John Piper - How can I know if my repentance is genuine?

You just broke your child. Congratulations

You just broke your child. Congratulations.
Dads. Stop breaking your children. Please.

I feel a need to write this post after what I witnessed at Costco yesterday. Forgive me for another post written in desperation and anger. Please read all the way to the end. I know it’s long, but this is something that needs to be said. It’s something that needs to be heard. It’s something that needs to be shared.

As Noah and I stood in line to make a return, I watched as a little boy (he couldn’t have been older than six) looked up at his dad and asked very timidly if they could buy some ice cream when they were done. The father glared him down, and through clenched teeth, growled at the boy to “leave him alone and be quiet”. The boy quickly cowered to the wall where he stood motionless and hurt for some time.

The line slowly progressed and the child eventually shuffled back to his father as he quietly hummed a childish tune, seemingly having forgotten the anger his father had just shown. The father again turned and scolded the boy for making too much noise. The boy again shrunk back and cowered against the wall, wilted.

I was agitated. I was confused. How could this man not see what I see? How could this man not see what a beautiful spirit stood in his shadow? How could this man be so quick to stub out all happiness in his own boy? How could this man not cherish the only time he’ll ever have to be everything to this boy? To be the person that matters most to this boy?

We were three from the front now, and the boy started to come towards his dad yet again. His dad immediately stepped out of the line, jammed his fingers into his son’s collar bones until he winced in pain, and threatened him. “If you so much as make a sound or come off of that wall again, I promise you’re going to get it when we get home.” The boy again cowered against the wall. This time, he didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. His beautiful face pointed down, locked to the floor and expressionless. He had been broken. And that’s how his father wanted it. He didn’t want to deal with him, and breaking him was the easiest way.

And we wonder why so many of our kids grow up to be screwed up.

I’m going to be blunt. People see my relationship with Noah, and quite often put me up on a pedestal or sing my praises for loving him more than most dads love their own kids.

Damn it. I don’t understand that, and I’ll never understand that. Loving my son, building my son, touching my son, playing with my son, being with my son… these aren’t tasks that only super dads can perform. These are tasks that every dad should perform. Always. Without fail. There is nothing special about me. I am a dad who loves his son and would literally do anything for his well-being, safety, and health. I would gladly take a rake in the face or a jackhammer to my feet before I cut my own son down or make him feel small.

[sigh] I am far from a perfect dad. And I always will be. But I’m a damn good dad, and my son will always feel bigger than anything life can throw at him. Why? Because I get it. I get the power a dad has in a child’s life, and in a child’s level of self-belief. I get that everything I ever do and ever say to my son will be absorbed, for good or for bad. What I don’t get is how some dads don’t get it.

Dads. Do your faces light up when you first see your child in the morning or when you come home from work? Do you not understand that a child’s entire sense of value can revolve around what they see in your face when you first see them?

Dads. Do you not realize that a child is what you tell them they are? That people almost always become what they are labeled? Was whatever your child just did really the “dumbest thing you’ve ever seen somebody do”? Was it really the “most ridiculous thing they ever could have done”? Do you really believe that your child is an idiot? Because she now does. Think about that. Because you said it, she now believes it. Bravo.

Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can’t find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day?

Dads. Should anybody buy into this silly notion that anger is sometimes or often necessary? Do you not understand that anger is almost always an emotion for people who wish to control others while simultaneously failing to control themselves? Do you not know that there are incredible books and courses that can teach you better methods? Most importantly, do you not see the speed at which a child is crushed or becomes completely defiant when anger rules the roost? Are you that desensitized to the luminosity of your child’s spirit that it doesn’t crush you completely when they flinch or cower in your presence? Is that really what you want your child to do? To fear you?

