I need help.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. (Proverbs 12:1 ESV)

I need help.

This is one of the more difficult statements to make as a red blooded American male (or maybe for anyone). I like to be right. I want to be right. However, I am not always right (which should come as a shock to absolutely no one). This desire to be right is simply pride, nothing less. If I am right and you are wrong then I am better (smarter, wiser, etc.) than you. When I put it like that it sounds pretty ugly. Pride is ugly.

In my past, I have hated reproof. It doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong, I’ll argue until the proverbial ship goes down. This is pride, an unwillingness to accept that I am not infallible. If I was wrong and/or made an error, I would hide it or run from it. This is also pride, an unwillingness to let anyone know that I am not infallible. This does not lead to correction. Therefore I would make the same mistakes over and over again. I was unwilling to ask for help.

Discipline must be proceeded by transparency, whether voluntary or not. Someone must know what I have done in order to correct me. If a police officer discovers that I am speeding, he corrects me with a ticket. I must be transparent and willingly accept discipline (correction) if I am to learn. I must ask for help frequently.

The opposite of pride is humility. I recently heard an interview with Jim Collins on Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership podcast. In the interview Collins made a statement about watching our “statement to question ratio.” Ask more questions, make less statements. This is a good way to practice humility. Questions imply “I want your input on this issue.” Statements say “You should listen to my input.”

I am going to start asking more questions.

Say Yes

And Jesse said to David his son, “Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers. (1 Samuel 17:17 ESV)

David didn’t know that this day would change his life. When David woke up, he probably didn’t think “Today, I will defeat the greatest warrior of my peoples enemies. Who is also a giant.” David was just doing what he was asked. Maybe God, in his infinite wisdom, whispered in Jesse’s ear, “Today would be a good day to have David take lunch to his brothers.” 

We don’t know when or how God is going to use our lives. 

On Student Sunday in 2012, Pastor Brett preached the message at Crossroads Community Church in Harrison, Arkansas. His message that day discussed about how many young people, were leaving the church after high school. Pastor Brett talked about strong relationships with adults greatly increased the probability that a teen would stay involved in a church after high school. He ended his sermon with a call to action, saying that the church needed adults to be small group leaders in the student ministry. Lacey and I had started attending Crossroads in December, so we had only been going there for 5 months. After the service, Lacey and I talked and I decided to volunteer. 

I was terrified. I was 30 and hadn’t been around many teens since I was a teenager. I wasn’t crazy about teenagers. I was just doing it because the church needed people. I went and met with Brett and told him that I was willing but I didn’t know if I was qualified. Brett reassured and encouraged me that it would be good. 

I am so glad that Pastor Brett  asked for volunteers and so greatful to God for encouraging me to volunteer. I didn’t know then what God had planned for my life. I have been so blessed by serving in the student ministry. I love getting to spend time with these kids. I absolutely look forward to Wednesday nights. I am excited about getting to hang out with this group of boys for the next six years. 

I pray that God will help me to be a positive influence on their lives. I pray for wisdom to help guide them as they become young men. I pray for strength, when (if) I am called on to help them in a time of need. I hope that I can encourage and love and teach them. 

In our recent management meetings at Methvin Sanitation, we have adopted a new motto, “Trust you Hunches.” I am seeing more evidence of the truth in this statement, the more I look around. I could have easily talked myself out of volunteering. I had zero experience with teenagers. I could have easily disqualified myself from serving because of my past. What if God, in his loving kindness, whispered in my ear, “Hey, you should volunteer.” 

So if you are (or have ever) considering serving at church, or volunteering for a charity, or sponsoring a child from another country, do it! Your life will be blessed more than you can even fathom today. Sometimes all we have to do is say “yes” to God. 

That’s Love

Love. How did one show it? How could God Himself show truth and love at the same time in a world like this?

By dying. The answer stood out for me sharper and chiller than it ever had before that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.

