When I was in high school I remember attending a concert where Compassion International was handing out packets of children in need of being sponsored. So I took a packet…

and did nothing with it.

I’ve never lost a child nor have I ever had an abortion but the guilt and shame of “doing nothing” has haunted me over the years as if I had. I remember my child’s sweet little face. I remember that he was around the age of five and from South America. I tucked the pain of my forgotten sponsored child away and moved on.

As years passed I got married, started a youth ministry and started a family of my own. I was living my life to help students come to know an amazing Savior and I was proud of what I was dedicating my life to. I remember taking our students to a concert that was fun and high energy.  But halfway through the show the MC started to talk about Compassion International. I wanted to climb under my chair and cry. Here I sat now a parent of my own sweet son and mentor to a group of kids. My sponsor child would have been around 10. I felt like it was a second chance. My opportunity for redemption and so I took a packet…

and did nothing with it…

Justin and I were so broke that the thought of sponsoring a child sent Justin over the edge. Anytime I would bring it up we would fight. So years passed our debt piled-up and the thought of sponsoring a child now seemed impossible. My sponsored child would now be around age 17. 

It’s now been seventeen years of a missed opportunity to change a life!

A year ago this month Justin and I joined Financial Peace University. Not only has it changed our lives financially but spiritually too! Over this past year we have paid off most of our debt, which has been amazing. But even more amazing is the freedom to give in a way we never dreamed possible.

Satan wants to convince us that either we don’t deserve love or that our love won’t make a difference. HE’S WRONG… Yes I have failed in an opportunity to make difference over the past 17 years but I still have 17 + more years to start making one today.  I can’t change the past but I can change the future.

So I DID SOMETHING!

We decided together as a family to adopt a daughter and sister in Christ!

Please meet….



Joselina Patricia Cotiy Garcia

She is 7 (the same age as my youngest son) and lives in Guatemala and is ministered to by the Bethel Student Center.

So today will you join my family and Compassion in making a difference? Your love does matter and your love will and can make a difference.

Sponsor a child today….you can click this link or the blog ad in the right side bar.

One of the biggest mistakes I make as a Christian is that I underestimate the spiritual battle I’m a part of every day.

For years, I thought that people who talked about spiritual warfare were a little off their rocker. I knew it was in the Bible…but in my mind…it wasn’t relevant today. I didn’t want to make everything from a hangnail to a flat tire a spiritual attack…so I mostly dismissed it. If I’m honest, I still discount its presence at times in my life.

Here is what I’m reminded of today, that I want to share with you. If you are a Christ-follower that longs to make an impact with your life…you will face opposition.

What God has reminded me of this week is:

-Our spouse isn’t the enemy

-Our friends aren’t the enemy

-Our kids aren’t the enemy

-Our family (even your mother-in-law) isn’t the enemy

We have one Enemy that seeks to kill and destroy. He will attack the relationships that mean the most to you. He will distort truth. He will confuse motives. He will make it seem like those who you love the most are against you the most. He longs to destroy you.

You are in a battle. The Bible says that it rages in the heavenly realms, and I believe it rages in our hearts every day. It is a battle that took me out in 2005, so I know its power.

I’d like to offer you some suggestions on fighting this spiritual battle. I hope that these are an encouragement to you today:

1.     God’s power is made perfect in your weakness. Call on him to fight for you. Stop trying to pretend you can figure everything out and just surrender to Him.

2.     Acknowledge to those you are in relational conflict with that there are spiritual forces that are trying to destroy that relationship. Tell them that you realize that they are not the enemy, but that you have ONE enemy.

3.     If possible, pray with that person (your wife, sister, friend) and ask God to be present in your relationship, to give you discernment and strength.

4. Live in the promise that greater is he that is in YOU than he that is in the world.

Maybe today you feel battle worn…in your marriage, in a relationship, emotionally, spiritually. Your Heavenly Father longs to restore your weary heart and fight for you…in this very moment.

Are you fighting any battles that are really God’s to fight?

There are a lot of things that I know I should do.

In my relationship with God, “I should” has crossed my mind hundreds of times. I should read my Bible more. I should spend more time in prayer. I should journal more consistently. I should show more grace. I should worship God in more ways that just singing on Sundays. I should give more.

I’m great at telling myself, “I should.” I should workout more. I should eat better. I should get up earlier. I should run a mini-marathon. I should get out of debt. I should read more. I should write more.

The same can be said about my marriage. I should listen more. I should give Trisha my best. I should help with the kids. I should lead our family more spiritually. I should engage as much at home as I do at the office. I should not be so controlling.

