"Teach Your Children Well" (Crosby Stills & Nash)

This morning I want to loan some of my blog space to my son, Andrew. The base chaplain asked him to speak in church this past Sunday and he sent me a transcript of his testimony. Andrew doesn't blog much, but he used it as his post this week. I've got to tell you, my son both gives and lives a powerful message.

Andrew calls his blog: "Maul's Blog: the life and times of me for those of you who care." You can access the entire message by clicking on the link.

But I wanted to share two paragraphs in particular, and I'll explain why after the quote in the following bullets:

• It probably wasn't until I was in college (when I actually started caring), that I looked back and was shocked and amazed I had actually made it through high school. My family never had any doubts that I was capable of "getting it", but as I began to notice more and more God's guiding influence on my life, certain parts of my path began to show themselves way more clearly, and it became an exciting path to follow, one that ultimately led me to where I am today.
• Quickly I realized it’s not about "me" by any means. I began to become aware of the fact that I was being presented with opportunity after opportunity to SERVE.
  

Remember all those parenting books and tapes and classes and videos? We all buy them during that frenzy of desperation, somewhere in the first decade of marriage, back when life as it was originally envisioned begins to cave in and you literally suffocate in the overwhelm of it all.

There was some useful stuff mixed in with all the baloney, but I believe the most crucial element we can bring to the table (and that should be the dining room table, where we eat and talk and learn together as growing families at least four nights a week....) - the most crucial element is belief. Not only belief we own personally, but communicating that belief to our children. Andrew understood in some way that his family "never had any doubts that [he] was capable of 'getting it.'" That is an astounding statement to me.

Somehow, in the middle of all those two decades of raising children in our home, Rebekah and I managed to demonstrate to Andrew that we believed in him. Not only in him, but in the truth of God's promises and the power of redemption and grace.

The other element Andrew evidently understood was that purpose typically finds it genesis in service. You'll have to read his entire testimony to see how far that went for him, but the second bullet point above sets it out very clearly.

So I would encourage all of us to believe, to live as if our belief has substance, and then to bring our children in on the conversation.

I am blessed beyond measure. Grace and peace - DEREK

Read Andrew's blog at http://maulsblog.blogspot.com/