Michael Kelley's Blog, page 40

Why Complicate Your Life With Sin?

I remember the day many years ago when I was introduced to the universal remote.

Maybe you remember the days when, sitting down to watch a movie, you took your shoes off, kicked back, took a deep breath, ready to relax and then you’re suddenly barraged with remote after remote. One for the TV. One for the DVD player. One for the speakers. One for… well, you couldn’t remember what that one was for, but you had it nearby just in case. And then you went through a complicated system of button-pushing, hoping to remember all the codes and orders and settings and then, after 10 minutes, to finally start the movie.

And then the universal remote. One remote to rule them all. One thing that controlled everything else. It was like heaven opened and the beautiful light of simplicity shone through the darkness of complexity.

I’m sure there have been other moments like that for you, just as there have been for me. It’s the moment when you’re trying to sift through a myriad of issues or instructions or regulations and then you suddenly come upon a new way – a different way – that allows you to cut through all the bureaucracy and red tape and get straight to the point. And once again, it’s beautiful.

Beautifully simple.

In an increasingly complex world, we look for moments like that. We will even pay for moments like that. To find a simpler way. A straight way.

And if you can keep that feeling of beautiful simplicity in your mind for a moment, consider this:

The way of sin is infinitely more complicated than the way of righteousness. Here are just a few examples:

Let’s say that you tell someone a lie. Regardless of how you justify doing so, it’s still a sin. And once you have chosen that road, things get more complicated because you will probably have to tell another lie in order to cover the first one. Soon you’re trying to keep up with different versions of different stories you’ve told different people, and all your interactions, feelings, and conversations become much more complicated. It would have been so much simpler to just tell the truth, even if it was painful. The way of righteousness was much simpler.

Or take the issue of gender identification. The way of God is simple – there are two genders, not assigned, but created. Simple. But when we, as a culture, begin to drift from that simple way, everything becomes more complicated. We have to deal with driver’s licenses, forms, sports, and a myriad of other issues, when the way of righteousness was, and is, infinitely simpler.

God is orderly. His creation is orderly. And when you get down to the core of it all, the way of truth? Of holiness? Of godliness? That way is simple, not complicated:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst (1 Tim. 1:15).

Simple.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 33).

Simple.

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple (Ps. 27:4).

Simple.

Perhaps the simplicity of God’s design and direction is even an apologetic for the truth of the faith. It is, actually, the simplest way to live. The simplest way to think. The simplest way to be. It is when we begin to tinker with this design and direction that we find complexity after complexity added to life.

When we look around, then, and find that life seems too complicated; when we desire to have a simple way forward; when we, as we all will, come to the end of the rope of complexity that our sin has created for us, then let us return to the simplest way of all. And we will find relief not only in the forgiveness, not only in the grace, not only in the mercy of God, but in His beautiful, endless, straightforward simplicity.

3 Characteristics of Childlike Faith

Picture the scene with me. It’s another busy day in the life of Jesus. His reputation has spread; He scarcely has a moment to Himself anymore. Everywhere He and His disciples turn, there are people. Sick people. Needy people. Accusing people. Skeptical people. And, on this particular day, there are also a bunch of kids.

It seemed parents in the crowd had started pushing and shoving their way forward with their kiddos in tow. They were coming because it was customary in those days for a great teacher of the law to lay their hands on children and pray for them in order to bless them. That’s just what these parents were doing.

Jesus’ disciples didn’t want any part of it. In fact, the disciples “rebuked” these tiger parents and their disruptive kiddos (Matt. 19:13). That’s a strong word – rightly so. There was nothing polite about what the disciples did; it’s not as if they pulled mom and dad aside and quietly whispered, “Jesus is actually teaching right now, but we’re going to have a meet and greet later and you are more than welcome to come then.” This word is so strong, in fact, that in another form it can be translated, “punished.”

Jesus, though, was even more incensed than they were at this intrusion: “When Jesus saw it, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to Me’” (Matt. 19:14).

Now, Jesus got frustrated with His disciples a lot. He was disappointed in their level of understanding several times. But this is the only time in the Bible where He is “indignant” with them. There was something about this whole scene, chaotic as it undoubtedly was, that made the Son of God really, really angry.

