This next picture is one Anna took of Norah at the zoo... we think it's a really cool picture and that Anna has a very stylish eye for composition:



Shoelaces

Well, it’s finally over. Yesterday we closed on our new house making it totally official that we’ve moved. Actually, the first thing we did was close on the old house… the house we sold and then, without getting out of the chairs in the lawyer’s office, we closed on the house we bought. It was pretty cool… we were actually homeless for forty-five minutes without ever leaving our seats. And so, after signing my name and initials so many times that I sort of started to forget how to spell my name and initials… you know, like they were just a bunch of strange, abstract shapes rather than actual letters that formed words… after doing that 1.5 million times, we were once again home owners! It was awesome.

Well, after taking Christy back to the house, I went to Nancy’s to get the kids… they were not happy about having to come to the new house only to take naps. They pretty much whined about it the whole way home, and here’s the thing: they’ve been whining for days! I mean, just the other day I took them to Target to let them pick out brand new sheets for their new beds, which I thought would be a pretty cool thing. They were excited about this prospect for a while, but in no time they had dissolved to complaining about something. Later that day they begged us to go to a restaurant, which we had to do because we were basically homeless and when we got there, they complained like crazy! Never mind the fact that they were getting a new house with a big, fat play room. Never mind the fact that they were both getting new beds, new sheets, and some awesome food from McAllister’s… they were whining it up about everything! It was like a barrage of selfishness and take, take, taking without the slightest moment of gratitude. I felt like saying, “Hey! Chill out for a second and look around you… you’ve got it pretty good!”

Then I read this verse in Mark chapter 1 and put the shoe on the other foot… John the Baptist says, “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” You know, there have been so many times during this whole house buying process that I have freaked out and dissolved into a mass of blubbering complaint. I have whined and fussed time and again, wondering what’s going to happen and trying so hard to work the angles just to get what I want. I have freaked out, lost my cool and have had those feelings of “this just isn’t fair…” over and over again… the whole time forgetting something very important.

Jesus has been so ridiculously good to me. He has been so good, and here’s the thing: He doesn’t have to. I mean, I have been forgetting the fact that He is the Creator and sustainer of the universe. He commands mighty angels and even Satan must ask His permission before making a move. Jesus sees the faraway explosions of nebulas and He sees the blooming of wildflowers where no one’s ever been. He calls the stars by name every night and sets the sun on its course every single day. He is so high and holy, so absolutely exalted that I am lower than His shoelaces… whoa. And sometimes I forget that even though I am lower than His shoelaces, He spilled His blood for me. He gave His life until it was gone and He did it for me. I did not deserve this, and yet it’s true. I have nothing to complain about, nothing to whine about and nothing to freak out about. I have been loved and provided for beyond my wildest dreams by Him who is higher than all. I’ve got it made in the shade.

Live it Up

What a month… We are currently boxing up our house to move into a new one, the new baby is kicking harder than ever, Justin and Grace are about to get married, my little eight-month-old buddy Dylan has got some rocking new teeth, five awesome kids just got baptized, another awesome kid just met Christ, everyday I am more and more excited to come home to the girl I love and Michael Phelps just dominated water (which, let’s not forget is one of the elements) for like the millionth time. Whoa. My head is still spinning!

I guess it just feels like life is all around me. Everywhere I turn there seems to be this excitement and activity. Every night after the kids are in bed I can’t wait to tune in to the Olympics and watch greatness on parade along with the rest of the eyes in the world… just amazed at what humans can do. Pretty soon we’ll be sitting up on the hill on Friday nights cheering on the Wildcats underneath stadium lights and forgetting that we’re not in high school anymore. Then folks will be gathering at a neighbor’s house on Saturday afternoons to grill out in their orange t-shirts and watch the Vols, including themselves in this team of elite athletes by referring to them as “we.” I just love this time of year… school is back in session, which means that for those of us in Young Life, it’s go time. We’re back at the school too, just looking for folks who need Jesus and haven’t yet heard about this great love.

It’s weird. I feel like a little kid… I feel like Anna seemed to feel the other day when we told her we were going to the zoo! I mean, she was over the moon with excitement. She couldn’t have been happier if I had told her that we owned the zoo! I just feel like I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and see what it is that God has for us… I’m actually so worked up that I can’t sleep… see, as I type this it’s almost 11:00 PM and I should be in bed, but I’m all filled up with I don’t know what! Excitement… expectation… life!

In John 10 Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” All around us God is doing amazing things… just this month a really hardcore guy met Jesus at the Anderson County jail because of Tom’s preaching and even though you didn’t know about it, all of heaven was having a party! All around us there are new marriages, new heartbeats and fresh new starts. Sure, there are tons of not-so-happy things around us as well, but God reigns over them and is working them all out for good. We’ve only got this one life to live in joy. We’ve only got this one ‘fall of 2008’ to wake up excited and live expectantly. We’ve only this one day to trust God and live life to the full. It’s why Jesus came… it’s what He paid for and all around us, it’s happening. Life… real life, new life and full life is coming at you. Why not decide today to live it up?

He Made Time For Me

One of my absolute favorite Jesus stories from the Gospels occurs right at the beginning of John’s account… John the Baptist had been telling his followers that Someone was coming who was greater than he, and when Jesus finally showed up at the Jordan one day, some of John’s guys started to follow Him. They were seekers; interested in spiritual things… searching for God, looking for eternal life and wanting righteousness. They started walking behind Jesus. He realized He was being followed, so He turned around and asked these guys what they wanted. They asked where Jesus was staying… basically inviting themselves into His day. Jesus didn’t dodge them or blow them off. He looked at them and said, “Come and see.” Then follows one of my favorite verses: “So they went and saw where He was staying, and spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.”

