King David had one awesome group of army commanders. In fact, the Bible calls some of these men his “Mighty Men”. Pretty cool name, huh? Two of David’s leaders were Joab and Abishai. And in two different places in the Old Testament – 2 Samuel 10 & 1 Chronicles 19 – it records Joab saying to Abishai, “If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you are to rescue me; but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will rescue you.”
Joab and Abishai had a brotherly love for one another. Proverbs 17:17 says, “a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” As these men were headed into battle they essentially told one another, “I’ve got your back!”, “I’m your friend & brother in these hard times and I will fight with you, and for you.”
I’ve got your back! Who needs to hear these words from you today?
My wife, Pat, and I have a saying that goes something incredibly close to this from Walker Moore’s book, Rite of Passage Parenting. However, Mr. Moore says it better:
“…you will pay the price for parenthood. You will pay the price of the time and effort it takes to develop self-reliant children. In fact, if you are not willing to pay this price as you go, you will pay it for the rest of your life. You will pay because your children will continually lean on you to raise their children, pay their bills, take care of their needs – and never become truly responsible.”
Wow!
He goes on to say, “You have a choice about which kind of parent you want to be: the kind who pays now and enjoys the fruit of his labor as his children grow or the kind who pays later and spends years trying to salvage their lives.”
I hope and pray that I’m willing to do what it takes to pay up front. When will you pay the price?
Watch the video below and then come back to this…I’ll wait. No really, watch it.
Okay… What is your reaction when you arrive at a problem in your life without knowing exactly what to do?
If you’re anything like me or the man in this video then you’ve been guilty of the following:
1. Staring at the problem for a period of time
2. Realizing you’re ignorant of what to do, and then…
3. Moving forward anyways!
This system typically creates a mess, which can potentially effect others around us.
So why do we create messes in these situations? One word, “Pride”.
- We don’t want to admit we’re ignorant.
- We don’t want to show our ignorance by asking others for advice.
- We can be impatient with God’s timing.
So, here are my questions:
In what areas do you need to be seeking wise counsel?
Perry Noble is the senior pastor at Newspring Church in South Carolina. And I absolutely love reading his blog. It’s refreshing, uplifting, challenging and convicting. Plus, he’s hilarious!
He wrote a blog recently titled, “Preparation H and Confession”. And let’s just say that it greatly challenged me. So I thought I’d share. Click on the title to read.
To repeat a key question from the blog: “So…do you have people in your life to whom you can talk with…REALLY talk with…about what is going on in your life?”
King David had one awesome group of army commanders. In fact, the Bible calls some of these men his “Mighty Men”. Pretty cool name, huh? Two of David’s leaders were Joab and Abishai. And in two different places in the Old Testament – 2 Samuel 10 & 1 Chronicles 19 – it records Joab saying to Abishai, “If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you are to rescue me; but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will rescue you.”
Passage Parenting
Hope you’re having a great day! Thanks to a great idea from my good friend Casey, I thought I’d share some great websites that I like: