Date Nights

My wife and I enjoyed a great date night yesterday evening. We tried out a new local restaurant, Cask southern kitchen & bar, in East Louisville. We have been trying out a new, local restaurant for the last 6-7 months and Cask may’ve been the best experience yet. Good mixed drinks, good chicken and waffles, great sides, and my wife actually finished her food for the first time in our 6 years of marriage I do believe. We then decided to paint our own painting, each taking 2-minute turns to create our own piece of art and ended the night by playing a game of Dominion, which of course I won 84-70. All in all, a solid date.

Date nights are so necessary to a marriage. It is a brief time to reconnect while trying new things and familiar things alike. It’s a chance to relax. As parents to a 2-year-old, our lives revolve around his schedule. Day to day, our chance to hang out with one another is from 9-10pm, after he goes to sleep. Add to that a full-time M-F work schedule, the weekends become our only 2 days a week to spend undivided time with one another. But even then, the weekend leads us to think of ways to best occupy our time with our son who is growing and needs more stimulation. His naps are typically from 1-3pm but this usually leads us to going to separate rooms to watch our own tv shows or play on our phones. To enjoy that brief moment of daily ‘me’ time. And with a growing son, more ‘free time’ on our weekends means coming up with more ways and more activities to stimulate his growth. Which is what we committed to when we had our son. Our titles changed to mom and dad and our lives changed forever with those new titles. No apologies for that blessing. But every blessing comes with questions to consider.

Like, for instance, thinking about how, in the restructuring of life, certain things get pushed to the ‘back burner’. There’s no way around it: this is a central part of life; prioritizing one thing leads to reprioritizing many other things. And in the case of being a parent, it involves the reprioritizing of one’s sense of ‘self’ and what it means to be a husband and a wife. The pride and joy we feel, mostly, is wrapped up in our son. To where I can say, honestly, that my deepest joys are experienced with our son most of the time. My wife would probably say the same. And then the question remains: where does that leave our thoughts towards one another as husband and wife? And where does that leave our thoughts toward ourselves? Do we enjoy one another anymore? Do we do the things we enjoy individually and collectively? Most of the time, probably not. We’re just plugging things into the schedule and if we can make it to 9pm with our brains and hearts mostly intact day in and day out, that’s a win. It’s survival mode to a tee, most of the time.

Enter date night. Date night is not a savior of any sorts. It’s not a magic formula. But it is a step and a start. It is a step and a start toward prioritizing ourselves and one another. Toward some fun and relaxation, if only for a few hours a month. Toward regaining a sense of self and of intimacy with each other. It’s realizing…yeah, life is crazy and things can get away from you…time can get away from you. And while our child grows through his stages, the marriage can grow quite distant. We don’t play games with that nor do we pretend that everything is hunky dory. We acknowledge that we get 1 evening a month to pursue one another, to rest and unwind and have a little fun. Try something different and make new memories, together. It’s both a brief respite and a firm reminder that life is good and God is good and the things that seem impossible (like time alone or intimacy together) are both satisfied in the Lord and will be experienced in His timing. For instance, a few hours a month to reconnect may not seem like alot to other people but, for this season of our lives, it’s huge (yuge). In 2-3 years from now, maybe we’ll get to do a weekly or bi-weekly date night. Or not be so attached to a schedule for our son. But even if nothing changes, God will still be glorified. Because two will always be better than one in walking through the ups and downs of life, together. And because our son will never exhaust our love for him and will always need us in some capacity. And, from a faith-perspective, the world around us will always need the gospel of Jesus. Parents and spouses and, individuals, always need the gospel of Jesus, too.

Our goal is making sure that whatever we do, whether parenting or working or relaxing or attending church or hanging with family, that we are doing it with a deep thankfulness to God and a deep awareness of just how blessed we are. Because that type of worship will sustain us through every season of life. And sometimes those blessings happen at the speed of one night per month.

And to that end I say: Lord, thank you for date nights.

A Wednesday Word: Colossians 4:3-6

³ At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— ⁴ that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

⁵ Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. ⁶ Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Today’s Wednesday word comes from chapter 4 of Colossians; a relatively short letter within the New Testament.

Verse 3 states to ‘pray for us’. A simple observation and challenge here would be to ask: how often do we pray for others in general? And for fellow believers and ministers in particular? I think the latter is in view here; Paul himself being a minister of the gospel and his focus here, as verse 3 goes on to make clear, is to pray for those who ‘declare the mystery of Christ’.

Side note here: what is ‘prayer’? At our local church, the suggested method of prayer involves 4…ingredients…if you will. And it’s not specific to this church as I’ve seen the “A.C.T.S” method elsewhere. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. It’s a great way for a believer to fully immerse themselves in prayer. Adoration, we focus upon who we are praying to: the God of the Bible (revealed in both Old & New Testaments). Thanks to the Bible, believers do not pray to an ‘unknown god’ for the Lord has made himself known and knowable, loving and lovable, approaching and approachable, true and trustworthy, merciful and forgiving, just and justifying. That in and of itself is enough to worship Him for eternity. Where are we seeing the Lord in our day to day lives? In a sunrise or sunset, in the changing of the seasons (slow as it may be since the 90-degree weather is quite stubborn around these parts). In a situation that once seemed hopeless but has now been redeemed. A great emphases of adoration should always be the cross for the Christian. I like what the song says, “two wonders here I confess: my worth and my unworthiness”. Deep and profound yet altogether true when we gaze upon the cross of Jesus. Confession is an important part of prayer also, and if we are praying daily, this is a reminder that we need to confess sin daily. One consistent confession of mine is actually dealt with in verse 5 above, that I fail to make the ‘best use of the time’. Part of being wise in general is to realize that we’re not upon this planet forever. Sure, we get reminders in the peripheral of our lives when a family member passes or a random person on Facebook passes that maybe we heard of or knew somewhat but not too intimately. However, if I’m being honest, I don’t live like that; I don’t live like my days are numbered, as the Scriptures also teach. And when I don’t grasp that concept, I fail to live life in a way that glorifies the Lord and actually end up living life as if I am the lord of my life. I merely assume that, today is another day and tomorrow will be the same. And, oh yeah, next month I’ll get to do this or that. But scriptures teach not to think or live like this. Instead, we should say ‘if the Lord wills” I will do this or that. This perspective acknowledges that the Lord is the one who numbers my days and the one who formed me and the one that I’m returning to one day. And this changes how I walk. But to get back to confession, if I’m being truthful – I don’t consider the Lord when I first wake up. Or throughout my day. Or during the night. And I confess that and try again, by His grace.