I love that verse so much because John, who wrote the Gospel, was one of those two guys following Jesus around like some kind of star struck tourist. The fact that he told us what time it was is very significant… When people have an important story to tell you, they always include details as a way to emphasize that this isn’t just another thing that happened… this is something they’ll never forget. By mentioning the time of day, John is basically saying to us, “I’ll never forget the day Jesus made time for me… it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”

I bring this up because I have a similar story that I’ll never forget. I was in high school and was troubled, confused and seeking like crazy. I had a lot of teenage drama all mixed up with a bunch of theological confusion and I felt like no one in my church really wanted to listen to me. A friend told me to call this one pastor in town who wasn’t even my pastor. Well, I did and I’ll never forget the next day. He asked if he could meet me for lunch, so the next day, we ate sandwiches his wife made for us on some park benches and he just listened to me unload my emotional and spiritual baggage for a long time. Then he caringly gave me this seemingly tender advice that wound up cutting right to the heart of my problem.

I was just a random kid with a bunch of petty and trivial problems who didn’t even go to his church, and yet he made time for me. I’ll never forget that. It was about 12 o’clock…

Not that I’m saying this guy was Jesus or anything like that, but he loved me like Jesus and he showed me who Jesus is, and who Jesus needed to be in my life. Nowadays, he is my pastor, and he earned it. I am writing all this because he just left for Spain and I already miss him. I am writing this because I want to say to the rest of the folks in our little church that God has given us a treasure in Tommy. He is the kind of guy who makes time for people. He’s the kind of guy who gently speaks loving truth into the midst of confusion and hurt. He’s the kind of guy who loves like Jesus, and I’ll never forget the day I met him.

Does anyone else have a good story about Tom Job? Leave your story as a comment!

New Song!!

Here is a tune I wrote this week about how this world is not our home, but sometimes we want to try to make it just that... we want to be comfortable, and we want to have a lot, but that's not really what we were made for. The Apostle said that if we have food and shelter, this will be enough... that's because we're just pilgrims and we're just passing through.

By the way, it was long believed that the last hymn sung on the Titanic before it went down was "Nearer My God to Thee." Well, as it turns out, the last hymn was actually an episcopalian hymn that some folks called, "Autumn." I used the last lines of that hymn for my chorus here.

If you follow this link, you can listen or download this live performance of the song for absolutely free... enjoy.

The World to Be

Fill my hands or break my heart
It’s the way I’ve lived and how we’ve been taught
Give me more than I’ll ever need
It’s how you say that you love me
But these hands weren’t made to hold onto this world
They were made to hold up and out

To give and give and give again what God has given me;
To spend myself and not count the cost
To serve right gloriously
The God who gives the world to be

I’m just a stranger passing through
And when this life ends I’ll fly to you
My pilgrim days are almost done
Til I reach my home in the Son
So what have I to do with all I can see,
Since I cannot take it home with me?
(CHORUS)

Made For This

Last Tuesday night I was in Chicago with some of our high school and college folks on a trip to serve some of our missionaries. We spent the whole day serving... working in the hot sun on people’s houses who needed help, and then we went to Mission:USA’s weekly service called “The Bridge.” Our kids welcomed and met folks who had spent their lives on the streets and in jail. They listened to their stories and worshiped God with them. When the service was almost over, our kids slipped out of the back door and got ready to serve them all dinner. They served, talked to and prayed with folks they had never met and they had the time of their lives. Shortly after we arrived back in Tennessee one of the moms of a kid who went told me that her daughter had not stopped talking about The Bridge. She said it was the greatest trip of her life!

Now, I knew that hauling it up to Chicago, seeing the sights and loving on folks up there was going to be a fun trip for these kids, but it was much more than that… some of these kids have been snow skiing every winter and on the beaches every summer. They’ve been to Europe and Asia and had all kinds of amazing experiences and yet going to a little church in a rough neighborhood in a big city to serve up fried chicken and hang out with ex-offenders was the best trip of their lives… What is up with that?

Well, after we served at The Bridge, I asked the kids to answer some questions by writing about the experience they had and here are some things that were written on those pages… “I loved it. I felt like we were doing what we were intended to do.” “You just feel right at The Bridge.” “Serving and praising are the only two times I find myself letting go of me” “Serving comes so easy, not like work… like that’s how it’s supposed to be… like we were made that way.” “It’s amazing to serve, there is nothing like it… I felt like I was flying.” “I felt free… I know I always want to do this” “My heart was overflowing with love for those brothers… I wish we could go every week.” “It’s an incredible feeling to put others before yourself, because that’s how God intended us to be.” “God taught me that I was made for something much greater than myself…”

In Psalm 4 the Lord asks, “How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?” See, the reason those kids would call this 'the trip of their life' is because they were so incandescently happy. They were happier in Chicago with thugs from the halfway house than they’ve ever been soaking up the sun in Hawaii or hitting the slopes in Aspen. Why, because we were made to know God, to love Him and to share His love by caring about people and serving them selflessly. God programmed us in such a way that if we realize the purpose of life, we’re happy. If we don’t, or if we focus on stuff we weren’t made for, we’re not happy… How long will we love delusions and seek false gods?

In verse 7 of Psalm 4 David says to the Lord, “You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.” We were made for God and to be used by Him. When we live there, we are filled with the assurance and satisfaction of fulfilled purpose. When we spend all our energy, time and resources on ourselves, we become miserable and confused. Our kids found themselves in Chicago. They found that they were made to love and serve Jesus and they absolutely loved it. It was the trip of a lifetime because they discovered what life is really about. Are you happy? And if the answer is no, is there a good reason why you’re not?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

New Song...

