Have you ever had a challenging day and knew that it would be a challenge beforehand? How did you react? You were worried, right? A little bit anxious?
That was the way I felt right before the weekend. I knew that I had a challenge ahead of me and I just wasnt sure I was going to be successful. The stakes were high and I was determined to do a good job.
By the sounds of it, you might think that I had to go save the world or something. But no, my challenge was much more difficult.
What was it?
Here’s my challenge
I had to take care of my 1-year old baby girl, ALL BY MYSELF!
I’m a first time daddy and so I worry and fret that when I have the privilege of taking care of my girl, that I might do something wrong.
What if I starve my kid to death or forget to change her diaper?
That would be terrible! I know that I’m not the only dad that worries about these things and that there are other dads just like me.
An Ultracool Dad
Unless you are Jonathan, the amazing husband of Nicole Cottrell, blogger at Modern Reject. I follow Nicole’s blog regularly because she writes awesome posts and she’s always talking about how wonderful of a husband Jonathan is.
Lucky her or I should say rather, they are both blessed to have each other 🙂
Women Are Better Than Men
If you’re a woman you might be thinking, “What’s the big deal? We women take care of babies ALL the time!”
And that’s just it, you ladies are so much better at it than us men. You’re so nurturing, you instinctively know the right thing to do in most situations, you know how to stop the baby from crying, and most importantly…
You don’t let your baby eat paper!
(Sorry, one time I wasn’t looking and my baby girl reached for some paper on the ground and it was too late. My baby is fine so please, don’t call child services on me :-))
I have the best wife in the world (for me)
My wife, my better half
I’ve been blessed with an insanely awesome wife. Tina is a wonderful wife and a fantastic mom to our 1-year old, Isabella.
I’ve watched her take care of our child and she has taught me so many things, from changing diapers, to feeding, to putting our baby to sleep.
Additionally, my wife is a Godly woman. She regularly serves at the Women’s Ministry at our church and this past week, we had a Women’s Conference.
While she was serving the women at our church, daddy got the privilege of taking care of baby Bella for a whole 12 hours ALL BY HIMSELF!
The dilemma with my daughter
My daughter, cute as a button
My daughter is very active. Even though she is just 1, she likes to run around all over the house.
We have to constantly follow her to make sure that she isn’t trying to drink toilet water or trying to eat out of the trash can :-).
The thing is that at the home that we currently live in, there’s an open floor plan so Bella will constantly run from one side of the house (the living room) to the other (the kitchen).
Quite frankly, this weekend I didn’t feel like chasing after her. After putting in a lot of hours at work, I wanted to sit on the couch, veg, and watch my daughter play.
But how was I going to stop her from running all over the place?
The problem is the space between the couch and the chair which leads into the foyer and the kitchen
My genius plan
So what did daddy do? I set up a barricade as you can see from the picture below. That way, Bella had to stay in the living room only and she couldn’t get to the kitchen.
It was sheer brilliance on my part if I do say so myself :-).
This led me to conclude some things about evangelism
I look back at me wanting to be lazy this weekend and I couldn’t help but see some lessons that can be applied to the world of evangelism
1. I had a lazy attitude. I didn’t want to put a lot of energy into running after my daughter and so I looked for the shortcut.
Likewise, I believe that we can get that way about evangelism. We aren’t intentional about our evangelistic outreach’es and many times we look for shortcuts or we don’t even do it at all.
Key Takeaway: Reaching out to others with the Gospel isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. We need to keep running the race and make sure that we never stop reaching out to the lost.
2. I was afraid. I was afraid that I was going to mess up and not know how to take care of my baby girl.
We too are sometimes afraid to reach out to others. What will my neighbor think if I tell him/her about Jesus? What if someone asks me a question about my faith and I don’t know how to answer? What if that person makes fun of me or even worse, attacks me?
Key Takeaway: God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
Now it’s your turn
I want to hear from you about any of these 2 things:
- What excuses do you think we give ourselves for not sharing Christ with others? By the way, I have used almost every excuse possible but thank God, I’m a work in progress.
- What’s one embarrassing thing that you’ve allowed your child to do when you weren’t looking? I shared how I let mine eat paper, what about you?
