Monday, June 3, 2013

Confessions of an eternal optimist...


I have to admit that I’m a fairly positive person. In the exception of when evaluating my own performance, I can almost always see the best in things and find reason to hope for better tomorrow. So I’m warning you ahead of time that I may be a little sappy, sound a bit corny, and a perhaps come across a tad too optimistic, but this past weekend reminded me of some precious opportunities we have in front of us.

Saturday morning we wrapped up our first ever middle school only summer retreat. We were back to the church shortly after noon and students were headed home with their parents. After grabbing a quick shower (always a post-camp priority) my family and I went to celebrate the holy union of one of my former baseball players and his beautiful bride. We then changed out of our fancy clothes, grabbed an early dinner, and ventured to the snow cone stand.

“Well Matt, we appreciate you telling us about your “exhilarating” day and all but couldn’t you have just tweeted about it or maybe posted a quick vine vid? What’s the point?!” The thing I want to share is how the Lord seemed to be speaking to me through each of these events.



Our oldest child is heading in to our middle school ministry next fall and actually attended our retreat this past weekend with a bunch of his buddies. That fact alone is both exciting and unbelievably scary. How in the world can he be that old already?! Where has time gone? How much longer before my wife and I are officially “uncool” in his eyes?

But as I spent time with our students over the weekend and heard them share testimonies of what they learned and enjoyed most at the retreat, I became encouraged. These youth are energetic and fun and still quite impressionable. In ways that they would struggle to articulate, they long for relationships, consistency, and a sense of belonging. If we’d be willing and able to meet them where they are and endure this awkward stage of life with them, I think our collective future is really bright.

At the wedding Saturday afternoon, I watched this young man exchange vows up in front of a bunch of his family and former teammates, and I couldn’t help but recall him as a high school kid just trying to learn how to hit a curveball. Wow – he sure has grown up! Then of course, I visualized each of our three children standing in that similar place one day. Yikes!!

While that honestly is a frightening thought, it was as if the Lord reminded me of how that’s supposed to happen. If we fulfill our call as parents, our children will one day move out of the house and start their own families. So rather than dreading a day that’s pretty much inevitable, how about we make the most of each hour and year between now and then? Let’s engage our children with truth. Let's work diligently to help position our children to be successful, to choose a spouse wisely, and pursue a career that's fulfilling. Let’s share our hearts with them so that we have no regrets when the day of leaveth and cleaveth cometh. May we point them to Christ and demonstrate our daily reliance upon Him so that the faith they profess might indeed become their own.

Our long day concluded at a snow cone stand… Something about eating flavored ice under the warmth of a June sun just seems right. For our family, it signifies that summer is officially here, now may the brain freezes commence! We deliberated for a while before finally landing on the flavors we would try. Oh that the Lord might give us enough days to taste them all! May I encourage you with this thought: although many chapters have already been written, each day starts anew and tomorrow is a blank page. With that in mind, what experiences will be recorded? Who might help you format these next many years? And who will be seen as the hero when the conclusion is penned?

Remember, I cautioned you that it might come across sounding this way… May we see Christ’s preeminence in all things (Colossians 1:15-20) and point our children and families to the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), King Jesus. Perhaps the question isn’t whether you see your snow cone as half full or half empty, but rather, do you notice there is still something left?


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