Evidently the disciples had missed something crucial about the nature of the kingdom of God and what it means to receive it:

“Don’t stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you: Whoever does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

It seems that for all the growing in knowledge, understanding, and proximity to Jesus the disciples had done, they really hadn’t moved much past square one. In fact, these children were closer to understanding what it means to come to Jesus and embrace His kingdom than the disciples were. The same thing is true for us. If we want to come to Jesus, then we must come with a childlike kind of faith. But what does that mean? Here are three characteristics:

1. Childlike faith is simple.

The older we get, the more we tend to complicate things. There are always caveats, “other hands”, and considerations to every issue. But things are more simple for children, and that is a beautiful characteristic when it comes to faith. A childlike faith is sure of a few things, but those few things are more than enough:

Jesus loves me. Jesus tells the truth. Jesus will do the right thing. Jesus will keep His promises.

Simple.

2. Childlike faith is unselfconscious.

Our insecurity grows with our age. We speak, act, post, move – all while looking behind us to see how people are responding. But kids are different. Children just do. They aren’t so worried about what other people think; they have little regard for such things. And we would do well to learn from that unselfconsciousness when it comes to faith.

To have childlike faith means that we simply pray. Simply obey. Simply trust, and we don’t worry too much about what we look like to those around us.

3. Childlike faith is joyful.

As adults, our faith is often exercised with a sense of drudgery. That’s because we have accumulated a lifetime of disappointments and hurt feelings, of betrayals and pain. But the faith of a child is marked by a joyful kind of expectation. Children ask for something and then wait in excitement to see the response. Conversely, we tentatively make requests and then wait for the other shoe to drop.

Let’s be careful, friends, that we do not adopt the attitude of the disciples that day. Let’s be careful that we don’t dismiss the messy, loud, exuberant childlike impulses within us, because if we do, we might just “outgrow” the kingdom of Jesus.

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. Does God Give Us Only What We Can Handle?

Despite the commonality of the phrase, the answer is no. God does not want us to be self-sufficient, and our circumstances often remind us so.

2. When Good Things Spiritually Harm Our Kids

This is a convicting, but true, article. So many of the things we desperately want our children to participate in actually end up drawing them away from the faith.

3. How Russian Christian View Ukraine

Very interesting stuff here. Interesting, but not conclusive because the answer is, “It depends.”

4. Adam West in, “The Batman”

This is absolute genius.

The 2 Primary Things That Challenge Our Integrity

When we think of “integrity,” we tend to think about moral character. A person of integrity is a principled person; someone who is committed to doing what is right regardless of the circumstances or the audience. But true integrity is more than that – in some ways, integrity is also about personal unified. It means that a person is not one way in private and another way in public, not one way when they are with their family and another when they are on a stage. They are the same person, all the time.

That’s certainly a worthwhile goal, isn’t it? Especially since each of us is a chameleon to one degree or another. That is, we at least face the temptation to adjust ourselves according to our audience. But to grow in Christ means, at least in part, to grow not only in our public persona; it means growing in our consistency. To be people who are more “whole.”

But that pursuit has its challenges. I mean, you can do a quick search of public people who have had a moral fall, whether inside the church or out of it, and readily identify a bunch of those challenges. You might say that sexual temptation was a challenge. Or that money was a challenge. Or that power was a challenge. All true. And yet there are other challenges – deeper ones – that wear these apparent challenges like masks. These deeper challenges are of the heart variety – they are the temptations that get us at the core, striking at the deepest parts of who we are. And when you start to look past the most visible challenges to these deeper ones, the list gets a lot leaner.

In fact, there might be only two primary challenges to our integrity: fear and love.

1. Fear.

The Bible has much to say about fear. On the one hand, we are told to “fear not” over and over again. On the other hand, we are told to “fear the Lord” over and over again. These are obviously two different kinds of fear, and much of the difference is about the object of that fear.