Thanksgiving is not merely a holiday in November – it should be a normal part of prayer. Reverse the term and it is what it says it is: giving thanks. Lord, thank you for your blessings: a wife, a family, a home, cars to drive, jobs to work at, for health, food in our fridge, clothes on our backs. Access to internet, access to clean water, access to healthcare. Access to coffee shops and restaurants and parks and roads. For a church to attend and believers to share life with. And this is just a start. Really- adoration and thanksgiving can be intertwined together. Adoring who God is and thankful for what God has done can be best seen in Christ himself. The God who put on flesh and then died for our sins and was raised for our life. And finally, supplication. Supplication is ‘asking for something earnestly or humbly’. Important here that this comes last in the A.C.T.S. method for prayer. Many believers, myself especially, usually begin with ‘Lord, please give me…’ or Lord be with me’ regarding a specific situation. Yet, the Scriptures teach that ‘God inhabits praise’ and Scripture also teaches that God will answer us ‘according to His will’. There’s only one way to know why we praise God and only one way to know God’s will: God’s Word. God wants us to know Him as a person Jesus and as the Spirit taking residence inside of us. He wants us to walk by faith. But back to verse 3, how can we share Christ with others if we know nothing of Him ourselves? How can we share Christ ‘clearly’? Making the ‘mystery’ of Christ clearly known? Unless we, simply put, know Jesus? So prayer is driven and informed by the Word of God. Again, we are not praying to a distant, unknown ‘god in the sky’. We are not praying to a magical slot machine that we hope will respond to us favorably today. We are praying the King of Kings and Lord of Lords whose Word is absolute truth. A Holy Spirit that makes His home inside of us, to be intimately close and near to us and to help us walk out the truth of God wisely.

Okay, so that was a long side-note, but prayer is important. Praying for ministers is important. Prayer for sheep, for faithful pastors and ministers to flourish – and for the fangs of serpents and wolves and false teachers and imposters to break and be brought to nothing. And when we are praying in God’s will – we will pray for ‘open doors’ (verse 3). This places the focus upon the Lord to lead us and not follow our own desires because, again, the Lord made us and our days are numbered. We are not here for our own desires. Goals and dreams and desires are certainly not bad things, but in the gospel we are talking about eternal impact whereas our desires, dreams, and goals change and fade with the passing of time and ultimately in the passing away of ourselves.

Also another thing to note here: Paul is in prison. He makes it plain as day: ‘to declare the mystery of Christ…on account of which I am in prison’. There is importance here. Speaking the truth, in love, will not always result in an ending that feels lovable. That’s why we have to be bold. Not that Christians seek to start a fight or argument. I’m not looking for an argument. But the truth of the gospel will square off with other, deeply-engrained belief systems. And it will offend, nearly always. To state the simple truth – you and I are not gods, we are in fact NOT in control of our own destiny. That we were made in the image of God to know God, to love Him and others, and turn away from sin to pursue a righteous life that is pleasing to our Maker – is a wonderful message to a soft heart looking for truth. But it’s also a message that tastes like spoiled milk on a 100-degree day to a heart that is hardened. It is water to a thirsty soul – it is spoiled milk to a hardened heart. And the wisdom we should possess will know how to respond to both.

Which is what verse 5 states: ‘walk in wisdom toward outsiders’. Those outside the faith. Those living with no regard for eternity. Those ensnared in the temporal pleasures of this life – in their relationships or in their schooling or work or art or entertainment or exercise or diet – or whatever else sinful flesh can find to idolize and worship. Walk in wisdom towards those who don’t know the love of God in Jesus, those who don’t have the Spirit of God living within them, those who are in essence beautiful zombies – walking through life, probably appearing quite well on the outside but dead inwardly and heading toward judgement. The link here is between unbelievers and time. Scripture tells us to use our time wisely with unbelievers. This means we make space and time and expend energy and effort, and finances even, to reach them with the gospel. This does not mean we do what unbelievers do in the hopes that we’ll have a gospel moment with them or that they will arbitrarily see Jesus in us without us ever clearly presenting the gospel to them. Romans 10:14 states “How can they believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless someone proclaims him? And who will go to tell them unless he is sent?” Have we been saved by Jesus? Yes. Then we have been sent by Jesus. Some to the far corners of the globe. Others to the far corners of their streets and backyards. And note – we are not proclaiming a better life on this earth. We do not proclaim ‘your best life now’. Again- Paul is writing to the Colossians while in prison. His way of life, surrendered to Christ, stands at odds with the popular message now of ‘come to Jesus and all your wildest dreams will come true.’ No one dreams of prison, of beatings, of being mocked and shamed, and ultimately of being killed. Yet, this was the fate of many early followers of Jesus. And, of course, of Jesus himself.

Lastly, verse 6 tells us to let our speech always be gracious. Always means always – no exceptions. Wow. What a timely word for our present social media culture where everyone hides behind their keyboard and tear others down in 160 characters or less. This also answers our biggest fear in evangelism. “I don’t know if I’ll know what to say.” “I don’t feel that smart beyond stating ‘Jesus loves you'”. But that’s okay. If the foundation of our speech is filled with grace it will be like salt. It will be like wind to the hearer. Sometimes wind can be such a relief like a cool breeze that sweeps through on the hottest of days. And sometimes a breeze can be so violent that it tears apart everything in its path. The gospel does both! It both refreshes and it disrupts. And having grace in mind changes how we see the one we are talking to and it also affects how we judge a conversation as ‘successful’. Even if, for example, one seems to not have the time of day to hear this gospel of Jesus, God can still take that seed and work and till it and grow it for His ultimate glory. The command is not to share Christ to be successful or to check off our ‘duty for the day’ or to put our conversions up on a poster board in our home. The command is to make Christ known, clearly, to sinners headed for judgement. And God will do the rest. But how we share Christ matters just as much as what we say in sharing Christ. It cannot be separated: we are called to 1.) share the truth and we are to share this truth 2.) in love.

