. Brother Ne'er-do-well sees a way to help Mr. Exrement out of his tight spot. He must simply catch his wife in a compromising situation with another male. That is vague enough, right? Well, that is all it takes, and we aren't talking about Western male-female interactions here, either. All it takes for Soraya is a simple touch of the hand, a little pressure on the man whose hand she touched and viola, one Soraya M. is guilty of adultery.
I watched in a sickened frozen stupor as the kids of her village tapped rocks together in rhythm while her procession made its way to the designated place of her state and Allah sanctioned murder. She was led, wearing what appeared to be her pure white and intricately beautiful wedding gown down into a pit that had been dug especially for this holy occasion, placed on her knees, and buried up to her waist-- no need in leaving any room for error. With dramatic diliberation, each man who, were his god not the sword, should have known that this whole event was a sham, threw baseball sized (plus or minus) rocks at the beautiful, wronged, and holy Soraya.
Having caught an elbow or two about the face while playing basketball as a youth, I should not have been shocked by the amount of blood that issued forth from her blameless forehead. I was though. You can imagine what this girl, whose dress bespoke of blessed union and now, as blood both running and splattered down upon it, told of the satanic, neurotic need to control, even to death the one thing in society that should be cherished as the creative evidence of God on earth, looked like as the spark of life had nearly been completely extinguished from her eyes. With one more triumphant barrage of stones the unholy work was finished.
The story of Soraya's murder was taken by a brave French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, played in the film by Jim Caviezel. He wrote a book that chronicled Soraya's ordeal. and it was published in 1995.
I was initially mad at myself for not knowing about this movie, let alone the book until about three months ago. I do not want to deminish the significance of this film in its role of letting the world know about the kind of atrocities that are going on in the name of Allah in Islamic countries, but I feel that the lesson for those of us in the West is that Sharia law is not as far away as we would like to believe. Cultural Jihad is and has been underway in Western Civilization for 1400 years now. There has been an ebb and flow over time as power has shifted east to west and west to east. However, an incredible amount of wealth has flowed to the East during the last 80 years. Politicians have been telling us for years that we are running out of oil. That may or may not be true now, but the Islamists who have the money and the power to control the market for oil have an enormous advantage over the whole globe, the globe they want to see ruled under the flag of Sharia law. One decision to stop the oil flow or raise the price precipitously and the world's economy falters. Who has the real power now? We can bow to their wishes, wage war, or try to ride it out. In any case we will pay a tremendous price in terms of quality of life, lives lost in warfare, and the wealth of our nations. Jihad is upon us. The only question is whether or not it will be the sword or the law that cuts our feet out from under us.

If They are Good Enough for our Soldiers...

In the latter days of this past summer I found a good set of boots at a super cheap price. They were the Desert Tan Hot Weather boots. The same ones our soldiers who are deployed in less than hospitable regions of the earth wear. At first I was just glad to have a good set of boots. I knew they would come in handy while working around the house and for hikes into the woods, too. When I was a young teenager I had a pair of Vietnam era Jungle boots. I hated them. They were uncomfortable and.... well, just plain uncomfortable.
Since these boots were new, they required a break in period. I started to become frustrated when the break in period extended past a week of "light" duty wear. Were these boots going to be just like my Jungle boots of old? Thankfully, they weren't. After a few more days of wear, the boots were broken in. Over a few months time, I began to prefer wearing them. The more I wore them, however, the more I thought about the men and women who pull the laces taunt everyday and walk out into the sands of hostile lands to face the enemy of the civilized world.
Over time, the boots began to become an extension of me. Chances are that nowadays if you run into me on the street, in the woods, at the park, in my classroom, I will be wearing my boots. And, in the same manner, the boots have come to represent more than just "trendy" footwear, more than an article of comfort. They have become a way that I can say, "Thank you!" to all those men and women who have to wear them. I'm letting my accoutrements make a statement- a statement that I'm not at all ashamed to make. Merle Haggard sang in "Okie from Muskogee" that it was a place where leather boots were "still in style for manly footwear" and I'll have to agree. These are timeless boots, ones that any man (or woman) should be proud have on their feet. I'll have these on for quite some time.