When we are afraid, we might be afraid of disease, or economic downturn, or the unknowns of tomorrow, or whatever. But if we pull the thread of that fear, we will likely find that the focus at the end of that fear is ourselves. We fear what will happen to us. In the end, regardless of what particular entity inspires that fear in us, we are still focusing on ourselves. Our future. Our well-being. Our comfort.

But the fear of the Lord is different. The end of that thread is God Himself. When we fear the Lord, we are growing in our understanding, awe, and love of His character and power. Our eyes are fixed on Him, and when we are focused on Him, we find this holy reverence rising up inside of us. He dominates our gaze because He is too big to share that focus with anyone or anything else.

So when the object of our fear gets misplaced, it ends up challenging our integrity because we find ourselves willing to compromise in any number of areas in order to preserve ourselves. Our standing. Our reputation. Our comfort. Our self-image.

2. Love.

Similarly, “love” is obviously a good thing in the Bible. “God is love,” after all, and not only that, but “love” is the primary characteristic that should mark the followers of Jesus (1 John 4:8; John 13:35). The Christian should have both a vertical and horizontal component to love, with one directly impacting and feeding the other. When we know we are loved by God (vertical), then we will express that same love to those around us (horizontal). In the same way, we cannot truly claim to love God if we are in no way loving in the horizontal relationships of our lives.

But like fear, the object of that love can easily shift. We can begin to love the things of the world. The praise of people. The gifts of God rather than the giver of the gifts. When our love shifts, then our integrity is at stake because, as in the case of fear, we are suddenly willing to sacrifice anything for that which we truly love.

Fear and love. These are the two things, at the root, that challenge our integrity. But the opposite is also true. If we want to live lives of integrity, then it’s not enough to simply decide to live in a moral fashion. No, true integrity is born from true security. It comes from knowing who God is, and then knowing who we are in light of who He is. It comes from fearing the Lord, and then loving Him above all else because we know He has first loved us.

People of integrity aren’t just those who make good decisions. They are people driven by fear and love. The right kind of fear and love.

One Verse That Speaks to the Most Difficult Problem of Faith

What is the most difficult problem of faith?

I’m sure the answers will vary quite a bit. If you sat in a room and threw the question out, people might ask questions about God’s eternal nature, his foreknowledge, or his power. There would probably be all kinds of mind-bending queries put forth along the lines of, “Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?” People might laugh, or gaze pensively at the ceiling, or scrunch up their eyebrows when considering all of these so-called problems of the faith.

But the most difficult problem? The hardest one? That question isn’t just asked in a classroom setting; that’s the question that gets muttered in hospital rooms. Or late at night through tears. Or while waiting in anxiety for a phone call or while pounding your fist just after receiving one.

This is the question of evil. It’s the question of man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty. It’s the question of how God can be all powerful and all loving and for there still to be evil in the world. That’s the really hard question, especially when it has real life implications.

And though the Bible speaks in a number of places about this issue, there is one, single verse that does so in, arguably, the most succinct and straightforward fashion. Here it is:

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20).

This is not the statement of an ivory tower theologian; these aren’t the words of someone who only deals in hypothetical suffering for the sake of intellectual exercise. No, this is one of the summary statements of a man who, decades earlier, was betrayed by those closest to him, sold into slavery, and presumed to be dead. These are the words of someone who time and time again rose and fell and rose and fell until ultimately assuming, in God’s providence, a position of incredible power that brought him face to face with the very people who were the instruments of much suffering.

Joseph, when he had the chance to do a number of things, made this statement to his treacherous brothers. And notice what he does in a few, brief words:

He affirms the reality of evil in the world. He further affirms the culpability of those who do evil. He affirms the purposes of God for good.

In other words, Joseph did not feel compelled to choose between the sovereignty of God and the free will exercise of human beings. To him, both were real. Yes, his brothers made an evil choice. Yes, God was in the background orchestrating good. And both are equally true.

This is a mystery; it’s something anyone who has faced a measure of suffering has had to grapple with. But after that wrestling match, we come out on the other side with the same realization. Evil is real. Pain and suffering are real. And God’s goodness is real.

