Wondering about the pumpkin patch

Where do they grow pumpkins? We take our kids to pumpkin patches each year. We run around doing games like stuff the scarecrow and blackberry mazes. We may pick a pumpkin out of a pile of pumpkins. Paint it or take it home and carve it into a jack o lantern. I don't think I remember seeing an actual pumpkin grow on a vine. All a pumpkin patch is anymore is a miniature carnival/ amusement park set up in the country for city folk to take a drive to the country.

I did see pumpkin vines. Did you know that when you pick a pumpkin if you let it get to hot then the seeds inside the pumpkin will start sprouting? Brought our overpriced pumpkins home from the pumpkin patch (I actually shouldn't say that I don't know how much my wife spent on the pumpkins. Although, I am sure she spent more than they would have been at HEB) opened the pumpkins up. Low and behold we had an entire harvest of pumpkin vines growing inside one of our pumpkins. Things you just don't know until you see them. 

What is the fascination with hay rides? I have to wonder this. You sit on square bails drive around a field at the break neck speed of 2 mph in ridiculously cold weather. And, why do we find this appealing? I hear people say all the time, "Hayrides are so much fun?" Really?  I love the people yelling at their kids not to fall out or the lack of feeling in my fingers when I am done. Sorry, just ranting a bit. 

I know that I may sound like I am complaining but all in all. A trip to the country to spend the day playing with your kids is a great day. Seeing them fish and run around with friends. Smiling and laughing as they try to rope different poles with animal pictures on them. Hanging out at the pumpkin patch (country six flags) is a great day. 

Parenting In Nature

I saw an article today showing great photographs in the wild. (http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/36760/rare+wildlife+photos+highlight+winning+entries+in+worldwide+contest/ ) Pictures of Lion's up in trees and alligators about to attack. One picture caught my eye as interesting. A picture of a young gazelle running away from four cheetahs. As they were looking on. You can see the fear in the gazelle's eyes. I think I would have the same look on my face if I was running from four cheetahs. As I read about what was happening, I found out that this gazelle was wounded by a mother cheetah. The mother didn't kill it but used this gazelle to teach her cubs, the four in the picture, how to hunt. I was blown away as I thought about the great wisdom in this. The mother cheetah understood her kids would need to be able to hunt for themselves one day. She understood that the best way for them to learn was by doing it. I was amazed at this. 

How often do we as parent's let other people teach our kids? How often do we just do stuff because we don't want to worry about it being done right? How often are we just so busy that we just do it for our kids because it takes to long? 

The majority of parenting is teaching our kids. I am not saying everyone needs to home school. I love home schoolers but I could never do that. THe people that do that successfully are amazing and have my utmost respect. I am saying we need to be involved in our kid's education and their development and not just the easy areas. It is to easy to encourage our kids to play sports or do well in school. When was the last time you encouraged your kids to read their Bible or pray? When was the last time your kids saw you read your Bible or pray? 

I remember as a kid at the beginning of each school year my parents would try and pull us in to pray before school started. It was hard for me and my sisters to take it seriously because it was never something we followed through with consistently. If we are as  dedicated to praying with our kids as we are to checking parent portal about their grades how much better would your child's spiritual growth be? If we spent as much time in God's word with our kids as we do throwing a baseball with them how much further along in discipleship would our kids' be? 

I am just saying, isn't it awesome how God has given us examples in parenting even in nature? 

But Lots wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Genesis 19: 26

I grew up working on my Papaw's farm driving tractors raking hay. Basically, you take the hay and put it in straight rows for the person driving the hay bailer. The straighter the better, it helps the bailer pick up all the hay as it goes in to make bails. Every once and a while I would look back to admire work. As I turned my head, I would turn the steering wheel on the tractor too. Every time messing up the row that I was laying down. I had to learn, pick a point and drive toward it. If I did that then I never had problems with keeping the rows straight. 

