Month: March 2019

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You Don’t Wear the Black Armband Forever

A view of Earth rising above the lunar surface during Apollo 8

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. I loved learning about the space race of the 1960s and 70s, and at one point I knew the name and assigned crew position of every Apollo astronaut that flew on a mission during the Apollo Program.

In 1961 the Americans had barely touched space. America’s first man in space, Alan Shepard, didn’t even complete an orbit; the weak rocket he used only got him high enough to kiss the edge of space. The Soviets had already sent their first Cosmonaut into orbit, and this launch was a weak American response, barely doing enough to keep us in the race. Less than three weeks later, American President Kennedy threw down the audacious goal of beating the Soviets in a manned mission to the moon before the end of the decade, as a way of establishing American preeminence in space.

Thus began a harrowing eight or nine years for NASA. It had to not only figure out the best strategy for meeting the goal, but it also had to develop skills and equipment that didn’t exist.

The process moved fast and grew increasingly complex with time. First NASA sent up one astronaut at a time, and the longest that any mission stayed up was just over a day. Then it started launching two astronauts at a time. They started to do spacewalks, to rendezvous with other orbiting objects, and to see if a capsule and crew could physically last for the two weeks in space that it would take to make it to the moon and back. Finally, it was time for the Apollo missions, which carried three men and the ability to use a lunar lander that would be used to land on the moon.

By all measures, Apollo was a beast of a program. The spacecraft systems’ subsystems had subsystems. Engineers working on the spacecraft worked in round-the-clock shifts, and projects still fell behind schedule. Everyone worked at a breakneck speed to get things ready to meet the deadline. In January 1967, the first Apollo mission finally drew near. Three astronauts sat atop their huge rocket and conducted a final test to demonstrate that all systems were ready to operate on their own.

Then an unmitigated disaster struck, freezing everything in its tracks. As the rocket still sat on the launch pad, a ferocious fire erupted inside the cabin, and killed the three astronauts before they could escape from the capsule. The fire killed America’s second man in space, its first spacewalker, and a rookie astronaut. The devastating setback stunned the nation. All work stopped while NASA, the spacecraft contractors, and even Congress sought answers to what went wrong and whether the moon was worth the cost.

Fellow astronauts escort Grissom’s body to Arlington Cemetery

It wouldn’t be until October 1968, more than a year and a half, before another manned American launch occurred…an eternity when considering JFK’s looming end-of-the-decade deadline. With time running out, everyone needed to figure out how to grieve but still move forward. In the miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon,” Wally Schirra, the commander of the first space mission after the fire, was asked about preparing for his upcoming launch while living in the shadow of the Apollo 1 tragedy. He responded “You’re sad. You mourn the loss.” He paused for a moment before adding “But you don’t wear the black armband forever.”

Without question, there are tragedies in peoples’ lives that knock them down hard. The death of a loved one; a betrayal by someone you trust; a feared diagnosis; a job loss; a terrible injury; an addiction you’re fighting through. There are serious and legitimate times in our lives when we just can’t be an effective contributor to God’s kingdom. Nobody faults you for things that are beyond your control. It takes time to fight through many of these problems, and many times God will make something good out of them. Just make sure that you don’t start using your sorrows and difficulties as an excuse not to move forward with what God’s calling you to do.

You’re the only one that knows whether or not this is an issue you’re dealing with. You WILL be knocked down; Jesus promised that we’d have trouble in this world. Sometimes you need to stay down for a minute, but don’t forget that you do need to get back up again.

Don’t wear the black armband forever. There are people you might not even know about that are waiting for you to get back up again.

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Hanging on by a Thread (Part 3 of 3)

(See Part 1 and Part 2)

Lee with two of his grandkids after returning home from the hospital

When my father-in-law Lee suddenly had a medical emergency right after Christmas a few years ago, it caught us all off guard. For almost a week we didn’t know anything, and all we could do was wait for new developments.