Corrie ten Boom
The Hiding Place

Jesus went the Cross with his eyes open. He knew what was coming. Still he went. That’s love. There is no such thing as conditional love. Conditional love is a business agreement. “If you do this and don’t do that, then I will love you.” Jesus’s love isn’t like that. Jesus went to the Cross knowing how I would dishonor and defy him. Jesus went to the Cross knowing that I would poison this body and mind that he entrusted me. Still he went. That’s why it’s the good news. I was guilty and he gave me his innocence. I have nothing to give him and still he gave his life for me. Like Hosea coming to the marketplace for Gomer, he found me and paid for me. That’s love.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13 ESV)

My Hope.

I often sing old hymns when I am working around the farm (I love old hymns). Singing helps me to keep from getting frustrated or discouraged as I work, when things aren’t going well. Singing also tends to keep me in an overall better mood.

One day recently as I was walking through the chicken houses, I was singing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” After singing this, God put a question in my head. He asked, “Is it?” I don’t know that the question even registered the first time. I seem to remember that I just kept on singing. Once again, I felt God ask, “Is it?” Is my hope built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness? I thought about the question as I walked, picking up eggs.

I ask myself, what would make me hopeless? If I lost my family, that would seem pretty hopeless. If I lost my job, or worse yet, failed at my job, that could make me feel hopeless. Falling as a husband, or as a provider, or as a father could cause me to feel hopeless. It seems that my hope is not placed on the solid rock, but instead my hope resides with my performance, or “the sinking sand” that the song references.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I foolishly rely on myself for much of my hope. My hope for my marriage relies on me being a good husband, but I have failed my wife many times. My hope for my children relies on me being a good and loving teacher. So that I will be able to teach them about being good and loving. However I am not a good and loving teacher, I am a selfish and sinful man. How can I teach something I do not know how to do? Much of my hope relies on me being successful at work, but I have failed many times at work. I have convinced myself that success will give my life hope, and worth, and value. I have deceived myself by thinking that I am an acceptable place for my hope. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

I then thought back to the song that I was singing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” The song encouraged and excited me. I know where my hope belongs. I then thought of the chorus of that song, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” I have great reason for hope, and joy, and peace because of my glorious savior! I can have peace, because my hope, my whole world does not rely on me! The pressure is off! I can teach my children about the good and loving teacher because I know the good and loving teacher. My work is an avenue for me to praise and worship my savior. Which makes work joyful and fun, because praise and worship is joyful and fun. I am free to love my wife, and kids, and church, and neighbor, and enemy, because Jesus first love me.

Do you believe?

When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to him, “Yes, Lord.” Then he touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it done to you.” (Matthew 9:28, 29 ESV)

Every morning when I wake up, I begin my day by praying.  I pray for family and friends. I pray for blessings for my workplaces and church. What if God’s response to my request and petitions is “Do you believe I am able to do this?” 

I frequently just lob prayers up like I am tossing pennies in a wishing well. Many times I have prayed for wisdom, but when I am granted wisdom, I act like it is an accident or luck. I completely forget who is the giver of wisdom. 

I often pray asking God to bless my marriage and my family. I am so blessed. I have been blessed with a beautiful wife, who is an amazing mother. I have been blessed with two wonderful kids. So often I forget to thank He who has so blessed me. 

I am greatly encouraged by a story of a father long ago. This father had a very sick son. When he asked for Jesus to help his son, Jesus replied “All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-24 ESV) 

I pray this on a regular basis, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

New Year resolutions.

Happy New Years!

I have written down my list of resolutions (goals). I’m trying to be more specific about my goals for this year. I actually copied and pasted my list from last year as a template.

Seek to honor and glorify my savior more.
Read and study the Bible more.

Get healthier  
Lose weight. 30 lbs
Exercise daily. Walk at least 1 mile every day. 
Eat better. Less junk, more fruits & veggie’s.
Drink more water.
Run 5k. By crawdad days. 
Dead lift body weight.  

Work on being a better husband and daddy. 
Help Lacey more around the house.
Tell Lacey I love her daily. Give her more kisses.
Love, honor, seek, serve Lacey more and better.
Read to B & E. Everyday.