We need to look specifically at Christ and use him for the point we are aiming towards. When God delivers us from something we have to take our selves and move on. God's view of stuff is straight forward. When we ask for forgiveness it is gone. As humans we can't just forget that easy.We have to make ourselves move to the next place in our lives. We say it is hard to move on. Yes it is hard to move on but nothing good ever comes from looking back on something God has forgotten. Look forward keep our eyes on the future God has for us. 

Lot's wife was to concerned with her past. She kept looking back at her life and what she had been delivered from. If she had kept her eyes forward we would probably know her as something besides Lott's wife. God has plans for all of us just keep moving forward toward him and you will make it. 

The Next Step

Moving forward is essential in everything we do. I had a teacher in high school, Mr. Hollis that once told me, "Darrell the day you quit learning is the day you are dead". I don't believe he was the first person to say that but he was the first person to tell me that and it stick. I think learning and just growing in general are important for all of us. We should always be trying new things. I believe God has called us to grow closer to him and try new things. It is important that pastor's remember growth is hard and setting people up to win is important. 

I was thinking about this the other day and how hard it must be for someone who has never volunteered in church to take the next step in volunteering. I thought about my years of ministry and how many people have come up to me and said, "Darrell, I feel like God is telling me to start helping in children's ministry". They fill out the applications and background checks are done. As you explain what the position entails you feel the excitement about growing closer to Christ and doing something for the kingdom. Then the first Sunday or Wednesday comes when the new volunteer is supposed to begin. You wake up sick or with a sick kid, get caught out the night before with some friends you haven't seen in a long time and you just can't get up, or you just can't take that next step. I am sure the Devil has no pleasure in anyone volunteering in their church. I believe that first month or two have to be super hard for someone who has never volunteered. You are taking that next step of growth. You are committing to do something that is gonna stretch you. You are committing to Jesus one more thing in your life. 

Look at Jonah, he was called to something he made up in his mind that would be impossible. He turned and went the other way from it. Finally, after he listens to God and does what he is told. He literally saves an entire city from destruction. Many times we think it is to hard to do the thing God has called us to do. We disappear in our churches on Sunday morning. Tell ourselves that the Kid's or youth pastor is to busy to talk about you volunteering right now. We can always come up with excuses and things that keep us from doing whatever it is that God has called us to do. 

I asked a Pastor once about a couple in the church that I had met but didn't know what part of the church they were plugged into. He responded that they were involved, they went to service every week and went to his Bible study on Wednesday nights. I responded with, "But, where are they plugged in?" He said they don't do anything they just attend. They were apart of the church but had not taken a step to volunteer. You will never truly get connected to God or the church until you take the step and volunteer. When you take and give more than just the required service times or even tithe you don't understand the blessings that come with that. 

All that being said, I hope you do something for your church. I hope you do something for Christ. I hope you do something to see people blessed. It almost sounds cliche  to say you will be blessed even more than them. It is true though. God has called everyone to something. God has called all of us to give something. Find that thing. Grow closer through serving. Expect it to be hard at first no matter what. Expect it to stretch you in ways you didn't even expect (even if it sounds easy). Know that you are doing something God wants you to do. 

Don't Be Holding Out On Me

Monday night, Marge came in and asked for a chocolate shake after dinner. I don't know about everyone else but if Momma wants some dessert I try and make it happen. I got my keys and was walking out the door. She asked me where I was going. I responded, "You told me you wanted a chocolate shake". She just said okay and let me leave. As I was pulling out of the driveway I get a text from her saying "Cooper wants a shake too". I thought okay, no big deal. She was thinking that I am going to run to Sonic and pick up a couple of shakes (Half price shakes after 8:30). I decided to go pick up a half gallon of ice cream and use my old mixer I have at the house and make shakes at home. Brought the stuff home. Pulled out the mixer and put a couple scoops of ice cream and milk in the cup. Turned it on. Got the ice cream smooth. Poured out shakes for everyone (except Scout, she still hates chocolate). Cooper just kept looking at me puzzled though. He was drinking the shake down, but he was looking at me funny for sure. Finally, I asked him what was wrong. He says, "How long have we had that shake maker?" I told him, it was a wedding present that we got when we were married 14 years ago. He turned and said, "Really?" He just walked away in disbelief.