The sovereignty of God is not an excuse for evil; neither is it indicting to his goodness. A person of faith must be able to look at whether or not all these things are true, and then be able to answer, “Yes.”

So what is the overall point here for us? What is the takeaway for someone who has been treated unjustly? Or is watching a family member suffer under the thumb of a disease? Or is simply looking across the world and seeing the atrocities that abound? The point is not to look at these things and call them, “good,” because they’re not. At all. This single verse helps us instead to acknowledge the deep level of pain and injury and, yes, even evil in the world. To sit in it. To not explain it away. To validate just how bad it is.

And at the same time, to affirm the goodness and redeeming hand of the Lord. For only he can take that which is so flooded with evil intention, and somehow – eventually – bring good.

Christianity Isn’t a Crutch for the Weak; It’s a Stretcher for the Dead.

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to this worldly age, according to the ruler of the atmospheric domain, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and by nature we were children under wrath, as the others were also.”

This is how the Bible describes all of humanity in Ephesians chapter 2:1-3. It’s a pretty dire situation. Notice in particular the word the Bible uses to describe the human condition:

Dead.

If that word doesn’t speak to the severity and desperation of our situation, then surely nothing does. In fact, this word moves our situation well past desperate and into the territory of hopeless. And in a surprising way, this description from Ephesians 2 serves to contradict a well-known cultural axiom:

Christianity is a crutch for the weak.

When someone makes this statement, they usually mean it as an insult. What they mean is that people believe in God and in particular Jesus because they need to believe in Him. Such people don’t have the intestinal fortitude to accept the randomness of life, so they fabricate this idea of a sovereign and loving God who is in control of events. They lean on this belief like a crutch because they aren’t strong enough to stand underneath the reality of the universe.

But according to Ephesians 2, Christianity isn’t a crutch for the weak, but not because that statement is insulting. According to Ephesians 2, that statement isn’t insulting enough. Christianity isn’t a crutch for the weak because a crutch gives us far too much credit and robs the gospel of its full implication and power.

Christianity isn’t a crutch for the weak; it’s a stretcher for the dead.

We often think being saved is something like this: We are floating in the sea of sin and death about to drown when, with our last bit of strength, we cry out to Jesus who throws us a life preserver. That’s certainly a situation from which we would need to be saved, but that’s not what we see in this passage of Scripture. Instead, the picture here is not of someone who is drowning, but of a corpse, dead and bloated, floating face down in the sea. No strength. No power. No hope.

That’s what it means to be saved.

And that’s the promise of the gospel. Ephesians 2 continues with two of the most amazing words in all of Scripture: “But God…” We were dead, but God… We had no hope, but God… We could not rescue ourselves, but God…

The gospel doesn’t claim to help the weak; it claims to make the dead live again. It is only when we begin to see the true nature of the utter despair of humanity that we begin to see Jesus not as the key to a better life. Not as a sage only teaching about love. Not as a miracle worker only concerned with the alleviation of human suffering.

Jesus is our Rescuer. And, according to the Bible, He rescues from sin and death. In the ultimate “But God” moment, Jesus reaches down and hauls the corpse of humanity up and breathes new life into it. In so doing, He saves us from sin and its corresponding just punishment: death.

Jesus, the Great Rescuer, has come, and His salvation is the move from spiritual death to spiritual life forever with Him.

Wednesday Links

Four links to some things you might have missed, or at least ones that caught my attention this past week:

1. Zombie Sins

Great title. And a great point – burying sin is not the same as killing it.

2. The Art of Heavenly-Mindedness

Run the numbers. Remember who pays the bills. Pack light. This is pretty good advice.

3. Things Are Real Even If We Don’t Share Them

I totally get this. It seems like we are training ourselves to think that the validity of an experience is measured by its sharability. It should not be so.

4. Harrison Ford Was the Backup Plan

So who was the first choice to play Indiana Jones? Inquiring minds want to know…

No Big Deal. Just a Regular, Old Martyr.

It couldn’t have been better for the early church. Thousands of people were believing in Jesus. There was an incredible sense of community. People were giving and receiving freely, and everyone was busy enjoying God and each other. Then everything changed.

