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January 23 - February 2, 2022
Not family and mission, not family as mission, but family on mission.
A family on mission embraces the truth that God wants them to work together as a team to accomplish what cannot be done alone. They know that they are a collective of strengths and wirings and giftings brought together to fulfill his mission on earth.
Basically, we work super hard to provide a lifestyle that our kids don’t even want. We want it. But our kids don’t want a lifestyle; they want us.
Because you won’t find a kid who says, “Yeah, I wish my dad and mom were gone a little longer so we can have a few nicer things or keep up a lifestyle that is already unsustainable.”
The family was sacrificed for the “mission” without realizing that the mission, once you are married and have kids, I’d argue, is never solitary. God doesn’t give individual missions to teams.
When individual purpose becomes more important than a collective team mission, what you essentially do is create winners and losers.
isn’t it the wife’s job to stay at home and drown and do everything that an entire corporate generational family (grandparents, nieces, household employees, and so on) used to help the family do a hundred years ago? No, it isn’t.
In the nuclear family ideal, the mom’s job has only gotten harder—every shift of going more and more into isolation has basically meant less and less help for the mother.
If individual fulfillment and purpose-finding outside of the team is the goal, then hear me, there is always a loser. It’s an endless game of tug-of-war. And who loses in tug-of-war? The weakest ones—in this case, the children.
Or why are you or they allowed to let those skills and assets be deployed at their work and school, but they are never activated at home? The truth is, family and home should get the best of everyone’s talents and skills, before work or school or anything else does.
There’s a magical matrix, I think: high demand coupled with high support. High support, low demand creates coddled, baby-fied kids. High demand, low support creates shameful, militaristic family cultures. High support and high demand, though? That’s the absolute sweet spot. And that’s how the best coaches we know act.
“I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know you can reach them.”
You are a part of this group just like me. This group is special, and because of that we have high standards. I believe in you and that you can reach those standards.
The “I have very high expectations of you, because I believe you are capable of this and I will be here for you and alongside you the whole way” is the absolute heart of coaching.
And so ask yourself, are you parenting with enough vision for your kids? Do you imagine possibilities for them that they can’t see? Or is your imagination stale with pictures that only line up with their worst self or current version?
The vacation at the end of the year cannot, under any circumstance, make up for all the missed opportunities or lack of family connection or bonding throughout the year.
1) How can we serve each other this week? 2) What didn’t work last week that we need to change or alter or tweak? 3) How can we make sure to protect the most important things like date night, Sabbath, and intentional time with the kids?
Because life is just a collection of weeks.
Learn to have a good week, and you’ll look back on a good life.
Learn to get better in small ways every seven days, and you’ll grow i...
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We are good at relaxing in the West, but we are not good at renewing. Repairing. Putting back together. Filling. Delighting. Enjoying. Blessing.
it became an impulse give. And that’s how you invert the culture’s version of impulse buy. Use the same tactics and flip them on their heads.
See, I’m convinced the reason our kids only consume and consume and consume is because we give them nothing better to do. How do I know this? Because I do it literally. What do I do when I’m bored? I eat. Because there’s nothing better to do. And we baby our kids and don’t allow them to contribute or serve or give or be involved with large decisions, so how else would we expect them to do anything but eat and consume and absorb?
