Tag Archives: Children

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 43

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There I will go to the altar of God,
    to God—the source of all my joy.
Psalm 43:4a (NLT)

When it comes to giving gifts to our little friends, Wendy and I like to give books. It’s become kind of a thing with us in recent years as the number friends with small children proliferates. We’ve seen the frustration in parents eyes at birthday parties and at Christmas time. Their kids open yet another buzzy, blinky, beeping toy which will hold their child’s attention for a short time while increasing the din of noise pollution in their home to levels the EPA would condemn as hazardous to human sanity. Books, on the other hand, tend to become treasured keepsakes. They promote togetherness and family time. They entertain and inspire over and over and over again.

A few years ago we gave a book to one of our little friends and I scribbled an inscription on the inside the front cover. I later learned from his parents that their son requires them to read the inscription each time they read the book. Wow. How cool. Suddenly what I wrote for an inscription took on a new meaning and purpose.

This past weekend Wendy and I bought an “I Spy” book for a couple of young friends we were visiting. It was cool because it was made up of works of art from across centuries and artistic periods. Children can play I spy with their parents while learning about art. When it came time to write an inscription I wrote an encouragement to our young friends that while God’s Message promises that those who seek will find, it’s also important to be wise in where you choose to search. The choice of where you look determines the quality of the treasure you find.

I thought of my inscription and encouragement to our young friends this morning as I read the verse above. The author seeks out God’s mountain and searches out God’s altar to find God the “source of all my joy.” Every one of us want a little joy in our lives. Who doesn’t desire joy in the midst of today’s rat race. The question is: Where am I looking? What am I choosing to chase after in an effort to find it?

The choice of where you search will determine the quality of treasure that you find.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Hosea 14

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Photo taken by me as an example of a stay at h...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Lord says,
“Then I will heal you of your faithlessness;
    my love will know no bounds,
    for my anger will be gone forever.
Hosea 14:4 (NLT)

It has been said that a child’s view of God often comes directly from their relationship (or lack of relationship) with their father. How a child sees God is often the same as they see their dad. I get why kids make the comparison, and as a dad I’ve often felt the weight of that responsibility.

Perhaps that’s why when I read the prophets I sometimes feel a pang of understanding with God’s point-of-view as He relates and responds to His children. While not universally true, I think it is generally true that fathers tend to be the hand of justice in a family while mothers provide a balance of compassion. Dads often make the unpopular and difficult decisions, risking the temper tantrums and cold shoulders, trusting that the child will eventually realize that it was ultimately for their benefit.

Dad’s also tend to be the executioner of punishment. Among my numerous friends with small children, I still hear the phrase “wait ’til your father gets home” used in high frequency. As the judge, jury and executioner of family justice, I find it easier to relate when the prophets warn, cajole and speak of God’s anger at His children’s foolishness and outright rebellion. But I also realize that this is not the whole story.

Underneath this father’s iron fist of justice beats a soft heart of love and compassion. Our daughters may have felt my stubborn wrath, but my wife will tell you at just how deeply I agonize over the girls when I have ever had to make difficult decisions that resulted in the girls disappointment, frustration, or anger. I get it when God continues to remind His children through the prophets that at the source of the fire hose of justice you’ll find the still waters of love and compassion. As the saying goes, “still waters run deep.”

Today, I’m thankful for being a dad and the spiritual lessons it affords. I continue to pray that, despite may many failings, I will always be for my children (and someday their children and their children’s children) a worth example of our Heavenly Father.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 28

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The Lord gives his people strength.
    He is a safe fortress for his anointed king.
Psalm 28:8 (NLT)

When I was a kid, my grandfather was fond of saying that he was “King of this castle!” Usually, it was said in jest at the dining room table as he pounded his fist and asserted his authority (before being reminded that he had his wife’s permission to say so). Still, our jests are often rooted in deeper truths and I observed throughout my childhood that my grandfather’s home was, in fact, his castle. It was the place he found refuge. He loved being at home.

From the time we are young, we have a natural affinity for building forts, fortresses, and tree houses. I can remember constructing fortresses made of mattresses and pillows, blankets and tables, and the ever present snow of an Iowa winter. Forts are a place of imaginative play. They are a safe place, a protective place, and place away from outside threat where we can rest and re-create.

I believe that adults are more like children than we care to admit. As we get older we still need our forts and places of refuge. My office here at home is my fortress. It is here that I find quiet each morning to converse with God, meditate on His Message, and write my blog posts. It is here that I imagine and read and write. I’m blessed to get to work here, too. It is my safe place, and when I am gone on the road or at the lake for extended periods of time, I find myself missing it.