Dads. Do you not realize that your child needs to feel your skin on his? Do you not realize the incredible and powerful bond that skin on skin contact with your daughter will give you? Do you not understand the permanent mental connections that are made when you stroke your son’s bare back or rub your daughter’s bare tummy while you tell bedtime stories? And if any idiot says anything about that being inappropriate, you’re gonna get kicked in the face, first by me, and then by every other good dad out there. Touching your child is your duty as a father.

Dads. Wake up! These precious souls that have been put into your care are unique and so very sensitive. Everything you say or don’t say will impact their ability, success, and happiness throughout their entire lives.

Do you not realize that your kids are going to make mistakes, and a lot of them? Do you not realize the damage you do when you push your son’s nose into his mishaps or make your daughter feel worthless because she bumped or spilled something? Do you have any idea how easy it is to make your child feel abject? It’s as simple as letting out the words, “why would you do that!?” or “how many times have I told you…”

Let me ask you this. Have you ever looked into the swollen eyes of a parent who’s child has just died?

I have.

Have you ever cried through a child’s funeral?

I have.

Have you ever touched a wooden box with a child inside? A permanent tomb from which another laugh or giggle will never sound?

I have.

If you want the motivation to be the best parent on earth, do that just one time. I pray you never have to.

Dads. It’s time to tell our kids that we love them. Constantly. It’s time to show our kids that we love them. Constantly. It’s time to take joy in their twenty-thousand daily questions and their inability to do things as quickly as we’d like. It’s time to take joy in their quirks and their ticks. It’s time to take joy in their facial expressions and their mispronounced words. It’s time to take joy in everything that our kids are.

It’s time to stand up and ask what we can do to be better dads. It’s time to get our priorities straight. It’s time to come home and actually be a dad.

Dads. It’s time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It’s time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It’s time to show forgiveness and compassion. It’s time to show our children empathy. It’s time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It’s time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls “tom boys” or our boys “feminine” just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don’t matter?

Dads. Speak softly to your sons. Speak calmly to your daughters. Who do you want your child to be? Do you want him to be the kid at school that sits by himself with absolutely no friends or self esteem? Or do you want him to be the kid running for class office and feeling like he deserves to win it? Do we not see that we have the power to give that to our children? Do we not see that we have the power to teach our children the tools of societal survival?

Dads. Do we not see the influence we have when we say we believe in one thing, but our children see us living something else? Do we not realize how little we encourage our children to actually decide what they believe, declare what they believe, and then live by it? Whether it’s religion, politics, sports, or societal norms. It is not our place to tell our kids what to think. It is our place to teach our kids to think correctly. If we do this, we need have no fear of what they will decide for themselves and how strongly they’ll stand behind it. A man will follow his own convictions to his death, but he’ll only follow another man’s convictions until he steps in manure.

Damn it, Dads. Every child has the innate right to ask for ice cream without being belittled and broken. Every child has the innate right to do so without being made to cower in the corner because the man who is supposed to be his hero is actually a small, small man altogether. Every child has the innate right to be happy, and giggle, and laugh, and play. Why aren’t you letting them? Every child on earth has the right to a dad who thinks before he speaks; a dad who understands the great power that has been given to him to ultimately shape another human being’s life; a dad who loves his child more than he loves his television shows or sports games; a dad who loves his child more than his material junk; a dad who loves his child more than his time. Every child deserves a superhero dad.

Maybe the truth is that a lot of dads don’t deserve their kids.

Maybe the truth is that a lot of dads aren’t really dads at all.

I apologize for the heatedness of my post. I believe a part of me feels like a coward for not saying something to the man in front of me at Costco. Consider this post to be my penance. Perhaps a part of me feels that if even one person reads this and decides to be a better dad, it was worth every second that I spent typing it. If one child has a better life because something in my words stirred their father to step up their game, then it was worth every ounce of begging and pleading with you to share this with others, of which I am inevitably going to be guilty.

Dads. Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making. So stand up with me and show the world that there are a lot of good dads around.

