By now everyone is likely well aware of the events of July 4th in Nashville, TN, when former NFL star Steve McNair and his 20 year old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, died in what appears to be a shocking and tragic murder-suicide. Below are some thoughts.

It’s a tragedy …

• … that two lives have ended so senselessly
• … that the ultimate price was paid – and for what?
• … that the circumstances surrounding these deaths are so dark and twisted
• … that a grieving wife is left to pick up the shattered pieces of a lifelong commitment
• … that a broken-hearted woman is now a single mother of 4
• … that 4 young boys are forced to go on without their dad
• … that 4 young boys will carry with them the awful memories of what happened to their dad
• … that some will dismiss McNair’s well-known contributions to society because of his infidelity
• … that some will dismiss McNair’s infidelity because of his contributions to society and because he was a famous athlete
• … that some will focus on McNair’s accomplishments on the football field to the exclusion of his failures as a husband and father
• … that there is such a focus on celebrating and remembering McNair’s life that it sort of feels like people are forgetting that Kazemi also lost her life
• … that our society so idolizes public figures and celebrities – in some cases at least

It’s a good time to remember …

• … that, in the words of a friend, on any given day we are just one bad decision from disaster
• … that we are all unbelievably vulnerable
• … that we have so much to lose
• … that to live or die a fool is no way to live or die
• … that we need people in our lives who love us enough to tell us when we are wrong
• … that we need at least one person who knows about the junk in our trunk
• … that we need at least one person who dares to ask us hard questions
• … that examining, exposing and ordering our private, inner world is of critical importance
• … that our hearts are desperately wicked
• … that we are being delivered from darkness
• … that the real shame is to pretend that there is no darkness within
• … that we can be very good at pretending
• … that God loves us because that’s what He is – despite the darkness, despite our pretending
• … that His grace is enough and it is boundless
• … that when we are weak then we are strong – in Christ

“What does it mean to be a man who leads? It means you repent first, you allow yourself to be broken first.”

Listed below are what Dennis Rainey describes as the 4 essential elements for parenting. I caught this a while ago on a Family Life Today radio broadcast and wanted to share them here. It makes a lot of sense and keeps it simple.

Would love to hear thoughts, ideas, suggestions, etc. from all the Dads out there who have a whole lot more experience as parents than I do. I’m posting this minutes after coming in from outside, playing with my daughter (Summer, who is almost 3) and two of the neighbor kids. They were playing baseball and hockey… no, not at the same time. Summer threw the baseball and hockey puck in the bushes about 17 times… just for the fun of it… she laughed like crazy… thought it was hilarious. 

I’m sure that somehow little things like that fit into this grid, but I’m not exactly sure how.

The 4 Essential Elements for Parenting

(1) Identity – personal and sexual

(2) Relationships – how to do life with imperfect people

(3) Character – understanding right and wrong

(4) Sense of Mission – what’s God doing and how do I fit in?

This morning I was driving along I-24 in TN and tuned in to the FISH station in Nashville. The song that was playing was Slow Fade by Casting Crowns. Oh man, does this song ever nail it! One of the things I absolutely love and respect about the music CC has been putting out is that it is so incredibly REAL and HONEST and ACCURATE and TRUE-TO-LIFE and JUST WHAT I NEED TO HEAR.

Slow fade? You betcha. I am aware more than ever, and I hope I am speaking with absolute honesty here, of the activity of the devil in doing what his name implies… lying, deceiving, accusing, stealing, killing, destroying, threatening, intimidating, etc. No, I am not always aware of what he is doing at any given moment and he certainly pulls his stinking rotten tricks on me, but I am aware of how much he hates people and wants nothing more than to keep us from living free in Christ Jesus.

I am also more aware than ever at this point in my journey of my own sinful tendencies and weaknesses and patterns and predispositions.

The combination of my own “quirks” and the enemy that loves to prey on them is not a good one.

But praise God that Jesus has set us free, and whomever the Son sets free is free indeed, and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and He has separated us from our sins as far as the east is from the west, and He has not given to us a spirit fear, but a Spirit of love and of joy and of sound mind.

The old hymn says it well… O victory in Jesus, my Savior, forever. He sought me and bought me, with His redeeming blood; He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him, He plunged me to victory, beneath the cleansing flood.