Share something embarrassing please so that I can feel better about my wonderful parenting skills 🙂
[image via iStockPhoto]
Comments 18
I’m sorry, but I was laughing through this entire post! Young dads are so funny. You are very normal. In fact, any woman who claims she has not allowed something to happen that shouldn’t have is either lying or hasn’t been a mother long enough. Should I tell you about the time our oldest got into the Vaseline and rubbed it all over himself and the books he was playing with? Or maybe I could tell you about my daughter who recently gave herself a very creative haircut… for the fifth time! (I don’t know why I keep trusting her with scissors. She clearly has a Impulsive Cutting Disorder.)
Parenting teaches us many lessons about God, our relationship with him and with his children. You have drawn out some very good lessons in this post. I look forward to seeing what else God teaches you through your daughter!
I think fear is the number one reason we give for not sharing Jesus with others. I have found that many desire to be perfect or at least have something worth sharing before they talk about Jesus. That is so false. People need us to say, “Look at me! I’m a totally messed up bum of a sinner and God loves me!” Then we can tell them how he *has* changed us.
That such awesome insight Tereasa! I do agree with you that fear is the number one thing that holds us back from sharing our faith.
Sometimes I don’t like it when pastors give you the guilt trip for not sharing your faith. I personally have found that it is a work in progress because God orchestrates circumstances to help us to get rid of that fear. But feeling guilty will never ever motivate me to share Christ with somebody. I am more bold now than I was 5 years ago.
Thanks so much for sharing your stories about your kids, I loved them and they gave me a huge smile on my face! How old are they by the way?
My children are 11, 7, and 6. I should clarify that my oldest was a toddler when he got into the Vaseline. My youngest children have special needs that impair their self-control. They are high functioning on the fetal alcohol spectrum, so they are impulsive and need constant supervision. Something crazy happens around here every single day.
It is lovely to be introduced to your sweet family, by the way.
Thanks so much, I also wanted to get to know your family so that’s why I was asking. I’d love to get to meet them may be some time in a blog post?
I also checked out your series on your blog about, “Reflections of a Survivor ”. I’m glad that you are sharing about your experiences about being in an abusive church in the past. I think that when nonbelievers see that and they see that you are still a Christian, then that makes such a powerful statement.
Love this article. When I talk about Evangelism, I often use the verse you mention above along with a few others – they kind of come together to help guide me as I walk the streets, hoping to share the love of God with His people.
When Fear creeps in…
1. Recognize the source of fear: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. ” – 2 Timothy 1:7 (If I have fear, it isn’t of God. I need to know what the source of my fear is so that I can move on with what God has enabled me to do.)
2. Cast the fear out: “Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18 (I often can’t get rid of the fear on my own, so I pray that God would fill me up with his perfect love for others so that all fear would be cast out of me. For example, I’d be terrified by a stray, mad, foaming at the mouth dog on the street and would avoid it at all cost. However, if that same dog came after my 2 year old, the love I have for my daughter would propel me to engage the dog at any cost. Perfect love casts out fear, and propels us to action. With Evangelism, when get scared, we ask God to fill us with his love that we would see others as He does and move accordingly.)
3. I can step out: “Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:8 (I can move forward with confidence because God’s word says that when I move in love, it will never fail. The outcomes may not always be how I expect them to be (in the short-term), but I know that failure isn’t an option I that I have to worry about.)
Evangelism is a wonderful and beautiful thing that allows us to let others know what God thinks about them and the plans He has for them. We should never let fear (of others, of rejection, of failure, etc) get in the way with what God wants to do through us.
That’s some of the best advice I have heard Brian! I think that when it really comes down to it, fear is the main motivation behind a lot of excuses and failures in our lives. But through your comments, you really put your finger on all the issues and their remedies. Thanks so much for sharing that tremendous insight 🙂
Thanks Peter for starting the conversation!