The next morning Cooper got up and was getting ready for school. He turned to Marge and asked, "Did you know Dad had that Shake Maker?" She said yes he used to make them all the time. He shook his head in disbelief. I am sure he was thinking, I can't believe Dad was holding out on me, I love shakes. Tuesday night, he asked for shakes again. I may need to get a job making shakes if he keeps it up. We will see how long this trend continues?

I think we should be like this with God. I know we haven't seen all of God's power. I know we haven't seen all of God's love or grace. I know we haven't seen everything God has to offer. One morning, during one of my Dr. Goodrich classes at Southwestern (college) a girl prayed to start class like every other day. She said something that Dr. Goodrich pointed out and it stuck with me till this day. She prayed, "God help us to see more of you today". Shouldn't this be our prayer everyday? I know none of us have seen all of God. I know it is my desire to see more of him. I want to be like Cooper each day. I want to look to God and say, "hey, quit holding out on me, show me something new". I want to see a little more of his love each day. I want to see a little more of his power each day. I want to see a little more of his grace each day. I want it because I know I haven't seen it all because my God is infinite in every aspect.

I challenge to seek more of God today. Don't just expect the same old stuff either. Ask God for something new today. Ask him for the good stuff, the homemade chocolate shake if you will. I promise you it can only get better.

The Dog Bite

So, I am blessed to be married to an amazing Mother. She teaches me about parenting and creates a home that is wonderful for raising our children. I don't know if she knows how much I appreciate her, but she is the best.

Well, on Mother's day her one wish for Sunday afternoon was to take a nap, that everyone take a nap. I am always game for a Sunday afternoon nap. Nascar ran on Saturday night. Mavericks are done and the Spurs were waiting to find out who they would play in the next round of the playoffs. So, I told Cooper to let the dog out and then lay down. I proceeded to my room put on some shorts and laid down with my eyes closed. It was the makings of a great Sunday afternoon. 5 minutes into my glorious nap my son enters the room frantic...

"Dad, the dog next door got my shoe!" Cooper came in my room yelling. I got up and thought, what were you doing to ruin my nap. I know you weren't as excited about this nap as I was but you didn't have to throw your shoe in the neighbors back yard. I asked, "well, how did he get your shoe son?" He started to respond, but I think he was in a little bit of shock. I got up walked next door with him and knocked on the neighbor's door. No one was home. This whole time I am coming up with different scenarios in my head that could have caused this to happen. I have flashbacks to the movie "the Sandlot". I just can't fathom how a dog on the other side of a 6 foot tall privacy fence grabs a shoe with your foot in it and jumps back over to his yard without some help from a certain 7 year old living in my house.

We walk to the back yard and I ask Cooper, "Show me exactly how your shoe ended up in their backyard?" He takes me to a section of the fence where there is a whole about 2 inches tall by 5 inches wide. He says, "I put my foot right there and the dog grabbed my foot. He wouldn't let go, so I pulled my foot out of my shoe and he pulled it into his back yard". I pick through the slots in the pickets and can see his muddied shoe. It might as well have been a Babe Ruth baseball because I wasn't going to go get him new shoes because he let the neighbor's dog steel his shoe.

So, just to clarify, I move over by the whole and as I put my foot next to the whole ask him, "You put your foot right heOOOWWWWWWWW!" The dog bit my big toe! Pain immediately shot up my foot. I was in shock because I couldn't believe what had just happened. If anything, I was embarrassed that I did the same thing my son did 5 minutes before. I couldn't decide if I was mad at the dog for biting my toe even though he didn't know what he was biting he was just playing. Maybe I was mad at Cooper for getting that close to the fence to begin with and causing this whole mess. I was supposed to be taking a nap. I was probably just mad at myself for copying the same mistake my son just made except I didn't put shoes on. I am always harping on wear your shoes. I don't even where flip flops very often because "you never know what is going to happen".

