The Path I Walk: Back to the Basics

The lifegroup I belong to is currently studying 3:16 by Max Lucado. This is about as basic a study as you can get: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16. Back to the basics. Seems like whenever I hit a wall in any area of my life, that's where I always go, back to the place where I started to get off course. I can relate that to so many different situations. Just a few days ago, during Thanksgiving, even with the best intentions and a well thought-out plan, I still got off track. The next morning, I got up and acted like that day never happened. I went right back on my Weight Watchers eating plan. Back to the basics. Back to the fundamentals. With the battle I'm having physically with my feet, I stretch and take calcium, and roll frozen golf balls under my feet and get back out there. I do the best I can to follow the plan. At work, the signs of the economy are everywhere but I continue to provide quality, consistency, value and customer service for my clients. Those are the building blocks upon which I have based a very successful business in more prosperous times and continue to believe are imporant today.

We had baptism for the little ones at church this Sunday. The message was about parenting and getting back to the basics of taking on our parental rights and not abdicating them to the school, church, neighbors, other family members, the state, employers, etc. but embracing these rights for ourselves. Along the way we have to give our kids Broccoli ( the unfun stuff like discipline, guidance, correction, the freedom to make mistakes and suffer the consequences) but we also get to serve them ice cream( the wonderful experiences we get to share with our kids such as their discoveries, successes, milestones in development, big life events such as graduation, marriage, having kids of their own, the first big job, honors in school). We, as parents have the privilege of introducing our children to Jesus and helping them grow in their faith. I look back at my own childhood, which could have been a lot better, however, the one thing I have always been thankful for is the Christian heritage that my parents exposed me to. I accepted Christ when I was 14 years old during the early seventies when the Jesus People were really big-it was the cool thing to do, believe it or not! Back then I was going to a coffee house ministry in town at the Foursquare Church. I got saved during a prayer meeting there and even with my wandering ways and the fact that I screw up constantly, my faith has been the one greatest truth and most solid thing in my life that has kept me coming back on course when I falter. I'm not sure what other people do who don't have this faith but I will tell you for sure that I would not have been able to weather the storms in my life without the love and presence of God. I look back at my own parenting over the years. Now my boys are 21 and 23. There are some regrets and some things I wish I had done differently. Some priorities I should have held onto more tightly. Pastor Steve really encouraged me yesterday with the message when he stressed that we are never done with this job of parenting. We still keep those parental rights even after our children are grown. We may have to approach our kids differently at adult ages than we did at 2 or 3 but Steve encouraged all of us with older kids to never give up and to keep making efforts to mentor, support, lead, guide, be instrumental in their lives. Prayer, loving communication and lots of listening are powerful tools at our disposal to reclaim our place in the lives of our kids. It's funny that this comes up right now. I have been thinking about this a lot during the past year or so. It's still not too late. Three words that Steve threw out related to this:
REMEMBER: Go back to the basics of your beliefs and remember how God has walked with you and the generations of your family before you. Take your place in that Christian heritage. Pass it on. CHOOSE: Decide for sure what side of the fence you're on and then stand firm. Aim yourself truly and then maintain your aim. A double-minded person is unstable in all their ways. The doing is easier once you have really decided on something.
COMMIT: Follow through. Keep on the path. If you take a detour, make a wrong turn, just make a course correction and keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other. Don't look left or right~just straight ahead!