“But Stephen, filled by the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw God’s glory, with Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ Then they screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him.  They threw him out of the city and began to stone him” (Acts 7:55-58).

Stephen was the first Christian martyr; the first of many to come. His death at the hands of the Sanhedrin came on the back end of what we have as a chapter-long sermon in which Stephen took the stone-throwers all the way back to the foundation of their heritage. In an impromptu moment, he delivered a composite synopsis of redemptive history. Pretty impressive for a guy who was literally defending his life. What makes it maybe even more impressive is the fact that Stephen was one of the lay-people of the Jerusalem congregation. He was a regular guy.

No special training. No seminary. No paycheck from the early church staff. He was a regular guy with a regular job living a regular life. One chapter earlier in the Book of Acts, we find that the leaders of the church – the 12 that lived and learned directly with and from Jesus – and the ones responsible for the preaching and teaching of the fledgling church – chose 7 men of good reputation to do things like distribute food to widows.

In truly ironic fashion, the first Christian martyr was one of the men selected to do the good but often unappreciated volunteer work of the church so the apostles could place their full attention on prayer and their preaching ministry (Acts 6:1-5).

Who would we liken Stephen to today? Not the great orator that thunders from the pulpit every week. Not the amazing leader who knows how to motivate and inspire. Not the great strategist who knows how to effectively facilitate church growth. Stephen is more like the guy who drives a truck, or works as an accountant, or sells insurance on the weekdays but week after week shows up on Sunday to stand at the door of the clothes closet. Or teach the 3rd grade Sunday school class. Or unstack and restack the chairs in the youth room. Or go with the pastor to the homes of the shut-ins to administer communion. He’s that guy. That regular old guy.

And yet this regular guy, when called on the carpet, boldly delivered a cutting gospel message and then died for his faith.

Perhaps most striking of all was that after he delivered his message, as the crowd had been worked into a frenzy, is that Stephen looked into heaven to see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, ready to meet him (Acts 7:55-56).

Churches are full of these people. They’re not the ones behind the pulpit or strapped up with the guitar. They are the ones who work all day and then come home to get their house ready to host a community group. They are the ones who give up their vacation time to drive a church van full of teenagers to camp. They are the ones who spend an extra hour on Sundays rocking babies and changing diapers. They are the regular saints. And Jesus is happy with them.

3 Truths About Manufactured Glory

For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. 

Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen (Romans 1:20-25).

There’s an old song sung in many church contexts that begins like this: “To God be the glory, great things He hath done…”

Of course God deserves the glory. He’s the Initiator and Sustainer of all things, so He should get the credit He deserves. And in a sense, that’s what glory is: It’s recognition. Honor. Respect.

It’s no wonder, then, that the pages of Scripture are replete with acknowledgments of the glory of God and exhortations to engage in the business of glorifying Him. The glory of God is the second half of the song of the Seraphim in Isaiah 6: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth.” The writings of prophets like Habakkuk reveal a longing for the world to be filled with the glory of the Lord (Habakkuk 3:2). We see God’s refusal to share His glory or praise with the likes of idols in passages like Isaiah 42:8. In fact, the glory of the Lord was a tangible reality in certain sections of the Old Testament.

God’s glory was like a white-hot, consuming fire on top of the mountain when the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:17). Moses was hidden in the cleft of a rock as the glory of the Lord passed by Him (Exodus 33:22). And the glory of the Lord consumed the sacrifice and filled the tabernacle when it was completed (Leviticus 9:23-24).

But oh Lord, deliver me from manufactured glory. This is what we see. It’s what we breathe. It’s all around us. We see it in athletes, in artists, in politicians, and in our own hearts – it’s our willful search to have that for ourselves which is only rightly attributable to God. It is the pale light of a LED bulb compared to the glow of the sun. And in the verses above from the Book of Romans, we find the truth about this manufactured glory:

1. It is made by human hands. 

The glory of God is from His immortal being; manufactured glory is just that – manufactured. It’s made by our own hands. There is a great irony in these verses, for in our sin, we refuse to recognize the true intrinsic value of God and instead insist on placing what is rightfully due to Him on things of our own making.