While all this is true, we still have to guard ourselves because it’s a slow fade… nothing happens overnight… NOTHING. It starts with me not being in God’s Word regularly. It starts with me not praying which, incidentally, I am commanded to do. It starts with me not walking in the light as He is in the light so that He and I can talk freely and consistently and honestly (and I should note that any breakdown in communication is clearly my doing). It starts with me being prideful and arrogant and stubborn. It starts with me not keeping watch over my tongue. It starts with me holding on to offenses and letting (sometimes righteous) anger fester into cancerous unforgiveness and staph-like bitterness that infects my soul and negatively affects those closest to me.

And then it all boils over like an unattended pot on the stovetop and I rush over but the mess has already been made and it’s really difficult to clean up at that point.

I need to guard myself because it’s a slow fade.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. ~~ Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. ~~ Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life. ~~ Whoever guards his way preserves his life. ~~ Whoever guards his soul will keep far from [thorns and snares]. ~~ The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. ~~ The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guardyou against the evil one. ~~ I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.

[ Psalm 119:9; Proverbs 4:5-7; Proverbs 4:13; Proverbs 16:17b; Proverbs 22:5; Philippians 4:7; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; 2 Timothy 1:12 ]

Take a listen to Slow Fade here on the player and let it sink into your heart today.

O God, would You graciously and mercifully give us the strength to avoid wandering away from You and all that is best for us as you know what is best for us. You have been kind and good to us and we are desperate for You every moment of every day. Deliver us from evil and guard us from the temptations that we will encounter today.

Amen and amen.

A couple of weeks ago, our daughter (Summer) had her 15-month doctor’s visit.  Praise God, she’s doing great!  Part of the check-up included shots… five of them, in fact.  I’m still not sure who was in more pain… Summer, Nicol, or me.  Summer, as many of you can probably imagine, howled and cried as the nurse plunged each of the syringes into her legs and arms.  So after it was all over, I asked her if she wanted to go get some ice cream.  That perked her up a little bit and I think she started right then and there to forget about the shots.  And by the time we got to Baskin Robbins, ordered, and started enjoying the ice cream, she was completely over the trauma that she had endured only minutes earlier.

The next day, I got to thinking about these words from Solomon: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)

There’s coming a day for our little Summer when a good ice cream cone won’t begin take away her pain.  Oh how simple life is for her right now.  How complicated and difficult it will become.

Then I began to think about the importance of these days.  I need to live my life so that she will remember her Creator… so that she will look to Him, and seek Him, and recognize her need for Him, and give her life to Him, and love Him with everything she has… and trust Him with the painful circumstances that are destined for her journey.

Only with Him and in Him will she get by… and I’m sure she’ll still be able to enjoy a good ol’ ice cream once in a while too.    

“If any are inclined to despond, because they do not have patience, let them be of good courage. It is in the course of our feeble and very imperfect waiting that God Himself, by His hidden power, strengthens us and works out in us the patience of the saints, the patience of Christ Himself.” –Andrew Murray

If you were to ask my wife to list my strengths, I can assure you that patience probably would not make her Top 5. Sure, I get it right some of the time… with our 16-month-old daughter, even when she lets out a blood-curdling scream at J. Alexander’s for no apparent reason other than she wants to hear her voice (at least that’s the best explanation I can come up with); or, on the golf course, after I follow up a stinking triple bogey with a double, because I just know that my next shot is going to be the best one of the round; or, when someone or some experience really messes up my plans or my day, because that particular individual or that set of circumstances don’t really mean all that much to me… in a Christian kind of way, of course. It’s VERY easy for me to be patient in situations like these.

But if you want to see the “impatientometer” really spin, just watch when my expectations aren’t met, or when things aren’t done the way I think they ought to be done, or when someone asks something of me that I don’t really want to do. CAN ANYONE RELATE?

The Bible says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) One translation says that the Holy Spirit actually “produces” these things in our lives. Or, as Andrew Murray once wrote, God Himself, by His hidden power, strengthens us and works out in us the patience of the saints, the patience of Christ Himself.

So, as the leader of your home, business, small group, office, softball team, or church (from a guy who struggles with impatience!) may the Lord work in us this very hour the patience of Jesus Christ so that we might honor Him and be a blessing to others. May we walk worthy of the calling to which we have been called… with patience. (Eph. 4:2)

Amen and Amen.