To the men and women who read this post… married or not… parent or not… share this post on Facebook and Twitter, even if it doesn’t apply to you because you’re already all these things. If you’ve ever seen a father break his child, share it. You never know what child might get his superhero dad back. You never know what tiny spirit might feel just a little more loved because Dad took the time to tuck her in tonight.

All because you were willing to paste one link and ask others to read it.

Dan Pearce, Single Dad

http://becomeabetterfather.com/family/you-just-broke-your-child-congratulations-by-dan-pearce/

" From start to finish, this movie is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is it possible that we live as though it is about us?"

Depraved Indifference

Self-Control

Abortion Survivor in Australia Part 2

Abortion Survivor in Australia Part 1

it did not come easy

it did not come easy.


i will not lie and say i did not toss and turn about it.


i asked God to make me willing.


i asked God to open my heart.




-



i went.


with my own eyes "i saw".


i saw so much beauty, pain, but all wrapped up in need.


my heart was so open i left wounded.


i wanted to run somewhere and pretend i has not seen such life.


i wanted to forget the stories i heard.


i wanted to forget the eyes that had looked at me with hope.


-

as much as i wanted to.


i chose to not.


-



i thought of the boy i met.


i thought what would be best for him.


i thought of how my heart was just handed to me.


-



i thought about how weak i am.


i thought about how our life was in a good place.


i thought about how how our kids were happy.


i thought about how i was happy.


i thought about all the obstacles.


i thought about the money.


i thought our families would not accept it.


i thought adoption would be too hard.


i thought i might not be a good adoptive mom.


i thought i might not love him like i should.


-


after so much time thinking it became simple.


we have love, we have a house, we are a family, we can be his family.


all my fears subsided.


we will give this one boy a family.


-


i chose to adopt because God opened my heart.


-


i will not lie and say that adoption has been easy.


it has been hard.


we have never had to give so much.


-


BUT.......

this is what loving like Jesus is, right?

sacrifice?


-

what i have read about him was raw and hard and honest.
he loved so much that he literally died so that i could have life.
all i did was invite this little boy to live in our already life.


-


our life was not meant to be easy.
it was not meant to be about us.
that is what the American Dream tries to tell us.
actually life was meant to be shared, to be given.
this crazy hard season is life.
we have never served another more.
this is ministry.
the kind you don't get paid for. the kind people don't see.


-

-Debra " the sunshine chronicles"

How He Loves Me

He is jealous for me,

Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,

Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

When all of a sudden,

I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,

And realize just how beautiful You are,

And how great Your affections are for me.

-

We are His portion and He is our prize,

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,

If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking,

And Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,

I don't have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about, the way.....

That He loves us,

Oh how He loves us.

- David Crowder Band

All About Him

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can live on little and give much.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can adopt many and love more.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can care less about pleasing others and care much about pleasing Him.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can love without expecting to be loved back.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can open my home and my heart regardless of our differences.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can let go of my plans- knowing His are always better.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I care less about how my hair looks and care lots about how my heart looks.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can have peace during the unknowns- trusting He does know.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I worry less about the risk and more about just surrendering.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I allow myself to be vulnerable, knowing my experiences can help someone else.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can be content in my circumstances knowing He allowed them to be.

When it's all about Him and not about me- I can be assured success- regardless of the outcome.

He must become greater; I must become less. John 3:30

SAY YES

Even When It's Hard....

Often times, besides the cost of adoption, the thing that stops people from saying yes is, you know, because it might be hard.



People might look at you funny.



The way you live their life might be changed or interrupted.



You might have to give up something to make room for another.



And, what if the child God places in your home doesn't look, act, or fit into the image you had hoped for?



And, well, that would be hard.


And hard is something we avoid.



But can I remind you for just a minute how hard the price of our comfort is on them?





I often wonder where Christians came up with the idea that being a Christian resembled anything close to easy?



I often wonder how so often we miss the entire point of what Jesus is all about?



He is so much more than going to church on Sunday, memorizing verses of the Bible, wearing a cross around your neck, and praying at the dinner table.