Today, I’m thinking about the safety and security I feel in my little 12′ x 12′ fort each morning. I’m grateful to have a physical place of refuge; to be “King of this Castle” (and to have my wife’s permission to say so). I’m considerate this morning of the fact that God’s ever-presence is a place of refuge no matter where I find myself; no matter what the circumstance.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 11

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But the Lord is in his holy Temple;
    the Lord still rules from heaven.
He watches everyone closely,
    examining every person on earth.
Psalm 11:4 (NLT) 

It is early. I’d planned on taking this week off of my chapter-a-day posts, but this morning I woke before dawn and, after laying awake for a while, felt called to the quiet. Rarely these days am I around so much noise and activity. The Playhouse has been full of life and kinetic energy this week with five very busy young people and six weary adults trying desperately to keep up. So much fun. So much noise. So much laughter and screaming. So many tears. The surround sound of life abundant.

I’ve always found quiet in the mornings, even at home in our empty nest where things are pretty much quiet all day. “The Lord is in His holy Temple” today’s chapter tells us, and how interesting to have God’s Message remind those who follow Jesus that we ourselves are temples of God’s Spirit, who dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16). And so, as light slowly rises in the east I come to the quiet to center in, to seek the Lord in His holy Temple where He can be found, and to find peace at the start of my day. I come to the quiet even on days that will be filled with relative quiet, but I find this time with God especially rich on days that I know will be brimming over with life’s joyful noises.

I thought I would take the week off from my chapter-a-day posts, and yet here I am once again. I come back to the quiet. I rest on the page.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 10

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This is a young girl’s drawing from one of Taylor’s Art Therapy sessions in Uganda. She drew a picture of an LRA soldier killing her aunt in front of her.

Their mouths are full of cursing, lies, and threats.
    Trouble and evil are on the tips of their tongues.
They lurk in ambush in the villages,
    waiting to murder innocent people.
    They are always searching for helpless victims.
Like lions crouched in hiding,
    they wait to pounce on the helpless.
Like hunters they capture the helpless
    and drag them away in nets.
Their helpless victims are crushed;
    they fall beneath the strength of the wicked.
Psalm 10:7-10 (NLT) 

God’s Message is not a novel. It is not book to check off your mandatory reading list and then put on a shelf. It is a life-giving guidebook for the journey that grows deeper, richer, more poignant and meaningful the further you travel in life’s journey. I keep reading it and studying it because, while it never changes, I change. The wider my life’s horizon expands with time and experience, the more rich with meaning these chapters become each day.

Even a year ago, today’s chapter would have struck me much differently.

Our daughter, Taylor and her husband, Clayton, have been in Uganda this summer. Taylor is studying Art Therapy, and has been putting her education to work with students and other individuals there. The stories that Taylor has shared on her blog are heart wrenching. The area they are working is the site of some of the worst terror carried out by a group calling themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army.

As I read Psalm 10 this morning, the mental images of the first hand accounts Taylor and Clayton have heard this summer flashed into my mind. The description of the wicked lying in wait like lions ready to pounce on innocent victims could not be a more apt parallel to the stories Taylor has related from the victims of the LRA:

Jackie and her father (who died) were abducted when she was 12 years old. She was given to a soldier to be his wife. She gave birth to a child in the bush. She drew a picture of herself climbing up mountains with a baby on her back. She and her husband escaped and lived together for a while but he left her and the baby, so now she lives with her mother. She leaves her mother’s house at 6 in the morning and bikes to work, which is a 3-4 hour commute each way!

Todays chapter leave me thinking about evil and how it does not change from generation to generation. It’s a nice idea to believe humanistic epithets and pop music lyrics that we will all just get along and live in peace and harmony if we just give peace a chance with a little love in our heart. Yet I’ve yet to find one of these lyrical, idealistic notions that adequately addresses and solves the presence and reality of evil in the human heart and, by extension, in the world at large.

Today I feel like my thoughts are swirling all over the place. I’m thankful for the fact that when my children were young I taught them, but then as they get older they teach me through their own lives, knowledge and experiences. I’m thankful that God’s Message is living and active and constantly meeting me where I happen to be on life’s road. I’m thinking about LRA, terrorism, and evil. My heart is crying out with the Psalmist:

Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.
    Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.
 You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,
    so mere people can no longer terrify them.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Acts 23

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English: Pharisees in the Temple in the synagogue
English: Pharisees in the Temple in the synagogue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paul realized that some members of the high council were Sadducees and some were Pharisees, so he shouted, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, as were my ancestors! And I am on trial because my hope is in the resurrection of the dead!”

This divided the council—the Pharisees against the Sadducees— for the Sadducees say there is no resurrection or angels or spirits, but the Pharisees believe in all of these. So there was a great uproar. Acts 23:6-9a (NLT)

One of the tasks of my job is to provide one-on-one call coaching to my client’s employees. Tasked with helping individuals improve their customer service skills on the phone, I often find myself alone in a room with people who don’t want to be there and certainly don’t want to be coached. So, over the past twenty years I’ve learned a host of basic tricks used by people to avoid confronting the issues at hand such as the silent treatment or the happy distraction.