Lord, open doors which I know that you will, for Christ to be made known. Work love into my heart for those who presently seem to want nothing of your love, nothing of your son. Give me a clear mind that articulates the gospel of Jesus simply and powerfully and also give me an open and bold heart to care for the one to whom I am speaking. And finally, give wisdom to always know how to respond in every interaction. May you be glorified in every interaction. Amen.

Sunday Song of Praise: “Yes I Will”

“I count on one thing, The same God that never fails, Will not fail me now.” What a great opening line to this song. I fail every day. Fail in marriage, fail in parenting, fail in stewarding work and money well. Fail in missed opportunities. Fail to open my Bible, fail to pray, fail to worship. And yet, here we are reminded: God never fails. No human, made in the image of God, is a failure. And God went to great lengths to rescue and redeem a fallen, failed creation. That we would no longer identify as failed individuals but identify as rescued and redeemed followers of Jesus.

“In the waiting, The same God who’s never late, Is working all things out You’re working all things out.” I love straight, clear, obvious ties to Scripture in a song of praise. This line rings of Romans 8:28. God is working all things to the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes for them. Everything. Every experience in our short span of life upon this earth is a part of a much bigger, unfolding, glorious plan of redemption. In my flesh, it’s easy to push back against this and at times push back against it very hard. Sometimes those failures mount up, personal sins that linger and come back around to bite and sting again and again and again. Add to this the normal stuff of life in a fallen world – unexpected health issues, financial issues, loss of loved ones, things breaking down that result in first-world inconveniences. Add to that other people taking advantage of us and letting us down again and again and again. One can start to wonder – what’s the point of all this? And here we find the anchor amidst the choppy, dark waters of life: God, through the person of Jesus and the work of the Spirit, is working ALL things out to His glory and our ultimate good. What a shift in thinking! In belief and in perspective. Life is good because a good God gave it to us, and although we blew it and blow it continuously- ‘where sin abounds-grace abounds all the more.’ The thief on the cross next to Jesus comes to mind. He hung there, condemned, and rightfully so. We don’t know the details of his life – but it’s pretty clear he had dug himself into a fairly hopeless situation. The scripture that tells us that sin ultimately leads to death was about to be fulfilled in his situation. His sin, his crime(s) put him on that tree and death was imminent. Yet, as long as there is breath in our lungs and a beat in our heart – God can save anyone, as Jesus demonstrated that day: “today, you will be with me in paradise.” Thank you Lord.

“Yes I will, lift You high in the lowest valley, Yes I will, bless Your name Oh, yes I will, sing for joy when my heart is heavy.” No one likes the valley. Our vision is limited to what’s surrounding us on both sides. Instead of looking down from the top of the Grand Canyon, taking in the beauty and glory of it all, we find ourselves hemmed in on all sides by dark walls – sometimes by our own doing and sometimes by the doing of others. And in that valley place, it’s dark and lonely and depressingly terrifying. We can only see what’s in front of us and we don’t like what we see. Instead of looking down at the canyon in awe, we are looking up at the canyon in dread. The valley, spiritually speaking, involves a heaviness of heart. A doubting faith. And the lyric above tells us what to do – sing for joy. How is this possible?! It is possible because our joy is not in the beauty of the canyon or dread of the valley – our joy is in the God who made both. The God who is over and above – and with us – through it all. There is a coupling of dread and joy at the cross. Jesus, in preparing for the cross, sweat great drops of blood. Extreme stress. Whatever stress we experience, multiply it by infinity, and we will start to understand the stress Christ had in going to the cross. Yet, in Scripture, we also read that ‘for the joy set before him – Christ endured the cross’. There was great joy and worship coming out of that borrowed tomb – but the cross had to happen first. And so it is with followers of Jesus. The life of a Christian upon this side of eternity is marked by sorrow, grief, depression, trials of various kinds and an Enemy trying to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’ our lives every single day. Yet there is great joy ahead. We remind ourselves of this joy when we worship. It is a fixed joy, unchanging, eternal, kept in heaven for us who eagerly await Jesus’ return. The cure for a heavy heart is one of two things: sin or worship. Scripture says ‘if Christ has not been raised – let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’. In other words, if the gospel of Jesus isn’t true – who cares what we do. But, if the gospel IS true, if Christ’s blood forgives sin and if He came out of that tomb – oh what joy awaits! And what worship lights the way throughout our lives to that city where God himself is THE Light.

“And I choose to praise, To glorify, glorify, The Name of all names, That nothing can stand against.” Here’s the call to action. I choose to praise. There are many options, many things and people and companies that put out products that beckon us to choose to praise them. This is the whole basis of marketing – here’s why our product/team is better than the competition. Give us your money! And in a consumeristic sense, we all make choices with our money. We choose this restaurant over that one, this phone over that one, this sports team or influenster or tv show over that one. Worshipping God is a response and because we are not robots – that response must always be a choice. And in the gospel, we see an offer that no one can touch: forgiveness of our real, raw, persistent sins and making us new creations whose bodies and souls will live on forever with God to glorify Him forever. The thing about products in a capitalist society is that they ebb and flow. Only a dozen or so companies have been around longer than 100+ years. In an evolutionary sense, better ideas always win out and marketplaces are always in flux because human’s tastes change with the wind. Yet, God, in Christ and in the Spirit, never change. The gospel never changes. And again, this is the root and anchor of our worship as Christians. The waves of life are never just absolutely still, nor do the waves constantly resemble the waves of a hurricane. Life is somewhere in the middle, continually – working up into a storm or calming down after a storm. Yet the storms of life, the trials we face, are not our identity. My identity is not in a past marked by porn addiction. My identity is not in a diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis at 21 or Pulmonary Embolisms at 27. My identity is not in my marriage. Not in my son. Not in my parents or grandparents. Not in my college education. Not in my neighborhood. Not in my bank account. Not in my job. Not in my church affiliation. Not in my theological beliefs (as shocking as that may seem). No. My identity can be summed up in this simple phrase the apostle Paul stated: “Christ – and him crucified.” Apart from Jesus – I am that thief on the cross, but without hope in this life or the life to come. And so are you. But in Christ, and what a 2-word phrase that is, in Christ – I always have a reason to praise because the best is yet to come. And the best to come is NOT by my doing – but what a loving, merciful, just God did on my behalf through His only Son Jesus Christ. So today, I will choose to praise God because he is certainly worthy of all glory, honor, and praise- no matter what storm I am going into or coming out of. I pray you’d be encouraged to do the same.

