The Wading Pool

(I started working on this post yesterday, the day BEFORE we found out that the third child we’re expecting is in fact a boy!!!)

I’ve always heard that you never understand your parents until you have kids.  As some would say, if you want to know a man, walk a mile in his shoes.  You could be married, managing a career, college educated, etc., and when you have kids, everything changes.  Everything.  Did I say everything.  I meant EVERYTHING!

I think that I’ve grown to understand and respect my parents the older I get (and the older my kids get).  I’ve grown to understand why my dad was stressed out on the weekends (providing for 5 kids and then coming home from work and dealing with said kids…much props Dad!), and I’ve grown to understand just how much he loves all of us.

One of the things about my dad is that he’s always been quick to tell me he’s proud of me.  He’s always pushed me to do my best, but he’s never failed to encourage me. For the first 10 years of my post-college life, I worked for my dad, and he would often send me little notes (never email…he wasn’t yet tech-savvy!) to encourage me and tell me how proud he was of the job I was doing.

But you know what I think he’s most happy with?  The fact that I’m a Christian.  I think that because in every note, every card that he’s given me, no matter if it was for my job at work or my birthday, he’s always mentioned my relationship with Christ.  Long before I became a pastor, he would tell me how happy he was to see what God had done in my life, and in the life of my family.

I write that, because I ran across this verse in Proverbs yesterday morning:

“My son, if your heart is wise, my heart will rejoice–Indeed, I myself; yes, my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak right things.”   Prov. 23:15-16

Now, I do not claim to be wise.  My family would insert here that I think I’m a know-it-all….errrrr…wise, but I am mostly full of much useless information (and I am often right, but that’s beside the point).  There are only a few things that I would call wise decisions in my life.  One was asking Amanda to marry me (no comments on the wisdom of her decision to say yes, peanut gallery).

Over and above everything,the wisest decision I ever made would be the decision to give my life to Christ.  That decision changed the course of my life, for without the removal of myself from the throne of my life and the subsequent submission to Christ’s rule, I would not, COULD not be who I am today.  Everything good that I am and that I’ve becomes comes from Him.  The rest…well, sanctification is a process, right?!!

I digress…in thinking of my dad and how I hope he rejoices in the fact that Wisdom personified has made His home in my heart, I resonate so deeply with that now.  When I look at my girls, and when I now think about having a son in this house in a few months, I long to rejoice in their hearts being wise. Every night, Amanda and I pray that the girls would give their lives to Jesus, and even now I pray the same for my baby boy.

For no matter what profession they choose, no matter what school they attend, no matter what grades they get, the one thing that would make me happier than anything else is that their hearts are full of the wisdom that comes from knowing Jesus Christ.  Truly, my heart would rejoice, indeed!

Today, I am rejoicing in the news that I’m going to have a son to go along with my two beautiful girls.  I’m rejoicing that he seems healthy and that he’s growing right on schedule.  I rejoice in the family I’ve been blessed with.

And now I ask for the wisdom to lead them all to the foot of the cross.  I pray that I’ll be the man God has called me to be, and that I’ll be the dad they need me to be.

(And in case you’re wondering, that pic is just a reminder that you can take the boy out of Benson, but you can’t take Benson out of the boy)