Raising Your Kids with Purpose and Grace

When we talk about parenting infants, it’s all about survival mode. Being strategic is too much to ask, right?

There’s no denying that the first few days or weeks feel like you’re just hanging on. If we just make it through the sleepless nights, the endless diapers, and the incessant feedings, then we can get on to the business of raising our son or daughter, or so the logic goes. But that logic instills a destination mentality to our parenting practices ...

One Sunday morning on our way to church, my son asked, “Where are we going?” 

“We are going to church, buddy,” my wife replied. 

“Why are we going to church?” 

“Well, we are going to church to worship God and be with our church family.” 

“I don’t want to go to church to worship and be with church family.” 

As a kid, I did a lot of drawing, mostly of baseball cards, and mainly of Ozzie Smith, the legendary shortstop of the St. Louis Cardinals. He was my favorite athlete, and I wanted to play ball just like him—everything from wearing #1 to turning double plays without opening my glove. I would draw him at the plate, running the bases, tracking down pop-ups—whatever he was doing on the cards I had in front of me. I drew him because I wanted to imitate him. It’s the same reason my kids draw me. And yours draw you.

Most every dad knows what this is like. Whether it’s a school assignment or doodles during a church service, our young children have a knack for drawing us. Can you recall the last picture your children sketched of you? Do you have it nearby, maybe close enough to study for a minute? Don’t write it off as mere childishness; there’s something deeper going on.

On August 16, 2003, I made a promise. In a church packed with family and friends, I looked my best friend in the eye and, holding her hand, I spoke vows.

It’s one thing to speak vows; it’s another thing to keep vows. It’s one thing to dream big about your marriage; it’s another thing to pursue and implement that dream. A dream drives a marriage, and a plan cements the new realities you want to see in your marriage. To date your wife, you have to plan to date your wife. A ship without a sail and a rudder set in a deliberate direction will never make it to the other shore—it will simply drift at sea. A plan for how to date your wife is your sail and rudder—it will take you to your desired shore.

There’s a lot of good stuff online—and a lot of not-so-great stuff. Once a month, to help you dig through the depths of the internet and find what’s worth your time, we will send you a couple of things that have been helpful to us as dads. Here’s our June list ...

In the first moments of meeting my first child, I specifically remember thinking, “What a gift! What a miracle!” I was blown away by the way God uses nature and humans to create new humans—little miracles. “God, you made that little child through us...wow!”

But my second thought was, “Oh God, you are entrusting me with this miracle? Me? I can’t even be trusted to drive a car well, and you are giving me a boy?