My life as a father has been filled with “I should.” I should take the boys camping. I should not lose my temper so easily. I should be more patient. I should spend quality time with each of the boys. I should help him with his homework. I should pray more with them.

The problem with I should is that it will never change your life. For transformation to truly take place in your life, you have to move from “I should” to “I want to.” It is about desire.

If I don’t desire to read my Bible more than I desire watching Sportscenter, change will not happen. If I don’t desire time with my wife more than I desire time at the office, she will never feel like a priority. If I don’t desire spending time with my boys more than I desire watching golf, I’ll never be a better dad. If I don’t desire working out more than I desire lying on the couch, I’ll never lose weight.

Transformation only takes place as our desire to change aligns with the power of the Holy Spirit to change us. Sometimes that means sacrifice; sometimes it means surrender; sometimes it means confession; sometimes it means humility. It always means moving from “I should” to “I want to.”

Maybe what is holding you back from changing is that your desires are too weak. You have settled for a life of “I should” and haven’t embraced a life of “I want to.”

What area of your life do you need to move from “I Should” to “I Want To”?

As we come to the last two principles of our “8 Things that Restored Our Marriage” series, I have to admit I have struggled with these last two posts. We have not posted in over a week, not because we didn’t have anything to say, but because there was so much we could say, I wanted to make sure we said the right things. So my prayer today is that Principle #7 is straight from God’s heart to yours and applies to your life no matter where you are in your marriage. We have touched on this principle before, but the application of this is crucial in moving from destruction to restoration.

When Trisha and I were first separated in October of 2005, I was the first to start counseling. I went to counseling 4 days a week for two weeks before Trisha and I started going together. Attending counseling was something that I had never done. I recommended counseling to others. We had Christian counselors that went to our church. I had pastor friends that told me of their great experience in counseling. My pride and my fear kept me from counseling. I thought that I was too strong for counseling; I could handle my junk on my own. Weak people go to counseling. At the same time, I was scared that if I went, the counselor would see right through me and I would be found out as the shallow poser that I truly was. (I told you I was messed up!) I resisted Christian counseling like the plague…until I was desperate to save my marriage.

At the end of my first week of counseling, I told the counselor to be honest with me. I said something like “Now that you have an idea of just how messed up I am, how much I have jacked up my life and marriage, I need to know, are we going to make it? Can you fix me? Can you fix my marriage?” He simply said that he didn’t know. He had no idea if what I had destroyed could be restored…but he did have hope that I could be restored. So, I said to him, “I’ll do anything…just tell me what to do.” He said to me “If I can recommend one thing for you to find healing it would be for you to buy and read “The Power of a Praying Husband.”

Let me just say that this wasn’t the first time I had heard of this book. I can remember several people emailing me about this book. One word came to mind when I thought of this book “CHEESY”! I read a summary of the book at one point and I thought only weak and incompetent guys would read this book. Turns out, that is exactly what I was…weak in character and incompetent as a husband and father. So I bought this book.

As Trisha and I talk to couples, often we are asked by them for one tip, one suggestion, one thing that they can do that will have immediate results on their marriage. This is that one thing…read this book. This book reveals the truth of Restoration Principle #7:

Principle #7: Our willingness to pray for our spouse is instrumental in God recreating who He wants us to be as husbands and wives.

There are two major reasons that I resisted not only reading this book but also praying for my wife.

-Pride: The same pride that kept me from seeking help from a Christian counselor kept me from praying for my wife and marriage. If I prayed for my marriage, if I prayed to be a better husband, then I was admitting that I didn’t have it all together. I wasn’t the model husband, I struggled to be who God called me to be, I couldn’t provide the leadership and direction that my wife and kids were relying on me to provide.

-Priorities: I knew in my heart that if I prayed for Trisha and if I consistently prayed for my marriage that God would bring things to my mind that I needed to deal with. He would allow me to see changes that needed to be made and work that needed to be done to have a healthy and growing marriage…and I had a church to build. I didn’t have time to be sidetracked by issues that if I could ignore, would go away for fix themselves.

I began to read this book and God began to do something that I never expected. He began to change me. He began to allow me to see needs in Trisha that I never saw before. He gave me a heart for her desires that I never had before. He gave me an understanding of her world that I never comprehended. Through the prayers that were in this book, God unlocked a supernatural power in our marriage to bring about the changes in us that we knew were necessary, but was powerless to make happen.

I bought this book 3 ½ years ago. I have read it about 25 times. I still read it and pray through at least every other week. It is a vital part of my relationship with God and my wife. It gave me words to pray when I didn’t know how. It gave me verses of Scripture to read that applied specifically to something Trisha and I were going through.