Here's a new song I just finished... it's about how Jesus wants our whole life and how we can't serve Him and other stuff... and by the way, just what would happen if we decided to give Him everything?

You can click here to listen to or even download the song for free.


Here I Am

Here I am, where should I go?
These open hands are yours to command, should You say so
What would You do with a life fully given to You
Does anyone really know?

I’ve spent so much time holding on to this life
Just grasping for my piece of everything
But You gave it all
And You’re calling me to follow You in the same way
(CHORUS)

He took the wisdom we thought was sound
And turned it right upside down
He said the last will be first, love of money’s the worst
And the greatest is the slave of all
What if you gain the world but lose yourself instead
Wouldn’t you have rather said:
(CHORUS)

Cleaning Up

Potty training is hard stuff. By the way, before we go any further with this, I realize this isn't the world's most pleasant subject. I know, you probably don't need to read all about this fairly awkward subject, but I assure you, I'm going somewhere with all this, so bear with me... As I said, Potty training is hard stuff. It's one of those parenting things about which there are seven million opinions and everyone is an expert. It's one of things as a parent where you're constantly second guessing yourself and never fully convinced you've got it right. It's one of those things parents quietly compete about... Like, “Well one day little Jimmy just tore off his diapers and never looked back, and he was only three months old...” yeah, right, whatever. Our experience has been that potty training is a difficult and long process rife with successes and setbacks, anxiety and applause.

Right now Norah is smack dab in the middle of the storm. She has good days and bad days. Sometimes she’ll wake up dry as a bone, and use the potty all day long, staying dry right up until bedtime. Other days, we use every single pair of panties in the house and have to do laundry twice just to keep her clean. Some days you’re thinking, “Man, this girl has got it down! She’s totally potty trained!” and then the next day you’re like, “Just give me the ibuprofen and get outta my way!” It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or something… we go from Potty Pro to Suzy pees-a-lot in no time… and if you ask her anything related to the potty, no matter what her state, the answer is always, “No.” If you say, “Do you need to go potty?” She says, “No.” If you say, “Are you dry?” She says, “No.” If you say, “Well then, are you wet?” She continues to say, “No.”

The problem is that you’re not allowed to freak out, fly off the handle and tear your eyeballs out of their sockets while inventing new ways to cuss under your breath. Day in and day out I watch my amazing wife just keep her cool and continue this steady stream of relaxed encouragement; so as not to plague Norah with ‘potty accident guilt’ and I’m just mystified… How does she do it? When Norah has an accident, (especially when it’s about the fourth one in an hour) my brain feels like someone is shoving bamboo shoots up my fingernails and I want nothing more than to lose control! I’m thinking, “Are you joking me?! Again!? I have to clean this up again?”

This morning was one of Norah’s bad days and as I was soaking and scrubbing some undies with a steadily rising temperature, I remembered something… My Father never loses His cool on my bad days. That’s right, I have good days and bad days and sometimes; like Norah, I’m not even a good judge of whether or not I’m clean, but my Heavenly Father never flies off the handle… nope, He just cleans me up, and that’s because of Jesus. Precious blood was spilled for me and because of that, I’m clean; and if I mess up in some way, I’m cleansed again. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” This is not some kind of carte blanche for more and more sin; no, it’s because of His loving tenderness and forgiveness that I want to grow. Now, if I can only learn to be more like Him for my sweet little Norah…



Here are a couple pics of the girls c hillin' at church, playing the piano and just being cute:

Our House... officially 'on the market.' By the way, Christy may have designed and planted the window boxes, but i hung them on the house with all of my handy skills.


A Sign in the Yard and Tears in the Eyes

This week our house officially went on the market. We’re praying that it sells quickly and that just the right place is ready for us… we’ve even got the kids praying about it. Anna always asks me if we’re going to get another house and I always tell her that we will if the Lord gives us the money. As a result, I heard her pray this yesterday: “Dear Lord, oh please give Daddy money so we can get a new house and an orange van!” Yeah, for some reason she not only wants to get a van, but an orange van. I told her that I didn’t think they made orange vans and she told me, “Dad, they can make whatever color they want,” which I suppose is technically true.

Anyway, when I drove home from church yesterday, I rounded the corner and saw the realty sign in the yard, complete with a name and phone number on it. My stomach lurched when I saw it. I had known for months that this day was coming, but it made me sad to see that sign. I was sad to leave this awesome neighborhood… sad to leave our incredible next-door neighbors Jack and Jo. Not only that, but all our best memories are there. Years ago, before college, Christy and her sister rented that house. It was grey then, and we used to call it “Stonehenge.” It was in my car outside that house that I first kissed Christy… And then we were married and bought that house. As I’ve said before, we brought our newborns to that house… that’s where all the sleepless nights, baby teeth, first steps and bubble baths happened. It kinda tears me up to even type this stuff…

Well, a few weeks ago Christy told Jack and Jo that we would probably be moving away… We love Jack and Jo. They are the sweetest neighbors anyone ever had; just a precious old couple who love to walk around our quiet circle two or three times every day. Mrs. Jo makes the best fried chicken and pinto beans with cornbread on the planet, and she always brings it over to us at just the right moment. They always loan us everything and they always bring fresh watermelon. Our kids absolutely love Jack and Jo… (Norah always says “Jo Jo”) and it’s honestly hard to imagine life without them being right next door.

As I was saying, a few weeks ago Christy told Jack and Jo that we would probably be moving away… Jack began to nod his head and say that they figured we would need more space now that the third baby was on the way, but Mrs. Jo just began to weep. In fact, she sort of fell apart and ran into her house. It was the news she dreaded to hear, and even now, weeks later, she still cries when she thinks about Christy and our girls leaving. I saw Jack and Jo yesterday when I needed to borrow some Tylenol and after Jack remarked about the sign in our yard, Jo became upset and told him not to talk about it because it made her cry.