In order to shield the family at the hospital from having to do all the communicating through texting and phone calls, I started emailing out updates to close friends and family. The list of recipients grew quickly though, and soon we had our own Facebook page to help keep people updated and to pass along specific prayer requests both for Lee and for the needs of his family. Lee meant a lot to a whole lot of people, and eventually hundreds of readers received the daily updates I sent out.

There must have been some people hitting their knees hard in prayer on Lee and his family’s behalf, because Lee eventually opened his eyes. After spending a few days in a medically induced coma with a body temperature somewhere in the 80s, his body had some adjusting to do when he regained consciousness. He was extremely disoriented and weak, but, at least for now, he was still with us.

We were all thrilled to see Lee moving in the right direction, but the world didn’t stop turning because he was in the hospital. My young family was far from home; we were able to stay in the area for a few more days, but I had to get back to my job. We had already stayed about a week longer than we had planned, and we couldn’t stay much longer. Lee was still in the hospital when we left to head back home. The day we left the hospital, he was weak from a related surgery he just came through, but was still happy to see us and understood why we had to leave. We had no idea at the time, but that was the last time we would see him in person. We made it back home the next day and we closely stayed in touch to hear the latest news.

Time went on and Lee got discharged from the hospital. Since his scare, the only times that I had spoken with him were in the hospital when he was exhausted or groggy. After he had made it home and had time to recover some of his strength, he called and wanted to speak with me on the phone. After getting a little bit of an update on his progress, he began to thank me. I assumed he was referring to the rescue breathing I did for him when he initially lost consciousness. Just as I was about to brush it off, though, he surprised me.

Of course he appreciated my helping him live long enough to make it to the hospital, but that wasn’t the main reason he wanted to thank me. He was more thankful that throughout all the updates I sent out to the masses, I kept the focus on our family being open to accepting God’s will, rather than forcing God’s will to comply with ours. Lee didn’t have a problem with intercessory prayer, but he appreciated the balance I put on the messaging. It turns out that on multiple occasions during his recovery in the hospital he had read every email I sent out. He was surprised at all he had missed while unconscious; he enjoyed reading the emails to catch up on all of it, and he felt that the updates had taken the right approach.

That was the last time I ever spoke with Lee. A few months after coming home from the hospital, he again caught us off guard and unexpectedly passed from this world into the next. I’m not sure if it was God’s plan all along to have Lee recover enough to come home after his initial scare, or if all of the prayers sufficiently moved God to give us a few more months with Lee, but in the end, God had His way even when it conflicted with ours.

At Lee’s memorial service, as a testament to his character, the church was packed with hundreds of people. Extra chairs had to be brought in to seat everyone. Lee lived his life knowing what was truly important while ignoring what wasn’t, and people recognized that.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up and even be consumed by the things of this life, but it’s important to live in light of eternity. Too often we lose sight of the fact that very few of our daily struggles or any other distractions that preoccupy us will even be a memory once we’ve moved on from this life. The only things that will have eternal significance are the actions you’ve taken to know God and help others know Him too.

How’s your focus? Are you paying attention to the things that are important? As you go through life, are you leaving a positive lasting impact on the people with whom you interact?

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Hanging on by a Thread (Part 2 of 3)

(See Part 1 here and Part 3 here)

The next few days after my father-in-law, Lee, got whisked away to the hospital were a blur. Whatever had gone wrong with his heart was a complicated thing. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma and dropped his body temperature for a few days as a way of “rebooting” him. Since this was right after Christmas, family that had just left turned around and came back. One of Lee and Pam’s daughters flew in from Alaska. People were constantly calling, trying to find out the latest information, even when there was nothing new to report. The adrenaline we all ran on started wearing off, and the exhaustion began setting in.

