Dying to self

It’s horribley unfair, but it is a requirement of the job. When my little girl comes of age (COUGH… 32 ….COUGH) and starts to ask about boys and relationships, I have some words of wisdom. Dying to self is required in love and relationships, and even more so when you are a parent.

If you want to be on your own schedule, master to none but yourself, then don’t get married, don’t have kids. It’s that simple. But when you realize that doing your thing in your time really doesn’t fill the void and you decide you want to see more in life, you have to do it the right way. Here comes the hard part, there is no one person out there who is perfect just for you and remember that you didn’t exactly lose a glass slipper either. Disney has been lying to you your whole life. At the same time remember though, the media has been lying to your husband his whole life too. There is no such thing as a soul mate. You wonder why “Hollywood” marriages don’t last? I’d bet it’s because each person in the relationship expects the other to bend to their will and tend to their whim. That’s not a marriage. If you want a butler, hire a butler; in the long run it’s probably going to be cheaper than a divorce.

There is no one person, But if you want a relationship that will last you until your last days (or theirs) you both have to be willing to go the extra mile for each other. Of course you have to have a solid foundation on faith, hope, love and some commonality, but you have to die to yourself for your partner. You’re not just one flesh in the bedroom, as a married couple, you are a new entity.  You may still be two individuals, but you are so much more than the sum of your parts now.

Mark 8:34-35 (NIV) Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it."

Just as we have to die to our flesh and sin to follow God, we have to die to our selfishness to make a marriage work.

Marriage is the only time I will ever let the word “Compromise” be used in my house. I despise that word. That gets me branded as a great number of negative things, but I really don’t care. Committing to my wife signals to her that she is the only person on this Earth that I have to take into account when I make a decision. I have dragged my wife to many things that she has actually taken a liking to, but I know that she would indulge me even if she didn’t enjoy herself as much. I have to be willing to go out of my way to ensure I’m doing what I can to help her and ensure that she can indulge in her interests and to participate in them as well. This is amplified so much more when you throw a baby into your relationship.

If you’re a “feminist”, you probably are going be very familiar with the next passage, but I never hear you mention the one that follows right after it:

Ephesians 5:22-33 (NIV)

 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[b] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

When my daughter comes to me and asks about boys and marriage, this is her answer. Not to blindly submit, no, never to be domesticated slave. Nothing in verse’ 22-24 says to blindly obey. I see it as when a decision is reached (one that you should be involved in) then you back up your husband. Everything I want for her is to be a very strong woman, stronger than most boys that pass themselves off as “men” these days. No, I want her to find someone worth submitting to, just as I sought out a woman to be my wife who was/is worth dying for. What verses 25-33 mean to me is that I will be held to account for my family. I have the responsibility not only to provide for them physically (food, shelter, education…) but also spiritually. I firmly believe that not only will I give an account for my faith, but I will answer to the Lord as to the faith of my family, their well being on this earth. That is a huge responsibility. HUGE. And one that is far more demanding than being able to trust in the decisions of my partner.

Christ taught, equipped and fed the church, He ultimately died for all of us. That is what a husband needs to be doing. Dying to himself and his nature and to teach, equip feed and be ready to die for his family. That’s the type of man every woman should be looking for.

If you are in a relationship or are considering getting married, I HIGHLY recommend you take the time and check out this sermon by pastor Jon Courson

http://www.joncourson.com/teaching/teachingsplay.asp?teaching=S3002

So I have to die to any laziness, apathy or selfishness that I have, I have to be more for my wife and daughter. Yeah, I’m tired but so is my wife, and I didn’t push the kid out. 

I'm just a sheepdog. I don't have the answers, but I answer to the One who does.

… A failure to communicate.

Trying to get a concept across to someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you, well or not at all, is a frustrating situation. We’ve all been in the situations. Even if you are both native language speakers, when someone hears you, but doesn’t understand you, you’ll start pulling hair and grinding teeth quickly. Add to the frustration someone just yelling at you with all of their being, trying to communicate to you.

How much more so with a baby. Unlike Gunny Hartman, babies don’t make much noise; let alone talk or hurl abusive comments at you with the volume and creativity that comedians normally reserve for hecklers. So when something is wrong, frustration mounts quickly. Heaping a good serving of sleep deprivation, time of night and / or screaming into that recipe makes for an especially frustrating situation.