There is a place in Acts 20 where Paul is leaving a group of believers who loved him so much that as he turned to go, Luke tells us that, “They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.” The scene actually spills over into chapter 21 where Luke tells us that in order to leave, they had to “tear” themselves away from these people. They loved him so much that it broke their hearts to see him go… One time Tony Campolo quoted his pastor saying this in a message to high school graduates: “When you were born you were the only one who cried; everyone else was happy. That’s not important. Here’s what’s important: When you die, will you be the only one that’s happy while everyone else is crying?” I want to live the kind of love-filled life that will make people sad to see me go. That’s the way Jo feels about Christy, and it’s the way you’re going to want the people in your life to feel about you when there’s a sign in your yard.


Bonus pic: Here's Christy giving Norah her first haircut!

Baby Pictures!

Ultrasound that is... Christy's Aunt Jodie gave us a sneak peak of our baby boy in 4D! 

Here he is resting his chin on his elbow like a GQ pose:

Norah and Cousin Josiah on 'The Fourth' watching the fireworks in Knoxville...

They Will Know

Well, we are going to have to move into a new house, which means we have to sell this one, which could be a problem… See, we’ve got this sixty-five year old house with lots of emotional issues. It’s less than 950 square feet, it doesn’t have a breaker box and it’s less energy efficient than a wet cardboard box; so who’s going to buy the thing? On the other hand, it’s about the cutest little house ever on the quietest street full of the nicest neighbors in the best school district in the whole city; so, who wouldn’t buy it? When we bought it five and a half years ago, it was a dump. In fact, that’s overstating it. It was an absolute train wreck… in fact, if a train had derailed and wrecked into it, the property value would have gone up. We got the house for a song (thanks to some benevolent friends) and poured our hearts into it. We painted, sanded, mudded, hammered, measured, ripped out and built up. We moved in, hung our pictures, played our music, laughed, danced, cried, partied and raised two babies. We loved on this house and it loved us back, but now we have to move on and part of that includes passing it on.

So we got a realtor to come check it out and she said it looks great but then gave us a laundry list of things the house needed to really make it pop. Christy and I looked at this list thinking we could probably handle it over a period of a couple of months when the realtor said, “By the way, we need to get that stuff done in ten days.” WHAT!? Ten days?!

After my brain exploded, I picked up the pieces and then picked up the phone. I called Tom who sent out an email… one little email to some folks at church and guess what happened… an all out army of our sweet church folks showed up on Sunday afternoon and transformed this house. It was the body of Christ doing what they do best… coming together to serve someone out of love. You should have seen it! I had a list of jobs that needed to be done and every time I turned around, another person was in my grill with sweat on their brow and paint in their hair saying, “What’s next, Lee?” Joe was thirty feet up in the black walnut tree with a climbing harness and a chainsaw hacking off branches and brightening up the yard; and that was after ripping a humongous tree stump out of the yard with his bare hands! Mollie and Jeremy were among the three or four trucks taking load after load of brush and branches to the dump. My old high school guys like Robert and Paul were weed eating and scraping paint… Brad, Todd and Lucas painted my porch while Abbey and Meg spent the whole day doing touch-up and trim paint all up in the house.

In John 13 Jesus said, “A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” All day on Sunday my neighbors drove by slowly, watching the smiling faces of the saints who served us so sweetly. I got to tell them later about how that was my friend George wielding that pressure washer, my family doctor Barry with all that mulch and my friend Bo with the third chainsaw… about how Patrick fixed our shed and Erica and Brenna painted our porch after Sam and Gee scraped it off… and about all the other work done by Matt, Taylor, Brittany, Thomas, Tina and Tom. It was an awesome day that I won’t soon forget.

One of the biggest jobs of the day was hanging trim in my foyer, and after Ben finished doing it, I told him how grateful I was for all he had done and he said, “It was nothing, man. You’ve been such a great brother to me.” That’s it... That's what my whole neighborhood got to see that day. That’s what the body of Christ, the family of God is supposed to look like: brothers and sisters giving and serving each other out of love for one another.


Well, here are a few more pics from the weekend of the Fourth:

Norah and Anna enjoying some ice cream cones on Patrick's boat:


Paba and Abby... (you can click here to go check out Paba's awesomely awesome blog.)


A very pumped Anna with me on the dock:


And here we are watching fireworks later that night... it was really loud and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra was wailing on the 1812 Overture as the fireworks boomed and sizzled.

Feeling Foreign

Around eight years ago Christy and I traveled to China to visit her parents who have been living and working there for the past 21 years. It was an amazing trip for me for a number of reasons. For one thing, Christy had grown up in China and I was finally going to get to connect with that part of her past. I was finally going to put faces with all the names and stories I had heard for years. This trip was also a big deal for me because I had never left the U.S. before; in fact, Nashville was about the biggest city I had ever seen. When we landed in Beijing I was completely blown away. I should have been wiped out from the sheer ridiculous length of the journey, but adrenaline was coursing through my veins as our taxi passed Tian An Men Square and I saw more humans and kites in one place than at any other time in my life. Over the next few days we stood on the Great Wall, walked through the Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven. We haggled the prices of American branded products in the Beijing silk alley and ate the most interesting and amazing food ever.

