TILL HE COMES Blog

A few years ago, Wendy started a family tradition called “Daughter’s Day.” She figured, “We have mother’s day and father’s day, so why not daughter’s day?” So she began one.

So, happy Daughter’s day Taylor, Selah, and Kahlea! I love you!

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I vividly remember the first Father’s Day sermon I ever preached. As I tried to figure out what to preach on, I remembered that someone told me that there were no examples of perfectly good fathers in Scripture (other than God). In other words, every father in Scripture who is given more than just a brief mention, had serious moral failures and shortcomings. They were all flawed.

So since there probably weren’t any fathers in Scripture that were good examples of how to be a father, I decided to preach on the worst father in Scripture–Lot. So that is what I did. I called it “The Worst Father’s Day Sermon Ever.” And wow, was it bad! It is not a sermon you will ever find in my podcast. I remember looking out as I preached seeing all the mothers and fathers staring at me with that “deer in the headlights” look, eyes wide open, mouth agape. Some of the mothers were covering the ears of their children. It was bad.

After the sermon, not one person even tried to be nice about the message by saying “Nice sermon, pastor.” I only had one man make one comment about the message. He came up to me afterwards and said, “Well, one thing is for sure. That truly was the worst father’s day sermon ever.” He was a good friend of mine, so we both laughed about it, but the truth is that I felt pretty ashamed. I still do.

But ironically, this sort of thing happens every year on Father’s Day in churches across the country. The sermons that are preached from our pulpits may not be as bad as mine was, but most Father’s Day sermons tend to beat up on dads rather than encourage them and challenge them to dream big, take risks for God, embark on an adventure, charge ahead, and be a man! Instead, we beat them over the head with everything they are doing wrong.

I’m reading the excellent book How Women Help Men Find God by David Murrow (I will post a review of it when I’m finished), and in the book he quotes Dr. Kevin Leman as saying:

Not only are men supposed to attend morning Bible studies, but they’re supposed to get home in time for dinner, spend time alone with each child, date their wives once a week, and earn enough money so that their wives can stay home with their young children. This is a heavy load, and some Christian men start to resent it” (p. 37).

Then Murrow quotes Nancy Wray Gegoire who said this:

I’ve often noticed that sermons on Mother’s Day tend to gush over moms, while on Father’s Day they tell dads to shape up” (p. 37).

Just yesterday, I read the following over at the Church for Men blog:

Mother’s Day: A day devoted to honoring moms.
Father’s Day: A day to beat up men for not doing a better job!

So I hope that this Sunday, you are able to honor, bless, and encourage the men in your church. If you want to learn how to challenge men to action, I recommend the books by David Murrow and John Eldredge. And whatever you do, don’t preach on Lot.

P.S. My “Lot Sermon” was my third worst sermon ever. My WORST sermon was at a wedding. Some day I’ll tell you about it. I hope that couple is still together, but if not, they can blame me for starting out their marriage on the wrong foot. Yes, it was that bad.

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Isn’t my wife beautiful? And aside from being the greatest wife a guy could have, and the greatest mother children could be blessed with, you should listen to her talk about feeding the hungry, providing housing for single mothers, helping orphans find homes, giving food and water to starving children overseas, and a myriad of other things.  

And guess what? Today is our Ten Year Anniversary! It’s hard to believe we’ve been married ten years. It still feels like we are just starting out.

Thank you Wendy for marrying me ten years ago!

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Ever wonder what a woman can get for a man on Valentine’s Day? The stores are full of things men can get a woman…chocolate, flowers, cards, jewelry…but there is nothing to get for a man. My wife says this is because Valentine’s Day is more for a woman than for a man. Of course, that’s because what a man wants can’t be sold in a store…but that’s all I’ll say about that.

Anyway, if you ladies really want to get a gift for your man, let me suggest the following:

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My wife and I finished watching all twelve hours of the Lonesome Dove series last night (just in time for the the Prequel Comanche Moon to premier on CBS next week!) and as we sat there, watching the credits roll, my wife looked at me and asked, “How much is vision worth?” I knew exactly what she was asking because I was thinking the same thing.

In the Lonesome Dove movies, there is a big emphasis on the vision of Capt. Woodrow Call, and how he turns his vision into reality. In Part 1, he starts a cattle ranch in Montana. In Part 2, he brings a herd of wild mustangs to Montana. But in the process, he loses almost all of his friends. At the end, when he finally tells Newt that he is his father, Newt basically says “Too late, Dad. I’m leaving.” As my wife and I sat there, I thought about my vision for church planting, and wondered, “What is it worth?”

I have read and heard some visionaries talk about how you can know what you are meant to do by asking yourself the question, “If money were no object, and failure was impossible, what would you do?” The problem with this is, how do you define failure? In my opinion, Capt. Call successfully accomplished his vision, but failed miserably. He said at the beginning of part 2, while commiserating about the death of his best friend Capt. McCrae, that “A man ought to leave something more behind than a sorry piece of dirt and a sign.” Well, Capt. Call left a lot more behind, and as it turned out, a lot less.

Here is where I am at right now: No vision is worth losing my family. I would rather be digging holes in the desert and have my family intact than plant a thousand churches and lose my wife and girls. Some would say I have made an idol of my wife and girls, and if I really want God to use me, I have to put them up there on the altar just like Abram did with Isaac. I have seen many pastors do this very thing, and almost without fail, they end up divorced and with a bunch of kids who hate them, hate church, and hate Christ. I do not call this success, and based on what I read in the New Testament, I don’t think God does either.

