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.

Come on Man? Go Get a room!

I came to Starbucks today in search of a place outside of my house to write and still be warm. I thought about riding my mountain bike today, but I must admit that the cold weather makes me a little lethargic. I went to the garage and began pulling my bike out then I thought to myself, hey you are never gonna finish any writing project if during your times where you can write you just go ride your bike. (At least that is what I am going to claim.) So, I ran one errand for my wife and then I drove to the local Starbucks around the corner from the house.

I got out of my car and was greeted with two people sucking face. Two very large people sucking face. When I say sucking, I mean they didn't come up for air, ever. If mouth to mouth was still part of doing CPR I would think that he was trying to revive the poor girl. She was sitting in the front seat of the car and he was on one knee in full on make out mode. They continued while I walked across the parking lot and passed the car. I was sitting there thinking, "Really, at least the back of your head looks like that of an adult." I walked in ordered my hot chocolate looked out the window and saw the car was still there and they were still there in going at it. I began to think I should probably get my watch out and put a timer on it. Or, I could pull my iPhone out and discreetly take a picture or even better a video of the event going down in the Starbucks parking lot. Then, I looked and saw he was a pretty good sized dude so I better keep the iPhone put away. Well, I got my Hot Chocolate and realized as I was going to find a place to sit down that the car was gone. I was kinda disappointed. I wanted to see the super kissers in person.

It reminded me of the first young couples even Marge and I attended after we got married. I don't think anyone who reads this blog was attending that event but I could be wrong. If it brings back memories that are not so, I apologize in advance. We were attending this church that had an amazing young couples group. You could tell they all cared about each other and had real community amongst them. We showed up and enjoyed the food. (Which by the way is probably the second most important part of any good church event, first being the presence of God, and yes that is a pastor answer.) Then they began to play some games that were fun but geared at couples. I really don't remember most of them. I just remember one, The Kissing Contest. I am sorry, but as important as food is to as church event, kissing is probably just as important a church event killer. I don't care if you are married. Trust me, it isn't because I don't enjoy kissing my wife. In fact, I hope everyone enjoys kissing their spouse as much as I enjoy kissing mine. I just don't want to see people kissing others for a prolonged period of time. Well, that was the game. They lined up all the couples and said, "On your mark, get set, go!" Everyone except my wife and I commenced kissing. We just kind of stood there in awe of the situation in disbelief. I knew we had no chance at winning this game because my wife just starts laughing when she has to give me a peck when we are in front of people. Then, we got to the last couples, lets just say none of us wanted to see them kissing. It is a picture scarred in my brain forever. I just believe anything longer than two seconds belongs in private. Here is a list of times it is appropriate for prolonged kissing in public:

1. End of your Wedding (I think it may even be considered cuter if it is just a peck in this case.)
2. When a spouse comes home from a long time gone (i.e. soldiers coming home from war, coming home from a missions trip, etc.)
3. If you are an Aggie, then after they score a touchdown, but only if you are an Aggie.
4. When you win millions in the lottery. If you kiss more than a peck in public after you win a $2 on a scratch off you need to be punched in the face.

I think that is about it. I hope you french kiss your spouse daily, but just do it where we can't see it. I know the Bible says greet em with a Holy kiss. Just keep your spit to yourself. I understand this entry today is probably not my most pastoral but, every once and a while some of us just need to be reminded. Come on man? Get a Room!

Wait, I still didn't get any book writing done and I need to go pick up the kids. Should have rode my bike.