We journeyed south to the island where my wife lived as a little girl and I walked through the alleys and down the cobbled streets where she rode her first bike over the toes of an unsuspecting woman carrying her groceries. I met people who had previously only existed in stories… I saw Lao Zhou’s piano and actually heard him play and sing Silent Night in 4/4 time as advertised. I ate “bang bang bing” and held Christy’s hand as we walked past “The Rock” which was her favorite play place as a little girl. It was so cool to be able to enter into Christy’s story in this way, but it was also hard…

My Chinese is very, very limited and the Fu Zhou province is no East Tennessee. After a few days I got used to the sweltering heat and the total lack of air conditioning, but it took a little longer to get used to the absence of real-live coke products. Everywhere I went in Southern China I felt strange. I couldn’t have many conversations and I was a head and a half taller than everyone (and there were a lot of everyones to be taller than). One time we needed directions to a certain place and I suggested (in Chinese) that we ask the hotel employee across the room. Everyone started to laugh at me… apparently I had actually suggested that we kiss the hotel employee rather than ask him. Ha ha.

During this trip I learned what it is to feel like a foreigner. I know what it is to not belong. I know how it feels to be on the outside of the jokes, and I know how it feels to be the punch line. I loved China, but I didn’t really fit there.

I was reading this week in John 15 where Jesus said, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” I realized in reading these words again that I don’t really want to ‘fit’ in this world... not even here in East Tennessee. I want my life to belong to Christ and be so identified with Him that I am on the outside here. I want my love and compassion to be so outrageous and otherworldly that I seem like some kind of alien… like a foreigner on this planet, even if it means being hated. I want to be on the outside because if I am, I know for sure that I am His.



Here are a few pics from that trip... by the way, my old (and quite nostalgic) camera displayed the date as being 1994 no matter what year it actually was. Here we are at Christy's old house on the island of Gulangyu right off of the southern coast of Xiamen:


Christy at the Temple of Heaven:

I look photoshopped in here, but it's the real deal at the Summer Palace I think:

Here we are at the Forbidden City, which by the way was called that not because people were forbidden from coming in, but because the emperor was forbidden from leaving... weird huh?


At the Temple of Heaven... All of the outrageous detail on every square inch of these structures was crafted out of wood and hand painted in the 14th century... no smoking please:

Well, here's our newest baby picture and... it's a boy!

All Around Us

Well, we’re halfway through the pregnancy of our third baby… twenty weeks down, and twenty more to go. I wish there were some way of knowing what our new little one is thinking during these days. I wish there were some way to measure his level of awareness. What are the days like in that warm little private hot tub? Last night Christy and I sat on the couch and watched as the new baby kicked against his temporary hacienda… I love watching the surprise in Christy’s eyes as she experiences what must be the strangest feeling ever - having another person inside you jostling around…

The really interesting thing to me is that pretty soon he’ll be here and when that day comes, he’ll open his eyes on a world so big and amazing; and yet, he’s been here all the time, he just couldn’t see it. When he comes, it will be into a world alive with colors where before there had been only darkness. He’ll hear clearly the sweet singing of his mom, the music of his dad and the sweet voices of his sisters where before it was all muffled and damped. Before waking into the world, he had all he needed for nutrition, but when he comes, he’ll begin to taste. He’ll replace the warmth of the womb with the amazing sensation of being touched by tender, loving hands. Eventually he’ll smell flowers and fruit. He’ll walk and run and laugh and cry amid sunsets and thunderstorms. There is simply a whole world of unbelievable and seemingly endless wonder awaiting our baby boy in just twenty weeks.

And yet, as I said, he’s been here all the time. This world; this wonderful and imminent explosion of sensory experience has been happening all around him the whole time… he just doesn’t know it. I don’t know what my unborn baby’s concept of reality is like right now, but it’s possible he thinks he’s got it made. I mean, he’s warm, comfy, nourished and gets to (sort of) hear a sweet voice that he’s gotten quite used to… Well, you and I know better. We know that it’s much cooler out here in the real world. It’s much better out here where there are strawberries, rainbows, warm quilts and kisses. If only he knew…

I was reading 2 Kings 6 this week and was reminded that we’re a whole lot like unborn babies… See, one time the king of Aram wanted to kill the Lord’s prophet Elisha, so he found out where Elisha was staying and sent his army to surround the city. Elisha’s servant woke up the next day, looked out the window and became scared at the sight of the ambush, but Elisha just read his morning paper and sipped his coffee saying, “Do not be afraid… Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” When his servant was not comforted by this seemingly unwarranted enthusiasm, Elisha prayed that the Lord would open his servant’s eyes. The servant looked again and saw the hillsides covered in a vast army of flaming chariots and angelic soldiers!

There is a heavenly reality all around us to which we belong that is more real and wonderful than this world will ever be. We can’t see them; but there are, on our side, forces enough to quench our fears. Right now we see only the shadows and we hear only the rumors. Then, we will know better. You see, there are awaiting us wonders and delights the likes of which we could never imagine. If we but knew what God has in store for us, we’d never stress, fuss or cry again, but only laugh and laugh until we arrived home…


Here's a pic of Norah... who by the way is pumped to be the big sis of a new little brother!

My guys right after rappelling at Young Life's Frontier Ranch in Buena Vista, Colorado


Hiking up to Chimney Rock...

And of course, the undisputed champions of the camp-wide volleyball tourney!



The Full Message of This New Life

So, I just got back home from an amazing week of summer camp at Young Life’s Frontier Ranch in the Colorado Rockies. We always tell kids that they need to come with us because it will be ‘the best week of their lives.’ Now, that’s a big thing to say to a high school kid… (especially when everyone of them drives a nicer car than I ever will) but the amazing this is this: I have taken kids to Young Life summer camp five times now and have never heard a kid say at the end of the week, “Lee, you were wrong man. That week wasn’t all that great.” No. Every single kid who has ever gotten on the bus with me has had their mind absolutely blown by the phenomenon that is Young Life camp… but why?