I did learn a couple things from all of this. One, listen to your kid so you don't get bit. I should have just cooled off and realized that the space was big enough for the dog's snout. How many times do we as parent get made to look silly because we were so agitated at our kids that we don't either hear the full story or don't believe the full story? Also, just let the dog out myself on days I want to guarantee myself a nap.

Oh yeah, the neighbor's dog has his shots. I think my toe is going to be fine. I haven't started foaming at the mouth or anything like that.

Like Father Like Son

Preview for Wednesday Night's Bible Study.

and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, "She is my sister." Then Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman." Now Abimelech had not gone near her, so he said, "Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Genesis 20:2-4

So Isaac stayed in Gerar. When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister," because he was afraid to say, "She is my wife." He thought, "The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful." When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. So Abimelech summoned Isaac and said, "She is really your wife! Why did you say, She is my sister?" Isaac answered him, "Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her." Genesis 26: 6-9

Here we find a father, Abraham, and a son, Isaac, making an identical mistake. They both allowed fear to cause them to lie. As a parent, these verses scare me to death.Yes, I want my children to follow my steps. I do not want them to follow my mistakes. We must live holy and righteous lives as parents because if we like it or not our children will follow us.Yes, a child makes decisions for themselves, but most visible person in molding my child's character and integrity is me.

I remember sitting in Scout's parent teacher conference, the teacher continually telling us how great she was doing. She makes straight A's, her vocabulary is amazing, she helps other, etc. My chest began to bow with pride. Then there was that "but one thing". She tends to leave her desk a mess and her cubby will explode all over the floor from time to time. My wife goes into this agreement with her as they discuss strategies to make her more neat. I am just sinking down in my chair as the discussion goes on. I am thinking, it won't help. She is cursed to be like me. It happens. Our kids become us whether we like it or not.

I hope I never get to old to enjoy playing in mud!

This past weekend, I ran a mud run for the 4th time in the past couple of years. It is a blast. You run about 5k (8k this past weekend) and do obstacles (mud pits, tires hanging, fire pits, cargo nets, etc.) throughout. These runs always have a party like atmosphere and are genuinely fun. I love it. I just know this. I hope I never get to old to enjoy playing in the mud!

If you don't like it, I am sorry. I just know this. Playing in the mud creates an enjoyment for everyone. I see playing is a lot like dreaming or learning. The day you quit is the day you start dying. Have fun. Be a kid. Run in the Mud!

Leadership from the Mountain Bike Trail

Every Monday, I try and spend at least an hour or two out at a park riding my bike. I may not always make it out there but I try to go out and ride. It is a great time for me to decompress after a busy Sunday. It is a great time for prayer. It is always cool to ride up on some deer and just stop and watch them. It is a great workout and a great opportunity to think. I was riding the other day when I had an epiphany about riding. It can be seen as a great metaphor for leadership. Lot’s of great metaphors for leadership can be seen in riding.

I see them all the time. Good riders don’t look right in front of themselves. Good riders will look about 30 yards ahead so they can prepare for the things that are coming on the trail. Good leaders are in the same boat. You have the vision to prepare for the upcoming trail. Last Summer, I had the privilege of dedicating my nephew to the Lord. I decided to go ride the Saturday morning before everyone arrived in town for the Sunday event. I was meeting a buddy at a park and was running late so, I got my bike ready jumped on and didn’t think about putting my helmet on (1st mistake). We took off riding and I thought, “This is a familiar trail and I will take it easy”. Famous last words right? We got to riding and I ran across this spot that really didn’t have any danger. It wasn’t a hill. It wasn’t a jump. It was a cactus. I got completely focussed on missing the cactus that was coming and didn’t even see the tree branch that was overhead. I focussed on just one thing and as it got closer I missed something that was important. I ran into the tree overhead. Putting a 6 inch scratch across my forehead. Then, I still ran into the cactus. Leaders have to look ahead. Leaders have to see everything going on, the big picture. They don’t want to get popped in the head by something they didn’t see coming because they were so focused on something 5 feet in front of them.