Disc Golf at Iroquois

This morning, a very cool thing happened. My son, 2 weeks into being a 2-year-old, got to walk the first 5 holes at Iroquois Disc Golf Course with my wife and I. Up until today, we had only tossed discs around in our front yard on my portable Innova Discatcher basket that my wife got for my 30th birthday three years ago.

But today we had an idea and ideas are such fun things. Ideas can lead you to trying new things and making new memories. Jackson did very well as he has been preferring to walk more recently – even over using his tricycle or sitting in his stroller. Of course, this leads to issues when various things like rocks or leaves or mulch or dirt fall within his eyesight he becomes and remains pleasantly distracted.

I have to say, though, he did very well. Walking 5 holes only takes about 20 minutes total and he stayed focused and most importantly seemed to enjoy himself. Even enjoyed holding onto a couple of my brighter-colored discs.

We ended the morning by walking around Iroquois for another 20-25 minutes and that is becoming our go-to spot. It’s a great spot to see several different people in our community including lots and lots of dogs. And, for my sake, Iroquois disc golf course is one of only two disc golf courses in Louisville – the other being Vettiner disc golf course out off Billtown road (About 23-24 minutes away from Iroquois). So it’s great to have a disc golf spot so close to home.

My hope is to always share disc golf with my son. I enjoyed the times when I played golf with my dad in my teenage high-school years and a bit into early adulthood. But it faded out. Golf beckons to a certain class of people (most greens fees for 18 holes of golf on average will cost around $30), disc golf really is open to all (most courses are in public parks where it’s free to play). So, to put it simply, it’s not that I necessarily stopped enjoying golf…my wallet just ain’t built like that at this point in my life. However, both ‘ball’ golf and disc golf put you out in nature (disc golf much more natural and less manicured, in my opinion).

And I can foresee lots of good conversations with Jackson about his day, what he’s learning in school, what he’s struggling with, talking sports and theology and everything in between as we both finish our days of work and school, have some dinner, and then head to the park for a couple hours of disc golf. But for now, for today, I am happy with 5 holes and alot of smiles from my 2-year-old son.

“9/11: One Day in America” Review

September 11, 2001. 9:30am-ish. I was in Mrs. Marcy Frankrone’s gym class, most likely shooting a basketball, at Iroquois Middle School. I can’t remember exactly how the events unfolded that morning. I remember it was a Tuesday. Late Louisville summer, which means still hot, reaching into the 70’s by that time of morning, even.

However, I do remember when everything seemed to stop and change and become blurry to the minds of a bunch of 8th-graders who were two or three weeks into a new school year. Mrs. Frankrone rolled the old-school ‘television cart’ out, plugged it in, searched through the static and found a local news station and told us all to have a seat indian-style on the hard gym floor and to be quiet and watch. I don’t remember anyone making a sound. I seem to vaguely remember Mrs. Frankrone having tears in her eyes and taking a moment to share a few somber words to try and explain what was happening. Shortly thereafter, we were dismissed home.

I will never forget that day. September 11th 2001 was a couple days shy of 3 months into being a 13-year-old. What an introduction to my start of my teenage years. The first moment I realized, truly, that evil existed in the world. And it really hit home. Yes, the 5pm local news and 6:30pm world news was a staple in my household growing up, particularly with older parents who were always concerned with news-worthy events. But I never really paid much attention to the latest car wreck or homicide in the city. This event was much, much different. The whole nation paused that morning and also in the days, weeks, and years to come.

President Bush’s speech from ground zero. His first pitch at the Yankee’s game with the crowd going absolutely nuts was enough to make the hairs on one’s arms, legs, and neck all stand at attention.

This week, I came across a 6-part series on Hulu titled “9/11: One Day in America” which was a collection of different perspectives and stories from that day. Stories of utter destruction and hopelessness, of the sound of bodies hitting the pavement, one after the other. Of a helicopter that went up to survey the situation with the initial intention of getting close enough to rescue a bunch of people trapped above and below where the planes had hit, only to realize there was nothing they could do and turning and flying away. A story from one man who was a worker in one of the restaurants in a neighboring building who walked outside and said he saw body parts everywhere from where they had smashed into the pavement on impact.

And there were also a handful of hopeful stories. Of men who and women who were rescued and went on to see their children get married or of a younger man who went on to see the birth of his children. The story of a group of men who teamed together to attack the hi-jackers on the plane headed toward the Capitol most likely, diverting the direction of the plane and landing in the middle-of-nowhere in Shanksville, PA. and undoubtedly saving thousands more lives in that act alone. The phone calls and voicemails left stating they loved their spouses or parents and one man in particular telling his wife to always save that voicemail for their children in the future. Just straight tears, man.

If anything can be taken away from that day 20 years ago, it’s that the USA came together (if only for a brief moment) with a nationalistic zeal and compassion for the near 3,000 total lives lost that day. But beyond the nationalistic sentiments, there was and is a spiritual reality. Evil really does exist in the hearts of all people, some evil on a large scale and most on a smaller scale. This world is temporal at best and tragedy is commonplace this side of eternity. Tears and sorrow are all-too-familiar until Jesus returns.

