A letter to my boys...

Hugh Halter has became one of my favorite authors. He gets the Gospel in a way that it seems so obvious and yet so many people miss it. About a year ago he wrote a book called Flesh and it severely reshaped the way I look at things concerning Jesus. I picked up another book by him that is several years old called Sacrilege and while not new, the truths seem timeless. At the end of the first chapter, it suggested that the reader write out a letter to their children or friends about their (the reader) heart for them, a short history of their faith journey and knowing the real Jesus. I've thought a bit about that over the past couple of days and thought I would give that a shot. I figured I would write to it my boys but this is easily interchangeable. My heart for everyone is the same--even my family. Anyway, here goes nothing. 

Dear Lucas, Joseph and Abel,

As I am writing this, you guys are 9, 6, and 2. You guys are incredibly inspiring to me and bring nothing but joy. Most of the time you all are wide open and constant entertainment. Your mother says that our goal is not to raise good little boys but instead to raise Godly men. I pray daily that I am accomplishing that and I know she does too! I know that when it comes to your connection to God, I am called to be your example. Our relationship will have some impact on your relationship with God. I am your father and He is our Heavenly Father and somewhere along the way, you'll view the latter in a certain way because of the former. I'm going to start by telling you a little bit about how I got to where I am in my walk with Jesus. 

Your mom and I met in the 6th grade and somewhere in the next couple of years, we just fell in love. We committed to do life together and we have been fulfilling that commitment every day since. I wasn't much into believing in a god at the time. I didn't grow up with much of a relationship with my father and I believe that directly affected how I seen, or didn't see, any father, much-less a Heavenly one. While your mother and I were looking for someone to perform our marriage--we came across a little church with a pretty unique feel. I was 18 years old and had very little church experience. I didn't have to go to church in order for this pastor who do our wedding but something didn't feel right about that so we decided we would give it a shot. 

Your mom was raised in church and whatever experiences she had just left her with an empty feeling. Confusion, maybe. She wasn't actively pursuing God and didn't feel that He was pursuing her. Only one of those are true though. We visited for a couple of months and during a Sunday night service, we went up front to the altar together and she gave her life back to God and I gave mine for the first time. It was an emotional roller coaster from there. I don't want to say that we fell into a legalistic trap or that whatever happened there was anyone's fault. We were young and honestly, I didn't understand a whole lot of what was going on--just that God had invited me in and I accepted. I didn't do much studying, praying or anything of the sort. What the preacher said was good enough and I just tried my best to do what was right based off of that. I love the preacher there. Have since I was 18 and will forever. His family is amazing and from what I can tell, we are on a similar path these days. Funny how that all works out. 

Fast forwarding a bit, we found out we were having a baby boy and before we knew it, Lucas was being dedicated. Not long after that, it was time for a change. God led us away from our starting point and took us a few miles down the road to start a new journey. While there, we welcomed our two other boys, Joe and Abel, to the mix. It was during this period that your mom and I really fell into love with Jesus. She was leading a bible study and really firing on every religious cylinder she had and I was volunteering to do just about everything but stand in front of the crowd on Sunday mornings. 

It was a good ride for a while. Somewhere during this time I started studying on my own. I started praying more and for more. I prayed that God would take me deeper. I prayed that God would make me uncomfortable because it seemed to me that an awful lot of people around me at this time were comfortable and that didn't match up to what I was reading. Churches today are so self-consumed. Even if they don't mean to, they're preaching a message that tells the members that it is about them and my Jesus preached the exact opposite. I began noticing the difference in the life that those around me lived and the life that Jesus lived. Sunday mornings looked like a fashion show where we showed off our newest outfits and all these nice things we bought ourselves since the last time we read about Jesus telling us that life was about others. Don't drink! Check. Don't smoke! Check. Don't cuss! Check. Amazing how following Jesus gets reduced to mere rules that we have made up along the way. This is no fault of the church, of course. The message is given--how we respond is up to us. There are people who respond well and not so well...and that is any church in any place. Period.

Another skip ahead in the future, I could feel God preparing my heart once again for change and I was excited! When God revealed the landing spot for the next leg of our journey I was ecstatic. I was born with a heart for helping people. It is during this period of our life, the period I am writing from now, that God really dug in and cultivated my heart for His purpose. I took a lot of flak for this change. It was kind of surreal. We constantly talk about praying that God guides us and people say they're praying with you and for you and then when God works, no one is really satisfied. Crazy. You'll learn this one day. I'm going to give you a couple more thoughts now that I've caught you up to where I am. 

First off, know this--I love you guys with everything that I have and I take my job of raising you 3 to know the right path very seriously! I have no greater honor than walking with you guys down this path. This is the path that I am on right now. 

