CONTEST: How did I get here?

Saw this on Facebook and thought it was my kid. That actually looks like my kitchen.

So how did he get here? Most creative idea wins a prize.

Gideon

He's one of my favorite guys in the Bible. Really.

He got picked--the weakest member of the weakest clan of one of the weaker tribes of Israel--to lead 300 men against an entire occupying force with horns and torches. And won.

That's the classic story, anyway. Most people gloss over the fact that he had 70 sons from many wives, that his illegitimate son killed all the others, or that between his first recruiting visit and the test of the fleece he went and destroyed a Baal statue and an Asherah pole. Once God got a hold of him, he gained a reputation of being a troublemaker pretty quickly. And we know him best for it.

It is in that first recruiting visit that Gideon is first recognized for what he will be. God greeted him saying, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."

What gets me about the conversation after that is that Gideon questions whether God is indeed with Israel. It takes some time before he finally says, Wait, what did you call me? How can I save Israel? And God's answer is simple enough: "I will be with you."

That's all we ever need to know, that God will be with us. A great many risks are not taken out of fear, but really out of forgetfulness. Fathers forget that God is with them; churches forget that God is with them; leaders forget that God is with them.

God does not flinch in the face of the abnormal or overwhelming; God does not doubt His power; God does not leave His people.

That's who sends us. That's who is with us.

That's who calls us Mighty Warrior.

The First Rule of Fight Club

One of my favorite parts of being a dad is the wrestling. We set up the octagon in the living room and lay down some ground rules (stay away from the face, mom is fair game only if she stops in the middle), and then proceed to forget the rules and have a match that would make rugby players grimace.

Turns out, that's a good thing. Not just the time spent with dad--which is huge--but physical play and roughhousing is, according to a study, good for child development. There are a good deal of neural connections being tested and established during this play, including understanding what the body can do physically, what getting thrown around feels like, and building a level of trust between parent and child.

Keep on roughhousing, people. Your kids' social and mental development depends a great deal on it!

Tim Who?

Oh, that guy.

This guy is everywhere: on the TV...um...on more TV...

Whether you know him from his time at Florida State, his time so far with the Denver Broncos, or if you had no idea who he played for, but know that he talks about God whenever he opens his mouth, there's something to watch in this guy.

He's proved himself as a quarterback, beating Pittsburgh in OT in the playoffs on Sunday and earned a nice $250,000 bonus in the process--a bonus which he will get again with a win over New England. (I would like to suggest a large donation of that bonus to me.)

But it's because of his religion that people are turning to him as a role model for younger kids. People enjoy seeing someone with Tebow's strong values in prominent positions in the media. He's not the first one, either: Kurt Warner led the St. Louis Rams to their Super Bowl win and the Arizona Cardinals to their first ever Super Bowl all on news conferences about his faith.

Which is why I was intrigued when Kurt Warner suggested Tim Tebow should tone down the religious rhetoric.

Wait, what? Aren't Christians supposed to be telling other Christians to keep talking about God?

But Warner wasn't being embarrassed about it like some Christians get when people talk about God on TV (look what all these televangelists have done to us). Instead, he was making a greater point:

"You can't help but cheer for a guy like that," former NFL star Kurt Warner said. "But I'd tell him, 'Put down the boldness in regards to the words, and keep living the way you're living. Let your teammates do the talking for you. Let them cheer on your testimony.'

"I know what he's going through, and I know what he wants to accomplish, but I don't want anybody to become calloused toward Tim because they don't understand him, or are not fully aware of who he is. And you're starting to see that a little bit."

This is the mission of letting our actions speak louder than words. But as a professional athlete, most of the actions we see from Tebow involve either hitting, getting hit, or deflecting hits. And there's the occasional completed pass. But Warner is right--let the teammates do the talking.

Which would be a better testimony, Tim Tebow talking about God whenever there's a mic on, or his teammates talking about how different the guy is, how much he genuinely loves his God and prays for his team.

I don't know if Tim Tebow will still be QB-ing when Jack is old enough to understand football. Right now, he's not too interested in watching games, just playing them. There may be several good moral role models in the NFL, MLB, or the NBA (that one's a little harder to believe). But all boys looking for a role model should add that criteria to the list: Not just what a person says or does, but how people closest to him talk about him when he's not around. And that's a little more of what I'd like to see from Tebow.

Bible verses on your face will only go so far.

     

Video Monday-Red Green

The Red Green Show was a Canadian sketch-ish comedy show that ran for 15 years, from 1991-2006. There were a number of staples of the show--things that popped up every time--but thanks to the great writers they never got old. If anything, the show kept finding creative new ways of doing the same thing over and over--and it worked.

(Steve Smith as Red Green)

The show celebrated men. It was set at a falling-apart hunting and fishing lodge, and featured the most bizarre group of men, from a septic service owner to a criminal, who all found camaraderie in avoiding their wives. Red proved himself to be an iffy handyman. He fixed cars, garden tools, and even got to soup up several motorized appliances to even more power. And he did it the way men do things: very little planning, not reading the directions, and several roles of duct tape.

The show now is in endless reruns on PBS. Enjoy!