God is passionate about your marriage. God longs to see your marriage thrive…even more than you do. When we submit to praying for our spouse, we acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers and we need supernatural help in becoming all that God has called us to be. It is through that process that God does something in us that we could never do for ourselves. I have come to realize that I can’t change my wife. As much as I want to, often times, I can’t change me. But as I pray and humble myself before God and submit to His desires for my marriage, He changes my wife and me in more complete ways than we could have ever done.

Trisha purchased “The Power of a Praying Wife” and consistently reads the prayers in that book for me. It has transformed who she is as a wife. These books were the single greatest resource for us finding hope, restoration and change that allowed us to move from destruction to restoration. I know it could do the same for you.

A few weeks ago, I had meeting a scheduled first thing in the morning. I arrived to this meeting with a set of expectations. I knew what I wanted to say in this meeting. I knew what I wanted to get out of this meeting. I knew what I wanted to leave with at the end of this meeting.

My vision was clear. My expectations were set.

As the meeting began, it was clear to me that my expectations weren’t going to be met. They were going to be exceeded. In fact, the longer the meeting went on, the more I realized just how small my thinking was. As we continued our discussion, I felt embarrassed…embarrassed by my small vision and my inability to see God’s larger movement.

The truth is that if I had gone into this meeting determined to have my expectations met, I would have left feeling satisfied. But I would have missed something so much bigger; so much better; so much more impactful.

I wonder how many times I’ve done that with God? I wonder how many times I’ve gone to God with my plan…my agenda…my vision…my expectations and demanded my way. I wonder how many times I’ve underwhelmed God with my expectations?

I wonder how many times my relationship with Him had an opportunity to go to a deeper level if I would have not demanded He meet my expectations but allowed myself to be overwhelmed by His?

Maybe you’ve resigned in your mind that your job will never fulfill you. You just need to put in your time. You can’t stand your boss. They don’t appreciate you. You feel like you’re wasting your life. So you expect very little. You give very little. You get very little in return. Maybe you are missing out on the eternal expectations God has for you in your career? Maybe your job sucks because you expect it to suck.

Maybe your relational world just consists of superficial relationships. You used to have high expectations of friendships…but over the course of time, disappointment and conflict and bitterness have realigned your expectations. Now you don’t expect much. You won’t be hurt if you don’t invest much. So you expect little…and little is what you are getting.

Maybe the reason that you are unimpressed and disinterested in your marriage these days is because you have underwhelming expectations. You just don’t expect it to be good anymore. If you don’t get your hopes up, then you won’t be disappointed. So you sacrifice what could be amazing and wonderful for the safety of not expecting much. It is totally underwhelming. Maybe the reason you are consistently disappointed with your spouse is because you expect to be. You’ve created the box your marriage lives in.

What if fulfillment in your career or intimacy in your marriage or depth in your relationships was limited only by your underwhelming expectations? What if God has something so much bigger in store for you in one of these areas, and you are missing it?

Don’t mistake satisfaction for God’s blessing. Sometimes we are too easily satisfied.

Thoughts?

I have spent a lot of time on the computer lately. A.Lot.Of.Time.

Over the past few weeks, we have redesigned our blog; we launched a new resource web site: RefineOurMarriage; we are working on a book proposal; we are planning a marriage conference we are speaking at in Chicago in November…lots of hours on the computer. This is over and above the computer time I spend for my pastoral role at Cross Point.

My kids have noticed. Trisha has noticed. I have noticed. I keep telling myself it is a season. I keep telling myself normal is coming. Then I wonder have I redefined normal?

Last night, I came home with the goal of not looking at my phone or my computer until after the kids went to bed. We ate dinner together. We watched a movie. I checked homework. We tucked the kids in. At certain times I felt a sense of withdrawal…from email…from the blog…from Twitter.

As I was praying this morning, I felt God asking me… “Do you feel the same sense of withdrawal in our relationship?” When you don’t spend time with me; when you choose to engage in everything else other than me, do you feel withdrawal? Do you want to read my Word as much as email? Do you want to journal as much as write on your blog? Or is this your new normal?”

I guess today is a heart check day for me. It’s easy to write about things you’ve dealt with…harder to write about things you need to deal with.

I’m reminded today that it does me no good to have a vibrant ministry at Cross Point and a mediocre relationship with God. It is pointless to have a growing marriage ministry and a sucky marriage. It is not an option to be asked to speak at different places or to have finished a book proposal, if it comes at the cost of my relationship with my kids.

I love the ministry opportunities God, by His grace, has given me. But I don’t love them more than God. I don’t love them more than my wife. I don’t love them more than my kids.

I need my heart to hear what my head already knows.

Heart-check.

Before Trisha and I separated, we argued a lot. We still have disagreements now, but NOTHING like we used to. Our disagreements now are about things that matter.

They aren’t about something that happened five years ago; they don’t have rabbit trails that loop in my mother, Trisha forgetting my birthday in 1998, and how I didn’t mow the yard last week.

You know those kind of arguments…the kind that you can’t even remember what you started arguing about?

Been.There.

We used to argue …A LOT.

As we began to go to counseling, and started unpacking our junk, we realized that we argued (most of the time) so Trisha could get my attention. If there was conflict, then I was engaged. When I perceived things were going well with our marriage, then I pursued my own agenda. So often, Trisha would initiate conflict or react to what should have been a level 2 reaction with a level 10 reaction, because at the core of her being, she wanted my attention. She desired my participation. She longed for me to notice.

Isn’t that sad? Why did it take anger to get my attention? Why did I not pursue my wife unless there was a problem? How jacked is that?

Let me ask you to evaluate your relationships…your marriage, your friendships, your family dynamics. What does it take for you to engage? What does it require for you to pursue your wife’s heart? What is required for you to be present? What forces you to participate, not just spectate, in your relationship?

When conflict is used as a pawn in a relationship, its purpose is distorted. God often uses conflict to build intimacy. But when we have to use it for our own purposes, what was meant to build, tears down. What was designed create openness ends up creating resentment.

So many people spend the best hours of their day arguing with the people they love the most. Most of those arguments have no redemptive value at all. They are symptoms of an attention deficit.

How many arguments could you prevent by participating? How many fights might not happen if you engaged before conflict had to erupt? What if you listened more? What if you asked more questions? What if you didn’t check email at the table? What if you looked at your spouse in the eyes when they talked to you? What if you were fully present?

What if…

Do you see conflict used as a last resort attention getter in your marriage/friendships/relationships?

Do you ever feel that when you hear the word forgiveness it feels one-dimensional? Like your supposed to forgive and then just move on? You know the famous line “forgive and forget.”

As I stated in my first post of this series my pastor Pete spoke on forgiveness Sunday. He gave the word forgiveness dimension that I knew in my heart and head but couldn’t express through words. And he did it with just four words:

FORGIVENESS WILL COST YOU

To choose to forgive means to embrace the reality of your hurt and offer forgiveness regardless of the person(s) response. The cost is great but the reward is even greater. Jesus paid a huge price to forgive us and the reward in his obedience to the Father is receiving eternal life with him. His forgiveness was not one-dimensional. Yes it had one purpose, but the price he paid to offer forgiveness was:

Humbling – as He entered this world as a helpless infant

Complicated – as He was often misunderstood by friends and family

Lonely – as He wondered in the dessert being tempted in anyway possible to give-up

Overwhelming – as He is BETRAYED and DESERTED by his closest friends

Painful – As He was made fun off, beaten, abused and hung on a cross

Humbling. Complicated. Lonely. Overwhelming. Painful.

Do these words resonate with your heart when you think about the person(s) you are trying to forgive?

There is nothing one-dimensional or “forgive and forget” to this forgiveness.

FORGIVENESS WILL COST YOU

Matthew 5:4, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

I am no theologian by any stretch but I believe that grieving and forgiveness are closely connected. As Christians we often feel guilty for being angry, sad or depressed because of how we’ve been hurt. It is OK to be angry! It is OK to feel depressed! It is OK to feel confused! It is OK to feel hopeless. Just because you feel these emotions doesn’t change who God is and the love he has for you.

Grieving and forgiveness are so needed in the restoration process. Restoration may not happen with the person(s) who wronged you but rather restoration is possible for you as a person and child of God. While it can be unhealthy to get stuck in one of the stages of grief it is essential to grieve and forgive so healing can begin.

“As painful as they may be, emotional wounds need to be exposed to Jesus Christ so He can heal them.”- Focus on the Family

Jesus felt the emotions of grief, embraced them but did not sin through them. We are sinful natured people. We will most-likely fail at times in the grieving process but in the process healing will begin and forgiveness will start to take place.

I’m so thankful that forgiveness is not one-dimensional (most days) because I have learned so much about myself as I have grieved. I have had to embrace the reality that my hurts can have layers and as they are pulled back Jesus in his gentle voice reveals I have not forgiven freely. Like I said most days I am thankful for the journey.