Taking the sails down before the wind is taken from the sails

Once in a while we receive news that takes the wind from our sails. It knocks us back on our heels, shocks us, drives us off course. Some surprises are certainly better than other, but really, as a Christian, one should never be truly surprised. It is all a matter of training.
Training prepares us for adverse situations, prevents failures in procedure, and refreshes our faculties. It is needed as we learn a skill, as we continue in that skill, and as we become professional in that skill.
Ask any figure skater about training and they will tell you that from the time they were pre-school age they have been on skates. “What about now? You are a professional, surely you don't train now?”
“Oh, yes indeed! I train more now than I ever have.”
So we train, we study, we hone our skills. Good. But what if we never rest from our daily labors and our training? How effective are we in doing our job? Whom do we depend upon? Can we listen to what our Boss is saying?
A close friend told me of a weight training program that has proven very effective for bodybuilders and athletes of all sorts. Without thinking about it, one might assume that working out everyday would bring about maximum benefit in both strength and muscle growth. While it makes sense, it is physiologically wrong. Working out certain muscle groups once, twice, or three times per week gives the muscles time to repair and grow while you are resting. Some people see maximum muscle and strength growth by working out just once a week.
Spiritually and intellectually we are just like the bodybuilder. We can immerse ourselves in doing the work of the church and have it become church work in a short time. What is the difference? The work of the church is done without regret for mutual eternal gain. Church work, on the other hand, is done at a loss and for selfish gain. Intellectually, we gain consummate knowledge and esoteric detail only to lose sight of the greater picture and become a slave to the wit of man. We fuss over the gnat in our brother's eye while ignoring the rhinoceros beetle that is lodged in our own eye. More importantly, we let our intellect take credit for the work of the Almighty.
Jonathan Edwards, while doctrinally unsound in his sermon “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God”, said that “you find that you are kept out of hell and yet don't see the hand of God in it.” We are blessed with peace and prosperity and we say, “Man did this.” We are favored among men in all manner of ways and we say, “I'm the best man for the job.” We take credit for creation, for health, for prosperity- and never see the hand of God in it.
Thankfully, we are provided with a reprieve, a chance to let our muscles repair and grow. This chance lets us reflect upon the lessons we have been taught. It lets us see the beauty around us. It lets us realize how we fit into the greater picture without missing the forest for all of the trees. It is the Shabbat, or as we like to say in Christianity, the Sabbath. The word Sabbatical comes from this root. Most people hear the term and think that it is a time to work on something else, take a pause from your real job and get more education or pursue a new venture. In its truest sense, it means to cease work and acknowledge the one whose work you are a product of.
The world we live in is so much opposed to this idea that its true meaning is all but lost in our western society. This is no surprise. We have a great enemy whose main intention is to guide God's children (everyone on the planet) to distraction. When we are distracted, we have no time to think on the big picture or the artist who painted the picture. Americans in particular are lost in a sea of stuff. We have distraction upon distraction and we crave more distractions to insure our escape from the reality that we are not our own. We run and hide. We lose ourselves in whatever distraction that suits our fancy. We never stop and rest. We die early, in poverty and in a state of unrest.
The Jewish Shabbat requires no work to be done on from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. We, as a rule, would be driven crazy, with “nothing to do.” Yet, that doesn't mean that we can not benefit from installing in our life the practice of honoring a Shabbat. Folks we have to have it. It is not an option. Without it we will work ourselves to death and drive off the very people we love so much. We will lose sight of what God really wants for his children. And we will never maximize our growth spiritually or intellectually. Neglecting the principle of Shabbat ensures our works become church work which will be consumed with fire. Not the person, the works will be consumed. God wants the best for his children, not a second rate version of something that is good. That is why He required the Israelites to practice the Shabbat. He knows that with less us, there is more evidence of Him on earth.