Riding with people gives some leadership examples too. When you are leading a group, you pace the group. You determine how fast everyone goes. You decide when to stop for water. If you get out to far in front, then you may lose the entire group. If you follow it gives even more examples. If you ride to far behind you get separated. You may come up to a fork and head the wrong way. If you ride to close you may not be able to get stopped in enough time causing you to run up on someone. It is an important balance to have just like following a leader. Guys that get separated lose track of the leaders vision many times. Making it hard to follow. Many times people will try and overtake a leader with they push to hard causing friction with the leader in life. Riding with someone though may not always be the best workout but it is usually the best experience cause you can take time and spend it with someone. I think God intended us to be in situations where that is the case. He didn’t intend for us to take off on our own all the time.

If you ride by yourself, it can be a great experience still. Like I said before, it is a great time to pray. It is a great workout. It is time with nature. It can also be dangerous. I have to make sure and tell someone where I am going before I go. I was riding a couple of months ago on a trail I have never rode before. I saw a massive bolder that I needed to go over. It is common in San Antonio to see this. The whole town, I think, is on a big chunk of limestone. There were multiple step ups on this rock. I hopped up on the first 4 without problem. Then, the 5th came and I was a little late getting my tire over it. It stopped my bike where it was at. I went over the handlebars onto my head. I somehow managed to stab my arm with the little teeth on the crank. It was an epic wreck that I wished I could have put on youtube. It certainly would have been my double rainbow. I immediately texted my wife and one of my buddies because I knew I was hurt. I was going to ride out but you never know when you fall on your head how anything is going to work in 10 minutes. I still knew even though I fell that I had to get up and keep going. That is what we all have to do, get up and keep going. Many times we have epic crashes but we can’t let them keep us down. We have to keep going and get back to our car so we can go home.

Get Out!

This past Saturday, I had a great day. It started by having my friend Scott Berkey speak to a bunch of Kidmin leaders at my church through the day. He taught on leadership and I believe everyone there came away feeling better off hearing some great leadership stuff from the book of Joshua and really seeing Scott being very transparent. I was blessed for sure.

Then, I went home for what I thought was the evening. I sat around and watched the Baylor bears eek out a win in the tournament. I know they won by 15 but with 4 minutes left in the game it was still in doubt. I tend to have the same fear with Baylor Basketball as I do with football that the defense is gonna give up a slew of points at any time. I just thought I was done for the evening though.

About 9pm a buddy of mine shoots me a text of hotel prices in Austin. It was like 225 for a 1 star hotel in downtown. I asked him when it was knowing Austin hotels don't cost that much. It was for that night. It is a South by Southwest weekend in Austin. That is why all the hotels have prices that are ridiculous. I texted back, Why are you looking at hotels for tonight? His response he wants to go see a band. Evidently, when my friend was younger he used to be a groupie for this band and hadn't seen them in a long time. I was half joking and half serious when I responded to him and said "Let's Go!"

Many of you know, I tend to go to bed at 9 on Saturday nights because I get up and try to go into the church early on Sunday mornings. I never leave the house that late much less decide to leave the house that late. We made sure our wives weren't joking about letting us go. Actually, we think they were relieved that we were not tugging them along. After a little bit of discussion and trying to figure out if we were either man enough or dumb enough to go, we left my house at about 10:30 for a 1 am show in downtown Austin. It was a great experience. Thousands of people were scattered all throughout downtown Austin. You couldn't walk without bumping into someone. Streets were blocked off. Music was blaring out of every building we passed. Every kind of music could be heard from reggae to rap to rock. Laser lights were shooting up and down the streets. It was a blast. I had never heard the group but they were good. Show was over about 2 and we walked back to the car and left for home.