Give grace and mercy. Let that always be your first response. I have been accused of preaching cheap grace but I assure you guys this much, the grace I preach is NOT cheap, it's FREE. Some people cannot stand that but I believe that is exactly what Jesus called us to do. Jesus' automatic first response was never an eye roll, a look of disgust, an act of condemnation or a speech about why He was against whatever it was that was brought to His attention. God is love. That is the automatic first response. 

Don't be scared to surround yourself with more non-believers than believers. The problem with the church today is that we are consumed with getting as many Christians together as we can. Why? They're already going in the right direction. Find people that need that grace and mercy and find A LOT of them! Give it to them. Jesus was known as a friend to sinners. Most church people today probably only know sinners through facebook. They wouldn't be caught dead around the dirty parts of town. Jesus did everything He could to stay in those parts! 

Love like it is going out of style. This goes hand in hand with grace and mercy. God has called us to a life of love. The church has it backwards. We only love when they are doing as we approve. God loved us long before we did the right thing. Romans 5:8 shows us that love comes before anything else. While we were still doing wrong, Jesus LOVED us and gave His life for us. Don't have a list of rules people must follow before you love them. Give it away. With Christ at the center of your life, you'll never run out. 

Be who God made you to be. For years I tried to fit the mold. I tried to model what everyone else around me was doing. Like I said earlier, no drinking, smoking, cussing, vote republican and they'll tell you that you have this thing figured out. But I'm telling you to pray more than anything and trust that Jesus through the Holy Spirit will guide you in all things and when He does--STAND FIRM and do not back down. 

Be about others. Everyone is about themselves and if you follow in my footsteps at all, please be about others. Jesus could have made this life about anything but the life he modeled was a life that was always more concerned with the needs of those around Him than His own needs. I don't do it perfect but I try to model this for you guys. Whether it be late nights with drug dealers and prostitutes or mid-afternoons hanging with senior citizens...be about others. 

Guys, there is so much more but I pray that when you read this, you'll find this to be a good starting point. As I said, your mother and I love you more than I love the air in my lungs. All the yelling, jumping, stained floors and broken furniture is worth the smiles and the joy you bring to our lives. 

With all my love,
Dad

1 Corinthians 11:1

Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.

Silence is deafening...

If you're like me, you enjoy social media. It can be used for a ton of positive things and also a ton of negative things. Some people live for how many "likes" or "shares" or "retweets" they get and while I enjoy those parts of social media, I tend to use it instead to gauge opinions and thoughts. While it is not a definite determining factor into how or why people feel certain ways, it can absolutely serve as a window into someone's thought process and what is going on in their minds and often times, their hearts. 

For instance, a scroll through my twitter feed, you'll see that I like sports, I have a black eye, I am in love with the GRACE that Jesus gives us and I love Hope City. A look at my facebook feed reveals similar thoughts. When I scroll through facebook at any given time of day, I see people are upset with our President because he hasn't used enough force (although it is certainly being used) in the middle East to combat ISIS. I see people are upset because this country is allowing homosexuals the right to marry whomever they would like. I see people are upset that other people are upset because we have unarmed teenagers being shot, unarmed men being choked to death. I see Christians absolutely beside themselves over issues like this and oddly enough strangely silent over the shooting deaths of 3 Muslims in Chapel Hill, NC on Tuesday.

Am I solely gauging Christian response to this tragedy off of facebook and twitter? Absolutely not. But in this day and age, in this generation, it seems like every thought we formulate ends up on some type of social media platform. Yet again, oddly enough, silence abounds in the social world from my friends about this tragedy. And while I might completely miss the mark here, I would ask what these platforms would look like if roles were reversed. 

Suppose 3 Muslims murdered this innocent white man in Chapel Hill. What would the headlines read then? 

Terrorist attack on our home soil! 

Al-Qaeda strikes at home! And what would our facebooks look like? 

"Should have dropped a bomb on 'em when we had the chance!"

"Oh great, the libs will try to make this about gun control now."

Both of those I actually seen. 3 innocent lives cut amazingly short and at least one person thought of gun control before thinking of losing human lives. 

"Christians who don't defend innocent, murdered Muslims, as passionately as they defend innocent, murdered Christians, forfeit credibility." - John Pavlovitz

That quote from John sums up perfectly my thoughts on this matter. Lives matter. Christian or not. Black or white or any other shade on the color spectrum. Senseless murders, perpetrated by any race should be condemned. Instead we stay silent...perhaps out of fear of defending Muslims. That's speculation of course, but I know a couple people at least that would rather just stay silent than defend anyone in the Muslim race. Maybe thinking their avoidance of saying anything negative is somehow a positive--but for me, it is the exact opposite. 

"For God so loved the world..."