Tag Archives: Hannah Katherine

Patience Is Essential to Leadership

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I think I’ve learned this in parenting.

My leadership as a dad would be so easy if my words effected instant change. If I could just say something and then it happened. No disobedience. No need for explanation. Just a simple, “Elizabeth, sweetie, please ____” and voilà!

But it doesn’t happen like that. Patience is essential to leadership. There’s no way around it.

Patience is essential to leadership because transformation doesn’t happen when we drop the one-line zinger. As much as we wished it did, it still doesn’t. Transformation or positive change happens by persistent presence, by being able to say that word and to step back and to wait. To say it again another time and then another time. Then Repeat.

This is how Elizabeth and Hannah and Micah will learn the gospel. The occasional sermon during my best moments in parenting are nothing compared to the daily, desperate, let-me-remind-you-again-about-authority-and-grace-and-Jesus stutters.

Without faith it is impossible to be a happy Christian parent.

“You Are the God Who Works Wonders”

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“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.”(Psalms 77:11-14)

Over the past few days my family and I had the joy of a good friend’s company. Joel Lind is back in the states after two years of gospel labor in Asia. Over the course of that time my family has anticipated the reunion we all just experienced. Elizabeth has drawn pictures of Joel and has heard us pray for him regularly when we tuck her into bed. She was seven months old the last time we were all together. She is getting closer to three years old now and over the past week she treated him like a hero–just like I hoped she would do. I could go on about that and about how Hannah greeted Joel with a lovely smile the first time they met… but I want to highlight something from Psalm 77:14, “You are the God who works wonders.”

The psalmist is battling doubt here. He questions the faithfulness of God. He is surrounded by uncertainty in regards to his present and his future. But then he “remembers the deeds of the LORD” (v. 11). He recounts God’s salvation of Israel. God has worked. He has expressed his power. He is the God who works wonders.

So at the brink of a new semester, a mile-marker in my graduate studies—nonetheless where my family is in seeking clarity for where to be in future ministry—grace is poured out on me to remember the wonders that he has worked. The wonder is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And flowing from that are the numerous shimmers of wonder that have been lavished upon me in Christ.

The connection to Joel’s visit: he is a monument to me of God’s wondrous grace worked in my life. What began as a group of guys who lived together and decided to do a Bible study is today what I look back on as one of the single most important things that has ever happened to me. I cannot quantify the grace that was poured out upon me during that season of my life, along with the other brothers.  Joel’s visit is a means of grace to me in that I am reminded of that wonder in the past and given hope for wonder now and tomorrow.

In Jesus Christ alone, amen.

I Thought I Knew About Beautiful

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I thought that when I saw Melissa on our wedding day that my categories for beauty were maxed out. “This is it. Wow.”

And three years later I am surrounded by eyes like this. And smiles that put a frog in my throat. Elizabeth and Hannah have not surpassed Melissa’s beauty—they’ve actually amplified it.  A white dress and a big cake and heavenly violin music in the background pales in comparison to Melissa as Mom. She only becomes more lovely.

Jesus Christ, the Family, and What the Inferior Bond I Share with My Children Means for How I Live

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Mark 3:31   And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

How we understand the  covenant community will affect the way that we understand our own families, in particular, how our unregenerate children relate to us in a subordinate bond to that of our spiritual brethren. (I tried to be careful there–most people won’t like that).

Jesus has redefined “family” in Mark 3. “Family” are those who do the will of the Father (v. 35). Jesus is gathering a new community, a new family, that will transcend everything else. There is a bond that I share with a brother or sister in Christ that is superior to the bond that I currently share with my own daughter who does not yet have a new heart.

I am perfectly happy with saying this. The implication is even more glorious…

First, what it is NOT. The implication is not that Jesus has abolished the family. Absolutely not. There is just something sweeter now. And just because this one bond is sweeter does not mean that I choose Church over family. That is the worry, right? The supposed implication that makes us recoil at what I previously said is that we think it means that now I should choose the Church over my children. Superiority in bond does not equal importance, nor does it prioritize my efforts.

Quite the contrary, knowing that this superior bond is lacking between my daughters and I does not bump them down on the list, it puts them on the top! My home is currently a mission field. Do you get that? Giving the gospel to my children is the greatest calling on my life.

Mark 3:31-35 makes me love the Church more, and it makes me pour out my life for the sake of my children.

Evangelizing my Childrens’ Hearts

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In all of our attempts to “shepherd” Elizabeth’s heart, I realize that God did no such thing to my own. He just created a new one.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”  – Ezekiel 36:26-27

If our “shepherding” is to have any good effect then God has to do the same thing in her. In a truer sense, our work is soil-tilling and seed-sowing.

There are some fundamental differences that we tend to overlook when considering my favorite book on parenting. The padeobaptist understanding of the children of believers is a little different than that of credobaptists. Covenant theology would consider children of believers to be new covenant members. The new covenant is clearly contrasted with the old specifically at this heart issue– in the new covenant God will create a new heart.

My daughters do not get a new heart because their daddy and mommy believe in Jesus. And therefore my parenting of them is not so much a “shepherding” as it is an evangelizing–an evangelizing and praying that the Father would one day work that miracle in them.

Having Kids Saved My Marriage

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If your marriage is struggling, do not have children in attempt to fix it. That is not what I am suggesting. Let me explain…

It’s my senior year of college during the last semester. Melissa and I have been married right over a month or so and we’re still floating up in honeymoon clouds. We haven’t had a real taste of marriage yet (I was still pinching myself from time to time). Wedding music is still in the background. We are just starting to go through our pictures from the big day. I come home from work and she gives me a present. I thought it was an I-Pod for an early graduation gift (catch the irony– again,  I thought it was an I-Pod). Instead it was a bib that said “I Love Daddy.”

Hmm. I didn’t really get it until I looked at Melissa’s glossy eyes (which is affecting me the same way just remembering it). I exclaimed something (I can’t remember exactly) and we hugged and prayed. We were really excited. It was amazing.

Nearly two years later, Elizabeth Grace is now the big sister to our newborn girl, Hannah Katherine. These are daughters of grace. I could never deserve them, nor could I deserve their Mom. These girls have saved my marriage. What I mean is that I don’t know anything much about marriage apart from fatherhood. I was/am learning about both at the same time. Being a dad makes me a better husband, and being a husband makes me a better dad.

Having kids saved my marriage because being a dad saved me from the type of husband I might be if I had not received the blow that this thing is bigger than me and my wants. The fantasy that the world revolves around you is interrupted enough when you get married, throw a baby into that mix and you have the demise of self-centeredness (or at least a ferocious assault against it). It is a double-dose of sanctifying grace and it is what I needed, when I needed it. Even now.