It’s really simple, actually. In John 10, Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Young Life camp seeks to show kids life as it was meant to be lived. We give them adventure, great food, hilarious skits, true community and a time where everyone gets together to sing, clap and listen as we hear the message of Jesus everyday. From top to bottom, stem to stern, the Gospel of Christ fuels every single thing that happens at Young Life Camp. Every detail is intentionally designed to make kids feel like super stars. They are celebrated, cheered, treasured, served and loved by the most enthusiastic bunch of adults around and the message is clear: “This is just the tip of the iceberg… the God who made you is simply crazy about you!”

From the time they arrive at camp until the moment they leave, there are a ton of other high school kids they don’t know who simply serve them all week long with a great big smile on their face. These other high schoolers (called ‘Work Crew’) greet them with applause off the bus, carry their luggage, fix and serve their food, wash their dishes and clean their toilets all week long without uttering a single complaint! It’s only on the second-to-last night that our kids find out that these Work Crew are high schoolers just like themselves who are giving up their summer to serve them without even earning a pay check!

It was a non-stop week of swimming, hiking, rappelling, horseback riding, go-carts, Frisbee golf, a ropes course, a giant swing and some of the most picturesque and breathtaking views in the whole country! It was a week without cell phones, iPods and tons of the distractions that cause so much teenage drama. It was a week of discovery, relationships, laughter and tears. Not only did we watch high school kids we love experience life, but we got to watch as many of them came to life, rescued and renewed by Jesus. It was a week of life as it was meant to be.

On the day before we got to camp, I woke up in an uncomfortable seat on a bus while thirty-nine other folks slept their way across the great plains. I grabbed my Bible and read this verse from Acts 5… “and tell the people the full message of this new life.” I knew that this was exactly what we were doing… offering kids life… life in Jesus… life as it was meant to be lived… life to the full.

Happy Birthday!

The other day, as I wrote the date at the top of the page in my journal, I got excited. Why? Well because it was one day away from my birthday. Then, after getting really pumped about what the next day would bring, I realized how strange this was… I mean, it’s just Thursday. It’s just the middle of May. It’s just another day… why was I so excited? It’s not like I remember being born (thank goodness). It’s not like there’s anything particularly birthday-ish about that day. What was causing this completely tangible excitement inside me? Why was I getting so fired up about just another day? And then I figured it out… it would be just another day like every other day except for one thing: the people I love always make a big deal about me on my birthday.

On my birthday I sleep in really late and get birthday cards from Christy and the kids. She gets them all excited about my day and when they see me they go nuts with hugs and kisses and “Happy Birthday!” all around. My family and friends call and send gifts and tell me they love me and that they are glad I am in this world and it feels really good. Christy always makes all the food I love best in the world and there’s always lots of laughing and chilling. When I wrote May 14 at the top of the page and knew that my day was coming up next I got excited because (dare I say it) I knew that I was going to be sort of celebrated and that made me happy.

Last year on my birthday I was at a Young Life camp in Georgia on a week long assignment, doing skits and entertainment for tons of college kids while my wife and daughters were back home in Tennessee. I didn’t have any cell phone signal which meant that Christy and I didn’t talk all day. As a result, and for the first time in my life, I went through my entire birthday without one person mentioning the fact that I had been born on this day… Finally, when it was thirty minutes before midnight, my friend Andy turned to me and said, “Dude, I’m sorry… I forgot to tell you happy birthday.” I felt like Harry Potter in book one drawing my own birthday cake in the dirt.

You know, when Christians come together on Sunday mornings to worship the Lord, we are celebrating Him, offering Him gifts and telling Him we love Him. Our worship services are basically the people He loves making a big deal about Him and He loves it. He loves to be told by us that we need Him. He loves to receive our gifts of praise and thanks. He loves to be told by His children that He is loved. I wonder if His heart gets excited on Saturday… I wonder if He gets fired up looking forward to His day knowing that His people are going to come together just to celebrate Him. Let’s make sure He never has to wait to hear what He loves so much! Let’s really give Him something to look forward too!

Here's a drawing Anna did of a rainbow, a tree and a person... oh yeah and birds. There are far away birds and one close-up bird down on the bottom left:

Anna in her Chinese dress... stay tuned after the post to see Anna's newest thing: sculpting ducks!


Sleepy

Every now and again the kids go through a phase where one or both of them doesn’t want to take their nap. The phase usually begins with short or interrupted naps. It helps the kids’ case if we have some special day where finding time and place for a nap is out of the question. They’ll thrive right through that naptime as if to say, “See, I’m too big for naps…” But just wait until right before dinnertime when the meltdown begins! Sometimes they whine a little when we tell them, “Okay, go pick a book so that we can read it for your naptime.” Anna will say, “I don’t need a nap. I’m so awake and I just want to play.” The funny thing about those days is that as soon as she lies down, she’s out for the count for hours on end.

Here’s the thing… why does Anna need a nap? Why do we sleep? I mean, isn’t it weird as heck that you have gone completely unconscious for hours at a time every single day of your whole life? Can you imagine how much more productive we could be if we didn’t have to spend eight hours out of every day completely motionless with our eyes closed? What’s really weird though is this: Scientists have no idea why we sleep. I’m serious. Many theories abound, but when it comes down to it, no one really knows what sleep is all about and no one has a clue what dreams accomplish.

Back in the day researchers assumed that wakefulness was the natural state of the brain and that sleep gave the brain an opportunity to shut down. Now we know this to be untrue. The fact is, the brain is active whether we are asleep or awake. Most people believe that sleep is about rebuilding and restoring. The idea is that during the day we break down our body and deplete our stores of energy both physical and cognitive, and we need sleep to recharge. That may explain why growth hormone is secreted during sleep. Maybe the best clues to unlocking the mystery of sleep lie in what happens when we don’t get enough… we become irritable, uncoordinated and more prone to errors. We lose our creative edge and sharpness.