Are you tempted to see forgiveness as one-dimensional?

**Disclaimer: On Sunday night Trisha and I sat in two different rooms writing blog posts. She wrote her post yesterday, and I wrote this post. Neither of us knew how God had laid such similar things on our hearts. I love it when God works that way.**

Last month, Trisha and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. We also celebrated our oldest son Micah’s 14^th birthday. Just typing that feels weird. We don’t feel old enough to have a 14 year old.

It is a very interesting season of life, because our oldest son and our youngest son are 7 years apart in age, but look very much alike. As I watch my youngest son, I think about Micah at his age. Micah had some friends come over to celebrate his birthday on Sunday, and as I sat and watched them at the pool I thought to myself:

“How much of the journey did I miss because I was so focused on the destination?”

When Micah was 7, I was busy building a church. I’ve always been busy building something…a reputation, a student ministry, a bank account, an image, a fund raising plan, a leadership structure, an organization.

Here is the tricky thing…none of these things are bad. But the focus I had on what was next usually clouded my enjoyment of what was now.

As a husband, I wanted to figure out how to have a better job; how to have a bigger house; how to have a newer car; how to take better vacations; how to save more money; how to have more toys. Arriving was more important than becoming.

As a father, I was waiting for the boys to crawl; then walk; then talk; then get out of diapers; then get in a big boy bed; then go to school; then play sports.

As a pastor, my whole focus was on the destination. I can’t wait until we have a building; I can’t wait till we have 50 people; 100 people; 300 people; 500 people; 700 people; I can’t wait until we go to two services; I can’t wait until next Easter, its going to be bigger and better than this Easter.

There is nothing wrong with having goals. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with being driven. I’m not suggesting that a person, a marriage, a family, a church, a business shouldn’t grow and improve.

But when we pursue the destination more passionately than we do the journey, we often miss both altogether.

Focusing on the destination allows you to achieve some goals and experience some success, but there is always a cost.

Seeking the destination has:

• Cost me joy
• Robbed me of memories
• Caused me stress
• Made me ungrateful
• Left me discontent

What I have discovered is that God’s presence finds me on the journey. He is more concerned with who I am becoming than where I am arriving. Oddly enough, so is my wife; so are my kids.

What I have realized (often the hard way) is:

• Intimacy grows on the journey
• Moments are created on the journey
• Contentment is found on the journey
• Gratitude is overwhelming on the journey
• Life is savored on the journey

Is there an area of your life that your focus on the destination has robbed you of joy in the journey?

Often on our RefineUs blog we write about the hard stuff in life, love and relationships. Today I (Trish) just feel compelled to share about a heart that’s full. Not the kind of full that says life is perfect without problems or flaws but the kind of full that makes your face hurt from too much smiling.

I have found myself in a constant state of reflection over the past couple of weeks. Whether its spending time with good friends or snuggling on the couch with my boys I seem to drift into reflection. I feel a sense of joy and gratitude that even though life has been hard and sometimes even cruel I still get to live THIS LIFE! God doesn’t just redeem he makes things new.

Yesterday we had a completely impromptu birthday/pool party for our 14-year-old son Micah with some of his friends from school. The scene was a bit surreal! My “little guy” is not so little anymore (he’s now taller than me) and so as I have in days past I started to reflect. Thoughts of only having five years left with him start to flood my mind. Thoughts that one of the girls splashing him in the pool could be his future wife! Say what?

As the afternoon continues on I look over at Justin then over to the pool and then back at him. I see my 7-year-old Isaiah completely enamored with the big kids yet content to play on his own. Again I look at Justin and then back to the scene unfolding in the pool. I think about my 11-year-old Elijah and know he must be having a blast at the lake house with one of his best buddies. And again I gaze back at Justin…

For a moment in time I felt an overwhelming sense of humility and gratitude for my life! To have Justin and my boys in my life is such a gift. Not only am I grateful to have Justin’s friendship but to see and be a part of the legacy he is leaving within the hearts of our boys…

HEART FULL!

To be blessed with so many friends in so many different places of the world…

HEART FULL!

To be blessed to be a part of a church family that loves God, the lost and the broken…

HEART FULL!

To have family (especially our moms) that loves us regardless…

HEART FULL!

To know and be known by a Savior who loves me and those I love so deeply that he gave his life for us…

HEART FULL!

Reflection has been a gift from that has allowed me to see what God has and continues to do in and through my life. My prayer and challenge for you today is to take a minute to reflect on what has made your “heart full” lately?