My wife is a trooper, she has proven herself time and again, but it’s taking a toll. When I came home and she wants nothing more to sleep and is holding our little girl, who is crying like a banshee, I could see it in her. So drop my stuff, take the kid and send her off to bed. Now I have a little mental checklist I use when dealing with crying children. Babies don’t want to shriek and keep you up; they’re pretty calm and just want to chill out. I’m holding Aeryn and she is red, nearly purple, with frustration. Out comes the list.

Diaper
Food
Comfort

Whatever the problem, it's related to one of these three things.

Aeryn has been sporting a nasty diaper rash, so anything that didn’t come in a Pampers box or a soothing salve would really annoy her. But she was clean. She didn’t seem interested in food. I played music. She wasn’t too hot or cold. Normally by now, whatever is bothering her is dealt with. So I’m holding this screaming child and she can’t tell me what’s wrong. Frustration is quick to set in, you want to by sympathetic to the child, but it's hard when they aren't perceived as helping. I took a moment and pushed the annoyance to the side and started thinking about the variables. It has to be the rash. So I don’t check the diaper, I strip her down. The diaper is a tiny bit wet, not leaving it to chance; I change her and double up on the Salve. She isn’t screaming. I re-dress her, she starts crying again. I try food and the soother, still a little face filled with rage. It has to be a comfort issue.

At this time the wife wants to feed her once more before we try to put her down for the night again. I hand Aeryn off and I say to myself: it has to be the clothes. And sure enough, as I was getting something to change her into, my wife noticed a red spot on Aeryn’s back where a clothing tag had started to rub her the wrong way. We changed the outfit and she was back to calm and cute.

Frustration is quick to set on you and hard to shake once it’s there. It’s easy to see, how given the right situation, parents snap at their kids or make fatal mistakes. But there is a reason for the situation. Stick through it and examine the variables.  And above else, get help if you need it. A ten minuet nap could make all the difference. 

What is the riddle of steal?

I screw up daily. And yet somehow, the most common thing I hear at work since we’ve had Aeryn is “You have a baby? You’re so collected.” Women at work who have 2, 3 or 4 kids are genuinely surprised that having Aeryn isn’t rattling me. Can’t say for sure why. Maybe it’s because not all men are the pathetic cliché’s that are used in modern commercials. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in the security industries for over a decade now, and my baby is a joy and pretty easy compared to a steady stream of negativity and emergency situations.

Changing a diaper or getting cranky baby to go to sleep is a little easier than dealing with a woman who is being stalked or an 80 year old man with a spinal injury wrapped in a broken neck.

I can be pretty grim at work, and if I didn’t have such a Christian disposition, I’m assured I would terrify far more people

But no matter what crap my job throws at me, Aeryn makes me smile.

I was holding her the other day, waiting for something or other, and I came across the seminal classic : “Conan the Barbarian”. On the screen was the genius Max von Sydow, as King Osric, who is charging Conan with getting his daughter back from James Earl Jones’ snake cult. Max von Sydow always plays it straight, and that’s what you need in movies like Conan, no winking at the camera, play it like you would Hamlet on the stage.  The King figures out that he can use Conan to get his daughter back, and says:

 

“There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child.”

 

Now some will roll their eyes at the mere mention of Conan or other movies that would be featured on “The Greatest Movie Ever podcast”, but be it the timing or what-not, the line really struck me. And I took a moment and thanked God that I am not putting meaningless garbage ahead of my baby girl or my wife.

I am blessed with an awesome wife and a perfect baby girl: and no stack of cash, mountain of gold or vault of jewels is going to take my eye off of them.

but tell me cousin... why a Sheepdog?

This one could be a little dis-jointed, but stay with it, there is a point.


If you're around my age, you probably have fond memories of Saturday morning (when cartoons were good) and some of my favorite Saturdays included Sam the Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf

There was a balance to it. Ralph (the Wile E Coyote clone) would do his best to steal the sheep to eat, and Sam, with a proper application of force, would thwart his willy schemes, usually accomplishing some comedic effect. Each knew what the other was supposed to do, and it was up to each other to out think the other. Good vs. Evil in a very simple form.


Life goes on, I get older. I see what evil and in deference actually looks like. And life teaches you that the wolves don't play by rules like sheepdogs are forced to, and they will eat your sheep and slit your throat if possible.