For the 20th anniversary, I want to remember those 3,000 folks and their families. Little ones, now in their early 20’s, who grew up without a mom or a dad, and older adults as well. And to ultimately remember that this world, this nation, is not our final home. We seek the city that is to come, whose builder and maker is God himself. Where evil, sin, sorrow, pain, tears, and death will be no more. Where justice will roll like a river and God himself will be the light of that city marked by peace and joy and love and justice and righteousness, forever. Amen.

Walks

JRD Neighborhood Walk 9-9-2021

Neighborhood walks have become a mainstay for our family over the past year and a half. Ever since COVID-19 began and all the changes that came with it, this habit has been a really great addition to our lives. Getting outside, even for 30 minutes a day, is so good and necessary and vital for the soul of a human.

When we walk around our neighborhood, it gives us the opportunity to discover things both familiar and new. We see familiar faces – a neighbor on the corner with her tiny yorky, a man who occasionally hands Jackson a popsicle, a guy I use to know from my Clean Care days, a family we use to attend church and small group with.

We see the school bus parked at a near-by high school, a firehouse w/ the door usually open to see the local firetruck. We see sketchy homes and beautiful homes, sometimes right next to one another. We feel the sun’s rays on our face. On the next street over, large trees line the sidewalk and provide about 75% shade for the length of that street. We see cars and trucks and hear Tarc busses and motorcycles whizzing and zipping by by the main road.

The air is beginning to cool down; highs in the low-80’s and lows in the high 50’s. Fall’s beginning is just under 2 weeks away. This is my favorite time of year. Time to head to Home Depot and grab some firewood and get my fire-starter logs out for the fire pit. Time to put the ingredients for chili on the grocery list. Time to bring out the turkey dressed in a football uniform and helmet, along with all the other decorations. Time to light those Fall candles and indulge in a Fall-themed coffee libation. Time to head to the pumpkin patch and let the air conditioning stay off all day long. I am certainly not complaining.

We also made our first brave trip across New Cut road to walk in Iroquois Park a few days ago to end our Labor Day weekend together. I can foresee many, many more walks in the park (and around our neighborhood) as the weather continues to cool and the leaves began to change.

A Better Desire

In this blog, I want to work through some of my thoughts regarding a better desire as it relates to the world of social media.

Back in 2017, 4 years ago now, I had a desire to get off and get away from Facebook. I deleted my account completely instead of merely ‘deactivating’ it. I can’t quite recall what was happening then that led to that choice. President Trump had been in office for 6 months or so at that point. So, perhaps, as is really no different now with President Biden, my desire to delete Facebook was motivated by politics. Motivated in the sense that I was tired of seeing people’s ‘thoughts’ about politics. Can I just say that? I am tired, 4 years later, of people’s thoughts. Social media is what it says it is: every individual having the right to share their thoughts/opinions on every current cultural event taking place…and it’s tiring.

I miss the days of not knowing what people were up to in their lives and, you know, having to actually call them or, better yet, seeing them face-to-face.

As I mentioned above, I am back in that familiar place as I was 4 years ago. I want to lay out why that is and the dangers of Facebook (and all social media by extension).

1. Facebook is NOT reality. This needs to be said plainly and clearly. Facebook is an edited and filtered reality; edits and filters of our own choosing – chosen to make our lives appear better and cleaner than they really are. Think about it (and I am just as guilty as anyone of this): no one seems to post ‘real’ moments in their lives. It’s all good stuff – or at least 90% good stuff. No one posts that they have been really mean to their spouse today or slacked off at work. No. Instead, we post that filtered, perfect anniversary photo of our spouse and write some sweet somethings about them. Or we post our promotion at work or how we crushed it in a particular scenario. Facebook is not in accord with our reality – it is all edited and filtered by our own choosing.
   
   
2. Facebook recreates an ‘ideal’ of relationship. Certainly, if we can create our own virtual reality to make our lives appear more interesting then they really are – relationships are bound to fall into this category as well. The bible calls us to ‘rejoice with those who rejoice – weep with those who weep’. This rejoicing and this weeping have been pitifully reduced to the all-too-common ‘like’ or now ‘love’ or ‘caring’ options that Facebook has introduced. Or the all-too-common praying hands emoji or comment ‘praying for you’. And I’m certainly not condemning this sentiment – just pointing out that we are merely reducing relationship to a ‘like/love/caring’ emoji or a typed comment…instead of actually weeping and rejoicing with actual people in actual relationship.
   
   No, you don’t have 995 ‘friends’. You have 995 people spying in on your life…and you spying on theirs. Facebook is nothing more than voyeurism. A secret spying into the lives of others virtually. “What’s wrong with that?” you ask. “There’s no harm in liking a picture”. I agree. My point is simply that you and that we acknowledge that THAT is NOT relationship. I can like a heartfelt post about someone’s family member that just passed away and then a couple posts down the Facebook feed, like a different post about a good-looking burrito. Trust me…I have done this many, many times. And it merely shows the fact that ‘liking’ or ‘loving’ someone’s virtual post does not equate to relationship with that individual.
   
   And this is not only re-shaping the ideal of relationship for distant friends who ‘like/love’ our posts; it’s also re-shaping ideals of relationships within families. This one might cut a little deep but it needs to be stated also: families have become lazy. Facebook makes excuses more commonplace; ‘well, I’m sorry I couldn’t be at your son’s birthday, but thankfully, I’ve got Facebook and I can see your little one growing year by year’. Facebook becomes the perpetual ‘plan B’ for pulling out of events. Why waste all that energy when I can open the Facebook app and get the full summary in about 30 seconds. That’s what social media does. It takes the chapters of ones life and condenses it down into parceled sentences. We often don’t want to take in the whole of the story – we’re content with the cliff notes version.
   