Lee’s hospital was about an hour away from his house, where my wife and three young kiddos were staying. My wife would go up there every day, but an extra two hours of travel time a day added to the burden. My kids started getting antsy; at the time they were 5, 4, and 14 months, and Mommy had never been away from them this much before. In her place, they got a guy that meant well, but just couldn’t compare to Mommy. Some of the meals I came up with were really just glorified snacks, and sometimes it was the same thing over and over again. The walls started feeling like they were closing in on all of us. We needed to find some kind of better solution as we got closer to the time the doctors were going to try to raise Lee’s body temperature and revive him.

Lee and Pam knew a bunch of people in the area near the hospital, and we decided to make the drive as a family up to that region with the intent to start staying the night up there somewhere. We packed a bunch of our stuff and left Lee and Pam’s house not knowing where we’d be spending the next few nights. We made it to the hospital and went to the waiting room where we saw lots of familiar faces. During the day all kinds of friends and well-wishers came and went, some of them even bringing much-appreciated care packages of food and things to help pass the time. My kids enjoyed the extra time with Mommy, even if it was in a waiting room. Even with all the extra family and friends helping out, though, they didn’t have to stay in the same room long before they started getting antsy again. They needed somewhere to feel settled.

During the day we were still trying to find a place to stay. One family offered us an available room in their home, but five of us is a lot to cram into one room (especially when two of the kids still napped), so we wanted to see if we could find anything else. Someone had two rooms available for us, but they had a dog that my son would’ve been allergic to. Late in the day we got word that there was a family willing to let us stay at their place. They had two rooms for us, no pets, and the house was less than five minutes from the hospital. The offers weren’t going to get much better than that and it was getting late, so we grabbed it. By the time we arrived at the house it was after dark. The house was cheery and still decorated for Christmas, and when the door opened we met some of the sweetest people we could have hoped for. Jay and Esther and their daughter Tracey welcomed us into their home in one of our young family’s hours of greatest need.

Jay and Esther were great-grandparents, and they had a large family. Their house was so warm and welcoming, and someone was always popping in because…that’s just the kind of place it was. They had one of their grandsons staying in their basement at the time, and he and a visiting friend helped us bring in our luggage, pack ‘n plays, and anything we brought with us. By the time we got there, it was time to get the kids to bed. We got our daughters set up in one of the rooms, and we set up our son on the floor in the room where my wife and I stayed. I think my wife and I spent a little time visiting with the family before we collapsed into bed, too. That was our first restful night of sleep since the whole ordeal with Lee began.

The next day my wife headed off to the hospital early again, but my kids and I were able to stay in a place the kids finally felt comfortable and occupied. If memory serves, Jay and Esther had five kids; as grandparents and great-grandparents, many children had come to visit this house, and there were all kinds of fun things for my kids to play with and explore. They also had all kinds of Christmas decorations that sang or danced after it got squeezed (a favorite for kids). In addition to all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, they had a foosball table and a pool table in the basement…something that kept my kids occupied for a very long time.

Our hosts also figured out that Daddy was good at getting his kids riled up and roughhousing, but maybe needed some help in the food preparation department. Oh, man, they were so great. My kids actually started having balanced meals. Those wonderful people made it possible for us to put one foot in front of the other on our march through the trial we faced.

Last story about staying at their place. During naptime one day, I laid down my youngest in a pack ‘n play in a room by herself. I laid my son down in his sleeping bag on the floor in our room, and I set up my oldest daughter to play/color/draw on the bed in our room. My son fell asleep right away, and I told my daughter I was going to read on the floor. Once I laid down, though, I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to stay awake long, so I let her know I’d probably take a nap on the floor. My five-year-old daughter got down off our bed with her little blanket, came and lay down beside me, and all three of us took a nap in a row on the floor. We were finally in a place where we could rest.

I’ll get you caught up on Lee in my next post, but this one’s about how much we were able to benefit from the generosity and hospitality of these wonderful people. That was their gift, they loved helping people, and it was amazing and much appreciated to be ministered to in that way.