Love

Example

Accountable

Discipline

Equip

Respectable

Servant

Humility

Integrity

John Wesley once said, “Let your words be the genuine picture of your heart.” No games, no fronts, no facades please. Walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk. And don’t forget what Jesus said: “…whatever is in your heart determines what you say.” (Matthew 12:34b, NLT) I’m sure we can all think of times when words and actions have exposed the junk in our hearts… I sure can.

I have a friend who told me not long ago that “a person either has integrity or he doesn’t.” His statement caught me off guard and, honestly, it didn’t ring true in my heart. Who of us is so sanctified that they always walk the talk? Who can say that their heart is so right before God that it is never negatively exposed by their words or actions? King David certainly couldn’t… adultery followed by conspiracy to commit murder. Not exactly prime material for an info-mercial on character and integrity. (Interestingly, the Bible refers to David as a “man after God’s own heart” [1 Samuel 13:14], and says that his heart was “wholly true to the Lord his God.” [1 Kings 11:4]. Ah, the rich mercy of God.) So, as far as I am able to understand it, we all are in the process of having our integrity refined and purified. None of us has arrived… but by God’s grace we are making progress.

How important to this subject are the observations of John Henry Newman: “Never think we have a due knowledge of ourselves until we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Intregrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we would act if brought under temptations different from those we have already experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins.”

Think about this… if it were you standing on your balcony that night while Bathsheba was bathing, would you have had her brought to your bedroom like David did? If Potiphar’s wife had seduced you day after day after day, would you have fled like Joseph did?

I have another friend who keeps a list in the back page of his Bible titled “Friends who have lost their integrity” and notes what their actions have cost them. A corresponding list titled “What I will lose if I lose my integrity” details what is at risk if he doesn’t walk the talk.

Hey men, there’s a lot at stake here. We have to keep things real… let’s not play games. Walk the talk and don’t forget what you will lose if you lose your integrity.

Lord, let us be wholly true to you.

P_____

Love

Example

Accountable

Discipline

Equip

Respectable

Servant

Humility

Augustine thought that humility is rather important. “Humility,” he said, “is the foundation of all the other virtues; hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.” In other words, if we’re not humble, there’s nothing genuine about the rest of our character. Strong words!

J. Oswald Sanders agrees. “Humility is the hallmark of the spiritual leader. A leader’s humility should grow with the passing of years, like other attitudes and qualities.”

So what does God’s Word have to say about it? A lot… but that shouldn’t surprise anyone!

Want honor? Be humble. “Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.” (Proverbs 18:12)

Want God’s favor? Be humble. “The reward for humility and the fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.” (Proverbs 22:4)

Want to be like the apostle Paul? Be humble. “I am less than the least of all God’s people.” (Ephesians 3:8)

Want great Christian community? Be humble. “Do nothing from rivalry or vain conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3)

Want to dress for success? Be humble. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…”

So there it is. Humility. The virtue of virtues. The trademark characteristic of the spiritual leader. The antithesis of my nature. The epitomy of Christ.

God help us grow in this ever-important quality. Amen.

I_____

P_____

Love

Example

Accountable

Discipline

Equip

Respectable

Servant

Of servant leadership, Warren Wiersbe says,”To put it plainly, shepherds serve their sheep. Shepherds know their sheep and can call them by name. They lead their sheep to places where they can find food, water, and shelter. They protect the sheep from enemies, they appy oil when the sheep have been cut or bruised, they enable the sheep to be useful in growing wool, providing milk, and reproducing after their kind. When any of the sheep go astray, the shepherd goes after them and seeks to bring them back.”

Jesus referred to Himself as a servant. “… the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve …” (Mark 10:45) Paul also saw his primary role in this way. He was a “bondservant of Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:1) “… what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Corinthians 4:5) And to the Thessalonian church he wrote, “… being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” (1 Thessalonians 2:8) In other words, Paul was saying “We’re here for you! What do you need? How can we serve you?”

Many words and phrases are used to describe leadership: management, control, guidance, direction, oversight, persuasion, influence, mobilization, taking charge, the ability to get others to follow you, etc. But, real leadership is servant leadership. Afterall, that’s how Jesus described His relationship to His disciples… “I am among you as the one who serves.” (Luke 22:27)

And what does He ask of us? Simple. “Go and do likewise.”

H_____

I_____

P_____