2. It is, ultimately, a lie.

We could name any action, person, structure, artistic expression, or anything else on or off the planet, and if we were honest, we would be forced to recognize God as the source. It’s true that there are great painters and song-writers, but God is the One who endowed them with their gifts. It’s true that there are marvelous architects and mavens of business, but it’s God who gave them their resources. It’s true that there are athletes with incredible physical prowess, but it’s God who puts spring in their step. Even the atheist who curses the name of God as a fabrication and crutch for the weak-minded only does so with the breath God Himself puts in his lungs on a moment-by-moment basis.

3. It results in misplaced affection.

That is the end result. We find our affection where we find glory. So when we glory in the manufactured, we find our affections misplaced in all kinds of idolatry. Our hearts malfunction and we come to love and desire that which is eternally undesirable.

And here we have a great caution, friends, for our hearts were made to glorify something. We will find an object for that worship and affection, and because we will, we must make it our business to steer ourselves away from that which is manufactured. We must make it our goal to each day speak to our souls and say, “Take the LED light. Give me the sun.”

The Dirty Little Secret of Parenting, and 3 Suggestions of What To Do About It

There is a certain kinship parents feel with each other. It comes with a specific kind of vernacular, shared experiences, and common difficulties and pain. As a result, when you meet another parent, especially one that happens to have children around the same age as yours, there can be, many times, a very quick connection.

And I would imagine that most of these parents also share something else – a dirty little secret. One that we don’t like to talk about, and yet one that is never too far from mind. True enough, it can fade into the background somewhat, but with every changing season in the lives of growing children it once again pops up. Here’s the secret:

None of us know what we’re doing.

That’s despite all the books, all the seminars, all the podcasts – we still don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know what we’re doing with babies, with toddlers, with pre-teens, or with teenagers. Most days, we are muddling our way through it all, wondering if today is the day when our secret is finally going to be exposed, and the best we can do is just try and keep these little people safe and teach them at least how to minimally live in the world.

So there it is. It’s out in the open. None of us are experts. We are all novices. The question is what to do about it. Let me offer three basic suggestions:

1. Keep studying.

Commit to being a student of your children. Now there are a couple of ways you might interpret that last statement. The first way is that you might take it to mean that you need to scrutinize your kids. You need to take everything they say, do, and even feel and put it on the microscope and dissect it. That is NOT what it means.

It means that you choose to take an active interest in your children and recognize that no matter how long you have been a parent, you still have more to know of and from them. You adopt a general posture of loving curiosity, and that posture leads to do things like ask genuine questions about what happened to them during the day, how they are feeling, and what they are thinking. And it means you do so without distraction – you ask, and then you listen without other things drawing you away from that conversation. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you keep learning.

2. Keep praying.

Nothing in the world has ever put me in a greater posture of prayerful dependence than being a parent. That’s because at some point you not only realize you don’t know what you’re doing; you realize that you can teach them, love them, provide for them – but ultimately you can’t keep them safe. Not really. These are human beings who will make their own decisions. And that realization can either paralyze you with fear or it can push you to your knees.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray. Ask for wisdom. Ask for help. And then demonstrate your faith in a God who answers the prayers of his children by doing the very best you can for and with your kids.

3. Keep sharing.

One of the great things about telling secrets like these is you generally find out that others around you are holding onto the same secret. Chances are that if you start talking about how inadequate and dumb and ill-equipped you feel as a parent, you will find a multitude of other moms and dads around you who feel the same way. And those people? The ones who also don’t know what they’re doing? They can help. And you can help them.

When you come together around your shared need, you won’t necessarily find the answers you’re looking for, but you will likely get a lot closer to that wisdom you so desperately need. These other moms and dads in our lives are a gift from God, and if we never share with them, then we are spurning the gift of community at our disposal.

It’s true, parents – we don’t know what we’re doing. But we press on. We press on not because we are confident we are going to get everything right, but we press on because our highest aim is NOT to get everything right. Our highest aim as parents is to introduce our children to the concept of a greater parent that does actually get everything right.