   I can also remember long ago a thing called ‘family reunions’. I can remember Thanksgiving and Christmas where the whole family was gathered together, usually packed like sardines into small 1,000 square foot homes, happy as clams just to spend another year together. NOW, the family reunion is about as outdated as Myspace itself – a distant, forgotten memory. Now, families split and do their own thing. And usually, sadly, it’s because someone posted something on Facebook that ruffled the others feathers. One cousin came out as gay, an aunt shared a post from Joe Biden, dad posted something regarding former President Trump, a sister shared a sarcastic post about the covid-19 vaccine, a brother shared a ‘black lives matter’ post. And now…we’ve gone from passive voyeurism to active disdain for people that 10+ years ago, we would’ve loved regardless because we didn’t spend 5 hours a day looking for something to sit on our high horse and get ticked off about.
   
   
3. Facebook is an idolatry machine and a time-waster. I’ll take the last one first here and perhaps the more obvious of the two. How much time is wasted scrolling Facebook? Or Instagram/Twitter/Tik Tok by extension. And even more deeply – what are we hoping to find? What are we really looking for? An escape from the difficulties of a day or a season of life? How many couples, married or not, go on a date night and each have a phone in their hand scrolling social media? What does THAT say about the reformation of relationships in our digital, social media age? When instead of engaging our significant other, we really (if we admit it) find more joy in spying in on the lives of others? Find more enjoyment, entertainment, and even connection (though not really) by spying on the lives of others instead of walking out our own life and being present with those around us?
   
   Social media is an idolatry machine. The reworking of our lives by selecting only the best, cleanest moments to share with our ‘friends’ is really an exercise in idolatry. We are ‘god’ (small g) in that WE get to choose how we present our lives to those around us. And nine times out of ten, we are ONLY posting the good stuff. This exercise in crafting our experiences into a neat and tidy display for others is nothing more than the sin of pride (the humble virtual brag) and seeking the approval of others via a ‘like’ or a ‘love’ (fear of man). How often has pride been exposed when we post something and there’s that one individual we know SHOULD like or absolutely love our post, and then they don’t, and that feeling creeps up inside of us – a feeling of disdain for that person or group of people. Also, there’s the sin of envy which is a byproduct of social media. We use to be content to keeping our family experiences within…our family. We didn’t have this overwhelming need of approval from others, of likes and loves, simply because at one time we didn’t need that approval. The experience of something is not doubled when another likes my post. The experience stands along by itself – it is what it is, whether positive or negative. My son’s birthday party today was a GREAT experience! Sharing pictures of that experience adds nothing to the experience itself; it only puffs up my pride and idolatry. Can we see this? God give us eyes to see.

4. A better desire. This is where I really want to hone my thoughts in. It’s hard to write against something that I have been engaging with myself for the past year+. And I’m 33. I’m not old, but certainly more ‘old school’ than the Gen Z peeps. I can remember when Facebook, or let me back up even more, when Myspace came out. I was probably a sophomore in high school at the time. And then in 2004 Facebook came out. It was certainly a new experience and I can’t think back 15 years to when I graduated in 2006 but I feel like by my senior year, Facebook was definitely a thing. I do remember Myspace and crafting my ‘top 8’ friends which seemed to rotate on a bi-weekly basis. Talk about drama! And Facebook certainly had its own share of drama as well.

My hope today is to find a better desire. In our consumeristic culture, we normally prefer to have an ‘upgrade’. From our cars to our homes and to our smart phones, we typically look for the best products. That’s America in a nutshell – looking for the better thing while neglecting the good things in front of us. And I guess that Facebook was supposedly the ‘upgrade’ for Myspace, which Myspace lasted about 6 years and went belly-up in 2010. And since then, over the last decade+, I would argue that it’s time for an upgrade and one that looks notably different than how we’ve become accustomed to doing ‘friendship’ for the last 10 years. No, I’m not arguing here that we need a Facebook 2.0 or another brand spanking new social media platform. I’m arguing that we need to get away from virtual, voyeuristic, fake friendship altogether. If we want to talk to one another, discuss specific cultural topics and hot-button issues, why not grab a cup of coffee or like the old-heads used to do, meet up at the local McDonalds or Dairy Queen and hash out our thoughts, feelings, and differences face-to-face?

It’s a tough thought though, isn’t it? It’s tough to swim against the tide of cultural popularity. “If I delete social media – will I have any friends left?” But the answer is already present within that question itself. If you were depending on social media as a form of friendship, you didn’t have any friends to begin with, anyhow. Let me put it another way. It’s tough to shell out $15 for a cheeseburger meal at a local restaurant instead of $6 for a couple mcdoubles and a fry…and a drink…at McDonalds. But there IS a better option when it comes to social media and relationships. And, to flesh out the example just given, it literally will cost us more and may not always seem as appealing. It will cost us our time, our effort, our energy, to pursue actual relationships with real people. And yet, that app named Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Tik Tok is just a 30-second download away from the ease and convenience of spying on those in our lives that (if we’re honest) we don’t have real time or effort or energy for. And that’s just a fact. A sad fact – but a fact, nonetheless.

I CAN tell you the last time I logged on to Facebook (with the app, it now never logs out actually). However, I CANNOT tell you the last time I spoke with someone on the phone. The last time I got together with my ‘best friend’ of 16 years…was 7 months ago. And even that was a rushed hang-out experience. And that is a very real problem. We were sold long ago that Facebook will ‘help me stay in touch with people I can’t see that often’ but that’s simply a lie. It’s a way to spy on people that we refuse to invest in and in turn, we are left either looking down on others in pride when they post about tough experiences they are dealing with or looking enviously at others who have nicer things/experiences than we do. Straight up facts.

Every device, every experience of the modern age tends to lead to an ‘upgrade’ – a better device, a better experience that we are all in search of. I just don’t think Facebook has any more upgrades to give. Quite the opposite, actually. I believe it has reached its peak and it (along with all its other ugly family members of Twitter, IG, and Tik Tok) must go, too.

JRD

JRD B-Day Haircut 8-24-21

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” Psalms 103:13

I cannot believe we are here. Two days away from your 2nd birthday…how is that truly even possible? Almost exactly 2 days away, as I begin to write this at 10:56PM and you made your official entrance into this world at 10:47PM on August 26, 2019.