This whole site is geared toward encouraging you to use your gifts to live a life of higher impact for Christ’s Kingdom. Not everyone is going to be an international gospel singer or someone that proclaims the truth boldly in stadiums across the globe. I don’t know what your gifts are. You might not accomplish anything earth-shattering by being hospitable to someone who needs help, but let me tell you…it can mean the world to the person receiving the help. Whatever your gift is…please…find a way to use it. God gave you that gift for a reason, and if you let Him, He’ll tie you into His master plan.

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Hanging on by a Thread (Part 1 of 3)

Read Part 2 or Part 3

For Christmas 2014 we visited my wife’s folks in northwestern Ohio. Instead of going straight there from Virginia, we drove to see some family near Dayton first. The kids had lots of fun playing with cousins, staying up later than usual, and generally wearing themselves (and us) out. At the end of that visit, we drove about two and a half hours to my in-laws’ place.


I think it was the afternoon of the 26th or 27th; I was worn out. There were two Christmas celebrations with two different sides of the family, but my young family had to skip one of them because the kids were worn out, sick, or getting sick. My oldest actually developed an ear infection, so we spent some time in an Urgent Care because of the pain she was in. I was beat, so I was laying on the living room floor, starting to fall asleep.

There were people moving around. My father-in-law, Lee, took a moment to sit down on the couch, put his feet up, and close his eyes. My wife and her mom Pam were moving around the area, working on a few other things as I drifted off.

Then I heard my wife’s worried tone. I don’t remember much of what she was saying, but she was urgently trying to soothe Lee. Pam came rushing over, too, and then there were two worried tones. I opened my eyes to see what was happening, and Lee, still reclining on the couch, looked like he was having a seizure.

I got up and ran over. He was unresponsive, his eyes were fluttering, and his body was spasming. I tried picking him up to lower him to the ground…no easy task when someone’s body goes completely rigid. I laid him flat on the ground, and my CPR training from nearly 20 years prior came rushing back. I checked for breathing, but there didn’t seem like there was any. I retilted his head to try opening his airway, but still nothing. I forgot to do a finger sweep to see if there was anything in his mouth, which ended up causing some complications later. I began doing rescue breathing on my father-in-law.

Finding a pulse can be a tricky thing. When I learned CPR on dummies, we didn’t use the kind that simulated pulses. As a result, we did a pulse check knowing full well there wasn’t going to be one. I tried his neck, I tried his wrist, and I tried his chest. I couldn’t find anything, so by all counts I should have begun doing CPR, but I doubted myself. I thought “well this might be a faint one right here.” In my mind it’s a scary thing to begin chest compressions, because that means someone’s in REAL trouble. I ended up not doing any compressions because I wasn’t thinking objectively; I hadn’t thought about any of this in years and I was scared of messing up.

Somewhere in this sequence we called an ambulance. Thankfully, there was a volunteer fire station not two blocks away, so they arrived very quickly. That time we spent waiting for them seemed like it took forever, though. Between trying to find a pulse, rescue breathing, trying to shoo the kids out of the room, and all the confusion going on, it was chaos. My youngest, who was a little older than a year at the time, crawled over Lee’s legs, cheerfully unaware that anything was wrong, before we got the kids wrangled up.

Once the EMTs arrived I happily yielded to someone who knew a lot more about what to do in this situation. Almost right away after evaluating the situation, they wrapped some kind of band around Lee’s chest, and it began doing chest compressions on its own. We filled in some of the volunteers on what happened, what kind of meds Lee took, etc., all while the EMTs worked on him. It seemed to take awhile, but eventually they prepared to load him into the ambulance. As they were busily moving about, I asked one of them “do we have a pulse?” I was very glad to hear “we do, but it’s weak.”

