What I want my life to be about...

I follow a lot of blogs through google reader. And I mean a lot. My favorites (besides my friends) are mainly pastors, teachers- Christians who are living the Gospel and making a true difference for our Lord and Savior. Backing what they say with how they live, and what they say is straight from Scripture. I love it.
I'm more and more convinced that the Lord is working greatly all around us, and we have to be actively alerting ourselves to what's going on, or we'll allow ourselves to be distracted by all the sin and pain in this world. There's hope out there too. God is working, God is constantly manifesting His glory, God is building His church. I'm a big fan of following what He's doing through social media and other more traditional mediums- and passing it on. If you follow me on google reader... you already know that, and I apologize.

This post touched me on such a purposeful, deep, longing- level that I had to share it in as many ways I could. Especially since the Lord has been actively preparing my heart, and my husbands for children, growing us, quite deliberately...

Foggy Boots and a Bible

Author: Pastor Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington.
Setting: part of a celebrating children theme at his church, highlighting Jesus's interaction with small ones. Given that Seattle is not a family-friendly city, it's Pastor Marks' goal to change that in many ways- reaching out to it's citizens... and just as much to make as many Christian families as possible. Win.
Characters: a story of Pastor Mark and his (at the time) two year old son, Zach.

Read the whole article, but here are some of my favorite sections.

In 50 years, who is going to preach the gospel in the city? Who is going to plant the churches that reach the new generations? Who is going to continue the work forward? That should be your grandkids. That should be my grandkids. Having children is not just about you getting your emotional needs met and having the perfect Christmas card photo where you all have matching hats. That’s not the Biblical point.

The Biblical point is you want your children to multiply fruitfully and to serve God and to extend his influence and to bring the good news of Christ from generation to generation. If the statistics are true and the majority of people that are having children these days are not Christians, who are not living in wisdom, then isn’t it going to be important that we send a lot of kids out there to connect with them and tell them about Jesus? It’s hugely important. It only takes one generation for a nation to go from Christian to post-Christian. 

The intro to his post is very convicting, especially in a culture where the decision to have kids is made selfishly: couples only wanting a few kids, deciding ahead of time to fashion their family how they want to, often without consulting God. I'm not against birth control across the board, but I'm definitely against many of the attitudes that go along with it. But that's not the point today- so going back to what we should want as Christians, as members of God's church, and as parents:

  I had one of the most encouraging experiences with my son, Zac, this week. It was magnificent. My son is a Bible freak. He reads the Bible at least an hour a day. He always wants to play act the Bible stories. One of us is Jonah. One of us is the whale. One of us is David. One of us is Goliath. One of us is Peter. One of us is John. We’re always playing some sort of story. And this week, I got up early with him and we had breakfast, read the Bible, and wrestled and played a little David and Goliath and he slew me, and then I had to get to work.

In order to avoid copy and pasting the whole article (just go read it!) what happened: Zach asked if he could come along with his father to help minister to a man in a hospital, who had no use of his lower body and had been in the hospital for quite some time. Keep in mind his son is just over two years old.

Zac looked at me and said, “Well, I wanna go, too.” I said, “Well, Zackie, I’m his pastor.” He said, “I’ll be his pastor.” I thought, God rebuke me. You’re right. He should go with me. So, I told him he could come with me, and he put on his froggy boots and grabbed his Bible.

This is how I want to raise my kids. I want my children to point directly to Jesus Christ; and for us to do ministry together and glorify God side by side. I want them to see their mommy and daddy doing things for people and to help too. I want them to love their Bible more than Curious George or Dr.Seuss (my favorite books as a child... and... still pretty awesome).

So they went off to the hospital... and sat with the man for an hour. Together...

...my son sat on my lap for about an hour. Two years old. No toys, no nothing, and we talked with this guy. A two year old boy. And he was sitting on my shoulders and hanging out. He was being obedient and attentive, and he was listening to all the things that the Lord was teaching this guy. And we got all done and I said, “Zac, you need to pray for him.” Zac said, “Okay.” He bowed his head, and quietly prayed that God would heal him and touch his feet, and touch his legs, and he was paying attention and he knew what to pray for. 

Leading by example.
Instilling children how to approach our loving, powerful God.
Learning from my children how to love God without my own baggage as an adult.
To have a pattern of interaction where it's all about God. To have my relationship with my children be about Jesus.

I believe this understanding of what family life could be like- what it should be like, can be or everyone, whether married or single, parenting or not. Even for those who may not be able to have children, for God gives us all opportunities to learn from each other, to teach others, to pass on the Gospel. No matter the circumstance, it's a model of what I want. It inspires me, and I'm not gonna lie, reading the article made me cry a little bit.

It reaches a desire within me that God Himself gave me.

We left and I looked at Zac and it was like he was a 20-year-old man. I mean, it was amazing, my little co-pastor. I took him out to lunch, and we sat at lunch, and he asked me questions for about a half hour on ministry. “Daddy, how often do you do this?” “What do you pray for?” “What parts of the Bible do you tell them?” “What if they’re not Christians?” He had all these great questions about how to be a pastor. I was just amazingly encouraged. I put him in the car and came home. I told Grace, “This is the like the best day I’ve ever had in my whole life.” It was amazing.

Don't you want this in your life? How could you not want that to be your family?