I find it ironic and a bit humorous that there is a reference to Paul’s sister in today’s chapter, for I believe that many of the tactics we learn to divert attention away from the subject of our own crime and punishment are learned as children with our parents. Paul played the artful dodge well, like a child who knows that if they can get his parents conflicting about how to render verdict on the child’s infraction, that child often slips through the cracks of the ensuing argument unscathed.

By raising the contentious issue of resurrection with the council, Paul effectively turned the spotlight off of himself and onto a religious debate that would keep the council arguing about something other than himself and would actually get a large part of the council to defend him.

Sometimes the important thing is not just in what we communicate but how and when we communicate it.

Wayfarer's Journal

Following Their Passion. Making a Difference.

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One of the most fascinating aspects of being a dad has been watching our girls grow into their own persons and launch on their own paths. Seeds of passion that subtly presented themselves in childhood slowly and beautifully bloom as they step out on their own journey as adults. Having survived the weedy entanglements of adolescence and the arid plain of academia, you begin to see the person they are becoming blossom in amazing ways.

Taylor has always had the heart of an artist. It never presented itself in any kind of clearly focused way when she was young, but it was unmistakably there. When she was deciding on courses of study for college it was always in the background. Her choice was always [fill in the blank] and Art Therapy. My personal favorite combination was Archaeology and Art Therapy. The playwright in me conjured a comical sketch of her sitting with a troubled soul showing them pictures of cave drawings and hieroglyphs. Eventually, she abandoned the various and sundry choices for a primary course of study and stuck with the one constant: Art Therapy.

During her teen years, another seed of passion emerged for Taylor. Becoming aware of the larger world, she would come home from high school with books and dinner time stories of tragic conflicts in Africa. I watched as the unfathomable horror stories of child soldiers in nations like Uganda branded themselves on Taylor’s tender heart. Slowly I began to realize that my meek daughter, the tender artist and healer, was developing a steely passion for helping others and for the world.

Then a boy named Clayton came along. Wendy and I knew that these two young people were going to end up together. We saw it from the beginning. I think every dad feels that unmistakable, gut-wrenching moment when you realize your little girl’s eyes and heart have shifted focus to another man. Not just the wandering glance of infatuation or the unadvisable day-trips of misguided lust, but the unmistakable “this is the man who is taking your place” moment.  I saw it happening before my very eyes. Clayton, the passionate African Studies major and Taylor, the Art Therapist wannabe (foregoing her first year of college to work with handicapped children in Morocco) shocked everyone by choosing to get married far younger than seems wise or culturally acceptable in today’s world. They both had a lot of growing up to do. I’m convinced they were supposed to do it together.

It was last fall when Taylor and Clayton began mentioning a group called Child Voice and a place called Lukodi. Lukodi is a village in Uganda. A few years ago the town was ravaged by the unspeakable atrocities of an evil thug named Kony and his followers, profanely dubbed the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Children were forced to kill their own parents. Little girls were raped, forced to be “brides,” and impregnated. Let’s just say that this post can’t contain the volume of horror thrust upon the people of that small village. In the terrible social aftermath, a group called Child Voice is trying to bring healing and redemption to the survivors and to the town. Taylor and Clayton applied for a summer internship to help in the efforts.

And so, the picture of who our daughter is becoming continues to come into focus. The young girl with the heart of an artist, burdened by the plight of child soldiers is going to Uganda. She will put her Art Therapy studies to work to help and to heal, to love and to learn from victims of suffering that is incomprehensible in our everyday context. Clayton, her husband and partner in passion, is by her side. As happens with work in the third world, their itinerary seems to be changing from day to day. Nevertheless, the two of them are flying out of Chicago today. As I’ve told them many times, I couldn’t be more proud.

It seems like everyday I read or hear stories about disenchanted, entitled, and self-seeking young adults who are aimlessly struggling to find gainful employment and meaningful existence. I’m so grateful for children with passion, talent, faith, love and purpose who are actively doing something to make a positive difference in this world. As I’ve tried to constantly tell them, I couldn’t be more proud.

You can follow their story and their adventures at http://boeyinksinuganda.wordpress.com.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Acts 1

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source: Michael M Kenny via Flickr

Jesus replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know.” Acts 1:7 (NLT)

One of the more difficult aspects of going through a divorce is the struggle to know when to speak, and when to be silent, with your children. This is especially true when they are teenagers. Seven years ago, as I walked that painful stretch of my own journey, I found two easy temptations with regard to talking to my girls.