They loaded Lee into the ambulance, and off they went. I drove Pam to the hospital, chasing right behind. The trip was a short one, thankfully. We went into the ER and eventually met up with the doc on duty, and we told him what we knew. A flurry of phone calls, conversations with doctors, and newly arriving friends of the family followed. This particular hospital wasn’t well equipped to deal with this situation, so they prepared to transfer Lee via helicopter to a larger hospital in Toledo about an hour away by car. Shortly before the helicopter departed, the staff invited a few of us back to where Lee was being prepped for the trip. He was intubated, had IVs and heart monitors in place, and was still unconscious. This was Pam’s opportunity to see Lee one more time before splitting up to travel separately.

After a few moments, we left the ER. Some friends of the family volunteered to drive Pam up to the hospital in Toledo. We went back to the house and got a few things packed for Pam. My wife, deeply concerned about her father, wanted to go along too, so she got ready to leave. In a whirlwind they grabbed a few items and headed out. Once they departed, I was left there with my three young kiddos, just the four of us, in a house that suddenly seemed very quiet, and we didn’t know how long it would be before anyone came back.

Looking back, I didn’t do any chest compressions on Lee even though I probably should have. No, I hadn’t had any refresher training in a long time, but I knew what was next in the sequence. The reason I didn’t do it was because I was so scared of making the wrong decision (starting chest compressions when there was no need to do them) that I ended up making no decision. On the other hand, enough training came back to me to be able to help Lee in the immediate situation until more skilled people arrived. Ultimately the EMTs and volunteers’ speedy arrival was crucial in Lee living long enough to open his eyes again, but for the next few days we weren’t sure if that was going to happen.

You have to train now for things that will happen in the future. By the time you get there and need the knowledge, it will be too late to learn something and start new habits. I’m not talking strictly in the sense of emergency response, but for difficult and trying times in general. They’re coming. How do you react when things go sideways? What are you spending your time thinking about, moving toward, and taking steps to become? When hard times come, do you dig harder into devotions and prayer, or stop doing them altogether? If your track record is to be considered your training regimen, have you been training yourself to turn to God, or away from him?

Lee’s chances of survival were dropping the longer I hesitated. Even though I knew what I should be gearing up to do, I didn’t start doing it because I wasn’t confident about his pulse. The things you’ve spent time repeating, drilling into yourself, come back to you though, and you can draw on them when you need them. What do you do repetitively and regularly today in order to prepare yourself for when you’ll need it in the future?

Read Part 2 or Part 3

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Thinking About Thinking

Sleep analytics

Technology today enables us to obtain “analytics” about everything. Most new cars tell you what kind of gas mileage they’re getting. Social media accounts tell you with ridiculous accuracy all kinds of statistics about interactions between you and your connections. You can wear a watch that tells you how many steps you take and how much and what kind of sleep you get.

What if we had something that tells us how much time (and the level of intensity) we spend thinking about various topics?

Uh oh. It just got uncomfortable in here.

Think about this: your daydreams and wishes may not always come true, but the things you spend your time thinking about represent the direction in which your life will move. Stated another way, your life moves in the direction of your most prevalent thoughts. If you received a pie chart with percentages of the time you spend thinking about different things, both good and bad, would you be pleased with your life moving toward the biggest slice of the chart?

I have a full-time job and a family that includes three kids. Life is busy. After we lay the kids down, most of the time I just want to switch my brain off and watch something entertaining. There’s definitely a time and a place for that, but if that’s what you do most of the time, there’s not much deliberate thought built into moving your life in the direction you want it to go. A life with thoughts that constantly drift leads to the kind of life that does the same thing.

Time for another hypothetical chart. How many hours a week are you a Christian? One hour, sometimes, on Sunday mornings? Are devotions built into your day? Is there a group you can join…some kind of a Bible study or home group you can be a part of? A close friend with which you’re able to discuss the challenges you face in your Christian walk?