I was in Nairobi, Kenya in 1998. I saw the ruins of the US Embassy there*. Shortly before Kenya, I was in Yemen, only for a few hours mind you, but it was enough. It looked like a garbage dump with paved streets. A woman begged me to take a child. She didn't know me but she knew that as young as I was, but she knew that I could do more for her child than she could. Eventually a street fight broke out over a tourist who was giving money to a kid, the grown men in the crowd started brawling over who would take it from him. Travel and experience is the best teacher. I learned much of history, beauty and the fruit that comes from greed, pride and dehumanizing others.


While I've always believed in helping others, never though of calling it anything. In the last couple years, i've become aware of "the Sheepdog Concept" popularized by Army Lt. Col Dave Grossman. I could take up much more of your time trying to explain this to you, but I'll use what's available and let you learn from someone more experienced.

If you need recommendations or info on firearms, knives, clothing, camping or gear: Nutnfancy is the man

So i start to think about why I feel compelled to help others, and Psalm 23 comes to my mind, I'm sure you're familiar with it. 

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the
Lord forever. 

The Lord is my Shepherd, and I am his sheepdog. This is the concept that keeps rattling around in my head. Every person under our yellow sun is a sheep, the Lord is trying to Shepherd all of us, to protect and teach us. Some just aren't listening. 

Lt. Col. Grossman has another quote: "Sheep have only two speeds: 'grazing' and 'stampede'"

It's a sad truth that sheep are very stupid animals, and no matter what our vegetarian brothers and sisters tell you, if we didn't eat sheep or other livestock, they'd have been extinct long ago. As a Christian, and now as a parent, the need for a shepherd has never been more apparent. And I haven't screwed my life up that much. Now look at the world. Look at the people who do need help. Look at people in a minor crisis. We all need the Shepherd. As Christian's we are called to help and teach, which in my mind effectively makes me a sheepdog. Not only to be around to help when the wolves come, but to also be there everyday to keep the sheep from wandering off a cliff, drowning in a river or getting lost in the woods. Help keep them on the path. 

The trouble is, sheep don't want the sheepdog or the Shepherd. They try to limit our tools. Say we don't need them. I find it very "odd" that the largest proponents for firearms control are the ones who live behind large gates with RCMP or military bodyguards. 

Do I own firearms? Yes. 

Do I own knives. Yes. 

Do I leave them around for my daughter or the ill-informed to play with? No. 

Do I train with the tools I have? Yes.

Do I hope for the day when I can use them on someone? No. 

Do I follow ill conceived laws that serve only to make Canadian's larger victims and easier targets than we already are? Yes.

What's the point to all this? There is no point. There is no answer. There are only new questions to ask. And all of this teach us more about ourselves and why we do things. Asking questions isn't an act of sedition, it's an act of education and evolution. We all evolve personally, we didn't come from "the goo, to the zoo, to you" but we don't die the same person we started. 

As right now, I'm just a sheepdog. Trying to do what I can for the Shepherd who is trying to keep us on our path. We will get lost, we will lose sheep. But we will get to where we are going. And if you are willing to stand apart from the flock, gear up, learn new skills, become prepared and be willing to be mocked as a alarmist or "survivalist", come help us with the flock. That sheep you pull out of a river will thank you. That sheep you stop from bleeding or freezing to death will thank you. That sheep will thank you for helping protect their family from that home invader. 

John 15:13 says: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"

There are not many people that I'd stand in front of "that" bullet for, but I think that's why it is so important. I don't find myself out looking for reasons to die, I want to live and see my Great-great grandkids, however, I am not prepared to live in shame of myself because of my in-action or cowardice.

Spend the time and money to be ready for when the Lord needs our help looking after some of his sheep.

It is a LARGE flock, there's a lot to do. What better time to share the love of God and Christ than when someone asks why you risked it all to save someone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings

This is my baby girl. As of this post, she is 22 days, 21hours & 17 mins old.

I'll expand on the name of the Blog and many, many things later. But to start, I wanted to get one thing across.

Even though she can't talk or walk, can't run or have fun, can't control her bowels or pronounce vowels. I love her more than nearly anything else in this world. She is the reason I'm writing this, she has changed my life in ways that I can't conceive of yet. She will change my life, every day, until I draw my last breath.

I'm writing this encase I never get to explain the world or get to teach her. I'm writing this to capture ideas that will disappear in the rush of diapers, bottles and graying hair.

I love you little Aeryn. And I will do everything I can to ensure that you live longer, and smarter than I.

The only words i have are those of the 20th century street poet Shawn Corey Carter:

"I do anything necessary for her, so don't let the necessary occur"