We Still Hold Hands

I woke up this morning and noticed that Liv and I were holding hands, and I smiled. After 8 years of marriage, we still hold hands like when we were dating. I am very grateful for that.

Zig Ziglar spoke to a Corpus Christi crowd last week at a "Get Motivated" business seminar. For those who don't know, Zig had a bad fall in his home a couple of years back and one of the conditions he suffers from today is short term memory loss. His daughter now comes on stage and introduces him, letting the crowd know that he moves slowly and tends to forget that he has already said something. Her purpose on stage is to simply nudge him along when that happens.

Well, he only repeated one of his statements, and he repeated it four times. Of all the knowledge, insight, wisdom and experience Zig Ziglar possesses, his most passionate message, the one he kept repeating without realization was to court your wife every day like it is the first day that you started courting her. Let your children see you courting your wife in this way, and your children will live happy lives because they have a great example and expectation to follow. Then, he would remind us that he has been married for 63 wonderful years.

Zig's daughter even joked that if he repeats something for the third time, then there was someone in the audience who needed to hear that message. Without missing a beat, Zig pointed to a random man in the fifth row and said, "Yes, it's probably that guy in the fifth row." He was joking about that man in the fifth row, but I think his daughter hit a point like hitting a nail on the head. Of all the knowledge, insight, wisdom and experience that Zig Ziglar possesses, God has Zig speaking out on one point, one message above all the rest.

I am thankful and grateful that Liv and I still hold hands like when we first started dating more than 8 years ago. And, because of Zig's message, I don't complain when she wants to hug or cuddle. Even though I sat in the nosebleed section at that seminar, I'll be that guy in the fifth row receiving Zig's message until it is time to go home to my heavenly Father.

Learning to Pray Better, Ed Welch's Insight

From Ed Welch of the Men of Bay Area Fellowship:

I have always struggled with being a good communicator which even cost me my marriage. I had always learned that communication was the key to a successful relationship and I wanted to have a better relationship with God and the people that I loved, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I knew that my only means of communicating with God was through prayer.

Praying is something I always felt I struggled with. I felt like I didn’t always know the right words to say or my prayers were too short or long, what if I wasn’t doing it correctly or what if he says no to whatever I am praying about.

So I sought out the advice of a friend on how to pray better.

He told me that prayer is how we build a relationship with God. Just like how we build a relationship with other people we love through communication.

He said, “We can learn to pray better from what Jesus taught us. Do you know the Lord’s Prayer?”

I said, “Yes, but I don’t want to say that every time.”

He said, “I know, I don’t want you to either. How does it start?”

“Our Father”, I said.

“That’s right, God is a Father, a Dad. He is not an impersonal force. He is a Dad. So God wants you to talk to him like a child should talk to his Dad.”   He asked me how I wanted my son to talk to me.

“Humbly, Respectfully, Lovingly, Simply”, was my answer.

He responded with, “Jesus said, Watch children and how they interact with a loving father to know how to pray. I know you and your son love each other. Go home and learn from your son.”

So I went home and later I was working on the computer and Reilly, my son, comes running in and says, “Hey Dad, will you play Hot Wheels on the Wii with me.”

I said “Sure!!”  I love my son and want to spend time with him, so I didn’t think twice about it.  

I thought later, God is the same way. He loves us and wants to spend time with us. Prayer is when we get to spend time with God and he changes us and aligns our hearts with his. Just like when we spend time with our children we teach them our morals and values and how we want them to grow.

After we were done playing together, Reilly said, “Thank you Dad, I love you.” That is the best feeling in the world when your child tells you they love you. It always chokes me up and melts my heart.

It made me as a Dad realize how much God as a Father wants to hear that from us.  We should be thankful and grateful that he loves us and wants to spend time with us and let him know that whenever we have the chance through prayer.

Later that night I was getting Reilly ready for bed and he said “Hey Dad, Can I have a Coke? I said, “No! No cokes before bed, babe, it has too much sugar and caffeine.”

I thought about that later and realized that sometimes when we pray to God and ask him for something he will say no as well. But he says no because he loves us and he knows better than we do what is best for us, just like we know what is best for our children.

So I had three great lessons about prayer and God in just one day from my child and I am sure I will have many more to come!

I want to encourage you to spend more time getting to know your Father, your Dad in heaven and let him know how much you love him and how grateful you are that he loves you and let him work on changing your heart through prayer.

Thank you, Ed, for sharing this with us at the "MoB at the Cross" event after the 11:30am service on Sunday, December 6th, 2009, and thank you for letting me share this experience and reflection with the world.

Having the Lord on your side vs. Having the right strategy

Patrick Morley of Man in the Mirror Ministries said it best, "To have the Lord on your side is better than having the right strategy." When we find ourselves in trouble, there is a tendency to depend on our own strengths to resolve the issue then turn to the Lord when we can't go any further.

In 2 Chronicles 13, Abijah leads the army of Judah against an army twice the size of his. That other army is the rest of Israel coming to wipe Judah off the map, and they were led by Jeroboam who had taken the throne in a coup from the rightful king of Israel.

The great thing about this story is that Abijah reminds us all about the covenant God made with King David, and reminds us all that even though this other army outnumbers his 2-to-1 it isn't part of God's covenant. Immediately Abijah's army cries out to God and the battle is their's. All the glory goes to God. The moral of the story is that we need to remember God's promise to us, turn to Him first in our battles, and humbly give God the glory.

It is easy for us to believe that our own battles are not big enough to seek God for guidance, wisdom, and success, that we aren't fighting an Abijah-sized battle. However, God wants us all to turn to him for everything so that He can pour out His blessings on us. All of our battles are big enough to bring to God. (Romans 8:26, 35-39)