I say this not to shame anyone, but to help you determine if any sort of changes are in order. There are five weeknights in a week. Let’s assume that for whatever reason, two of them are already spoken for, and you have three nights available. Consider devoting at least part of one of them to this second chart. Put down that book that isn’t doing anyone any good, and pick up something that’s going to focus your mind where it should be focused. Instead of channel surfing, there are plenty of inspirational talks, or even sermons, on YouTube. To get you started, check out this website’s “Additional Resources” section: https://daregreatlynow.com/additional-resources/.

Your time is valuable. That means that you probably value the things you spend thinking about during your small amounts of free time. Do they honor God? Strive to make that happen, and I promise you your life will move in a better direction.

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Where Do You Come From and Where Are You Going?

I left for Air Force Basic Training one December day in 2003. Young men and women from all over the United States converged on San Antonio, Texas, to begin their Air Force journey.

For those that aren’t familiar with military life, the whole idea of Basic Training for any military service is to take a collection of individuals with nothing in common and teach them, well, the basics of life in that particular branch of service. People of every race and economic background, political persuasion, from all 50 states, Washington DC, and territories like Guam, Puerto Rico, and various other areas, all need to learn how to cooperate and function as a team. The different branches of the military vary in how they do it, but in the Air Force, all enlisted members complete Basic Military Training (BMT) and then move on to train for the particular job they’ll be doing. In the same group of basic trainees, you might have someone that’s going to be an aircraft mechanic, someone that’s going to be a door gunner on a helicopter, someone that’s going to be a medic, someone that works in finance, and someone on the bomb squad.

Basic Military Training is a good idea, and is necessary for military service, but it’s a terrible experience for most. I hated it. The instructors are determined to make every round peg fit into a square hole. If trainees/recruits refuse to conform or play by the instructors’ rules, they don’t make it in the military. All men get the same haircut; we all march in unison; even the name of our clothes–uniform–explains the level of conformity to which we had to acclimate.

For the first few days, before we got our haircuts and initial uniform issue, we looked about as different as could be. After we got our haircuts and clothes, we all pretty much looked the same and even had some difficulties telling each other apart. Over time though, we learned to distinguish between fellow recruits that we couldn’t tell apart before, and we discovered that different people had different strengths. Some were good at leadership, others at academics. While one group might excel at marching, they might be terrible at physical training or shining boots. We learned that if we were to succeed as a team, those who performed at a high level in a particular area needed to help teach those who lagged behind.

In BMT we all worked together to complete whatever tasks the instructors gave us. We didn’t always see the point of a given task, but we knew that we had to do it or life would become more miserable.

It’s a little different in the body of Christ. We all bring something different to the table, but Christ values each individual more than we can know. Christ followers didn’t go through their own version of BMT, but they all have the shared experience of yielding control of their lives to Him. It’s a wonderful experience to “graduate” into becoming a Christian, but that’s when, like when we finish BMT in the Air Force, we scatter and perform our different jobs. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and we’re free to use our strengths for the glory of God’s kingdom.

In major military conflicts, commanding generals/admirals must decide the best way to position their forces and resources to accomplish their objectives. They can break tasks down and assign them to specific units. The individual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines in those units don’t have the whole picture available to them, but they have to do their best to accomplish their designated tasks, trusting that their senior officers have made the best decision.

Now imagine if the General assigned tasks not to individual units, but to individual people. Like in the military, in Christianity we don’t always know why we receive the order to accomplish a certain task, but if we don’t do it, our Commanding Officer has to figure out a different way to accomplish His objectives. In His matchless power and wisdom, this shouldn’t be a problem, but there’s always a reason why His “Plan A” was His first choice. When we choose not to accomplish our tasks, or not to accomplish them fully, there’s some sort of fallout for the big picture. We might not learn what it is on this side of Heaven, but I can’t imagine there’s much benefit from telling the Creator of the Universe that your way is better than His.

