Savedthroughfaith.com

When our oldest child was a toddler, my wife and I were baby bodyguards – never more than a leap away from rescue if she were approaching something potentially harmful.  My wife still has that instinct (she’s a mom).  I, however, have become a bit slower in my response time. Our 3rd child is now a toddler and if he is approaching something potentially harmful or messy, I first observe, assess, play out the possible outcomes in my mind, ...

Last weekend my wife and I had the great opportunity to go to a Family Life Ministry Weekend to Remember marriage getaway. We had an awesome time of fun and focus on our marriage relationship! It was also a much needed break from our busy 3-child family and work life. We stayed 2 nights in the same hotel the conference was held. While relaxing one of the evenings in the hotel room, we were enjoying the complimentary cable TV. This in itself i...

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There are many messages out there for our kids. Some align with our values, some we hope they never cross our kid’s ears. These messages come through the media, peers, and parents, among other sources. Lately I’ve been wrestling with choices in my life. I imagine this is a common struggle among men who are balancing their career pursuits with family. My life was thrown out of balance due to my recent growing passion that could easily ...

I have some further thoughts following up from my previous post. I remember one day sitting in our worship service listening to the message about tithing.  I leaned over to my wife and asked her how crazy it would be to give away one entire paycheck.  My thinking was, we wouldn’t be totally hurting to be out half a month’s pay and we could see what God would do.  Would God meet our needs?  Would we be full of joy to give so much a...

My family is well acquainted with eating out.  There have been many times where we get the bill and my wife and I talk about how awesome it’d be to have so much money we could leave a huge tip. Wouldn’t that feel awesome to just be able to drop a $50 or $100 and bolt out the door? I like to think I would be the kind of guy who would be generous if I somehow acquired massive wealth.  I know, by world-wide standards we DO have massive...

From my journal dated May 29, 2009 I have 3 insights from today.  God perhaps has given them to me. 1) People need Jesus. We are Jesus. 2) The pursuit of the American dream leads away from Jesus. 3) My family is me.  We are one.  We are a body. Our lives can usually be characterized by unperceivable change. Like the hour hand on the clock, you don’t see it move when you look at it but only when you look back at it.  Sometimes, though, ...

Last week my family and I went to our 5th year of church camp.  The camp is for families and the theme is always missions.  Typically, when we come home from that, our worldview is broad and we have our minds re-centered on God’s priorities.  This year, I felt I could no longer ignore God’s clear command to me to literally love my neighbor (whom I’ve talked about in previous posts). Well, the rest of the family was out and I ...

I was reading this book once and the author was talking about suburbs and sidewalks and how our neighborhoods are really meant for cars, not pedestrians.  Though there are sidewalks, you really need to hop in your car to get places.  Randy Frazee in his book, Making Room For Life, talks about how we drive place to place to engage in a dozen or so circles of shallow relationships and all the while we spend a lot of that time alone in our car. H...

I was listening to a sermon the other day and either my own mind came up with this or it was God’s Spirit revealing truth – or at least a different point of view to look from.  Now, this is all kind of off the top of my head.  I haven’t searched scriptures to verify the theological accuracy of these ideas But let’s take a quick look at the concept of “surrender.” The act of surrender is a daily practice for...