Heaven or Harvard?

Back when Pam & I served at a Korean church one of the youth leaders who was a college student challenged the parents of youth & children at a family retreat.
He challenged the notion that the most important thing in life for parents was getting children into the best acedemic institution like Harvard, MIT etc. To make heaven the ultimate goal of their children's lives was supposed to be the most importatnt thing and not anything else. Now, we're parents of a teen & pre-teen and we see the temptations out there! It's tempting to do very good things and not put Jesus as both our priority and our children's priority. In our society, it's things like sports, theatre, acedemics, friendships etc. It's easy to get our priorities out of whack when society keeps pushing. Our schools, teams, groups can demand incredible amounts of time from us & our kids and we give it to them. We'll go to great lengths and sacrifice many other things that are even more beneficial. The sad part is that most of the time our kids won't even continue in the things that we sold out to for some years! Not many people get to make it big in sports, theatre etc. In the meantime church, youth group small groups & Bible Study have become an occasional option rather than the priority. These things are designed to deepen our relationship with God and we put them on the back burner for when the time is right. I think our friend had it right when he asked a group of parents "is it more important that your kids are in Harvard or heaven"? It's kind of like what the scripture that says "What good will it be if we gain the whole world yet forfeit our souls?" Matthew 16:26

Why grow a pumpkin in the winter?

Last October Leslee and I were cleaning out her pumpkin to get ready to carve a cool face on it when we noticed something that we hadn't seen before. We found a pumpkin seed that was already starting to grow. We thought it would be cool if we took this seed and actually grew a pumpkin inside this winter. Would it really grow inside? If it did, when would the pumpkin be full grown? Hmmm... It's strange, but Leslee and I have been growing our pumpkin inside and it actually is blooming and stuff. We keep hoping for spring to come soon so we can transfer it outside so it doesn't die due to lack of soil. When the flowers bloom it only does so for a day or so and then it's gone. So when the next flower was blooming I had take picture of it since I missed the last one thinking it would last longer than it did. It reminds me of the Bible verse that says "All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." It makes me want to make sure that I'm doing things in my life that will last! Most things don't last long so we need to build our lives around what God says we need to do in His word!

Thank God for FCA!

I thank God for FCA (The Fellowship of Christian Athletes)! Six FCAers came to 24/7 from the U of I last Sunday. It was a great time with them! As they talked about their lives and their faith I was thankful for their striving to live for Christ. Those athletes have a platform to share Christ with others in a way that we can't. I also thought about where God has placed each one of us. He has placed us in a place where we can influence others for Christ that people like those athletes can't. So we all have a mission in which in serve God!