20/21 | Trouble, T-rama, & Tears

Here is a link to the message chaNges from March 1, 2015 if you want to play along.

chaNges | week1

Also, please use the comments to post your own experience with the 21 Day Change-Awareness Exercise (21DCAE).  Please know that I will do my best to pray over post and prayer request as we do this together.  Good luck.


I'm not certain that we could have started out the day better.  The bigs (the oldest two of my three boys) were up and ready for school in plenty of time.  We had good time to eat breakfast, get dressed, pack bags, and pray.  There was even time to check out a book from my 7 year old's bedroom library.  There was so much peace as we all prepared to face the day.

The plan to smooth out what could sometimes be a frantic hour of scrambling to get the boys off to school, while just one day, seemed to work.

Then . . . after school happened.  It only took an hour for the spiral to start.  e had a rough day at school that we talked through then the whole family ate and we played the most chaotic version of the board game Trouble possible--we were no match for the 2 year-old that wanted to play.

Dinner together, game time together, you could imagine that all was good on the home front.  That, however was not the case.  My attempt to bring down the energy level in the house unexpectedly induced tears and a melt-down--the peace was over.

Kim, my wife, looked over at me and quoted a recent Redeemer sermon, "It begins with 'd' and rhymes with 'schrama.'"

It was not much later that things had settled into bed time--I was sucked in to the littlest's bedtime routine--and I fell asleep with God's Word resonating through my evening prayers.

Matthew 5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

At first I believed that the Holy Spirit was calling this to my mind specifically as it related to creating a peaceful environment for my family, but the relationship between those who make peace and what it means to be called "sons of God" is what I woke up this morning thinking.  My greatest desire for my boys is that they would grow to know and love Jesus and live into what it means to be not just a son of me, but more importantly of son of God.

Lord, thank you for the gift of prayer that brings unexplainable peace.  Develop in me a witness of peace for my children.  Amen.