I took away a couple of things from this trip that I feel are very important. First, I realize many of the thousands of people need Jesus in a big way. We were down there to see a show and go home. Many, I am sure, were not down there with that intent in mind. I pray that the God calls and the church accepts people that are called to people in that scene. I am pretty sure that jumping up and preaching on a soapbox in the middle of the group would not really do the job. Maybe, if the job were to have a beer thrown on you. I don't even know what an outreach to that demographic of people would even look like. It isn't like they were a certain age or color or gender. It was a massive group of people that were just having fun listening to music and watching movies.

The other thing, I am glad I went because I saw stuff that I would have never seen other wise. When you do that, it helps creativity. I challenge everyone to do stuff that is out of their comfort box, things they have never done. It doesn't have to be in the middle of the night but it is always good to try something new or do something different. I had another children's pastor tell me once that his pastor told him he should get all of his inspiration from the Bible. If that is the only place we look for inspiration how do we tell people how to apply the Bible. We have people in our churches that see things like a massive crowd at sxsw or sunrise at the beach or anything that you haven't done. If we can do something that doesn't compromise our belief in Jesus Christ and it can show us something we have never seen then take the opportunity. It will make you a better person. How did I do the next day in Kid's church? I think I mixed up the words on one part of a story I was telling. My wife tells me that is probably less than I normally do.

So, get out and do something new.

He Holds Everything Together

Christ is the exact likeness of God, who can't be seen. He is first, and he is over all of creation. All things were created by him. He created everything in heaven and on earth. He created everything that can be seen and everything that can't be seen. He created kings, powers, rulers and authorities. Everything was created by him and for him. Before anything was created, he was already there. He holds everything together.
Colossians 1: 15-17

I love this passage for 2 reasons. I love that Paul points out that we were not just made by God but also made for God. I love making a sandwich just for me. I know what I want. I know that I like a certain amount of mayo. I know that I like the ham and cheese heated up in the microwave 35 seconds. I know I like to wait and put the lettuce and pickle on after the rest is heated up. That sandwich was made just for me. In the same way God made us for him. He knows how he likes to be praised. He knows how many loud worshipers he likes. He knows how many introverted quiet worshippers he likes. Marge and I were blessed to be able to serve at a church that was not AG when she was in grad school. For 2 years it was an amazing experience. I saw people come into this community church that were from Methodist and Baptist backgrounds. I loved it. I always found it interesting listening to people pray because they would pray one at a time. I grew up in a church where everybody prayed at the same time. You didn't just sit and listen as others prayed, you prayed out loud and were lucky to ever hear what anyone else said. Praying one at a time just took a long time and it was very reverent but I could remember going back to SAGU the fall after we left there. I remember sitting in chapel and hearing the entire student body praying as someone was praying on the stage. Even being spurred on by the person leading the prayer to "Reach out to God". The way everyone worshiped together was peaceful to me. To many, that would be disruptive. To many, it would be rude to pray aloud as someone on the platform was praying. What is cool, God made everyone different and he knows how many aloud worshipers he wants. He knows how many of everything we need and he wants. We were all made for him.

The other thing that I love about this passage is the way it ends. The simple statement, "He holds everything together". We try and juggle so many things. Last saturday, we had basketball at 10, JBQ at 10:30, a baby shower at 11 and I don't remember what else. Marge and I sometimes have to literally strategize with each other and even some of our friends on how we are going to get everything done. I look forward to Monday because it is my day off and everyone has a place they have to be. It is a ton of things to juggle. I am sure parents everywhere deal with this. isn't it great that the Bible points out that God doesn't juggle everything. He holds it all together. He has enough hands to keep it in place. He has enough ears to hear our problems. He has enough eyes to be able see every little thing going on in our lives. He is fast enough to be where ever we need him to be. He truly holds it together.