First, I discovered the temptation to say too much because the breakdown of the marriage is affecting them so acutely and I wanted desperately want to provide some reason, understanding, and context. Second, I recognized the subtle, self-centered temptation within myself to want the girls to take, or at least to understand, my side of the story. What teenagers, in their stalwart belief that they are both fully mature and completely omniscient, fail to understand is that information without context, knowledge, wisdom, and discernment can become both a burden and a curse. It is said that ignorance is bliss, and sometimes that is true. Sometimes it is the very least appropriate for the situation. 

As children, we often feel that we have a need to know things. We will even go so far as to think that we have a right to know certain things. We live in a culture steeped in First Amendment rights and the Freedom of Information Act coupled with an almost instantaneous access to any piece of arcane trivial information you could desire. People even publicly post the most mundane and salacious facts about themselves on Facebook and Twitter. Television programming projects an endless hunt for the most juicy, private personal gossip about celebrities 24/7/365. It is no wonder that we feel so entitled to know so much about so many.

I found it interesting in today’s chapter that Jesus deflected some of his followers’ questions. Father God knows things we don’t know. He holds certain things close to the vest, and as His children we are all on a need-to-know basis. For some children, this seems terribly unfair, unjust and spurs fits of childish rage and rebellion. Personally, I find comfort in the fact that He’s got it under control and I can trust Him with that. Someday, when I’m ready and it’s appropriate, He’ll perhaps share some things with me. Perhaps by that time it won’t really matter. Until then, I can let it go and experience the freedom that comes from not having to know certain things.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day John 14

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Source: jonragnarsson via Flickr

“No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.” John 14:18 (NLT)

Last weekend Wendy and I were in a production at the local community center. As part of the development of our roles each actor in the play was required to create a character study. The director then printed edited versions of the character studies and hung them in the gallery for audience members to peruse during intermission. As I was getting the gallery ready before the performance of Sunday’s matinee one of my fellow actors was reading through all of the character studies.

“It’s interesting,” he said, “how many of these characters had fathers who were missing or dead.” Sure enough, a majority of the actors had written that their character’s father was unknown, dead or had abandoned them.

Along the journey I’ve come to recognize just how large of a hole is torn in one’s soul when a child feels or is abandoned by their father. The effects go deep and are long lasting. I had to ask myself how many of the actors in the show last weekend were projecting their own personal pain into that of their characters.

I don’t think I’ve appreciated how this profoundly personal issue is intertwined in Jesus’ story. Jesus makes a point of telling His followers that He is not abandoning them, even as He prepares to be taken from them for execution. Despite what they may think, feel, perceive and experience in the coming days, they are not abandoned – they are not orphaned. Jesus even encouraged His followers with these words less than 24 hours before He Himself would take on the sins of the world, suffer a cruel death and cry out from the cross “My God, why have you abandoned me?”

Today as I prepare to observe Jesus’ betrayal, death and resurrection in the coming weekend, I’m struck that the core human fear of abandonment is woven throughout the story. I’m also reminded that while the scars of abandonment run deep they are not lethal, nor inevitable, nor impervious to healing. Addressing and healing, once and for all, the pain of abandonment is at the core of why Jesus came to us in the first place.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Hebrews 12

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Deutsch: Historische Federzeichnung einer schu...
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No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. Hebrews 12:11 (NLT)

I still remember many of the spankings I received as a child. I don’t remember them because they were awful or excessive or unjust in any way. Spankings were relatively few in my home and reserved for times we’d totally been caught being naughty. For the record, I also remember sitting on the bathroom sink while my mom soaped up her hands and proceeded to wash the inside of my mouth out. I deserved that, too. Funny, my sister says she can’t remember ever getting a spanking, but she did. Several times. I guess I remember those for her.

As a parent one of the most difficult parts of the journey is disciplining your children. You don’t want to be too lenient, but you don’t want to be heavy handed. Each child is different in the way they respond to it, and every circumstance is different in the severity of discipline warranted. Appropriate discipline changes with the age of the child and his or her temperament. I had one child whom I could discipline with the mere look of disappointment and another child who seemed never to admit doing or saying anything wrong….ever. Needless to say, in our home discipline sometimes required different approaches depending on the offender.

No parent disciplines perfectly.

At the same time, discipline is required. It’s required for all of us if we’re going to develop into well adjusted and behaved people. We need clear understanding of right and wrong. We need to know when we’ve done well and when we’ve crossed over the line. We need appropriate negative reinforcement along with appropriate positive reinforcement.

Today, I’m thankful for parents who knew when to punish and when to praise. I’m thankful for good kids who responded to both pats on the back and pats on the butt. As the journey draws nearer to the time when my children may be having children of their own, I pray that they will find wisdom and balance in their own parenting. As I continue my journey as a child of the Creator, I pray that I will respond appropriately to both discipline and praise all the days of my life.