And can I just tell you something else?



Life is never going to be easy- regardless of how hard we try to put up those walls of protection, regardless of our attempt to make all the right decisions and all the right plans.



And can I remind you that the greatest gifts in life did not come easy either?

When you claim to know the Lord and you call yourself a Christian you are not signing up for easy. As a matter of fact, I can almost guarantee you that God will call you out of your comfort zone, out of your ordinary existence and into a life that you never imagined for your self.

It will be a life that is all about HIM...a life that that glorifies HIM- not you.

So go ahead and love your God so much that you are willing to get out there, get a little crazy, not worry about what anyone thinks...

Get your hands dirty

SERVE

GIVE

LOVE

make your life COUNT.

You might get hurt, you might be uncomfortable, you might not be popular-you might not even recognize yourself when He is done...

but the one thing I can promise you that it will be worth. it. all.


http://buildingtheblocks.blogspot.com/2010/08/often-times-besides-cost-of-adoption.html

Jesus More Than a Savior

Crazy Love

Are you Waking Up?

The Jesus I used to serve...
...is the one I made up myself.
That's what I realized when I read this book.
Radical- David Platt

This book..... WHOA! That's all I have to say.
No that's not true!!! I have a lot to say! This book ROCKS IT!
I was concerned when I started reading this book. I won't lie. I'm not always a fan of "social justice" books and I was afraid this was another one of those.
IT IS NOT ONE OF THOSE!
This book is, pure and simple, about JESUS! This book is about the gospel. THE WHOLE GOSPEL! This book is a hard look at the truth of Christ and holding up our lives to the light of that truth.
It's not about orphans or poverty or justice- although those are a part of it. It's not about churches and mission trips- but those things are addressed. This book is SOLELY about JESUS and what HIS heart is for those things.
I realize looking back over my years that the view I had of God was so little. I so desperately wanted Jesus to be safe- one dimensional.
Jesus is anything but safe- anything but shallow.

you MAY have gone through a similar process of struggling. Some of you have walked through this entire process with me THROUGH this blog.
For me it went something like this...
I have cared for years- since I was a small child. I cared, I truly did, I just wasn't aware of the magnitude of what was out there beyond the American bubble. I had been on mission trips, lived overseas and yet still I didn't fully get it. Maybe it was because I was young.
Maybe it's because I didn't really want to know.
What I did know with all my heart is that God wanted me to adopt. So we started our process to bring Zoe home and..
...my American dream came crumbling, crashing, hurling toward the ground.
All the walls I had built so carefully to protect myself were gone the instant I loved this little girl.

Suddenly the pain, the abuse, the fear, the poverty, the hunger, the crime.... it wasn't removed or far away...
it was MY LITTLE GIRL!
Now I could look at each of those children in pain and feel in my heart that they were somebody's child, somebody's treasure.

It all changed. Deep inside my soul I could feel how God felt when He looked at the reality of sin and despair and saw His people doing NOTHING.
Ohhhh.... that moment.... when the scales came off my eyes... when I broke out of the Matrix and simultaneously
LOST MY MIND!
I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't live like everything was OK! I felt LIKE SCREAMING,
"IT'S NOT OK PEOPLE!!!"