If that sounds like something you’ve done before, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road for your Christian walk. Resolve not to make that choice again. Easier said than done, I know, but you can do it. God doesn’t tell you to do anything that He won’t enable you to do. If it looked like an easy thing to accomplish, people wouldn’t recognize that God had a hand in it. Everything will be in place by the time you need it. I leave you with these words from Joshua 1:9, after Moses died and Joshua, the new leader of the Israelites, had some enormous shoes to fill:

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

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Fatherhood Fun

I don’t know what it is about Dads, but we love to get our kids riled up. We know we shouldn’t  do it as much as we do, but we can’t help it sometimes. Daddies are the loud ones, the human jungle gyms, and the ones that tend to ratchet things up rather than down. Mommies are the soothers, the comforters, the ones the kids go to when something hurts (probably because of something Daddy did while roughhousing).

Since my kids were little, the basement has been the place where they could be loud. If they had too much sugar or they were just a little extra wound up, we’d banish them to the basement for awhile. When my two oldest kids were pretty young, one time I took them in the basement to work off some energy while Mommy got a little peace and quiet upstairs. My oldest daughter and my son loved when Daddy went a little crazy with them.

Around that time we came up with a game that was kind of like dodgeball. Back then our basement was set up so that as you came down the stairs, you pulled a U-turn and walked down a hallway to another room. Right across from the bottom of the stairs was another room. I’d go to the room at the far end of the hall and throw a ball at the wall near the bottom of the stairs while my kiddos ran back and forth between the two safe zones (the blind spot at the bottom of the stairs and the room across from it). It sounds kind of sadistic, but they loved it and they weren’t going to get hurt. I had a ball that was kind of scary because it was very loud when it hit the wall, so any time it “just missed” them, it was a big thrill for them because they had snuck past Daddy’s throw without getting hit. I pegged them plenty of times too, but it usually ended with lots of giggles. J

My kids weren’t very old at this point, probably about 5 and 3. They loved playing this game though, because this is where they learned to use teamwork to “distract” Daddy. One would feint, act like they were going to dash across the line of fire, but it was really just a trick to get Daddy to throw the ball while they were still safe, and then the other one would make a break for it before the ball bounced back to Daddy.

I’d try bouncing the ball off the hallway’s walls, or putting spin on the ball so that it still bounced after them even if they were in the safe zones. Naturally, the ball would get stuck on their side every now and then, but they’d peek out from behind their cover, pick it up, and throw it to me and dive back for cover before I could pick it up and throw it again.

Little dodgeball champions

One time my little guy picked it up and threw it to me, but then forgot to get back behind some cover. I gave him some warning and made a big show of winding up for a big throw, but he still wasn’t catching on that he was exposed. With all the gravity of a life-and-death situation, big sis dashed across the line of fire, knowing full well that Daddy was about to unleash a fastball. My little medal-of-honor-winner-in-training jumped behind him and grabbed him under his armpits, and then yanked him back to safety. He fell down on top of her in the process, with the ball narrowly missing both of them.

There are some things in the Bible that you just don’t fully appreciate unless you deal with young kids a lot. This story about my kids helps me better grasp one story in the book of Mark (10:17-31). A rich young ruler came up to Jesus and asked “what do I need to do to have eternal life?” This guy was probably a young ruler in the local synagogue, steeped in the legalism of the day. With his line of thinking he was essentially looking for some kind of religious deed he could perform that would guarantee his entry into Heaven. Although he was misguided, that didn’t make him insincere.

Jesus more or less told him “you know the deal…follow all the commandments…don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t defraud, and honor your father and mother.”

While most of us at that point probably would have remembered at least one time in our lives where we told a lie or let Mom or Dad down, this guy had a different reaction.

“Yep, I’m good with all that. What else do I need to do?”

If you’re Jesus, and this guy has the nerve to say that to you, even if he believed it was true, what are you gonna be thinking?

Here’s the part that my kids helped me understand. “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

Some translations might say that Jesus felt great compassion for him. I was truly moved to see my daughter sacrifice her safety for the sake of her little brother. The guy in the story was earnestly seeking the truth from Christ, but he didn’t know he was now playing in a different league. Like seeing my little guy standing in the line of fire without knowing he was in danger, Christ probably looked at this young man and thought to himself “Bless your little heart. You’re so clueless and you don’t even know it.”

