Stopping to Think

Earlier this week my wife and I welcomed our sweet daughter into the world. Surrounding this  I spent almost 15 hours with my wife while she labored, and because they had to do a c-section, there followed a two day hospital stay. This experience left me with some adivce for husbands and dads. 1. Do not crack jokes at a laboring woman. She will not appreciate the genius of your wit. 2. Make every effort not to laugh at your wife, regardless of what funny things she says and does. Again, her sense of humor at this point is somewhat off-kilter. 3. At the hospital, you have to pay attention to what doctors and nurses are saying, and be willing to say no for your wife. She may very well be drugged past the point of understanding a word they say. 4. Bring coffee money. Hospital coffee is something akin to paint thinner. Although that may be slanderous to the paint thinner. 5. On a serious note. Husbands, this is a life changing event. Obviously I have to say that b...

"Ministry is it's own worst enemy. It is not destroyed by the big, bad wolf of the world. It destroys itself." Those words open chapter nine of John Piper's book, "Brothers, We Are Not Professionals." I find them piercingly convicting and insightful. Even more so this morning after I read Luke 10. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42 ESV) Martha here is ministering in a very practical way. And she is not ministe...

And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” (Luke 5:33-39 ESV) Just a quick note of something I noticed in my devotions the other morning. Many are familiar with this passage, and our typical "lesson" drawn from it, that being tha...