Ken’s TOP 10 (#6-10)

This month marks 10 YEARS since I took over THE WORD full time.  Crazy, I know!

In celebration of this milestone, I’m counting down the TOP 10 blog posts from the last 10 years.  To be honest, the process of choosing them was a lot harder than I expected.  It was like being forced to pick your favorite child or rank your best memories with your spouse.  There were a lot to choose from, because God’s taught me so much! 

My criteria included aspects like:

·       Biggest lessons God has taught me
·       Memorable ways I’ve had God’s truth play out in my life
·       Posts that I’ve returned to, in order to remind myself of what I’ve learned
·       Most popular posts via web search, clicks from email, or comments back from y’all

Without further ado, let’s countdown from #10 to #6:

#10
Understanding why God knows the number of hairs on our heads, posted on August 17, 2017 – This post is by far the most web searched post on my site.  I don’t know why other than maybe people have heard that God knows the number of hairs on your head, but that saying hasn’t brought a whole lot of comfort that God knows such a trivial thing about me.  What I found in my study was that the “hairs-on-your-head” phrase had a deeper meaning to the audience Jesus spoke it to.

#9
Blindsided, posted on May 22, 2015 – When you get “that call” out of the blue, what is our best response?  When grief is overwhelming and we don’t even know how to address God, what should we do?  This was a post I returned to when my step mom passed last year.  The words in the psalm are both powerful and comforting.

#8
My daddy said “STOP!”, posted on April 4, 2019 – Although this trick-or-treating incident happened nearly 20 years ago, the story has stuck with my family.  The spiritual parallels raised powerful questions for us to consider.  I still get choked up when I read the post and remember that night.

#7
He believed in me, posted on October 6, 2022 – We believe in Jesus for eternal life (John 3:16).  But what does it mean to “believe”?  Lots of people will try to add to it, but it’s not as complicated as we make it out to be.  This truth was demonstrated to me when I was on crutches and told my director I’d be ready when the performance week came.

#6
When the house tears itself apart, posted on October 28, 2021 – Who knew that an unexpected full-home remodel from my childhood would be such a great example for how we need to study the Scriptures?  Additionally, I learned what to do when I began to suspect that an interpretation I had of a passage might not be right.

I hope you take the time to read at least one of these, and I pray that resharing what I’ve learned will be helpful to you, as well.

Next week, we’ll count down the TOP 5!

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Practical application: parenting

In Colossians 3:18-19, Paul pointed out the oh-so-practical place to practice living like Christ – in our relationship with our spouse.  His next connection stays within the immediate family and is just as practical.

Colossians 3:20-21
Children obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord.  Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so they won’t become discouraged.

As parents, we love this first sentence.  We secretly relish when the preacher or our kid’s group leader brings up teaching like this.  They need to hear this, we congratulate ourselves.  Maybe if they keep hearing from other adults, they’ll do it more at home.  Wouldn’t that be nice…

Paul gives the Colossian Christian children this command – obey your parents in everything – because it’s something they need to learn.  Let’s camp out on that thought for a moment…obedience is something that children need to learn.  They’re not going to get it right away.  Their entire focus is on their own needs, and not the needs of others.  Obedience is like any other skill we develop as we grow and mature…it’s going to take time, it’s going to take practice, and there are going to be failures along the way.

How we handle our children’s failures will heavily influence them…in their childhood for sure, but our actions will also echo throughout the rest of their lives.  We know this because we still feel the echoes from our own upbringing, but for some reason we tend to forget that reality the moment we’re dealing the shortcomings of our own kids.

More than any person in a child’s life, we fathers have the greatest influence in this area.  Apologies to all the moms out there, but we just do.  And the impact we fathers have on our child’s perspective is even greater than we realize.  Paul warns against discouraging our children, and the word he chose relates to feeling disheartened, dispirited, or broken in spirit.  A father’s reaction to his son or daughter’s failure is truly a make-or-break moment.

Paul says we push our children toward discouragement if we exasperate them.  When we push them to their whit’s end because of our insistence on “getting it right”, or when we bring them to angry tears just to make sure they understand and “get it” – whenever we take our authority too far, we run the risk of exasperating them. 

Unfortunately, I have been guilty of doing just that to my children many times over the years.  It typically happens when I’m rigidly demanding more than my son can give…and he cannot meet the standard I’ve set for him.  If my expectation was too high for his skill level, then he is doomed to failure even before he begun.  Instead of recognizing I set the bar to high, at times I’ve even doubled back and berated them for missing the mark.  I know when I’ve gone too far, too – I can see it in their eyes as they stare at the floor, their shoulders sink in despair, and their posture communicates that they’ve completely given up.

A child of any age can become exasperated and discouraged, but it is especially easy when they are young.  This doesn’t mean we don’t confront error or that we should only give easy challenges to our children; rather we need to actively match our expectations with our children’s abilities, and then be willing to be both gentle and firm as we lovingly deal with their failures.  Men, our ability to guard against this damaging practice is for us to apply the Christ-driven characteristics that Paul listed in the preceding context of 3:12-17

…put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience…
…forgive one another…just as the Lord has forgiven you…
…above all, put on love…
…be thankful…
…let the message of the Messiah dwell richly among you…
…whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus…

Our children’s hearts and maturity depend on it.

Keep Pressing,
Ken