Watch less Tv
Get out of debt. Pay off all debt except mortgage and car note by the end of the year.
Read more. Read (at least) 20 books.
Write blog every week. 
Learn to speak Spanish.
Learn to play the guitar.
Be more pationate, less lukewarm and indifferent.
Talk to more people.
Pray more, love more, give more, serve more, teach more, learn more, be more humble, live more. 
Have Fun. 

By God’s grace, to be more fruitful, by asking.
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:16 ESV)
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22 – 23 ESV)

All of the goals/resolutions listed above are essentially subcategories of the first. Jesus was asked, “”Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:36-38 ESV)

2014 Reading List

I love lists so I thought I would write one.

One of my New Years resolutions is to read more books. My goal is to read 20 books this year. Which is about one every two and a half weeks. I am also trying to broaden my subject base (a bit) by reading older books than I have read recently. C.S. Lewis said, “It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” I am going to adopt this philosophy. I have defined old books as anything older than 40 years, it was going to be 50 years, but The Hiding Place was published in 1971. Most of my old books were written within the last 100 years, which is not that old with regards to books, but I had to start somewhere.

Old Books.
Propaganda – Edward Bernays
Oil! – Upton Sinclair
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
The Hiding Place – Corrie Ten Boom
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
Essays on Positive Economics – Milton Freidman
Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion – P.T. Bauer
Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton
The Great Divorce – C.S. Lewis

New Books.
Orbiting the Giant Hairball – Gordon Mackenzie
QBQ – John G. Miller
Death by Meeting – Patrick Lencioni
Doctrine – Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears
Every Man’s Marriage – Steven Arterburn & Fred Stoeker
I Have A Dream (Writing & Speeches) – Martin Luther King Jr.
Defiance – Nechama Tec
Ball Four – Jim Bouton
Desiring God – John Piper

I am currently reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey. I will finish these books before I begin on my list. I will read EntreLeadership again as a part of a group that is going to read and discuss the book. I am also going to read through the Bible in 2014. I only have 18 books listed so I am still in search of two more books to read and am open to suggestions. I also would love to receive “favorite book” suggestions from anyone that reads this for future reading. All of the books above are books that I have accumulated from listening to and reading suggestions.

Christmas 2013

Oh what a wonderful Christmas! Bailee and Evie got in bed with us sometime last night. Bailee woke up at about 6:45, sat straight up and said “Santa’s been here,” and took off running down the hallway. His shouting woke Evie and I up, so we proceeded to the living room to open presents. They had a blast opening presents. I have enjoyed seeing Bailee’s complete elation when he open presents, he has had a blast. He is so excited he bounces and shouts and is having such a fun time. Evie has enjoyed her boots and babies. She got three pairs of boots that have all been worn around. She also got several babies that she carries around and says through her bobby, “I love it!” I have greatly enjoyed the day with my family. Mom and dad came over this morning to watch the kids open their presents. Lacey made chocolate gravy for breakfast. I took a nap snuggling with my little girl. I feel very blessed to have such a loving wife, wonderful kids, and a wonderful family.

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1st Post

I am going to write a blog.

This blog will be about God, faith, family, parenting, the trash business, farming, maybe some gardening, leadership, management, the quest to get out of debt, chicken farming, books, and who knows what else.

One of my purposes for writing this blog is to attempt to influence my children to write. I have often heard, “more is caught than taught.” I want my kids to read, so I want them to see me reading. I want my kids to be able to write, so I want them to see me writing, and read what their dad has written when they are old enough. Another purpose for this blog is to learn how to write and communicate more efficiently by writing and communicating.

I will write frequently about my kids and the humorous things that they do or say. I will also write about what I have learned through the parenting process. I have some ideas for some “faith” based posts.  I have some old blog post from when Bailee was a baby that I will try to import. I have some post from a blog called “Adventures in Gardening” that was short lived, that I will try to move.

I would like to encourage anyone that reads this, or any post that follow, to please feel free to comment and/or critique anything from grammar to content.

I am going to write every week!