I couldn't quit crying for months. I was broken, shattered, in tiny shards on the ground. I was exactly where God wanted me. This was the place ONLY He could rebuild me.
I struggled and fought against God. All at once issues of sovereignty and God's will felt very real and personal. It now seemed issues of theology weren't just theories to be discussed. They were things I DESPERATELY needed to know.
During that year, (anyone who knows me knows it as "The Guatemala Year"), I WOKE UP! It wasn't that I hadn't had it in me all these years. Somewhere in me I had always had this DNA. That was the year God said, "WAKE UP ANGEL!" And I did... I heard Him. I woke up.
What I saw disturbed me, frightened me, angered me, disgusted me.
There were times I wanted to go back to my American dream land. BUT how could I?
You can't go back.
It's a one way ticket down the rabbit hole.
So at first my heart went ORPHANS!! THIS IS ABOUT ORPHANS!! This is what's been missing.... and I was right... but not really. God used orphans to show me the whole picture.
Slowly, I began to see it. Over time rather than seeing the picture I began to see the html, the matrix, the code. Does that make sense??
The comforts of life that had previously appealed to me made me sick to my stomach. Slowly, the things that had terrified me I was willing to dive into for the sake of something much bigger than myself.
Soon it wasn't just about orphans.
It was about glorifying God.
It was about brokenness and sin. It was about OUR adoption. It was about our slavery to sin and our freedom as beloved children of God.
Eventually I realized the power of the radical life God was asking me to lead. Not only was I being the hands and feet of Christ... more significantly God was using this to GLORIFY HIMSELF!
I guess during my "Guatemala Year" I thought maybe being a Christian, sold out for Jesus, meant you were gonna be sad. After all, I was crushed completely.
I am grateful that I was wrong. My awakening was 4 years ago. These past 4 years I have slowly been learning about compassion- walking into pain. I have slowly been learning about the power of joy. I have seen how entering into someone's pain brings joy that CAN NOT be explained except through the power of Christ.

There is NOTHING I do that brings me greater joy than obedience to my Father.
Our Father is a defender of widows, orphans and strangers.
He is not SAFE!
He is GOOD!

If you hear His voice He WILL ask you to do things that are not comfortable, are not rational, are not the norm in America.
If your God never asks you to do anything that stretches you, scares you, makes you EXTREMELY uncomfortable, I would read the gospels- study Jesus- and ask,
"Who IS my God?"
Are we really serving the God of the Bible or one we have created?

If we TRULY LISTEN and obey like little children, where will He lead us?
If you have woken up, are waking up, want to wake up.... I beg you to read this book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoicm4wnQ4c&playnext_from=TL&videos=D4p5VaYkX_Q

Are you waking up?

http://thevoiceofadventure.blogspot.com/2010/07/jesus-i-used-to-serve.html

it's not about me

"The message of Christianity is that God loves me." Or someone might say, "The message of Christianity is that God loves me enough to send his Son, Jesus, to die for me."

As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn't it incomplete, based on what we have seen in the Bible? "God loves me" is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if "God loves me" is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?

God loves me.

Me.

Christianity's object is me.

Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works best for me and my family. When I consider the house I will live in, the care I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture.

But it is not biblical Christianity.

The message of the biblical Christianity is not "God loves me, period," as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is "God loves me so that I might make him - his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness - known among all nations." Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is.
- quote from "Radical" by David Platt

Doubt

“Christianity places a premium on the absolute truthfulness and trustworthiness of God, so understanding doubt is extremely important to a Christian. Of course, faith is much more than the absence of doubt, but to understand doubt is to have a key to a quiet heart and a quiet mind. Anyone who believes anything will automatically know something about doubt. But the person who knows why he believes is also in a position to discover why he doubts. The Christian should be such a person. Not only does a Christian believe, he is a person who ‘thinks in believing and believes in thinking,’ as Augustine expressed it. The world of Christian faith is not a fairy-tale, make-believe world, question-free and problem-proof, but a world where doubt is never far from faith's shoulder. Consequently, a healthy understanding of doubt should go hand in hand with a healthy understanding of faith. We ourselves are called in question if we have no answer to doubt. If we constantly doubt what we believe and always believe-yet-doubt, we will be in danger of undermining our personal integrity, if not our stability. But if ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger still. It knows God more certainly and it can enjoy God more deeply.” (pp. 15-16).
“Problems strike us all differently. What is trivial to one person may raise titanic questions for someone else. Some people face doubt only if they find no answer; others trigger doubts merely by raising questions. What puzzles a philosopher and taxes his mind to distraction may look completely irrelevant or quite obvious to a businessman. The point is not to judge who is right, but to meet and resolve whatever doubt is a problem to a particular person” (p. 32).No matter what level of doubt we face, living in constant doubt is not where we want to live our lives. But neither should be automatically feel guilty and sinful for all doubting thoughts. The reality is that doubt is inevitable in the Christian life. Guinness writes, “In the same way assurance of faith depends on our grasp of God and his faithfulness and not on a mastery of all the doubts that are ever likely to assail us. Otherwise faith could never be assured while one last doubt remained” (p. 33).
“What is more, faith, like health, is best maintained by growth, nourishment and exercise and not by fighting sickness. Sickness may be the absence of health, but health is more than the absence of sickness, so prevention is better than cure. Equally, faith grows and flourishes when it is well nourished and exercised, so the best way to resist doubt is to build up faith rather than simply to fight against doubt” (pp. 33-34).
In Two Minds: The Dilemma of Doubt and How to Resolve It by Os Guinness
http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/category/Doubt.aspx