There are no Limits..I Have been called Some Pretty radical Things..I Am A Trend Follower…For Real..I Watch them..i Jump On Any topic..I Put Christ In The Middle Of Everything That Pops Up..They Take The Lead Christ Has the Say..The Worst Topic..Like Thanks To Allah..I Simple Say..Yes I Thank Allah For Staying In the Grave..My God Did Not..Amen
That’s so funny Chlandria about your comment about how you respond to those who refer to Allah 🙂 But you do make a very good point. Is there anything specific that you use to watch all of the trends? Or is it just Twitter trends that you follow?
When I was a young dad, and my son was around the same age as your daughter, I turned my head (for what seemed like just a moment, honest), and the next thing I know, he’s wearing no pants and cowboy boots!
Two comments about evangelism:
1) Prayerfully find the way the Lord designed you to evangelize. Recognize we weren’t all built to evangelize like a pastor. He may have designed you to be shy because He wants to use you one on one with certain people you connect with. Focus and what you can do to evangelize, not on what you can’t.
2) You may have heard the story about the Romanian pastor Joseph Tson. For years he was afraid to share the gospel for fear the Romanian government would take his life. Finally, one day in the interrogation room they threatened to kill him. He told his interrogator, “Your supreme weapon is killing, my supreme weapon is dying.” He went on to explain how people would pay much closer attention to his teaching tapes if he died for Christ.
Suddenly the Romanian government didn’t want to kill Joseph Tson because they didn’t want a martyr on their hands. He was now free to go anywhere in Romania and preach the gospel.
It’s the same with you and I. As soon as we decide we’re willing to die, socially; as soon as we decide we’re willing to die of embarrassment, we find a new freedom to share Christ.
Thanks for sharing, I thoroughly enjoyed your post!
Thanks so much Kurt for sharing your story about your son as well as all of your insight about evangelism. Your story about your son was just so cute 🙂 It’s amazing what kids will do when we turn our heads for just a split second!
As for the story that you shared about the Romanian Pastor, I had actually never heard of that one before. But you know what? Hearing that story really encouraged me.
I think you are so right. I love how you wrote, ” As soon as we decide we’re willing to die, socially; as soon as we decide we’re willing to die of embarrassment, we find a new freedom to share Christ.” How true!
Thank you for encouraging the community here at Not Ashamed of the Gospel. You rock!
Peter…you have a beautiful family.
Embarassing…how about coloring the couch and himself with blue marker, finding bare butt cheeks with a diaper surprise next to his bed, and finding my 2 year old hiding a package of pastrami in his bed before we woke up…just to name a few.
I was stirred for Evangelism by Mark Cahill and some others. If you get a chance…his 1st book…One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven can be heard for free at http://www.markcahill.org/listen4.html Enjoy!
Thanks John for the kind words 🙂
Thanks much for sharing the link to Mark Cahill. I’m sure it’s going to be an encouragement to the Not Ashamed of the Gospel community.
The story below brought 30 of us in tears at a Training Camp…gripping!
A pastor by the name of Florescu was tortured with red-hot iron pokers and with knives. He was
beaten very badly. Then starving rats were driven into his cell through a large pipe. He could not
sleep because he had to defend himself all the time. If he rested a moment, the rats would attack
him.
He was forced to stand for two weeks, day and night. The Communists wished to compel him to
betray his brethren, but he resisted steadfastly. Eventually, they brought his fourteen-year-old
son to the prison and began to whip the boy in front of his father, saying that they would
continue to beat him until the pastor said what they wished him to say. The poor man was half
mad. He bore it as long as he could, then he cried to his son, “Alexander, I must say what they
want! I can’t bear your beating anymore!” The son answered, “Father, don’t do me the injustice of
having a traitor as a parent. Withstand! If they kill me, I will die with the words, ‘Jesus and my
fatherland.'” The Communists, enraged, fell upon the child and beat him to death, with blood
spattered over the walls of the cell. He died praising God.
Thanks John for sharing that story with us, it’s very powerful 🙂
You go dude! I do have to disagree with you saying woman are better then men – Care is NOT a gender issue it is a relationship issue. The sad part is most men are not mentored by other men and therefore they feel useless in this area so they just pass it over to wife. By the way You have a beautiful family. However I have best wife LOL.
Lol, thanks bro for your feedback – you’re funny 🙂
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