There are lots of other fatherhood experiences where those words came to mind: “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Christ had compassion both for people that were His followers and for people that were not. We’re called to do the same.

Who can you show compassion for today?

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Wait For It…

Sometimes when you’re stuck in a waiting period, you just need to make the best of it.

In my senior year of college, I was the Vice President of the Paddle Sports club. This club was for people that wanted to try their hand at kayaking and whitewater rafting. The academic year is kind of tricky for paddling because school’s not in session during a huge chunk of the prime season, so we held pool sessions twice a week during the entire academic year. During those sessions, it was a great opportunity for newcomers to learn the basics of kayaking. The problem was…when there were no newcomers, or when the winter began dragging on, those pool sessions got kinda dull. If you already knew how to roll a kayak, you had to come up with other ways to keep it interesting.

In the pool, those of us that were regulars would try strange stuff: try to roll a capsized kayak without using a paddle; setting up a kayak on one of the diving boards and getting in, then sliding off the board into the pool; putting on a life jacket and trying to swim down to the bottom of the pool’s deep end to retrieve something from the floor. Out of all of it though, I think the nuttiest stuff we did involved practicing righting a capsized raft.

When you have a whitewater raft full of people, and you’re shooting through some big water, it can be a dangerous thing if the raft flips and people get scattered. It’s best to have at least a couple of people in each raft that know how to flip it back over. That way if a raft gets flipped in some whitewater, whoever’s closest can flip it back over and get on with the business of bringing everyone back into the boat.

Example of righting a capsized raft

Each raft used in whitewater rafting normally has a rope tied to at least one of the sides. If the raft flips upside-down, someone climbs up on top of it. While grabbing the rope and standing on the opposite edge of the raft, they lean backward while pulling on the rope, eventually falling into the water and flipping the capsized raft back over the right way.

Once you know how to do it, it’s not a difficult thing to do. It’s important to practice though, because it’s one thing to do it in the pool, but it’s something entirely different when you’re bobbing through whitewater, trying to climb up on the raft while wearing a wetsuit, helmet, and life jacket, all while holding a paddle and trying to count heads.

We did a lot of raft-flipping in the pool. The basic version gets boring quickly though. You start trying to make it more interesting. I tried dozens of times to flip the raft while timing the jump just right so that I landed in the righted raft without falling in the water. We paired up and had a guy swim under the capsized raft and hang onto a pontoon, so that when the other guy standing on top of the raft flipped it over, there was already a guy in the boat. We doubled the number and had two guys hanging onto pontoons while two other guys flipped the boat. We even had three guys on top of a capsized raft…as two guys flipped it, the third guy tried to get catapulted into the water (although he miscalculated and got flipped the wrong direction). It was goofy stuff that was just fun, didn’t hurt (much), and served no practical purpose other than helping to pass the time.

What am I getting at? Sometimes you’re going to be stuck waiting for awhile. Whether it’s a low-level job where you have to put your time in, maybe a military assignment that’s a terrible but necessary rung on the ladder, or maybe some season of life where you have to put your primary plans on hold for a bit, you’ll probably find that God put you in (or you got yourself into) a situation where the things you want to do are going to have to take a back seat for awhile. In Paddle Sports, we had the luxury of the season being predictable; we knew we wouldn’t do much outdoor paddling from November to February, but things were going to pick up with the spring thaw. A predictable season is the reality for some, but for others, they don’t know how long they’ll be waiting.

If you find yourself in the middle of your own version of the “winter months,” hang in there. Surround yourself with people that will keep your spirits up and keep spurring you on. There’s usually a lot you can do or learn even in those trying times. Spring’s coming, but for now, do your best to make the most of the time you’ve got.