There have been many moments in my life where I knew I was unprepared (usually involving some assignment in school). I would infamously procrastinate nearly every assignment and still managed a 3.5 GPA somehow. In taking the ACT, I winged it. My drivers test, I winged it. Heck, even at prom, didn’t have a date but somehow it worked out. Both degrees I earned were a shot in the dark in a couple ways: one, earning the degree itself and, two, figuring out what I was going to do with said degree(s) in the ‘real world’ after graduating.

I write all that to say, parenting is the ultimate exercise in ‘winging it’. No matter if one’s parental history looks like ‘Leave it to Beaver’ or more resembled ‘Married with Children’, nothing can prepare you for being a parent yourself. So many things can go wrong, so many things can go right, and, regardless of the experience – the culmination of every experience universally flies by way too quickly. Yes, I know, every parent says that. But it’s true.

It’s certainly true today. Another truth is that I want to give God praise for Jackson Reed Davidson. It must begin there, for God gave JRD to my wife and I. We had been ‘trying’ to get pregnant (sort of, in the conventional sense) but not taking it too seriously. Our approach was more of a “okay, let’s keep doing what married couples do and, eventually, a baby will show up.” Or so we thought. But, months passed, maybe even close to a year or longer, and no pregnancy had occurred.

I can remember conversations, serious conversations, about the cost of adoption or going to IVF route and the cost of that also. But we set our minds to trying a few more times, trying to nail down the ‘window’ where conception was most likely to happen. And praise God – it happened.

A blood test at the doctor’s office confirmed the pregnancy a couple weeks before Christmas 2018. Most ‘cool’ couples would’ve done the appropriate ‘Facebook friendly’ birth announcement with giving our families gifts with a couple of the positive pregnancy tests, but that’s kinda weird (haha) and it’s really hard to get all the family together (on both sides) at one time, especially around the craziness of the holiday season.

So we chose the quicker route – calling Tee’s mom as soon as we got to the parking lot at the doctor’s office. Then I called mom and dad to let them know. As soon as I got home, I drove over to mom and dads and of course mom was working at Kohl’s that day. So I told dad to which his response was ‘good job!’ and once I got to Kohls, I literally walked around the store for 15-20 minutes trying to find mom (haha). So, no, it wasn’t the big ‘Facebook friendly’ announcement, but I (we) just couldn’t wait. That excitement is hard to duplicate.

And what a couple of years it’s been. 7 months after JRD’s birth, the COVID-19 pandemic began, of which we are still not out of the woods yet. I began working from home in March 2020 and nearly a year and a half later – I’m still working from home. It was strange at first but has really become quite normal and almost preferable. My prayer when JRD was born was that I would really invest in his life in the ‘early years’ (birth-3 years), which I think are really easy to skip over or dismiss as ‘not as important’ as when he learns to talk, be potty trained, start school, etc. I didn’t just want to wait until he and I could do more things together (oh, trust me, we will play disc golf together and basketball also) but I wanted to be there for each milestone moment from day one.

And, to that end, what a blessing his first 2 years have been. We have seen his cute belly laughs and infectious smile. We have seen him pull himself up, take his first steps, and take off running. We’ve seen him fall off of our driveway into our muddy ditch in the front yard, smack his head on a door at church. We sat in the ER with him in January 2020 as he had the flu (now, knowing what we know about COVID-19 – thankful that experience wasn’t worse). We’ve seen him go from muttering ‘da da’ and a few other words to clearly pronouncing over 150 words and starting to string together sentences. Over the last year+, we’ve found ourselves in four different churches intermittently and he’s handled it all like a champ, most recently at Highview Baptist he has been going to his own class for the past 2 months and has made some new friends and adjusted from crying the first 2-3 times to now walking in to the room by himself each Sunday morning. The kid can also throw a 30+ foot roller cleanly, every time. In fact, he has a fairly bad habit of throwing things in general and testing our limits (haha).

But, personally, he is my buddy. The pandemic for the past 1.5 years has brought a lot of change and stress and division upon the Church at a macro level and within marriages/families at a micro level. But everyday, I get to see my buddy and see that prayer of seeing each milestone being answered. We have been very close, and yes, sometimes that closeness leads to frustration and exposes the selfishness of my own flesh by wanting more ‘me time’ to go play some disc golf. But then, during a frustrating moment at work or dealing with some of those wayward thoughts – feeling the weight of ‘social distancing’, wondering what my ‘friends’ are up to that I haven’t seen or heard from in months- I hear that familiar ‘ahh ahh ahh’ on his monitor when he wakes up and begins his chant while chewing on his stuffed animal named ‘Dino’ and doing backflips in his crib. I go in and turn on his light and the first thing he says is ‘truckkk’ signaling me to go grab his green Tonka dump truck, a smile comes over his face as he raises his arms for me to pick him up and suddenly those wayward thoughts and selfish feelings melt into 32 pounds of pure joy. I wouldn’t trade the last year and a half and, by extension, the last 2 years for anything in this world.

I long to show compassion to Jackson, to take an active interest in his life. To care for him, his thoughts and feelings and experiences. To teach him how to handle difficult things and difficult people in life – to teach him how to be a man of integrity who longs to serve and help others. To slip him an extra popsicle when Mom isn’t looking, to follow his lead when he takes my hand and wants me to sit in the floor to play with his blocks or tiles or cars. I want to kiss every ‘boo boo’ (and there are a lot of boo boos) or struggle to find a Disney+ movie on my phone while he sits in my lap at the barber – screaming for 30 minutes while he gets his hair chopped off. Because time moves on – it comes on slow and oh so fast, all at the same time.

I hope to show Jesus to my son. I am truly ‘winging it’ and I fail often. And yet, the Lord is with me and with us. He is with Jackson, as he was fearfully and wonderfully made. I hope he fears us in the sense of ‘respect’ us as his parents and knows that he can always come to us with every high and low, every success and every failure – knowing that we care for him, just like our Heavenly Father cares for us. I’ll make you a promise, son: wherever you go and whatever you do – dad (and mom) will always be there with you and for you.

Thank you Lord for 2 years with Jackson Reed Davidson.