Parenting, Identifying, and Disciplining

"Son, this is not a foreign topic to your dad. We are fellow sinners both in need of a savior.”
So I want to do two things. I want to try to introduce my son to a study that isn’t correction specific to an occasion. I want to study the heart, I want to study anger, I want to study idolatry, unrelated to an occasion where I am bringing discipline, so that the study hopefully can have the most effect. I want to engage in a study from Scripture. I want to choose age-appropriate material. I want to choose appropriate passages. And then my study with my son is supplemented by stories from my life, because I do the same thing. I don’t cry anymore like a child but I know how to cry in adult ways. I want my child to know that no matter what the category, I can identify.
So let’s say for my son fear of man would be a category. “Well, your dad is just as familiar with that, son, and here are the ways fear of man will play out in my life today.” Not “Here are the ways fear of man played out when I was 16.” No—“Here are the ways fear of man is a real temptation to your father this week.” I think by humbling myself, I hope I make it easier for him to receive from me, so that when I say “Listen,” it’s not “Listen to your self-righteous father who is angry at you because he doesn’t understand why it requires this kind of attention to help you to see how stupid a video game is.”
It is too easy for me to view my son’s form of idolatry as childish, but in essence, at root, there is no difference between our idolatries. His expression is consistent with a 12 year old, mine is consistent with a 56 year old, but in essence it’s no different. Therefore I must make sure my heart is softened by my own sinful tendencies. I don’t want the study to be punitive, I don’t want it to be (if possible) connected or related to discipline, because I think that can make it more difficult for a child to comprehend and to be convinced I have their best interest at heart. I want to supplement it with my own stories.
At 12 years old I would want to start leaving your son with questions to consider rather than pronouncements. But from 12 years old on up, it is far more complicated than when they are younger. For a toddler, discipline is pretty simple. You are not having to work through heart issues. It is a blatantly ethical world, at that age, nothing but right/wrong, yes/no. But as they get older you want to draw your child in and give him an opportunity to think about his own heart, think about it in relation to material, think about it in relation to Scripture, think about it with time for the Spirit to possibly convict.
You are not bringing every conversation to a conclusion that he must agree with. With your restrictions, you want to explain why you are doing what you are doing. Restrictions are important. We are fully for restrictions as long as the purpose is explained—so your child doesn’t think this is just punitive action we are taking in your life without explanation, without a why, without a purpose. We want to create an alternative. We want to anticipate this temptation, anticipate this restriction and [ask] what alternative can we present to wean our child from that particular form of idolatry.
Helping our children identify idols is hard work. Your son may grow out of his love for video games, but he will not grow out of the idol factory in his heart. So as parents, we need the Lord’s help, and we can be confident that he will lead and guide us as we serve and lead our children with the gospel.
http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/Video-Games-Idols-and-Your-Childs-Heart.aspx

The Wrath of God

Waiting To Repent