Some think sleep and dreaming are a way to process our problems… the idea there is that as we face difficult, demanding, confusing or emotionally taxing situations, our brain heats up. These folks believe that sleep and dreams allow us to cool off and decompress from the pressures of living. These are all great theories, but no one is totally sure exactly why we sleep. There are only two things I know for sure about sleep. One is this: I need it… everyday. I need to stop. I need to check out. I need to cool down, rebuild, restore and whatever else there may be. I simply have to take some time out of everyday, lie down, close my eyes and stop thinking.

The other thing I know for sure about sleep is this: God doesn’t need to. Psalm 121 says, “He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” He doesn’t need to chill out. He doesn’t need to rebuild His energy supplies. He doesn’t have to take some time to decompress from the problems and pressures of the day. He doesn’t get grumpy, He doesn’t make errors and He doesn’t lose His edge. Whatever the reason for sleep, it must lie somewhere in our overwhelming weakness, but this is for sure: God doesn’t need to. He’s not weak and He’s not sleepy.


Anna's Ducks:
Okay, so Anna started sculpting ducks with play doh which is pretty cool and all... I mean, they're good ducks, but then I noticed that there was more going on than meets the eye...


Look at the pictures and you'll see a mommy duck with a couple of baby ducks. She always makes them a family like that. Now look in the back, behind the ducks. I asked her what that was and she said it's a nest with the eggs for the next baby ducks who haven't yet hatched. See, she makes the mom, then she makes the nest and the eggs. Then, when it's time for the babies to "hatch," she takes each egg and makes the next baby duck. As in, both of those baby ducks were little play doh eggs a few seconds ago... I thought that was really cool.

Norah smiling through some two-year-old tears...


Sunday Morning

Do you ever remember being a kid and feeling like there were just some things you could always count on? I know for me those were things like always getting homework on long weekends, always being able to watch four episodes of Saved By the Bell after school everyday and always knowing that Dad was going to be up in the kitchen making breakfast every single morning before school… (which carried with it the bonus of knowing that on Friday we were most likely having grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast)

One of the clearest memories that I was always able to bank on was knowing that every Sunday morning I was going to sing Just As I Am at church at the close of the service when the invitation was given… We all knew it was coming, and some people even bothered to open their hymnals to that trusty ole page as if they didn’t have it memorized. It was about the closest we ever got to any kind of liturgy in the Baptist Church, and even though we all knew it was coming, I loved it. I loved hearing and singing that song because I liked the way it felt to be in church and feel accepted by Jesus just the way I was. I remember liking that Sunday morning feeling even as a really little dude standing in my pew holding that hymnal I didn’t need.

One of my favorite songs is called Sunday Morning by Sandra McCracken. It’s about a person who is utterly shocked to discover that the love of God comes all the way down into the dust and mess of our darkest moments and cleanses us, making us clean and making us feel clean. She says,

You were the first and You’ll be the last
And like cloud on the Chicago skyline, these things are past,
Just as I am You rush in without a warning,
I didn’t think that you would really want to come to this place,
And make it feel like Sunday Morning,
You make it feel like Sunday morning

One of the reasons that I love to come together with brothers and sisters to worship is to remember that because of the blood of Jesus, we are clean and forgiven… That God accepts us and loves us just as we are and that He has declared us righteous in Christ, just as righteous as Christ. That’s why we sing the songs we do… to remember that He loves us and that He paid so that we could be clean and brand new and so that we could feel clean and brand new. After King David's really big screw-up he says in Psalm 51, “Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have crushed rejoice.” I have always loved the way it feels on Sunday morning because I know I’ll feel new and accepted again… “O Lamb of God I come, I come.”


So, this past weekend was our annual High School Spring Retreat with special guest stars Graham and Emily Murray. Graham brought an awesome message about the importance of weakness which was good because the only two eighth graders who went to the weekend dominated the tournament we created around this ridiculous bean-bag game...

Here's a video:

It Smells Holy Here

So today we had this huge cookout/fellowship meal at the church. It was awesome. Everyone brought their own food and a few guys broke out this super fat-daddy grill and started cookin’ it up. Brothers and sisters stood around eating, talking and laughing for an hour or so and then everyone packed up and headed to the house. After everyone left I turned out the lights, locked the doors, went home and just crashed for a while before heading back up to church for the high school Bible study. When I got here and got ready to unlock the door I was overwhelmed by the smell of grilled burgers… mmm. No one had been up here cooking for about three hours, but the smell of our cookout still dominated the air. After I unlocked the door, I walked in the building and was again bombarded with the smell of our cookout along with this outrageous desire to slam another burger! It was a fragrant reminder of the awesome fellowship we had together.

It has often struck me, when reading through the Old Testament accounts of sacrifice, just how much worship was a feast for the senses. You would hear the beat of the music alongside the bleating of lambs. You would feel the wool or the wine or grain in your fingers. You would see the flames and smoke of the altar alongside the multi-colored costumes of the priests and the arresting deep red of blood. If you were a priest, all these sacrifices became your meals… the taste of others’ offerings. And maybe more powerfully than any other, you would smell worship. It was like a never-ending barbeque with the aroma of beef, lamb, bread and wine constantly filling every corner of the temple or the tent. It was the height of hands-on drama and it must have been awesome. ‘Holy’ had a smell and it was delicious. It didn’t just feel good to make things right with God… it smelled good.