1.6.2021

It’s not often that a Wednesday afternoon turns into an hours-long news spectacle. Such was the case today. I knew this day was coming – I just didn’t expect it to unfold as it did, with a large group of protestors storming the Capital in an effort to overturn the 2020 Election results or at least express disagreement and frustration and apparently disbelief with the results.

Just to re-cap, Biden received approximately 81,283,485 votes to Trump’s 74,223,744 votes. You don’t have to be a mathematician to see that Biden won by a little over 7 million votes. Now, in my opinion, if the vote tally came down to less than 5,000 or 50,000 or even 100,000 votes, the case would be much stronger that maybe the end result should be challenged. But…7 million votes? This seems to be a case of Trump simply refusing to accept defeat, which fits his personality well, from the guy who apparently ‘wins bigly’.

As Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse quoted tonight, “lies have consequences”. Trump has pedaled the narrative of a ‘rigged election’ for the last 2 months – literally, from 11/6/20 to 1/6/21. As the Senate reconvened, when discussing the electoral votes for Arizona, only 6 senators out of 100, did not accept the results of granting AZ’s 11 Electoral votes to Biden. That means that the other 94 did, 44 of whom were Republicans. To use math, 88% of Republican Senators agreed that Biden won AZ’s 11 Electoral votes. I mention Arizona b/c that’s the first state to have the Electoral vote challenged and I believe that if the 11,000 or so difference in votes between Biden and Trump resulted in 88% of Republicans granting Biden the win in Arizona, other challenged states will follow suit.

To put it simply: Biden won. Biden is President-elect. Kamala Harris is Vice President-elect. Period.

I’m not a huge fan of this result. But my feelings don’t change what is true: Biden won. Numbers mean something, in more ways than one. For instance, 7 million more votes means that Biden overwhelmingly won. But Trump receiving 74 million votes is no small thing to glance over, either. The numbers from the 2020 Election signal a nation divided and, 2 months since Election Day, 1.6.2021 will serve as yet another reminder that, as a new year begins, Americans are still as divided as ever.

The news cycle today was quite addictive. Throw social media into the mix and it’s enough to send the already-anxious heart into full-blown panic mode. The same, old tired arguments begin to surface. People on the right pointing back to the BLM riots and protests primarily over last summer, while failing to acknowledge the ‘thugs’ in red MAGA hats that charged the Capital, the staple of a republic and of a democracy for nearly 245 years. While people on the left, remaining silent about the livelihoods and businesses destroyed 6-7 months ago are now loudly calling for Trump’s impeachment and attaching demeaning names to all of Trump’s followers, regardless of their position on today’s events.

When I got beyond this familiar noise, however, today hit differently. In a way, similar to 9.11.2001 but distinctly different. A similar shock and attachment to the minute-by-minute, ever-changing news cycle. And also a similar sadness, a real sadness. Not just for the typical thought-process of ‘what will become of our nation for my children and grandchildren?’ but just sadness at the divide at every turn within our nation. The pure hatred for (D) toward (R) and (R) toward (D). The fear-mongering that w/ the Presidency, House, and Senate all blue, America will suddenly turn into a socialist country. Not realizing that numerous times throughout America’s history, both (R) and (D) have had control of the Presidency, House, and Senate. Even as recent as 2017 (R-controlled) w/ Trump and 2009 (D-controlled) w/ Obama. And many other times throughout America’s history.

Whereas 9.11.2001 caused the nation to pause and halt our differences in the name of unity, I don’t think 1.6.2021 will follow suit. Today seemed to just fuel the fire of a President hell-bent on winning, no matter the cost. To finish and try to bring some clarity within the confusion I will go to Scripture, to Proverbs 2:13-15, to a brief description of those who forsake wisdom:

“13 who forsake the paths of uprightness

to walk in the ways of darkness,

14 who rejoice in doing evil

and delight in the perverseness of evil,

15 men whose paths are crooked,

and who are devious in their ways.”

Surely, these words evoke images of the ‘other’. Some think of BLM as the ‘devious’ ones described in v. 15, those who looted and set cars and entire cities on fire last summer. To others, the ones who ‘delight in the perverseness of evil’ are those who entered the Capital uninvited and without restraint today, replacing the American flag w/ a ‘Trump 2020’ flag.

But the reality is this: as long as we continue to demonize the ‘other’ side, we all will continue to ‘walk in the ways of darkness’ described in verse 13. The public figures and political parties we attach ourselves to eventually become the idols we worship and the hills on which many of us will die on; it will become the worldview we adopt, the god that we serve.

Hear me out: Trump is not God’s agent and Biden is not Satan’s wing-man. For the Christian, we must acknowledge that America is an ever-evolving democracy that is grounded in a temporal existence. Every empire throughout history has crumbled; every world-power shifts after about 250 years. The Christian does not cower in a corner and shudder at the thought of this primarily b/c the Christian needs to have their eyes fixed on the kingdom to come, the ‘city whose builder and maker is God’ (Hebrews 11:10). My ultimate hope should not be that taxes are lowered or gas prices drop or student loans are forgiven or that I get to lead a cushy life and end on a fat retirement.

You see, the Bible sets our expectations aright and fixes our hope on things true and eternal. That doesn’t mean we disengage; the Bible tells us to pray for those in authority over us that we may lead ‘quiet and peaceful lives’ (1 Timothy 2:2). 2020 and now 2021 is off to anything but a quiet and peaceful start. This shouldn’t cause us to look at the ‘other’ and point fingers to blame; but our current reality should force our gaze ‘on things above, not on things below’ (Colossians 3:2). Why? Because are lives are to be ‘hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3). NOT hidden within a political party or candidate. And NOT hidden within a social movement. Hidden. With Christ. In God. Period. God himself has prepared works for His children to walk in before the foundations of the world were formed. May we faithfully walk out the works God has called each one of us to.

May we find security not in a Congress colored blue or red, but security within Christ, within God himself. For it is only when we seek the Lord that we find this wisdom that manifests itself in things like righteousness and justice and equity and it’s where we find eternal security.

Lies have consequences. But praise God – the truth has glorious consequences as well.

Come Lord Jesus.