I feel that my wife and kids are my first church. If I cannot “plant” and “pastor” them, I have no business trying to plant or pastor churches elsewhere. So I don’t know if I will ever be going into formal “church planting” but one thing I do know…this year, I am going to continue planting a church in my own home. And that is a Christ-honoring, God-glorifying vision!  If I can leave behind a godly heritage in my family, I am a success. And if God allows me to leave behind more than that, all the more glory for Him!

The trick, of course, is how to bring this vision to reality in my family. Any of you husband and father experts have practical suggestions on pastoring your own family?

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I am surrounded by beauty in my home. I have a gorgeous wife, and three cute little girls (with a fourth one on the way through adoption). John Eldredge and his wife have recently written some books which state that while men want to be warriors and need to know they are strong and wild, women need to know that they are beautiful.

I think this is true, but sometimes, especially in our culture, we have problems defining “strength” for boys and “beauty” for girls. Trey Morgan alerted me to this campaign by Dove to help girls in our culture understand true beauty.  These following two videos should be watched by every man, brother, husband, and father.

Those women on the billboards? Not real. The women in the magazines? Fake and photoshopped. Your wife, your daughter, and your sister? The most genuinely beautiful women in the world. Have you told her?

This following video shows us what the females in our life are up against.

So here is the question: How can we tell our wives and daughters they are “pretty” without encouraging them to follow the worldly definition of beauty?

In discussing this with my wife, here are some of her suggestions:

1. Love is more than words. It’s a cliche because it’s true. Don’t just tell your wife and daughters they are beautiful. Show them with hugs, kisses, holding hands, taking them on dates. If all you do is tell the women in your life they are beautiful, but never show them, they won’t believe you.

2. Affirm them in ways not related to beauty. Women, even though they strive to be beautiful, want to be more than just pretty. They want to be valued and know that they are contributing. Being pretty helps them feel valued. This seems to work in reverse. Since they feel valued when they know they are pretty, if you help them to feel valued, they will also feel pretty. So find what your wife and daughters like to do, and constantly affirm them in it.

3. Sometimes, a hobby or interest outside of self-beatification can help. Girls who love horses rarely spend lots of time brushing their own hair, but with brushing their horse. Girls who love art spend less time painting themselves than their canvas. Mothers are the prime examples. Good mothers are consumed with caring for their children and rarely have much time to spend on themselves. This is not to say that horse lovers, artists, and mothers are not beautiful! To the contrary, they are often the most beautiful. Why? Because self-focused attention creates fake beauty, while an outward focus allows true inner beauty to blossom and flourish.

If you have other suggestions on what true beauty is and how to help the women in our lives feel lovely, please post them in the comments section for others to read.

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My wife Wendy has decided to play this song for our three girls every morning, just so she gets it all out of the way in 2 minutes and 55 seconds. If you are a mother, have a mother, or know a mother, you will laugh! The lyrics are included below the video.

Lyrics:

Get up now
Get up now
Get up out of bed
Wash your face
Brush your teeth
Comb your sleepyhead
Here’s your clothes and your shoes
Hear the words I said
Get up now! Get up and make your bed
Are you hot? Are you cold?
Are you wearing that?
Where’s your books and your lunch and your homework at?
Grab your coat and gloves and your scarf and hat
Don’t forget! You gotta feed the cat
Eat your breakfast, the experts tell us it’s the most important meal of all
Take your vitamins so you will grow up one day to be big and tall
Please remember the orthodontist will be seeing you at 3 today
Don’t forget your piano lesson is this afternoon so you must play
Don’t shovel
Chew slowly
But hurry
The bus is here
Be careful
Come back here
Did you wash behind your ears?
Play outside, don’t play rough, will you just play fair?
Be polite, make a friend, don’t forget to share
Work it out, wait your turn, never take a dare
Get along! Don’t make me come down there
Clean your room, fold your clothes, put your stuff away
Make your bed, do it now, do we have all day?
Were you born in a barn? Would you like some hay?
Can you even hear a word I say?
Answer the phone! Get off the phone!
Don’t sit so close, turn it down, no texting at the table
No more computer time tonight!
Your iPod’s my iPod if you don’t listen up
Where are you going and with whom and what time do you think you’re coming home?
Saying thank you, please, excuse me makes you welcome everywhere you roam
You’ll appreciate my wisdom someday when you’re older and you’re grown
Can’t wait till you have a couple little children of your own
You’ll thank me for the counsel I gave you so willingly
But right now I thank you not to roll your eyes at me
Close your mouth when you chew, would appreciate
Take a bite maybe two of the stuff you hate
Use your fork, do not burp or I’ll set you straight
Eat the food I put upon your plate
Get an A, get the door, don’t get smart with me
Get a grip, get in here, I’ll count to three
Get a job, get a life, get a PHD
Get a dose of,
“I don’t care who started it!
You’re grounded until you’re 36″
Get your story straight and tell the truth for once, for heaven’s sake
And if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said at least a thousand times before
That you’re too old to act this way
It must be your father’s DNA
Look at me when I am talking
Stand up straighter when you walk
A place for everything and everything must be in place
Stop crying or I’ll give you something real to cry about
Oh!
Brush your teeth, wash your face, put your PJs on
Get in bed, get a help, say a prayer with mom
Don’t forget, I love you
And tomorrow we will do this all again because a mom’s work never ends
You don’t need the reason why
Because, because, because, because
I said so, I said so, I said so, I said so
I’m the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom, the mom!!
Ta da!!!

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