In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul says, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life…”

Holiness still has a smell. If we are offering our lives and hearts to Him, people will know it… just like the whole neighborhood knows on a bright summer day when one family breaks out the grill and throws on some burgers, people know when we smell like Him. Some folks don’t like it and some folks do, but when our lives are His, it’s fragrant to Him. Don’t you want to have a life that smells awesome to God? Don’t you want to have a life that makes people hungry for the Bread of Heaven?

Tomorrow the church won’t smell like burgers anymore… that is, unless I bust out that grill again and cook ‘em up! How’s your spiritual aroma? Is it time to get the fire going again? You can smell like Him. You can be fragrant. You can have a life that God loves to sniff and that others walk by and say, “Mmm… what is that?”

Norah Rose sidewalk-chalking it up at the Morgan's last month!


Immaturing

Lately Norah has had a mantra… in every situation, no matter what, she has one thing to say: “I do it all by myself!” In everything from getting in her high chair, putting on her shoes, brushing her teeth, putting in hair bows and everything in between, she desires independence. Now on one hand, this is a very good thing. I want her to get to a place where she can pick out her own clothes and successfully place them all on her body in a socially acceptable way. I want her to be independent in a ton of ways and in fact, one of the biggest blessings in the past couple of years has been the way our oldest little girl Anna has been doing so much for herself, by herself. The only problem with Norah’s intense yearning for independence is that she can’t do a lot of those things yet and with the advent of this desired independence, she’s losing the ability to ask for help.

The clearest example of this is the process of getting in the car. First off, Norah wants to open the door, so if I go anywhere near the handle, she freaks out: “No! I open it all by myself!” But she can’t, so she turns to me after grunting and trying and says, “It’s locked, Daddy.” So, I open the door and try to pick her up to get her in the seat, and yet again, she freaks: “No! I get in all by myself!” This is actually doable, but it takes around six or seven months and usually involves a few slips, bruises and tears. Then comes the seatbelt… wow. She wants to do this so badly, but she’s just not strong enough yet. She needs me, but she doesn’t want my help. If I touch the seatbelt, she freaks yet again: “No! Daddy! I do it all by myself!”

It’s like I’ve been watching someone simultaneously mature and regress. You see, babies love asking for help from their Daddies and Mommies. They are awesome at crying out when they are in need. When they first gain control of their limbs, they show it by holding them out to someone bigger in a cry for help. As we grow though, we become more able, tougher and more self-sufficient. This is a good thing when it comes to being able to feed yourself lunch, but it’s a very bad thing when it comes to spiritual matters...

One time people were bringing babies to Jesus and He was pumped! His disciples thought this was a waste of time and tried to stop the influx of infants, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

You see, when it comes to understanding what it takes to know God, babies are pros. They know how to cry for help. In watching Norah lately, I’ve been able to see in myself so many things I’m trying to do that I’m just not strong enough to do… things I need my Daddy in heaven to do for me… things I need to cry about instead of huffing and puffing and trying harder. I can’t clean myself up… I can’t be good enough or acceptable enough on my own. I can’t prove how awesome I am at this… I’ve been thinking that a big secret to growing is immaturing… going backwards to days when I wasn’t so strong and self-reliant… days when I knew how to need, and when I knew how to cry about it.

Anna kickin' it on Sam's trampoline...

(stay tuned for a video at the end of this post!)

Unseen Feet

We’re getting to a place with this third pregnancy (and the accompanying sickness) where the kids are getting used to it and know what to expect with Mommy being really sick… I mean, they don’t give me funny looks anymore when I show up in their bedroom after they wake up in the morning. Before all this started I was always off and working before they got up, but now I am Mr. Breakfast-time, and they’re getting used to that. Also they’ve learned that when we get home from the store or the gym or wherever not to furiously knock on the locked front door until I can get there with the diaper bag or groceries to unlock it, as this makes Christy feel that she has to get up and get the door… not good. They’ve also sort of learned that when we arrive home, they don’t really need to go stampeding through the house to find Christy while screaming at the top of their lungs about whatever adventures we’ve had… (I say “sort of learned” because they are two rambunctious girls who love to stampede and scream more than almost anything.)

It turns out that we’re all really learning a lot. I’m learning how hard it is to be a full-time mom with laundry, dishes, naptime, bedtime, tax time, bath time, nutrition, spills and bad attitudes that all need my undivided attention right now! How am I supposed to give Anna computer time and reading time as well as give Norah ABC and color/shape time when (if I’m honest) I’m trying to make it to bedtime without completely losing my mind?! And on top of all this, my sweetheart is sicker than she’s ever been and in all the running around, grocery shopping and coordinating play dates, I just miss being with her…

I keep waking up every day with the mind-set that today will be the day… either it will be the day that the sickness stops and life can get back to normal, or it will be the day when I have a breakthrough and really grow… becoming the patient and long suffering parent that I desperately want to be when this whole thing is over. Everyday I go to the Scriptures looking for hope and looking for help. Will we make it through this? How? When? Sometimes I feel like one of the random millions of Israelites after that first Passover… all I see is water in front and an army behind and I’m not Moses, so I don’t know the plan… I’m just sitting there in the middle of the night waiting on a way out.

In Psalm 77 the songwriter Asaph talked about that night. He said, “The waters saw You , O God, the waters saw You and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder; Your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, Your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, Your way through the mighty waters, though Your footprints were not seen.”

Unlike the movie representations of that amazing night, the Red Sea didn’t split in twenty seconds… it took all night and according to Asaph, it was a long and stormy night of waiting and getting soaked. Sometimes God’s paths are long, dark and full of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, but He always walks in front, even when we can’t see His footprints. This trial has been hard, but I know that I am growing… be it ever so slowly. We’re going to make it out and we’re going to be different on the other side because we’re walking the path of the invisible footprints.


Here's a little video i put together for Norah... er, I mean, of Norah, for me...

Enjoy!