The clock is ticking. It’s only a matter of time. While I haven’t been blogging faithfully, I have been thinking of topics to cover. I’m thinking more and more about using my time online to educate and train my child. With that goal, and with Proverbs rolling around in the back of my mind, I’ve decided to create a series of life lessons for my child. It will be easier to write once I know if I’m speaking to a boy or a girl, but I want to begin anyway because eventually this could mean something to him or her and I want to get a head start.

I’m also hoping that one or two other people will stumble across this blog and find some benefit in these words. I am a firm believer that sharing one’s testimony is a potent method of both teaching and convincing. Philosophical concepts are great, and they have their place, but nothing is as formative and transformational as the word of our testimony.

I am so excited to meet my baby. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I am a bit terrified as well. There’s simply no way to be fully prepared and have all your ducks in a row. I am going to face situations I wasn’t expecting. I have a deep respect for the role of a father and mother in the life of a child. I know that they have far more impact on the development of a child than any school program. I know and respect the reality that I have a God-given responsibility to love and train my children. And this awesome responsibility is why I want to write down some life lessons.

They come to me at odd times - usually when I’m driving or nowhere near a notepad. But they’re important thoughts, experiences, and concepts, and I hope you are blessed by them as much as I will be by writing them. No promises on regularity, though. They come when they come.

All my doors have closed or are on hold indefinitely. Different duties, better pay, or even different job. It’s been one emotional roller coaster after another. And here I am, after spending some time at church praying for one another, I feel pregnant with possibility.

What’s changed? Nothing on the outside. Just my thinking. Just my expectation. I have decided to agree with the idea that I don’t have to see it coming. God can just open the right door at the right time, and I just have to trust him. I trust him with this blog. I trust him with all my blogs. I trust him with my wife. I trust him with my income.

I don’t have to push until something gives. I have tried that for months and gotten nowhere. One possible reaction is to give up. Another is to stop pushing and start trusting. If God’s will is something akin to a flowing river, then you do better when you surrender to it and allow the current to take you where it wills than to fight against it and end up drowning.

That is my life, in a nutshell: learning to stop fighting the flow or determining direction and choose instead to allow myself to ride the current. Sure, plenty of you will have a theological disagreement with that statement one way or another. That’s okay. Sometimes God does help those who help themselves. Other times, he only helps those who rely on his help. The trick is knowing when is when.

We’re back home now. Our whirlwind 24 hour trip is over. My wife is nesting happily, and I am waiting for a tv show to download. Sitting back on my sofa, with my cat sitting on top of the pad near my right shoulder, I am grateful for the opportunity to see my grandparents.

Not everyone feels this way, I know. If you did not know your grandparents or if they were cruel or emotionally unavailable, I am sorry. My father’s parents were always extremely supportive and caring even when we didn’t see eye to eye. Getting to show off my pregnant wife for the first time to them was a pleasure. They’ve known she is pregnant, but living five hours away means that we don’t see each other often. But when I do see them, I experience this overwhelming sense of gratefulness wash over me.

This visit was great. Out of the blue, my wife started bragging about me and how she thinks I am a wonderful husband. She told them all kinds of stuff about how well I treat her, and it felt really good. My grandparents were an amazing comfort to me as a child, and they blessed me even when I was a rebellious and idiotic teenager. They’re different from me, yet they are a spiritual and emotional rock in my life.

My grandfather told me how unusual I am for appreciating and craving family history the way I do. For the past five years, I’ve asked them all sorts of questions about the past, and asked them to write down some of their memories from childhood.

I never cared much about family history until my mom’s father and stepmother passed away. My grandfather was a preacher. I discovered more than 400 sermons recorded on tape and volumes of sermon notes. It was only once I acquired these that a vision began to form inside me of knowing my family heritage and history.

Since then, I have encouraged everyone of my family members to record their thoughts, experiences, and memories for posterity. I have no idea how long Jesus will tarry, but until he returns, I want to paint a vivid picture of my family for my children and any future generations.

Each child is different from his or her parents and grandparents. But some things are hereditary. Some things are passed down through experience. Some things are gifts or callings of God upon an entire family (see Abraham and David’s families as examples). We don’t tend to think that way anymore, but that doesn’t mean God has changed his ways. He blesses and rewards faithfulness (and by faithfulness, I mean hearts that faithfully want to know him).

I want to look back on my family history and see patterns of blessing I can experience and possibly even curses which might need to be broken. Faith comes by hearing. You can only ask God and expect him to come through on things you know he will do. Knowing family history is essentially what God commanded the children of Israel to do after they fled Egypt. It was through family history that each generation were taught who God is and what he has done. And it is through knowing what God has done that we learn what to expect from him and how to approach him.

History is our map. Our guide. Our introduction. The relationship with God must continue… must deepen and mature… but our path is defined largely by how much we are able to expect from him and know about him from the start. He can break through our preconceived ideas and re-teach us who he is, but a faithful account of his interaction in our family’s lives will help to form a more accurate picture of him which will set us up to know him more fully from the beginning.

Nine hours and counting. My wife and I are driving out of state to visit my grandparents. They don’t like to travel anymore, and they haven’t gotten to see my wife during the pregnancy yet. This will be their only chance. This is why family living out of state is so annoying.

Sure, some of you will say that it’s the greatest blessing you’ve encountered thus far. Well, I was the black sheep and I got over it. I have wanted to be near my family for years now. First off, I want the instant community that family brings. I want my family to stop by unannounced on occasion and bring by things we need or offer to babysit or even need to talk about something. I want to have Friday night Shabbat dinners (no, I’m not Jewish - I just love Shabbat dinners) with my whole family and one or two friends.

Second, I don’t like road trips. Flying is okay, but expensive. Driving four hours or more to see family is ludicrous. That distance dictates how often I can afford to see someone, which means that they are automatically less involved in my life. This bothers me more than I can say.

I love my grandparents. Visiting them when I was a child was always an adventure. They had so many cool things to discover in their house and backyard. I loved being there. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so special if we had lived closer and visited more often. At the same time, maybe I would have stronger relationships with them and many more memories of good times.

I’m venting. Essentially, my wife and I talked my parents and sister to move back here from out of state. We knew we wanted to have a baby soon, and we wanted as much support as we could get. My family is very good at support, so I think we’ll be great. Between them and my mother-in-law, we’ll probably be rather spoiled.

What a relief to have my family here. The only ones left are my grandparents and my uncle. The uncle will not likely move down here unless he gets a better paying job. The grandparents have essentially told us that they won’t move here because they wouldn’t have any friends nearby and they don’t expect we would spend much time with them. Ouch. Granted, I wouldn’t see them every day, but I would see them every week. That’s a heck of a lot better than twice a year.

Still, they say they won’t move. So it’s time to pack up. Time for a road trip.

I spent ten years despising teenagers. I resented them for being so careless and unpredictable. In truth, they are some of the most dangerous people in society because they are prone to act based on intense emotion rather than logic, and their emotions are charged with caffeine, ginseng, tons of sugar, sexual tension, drugs, etc. I don’t trust them. Honestly, I never trusted them even when I was one of them. I didn’t fit. Of course, I hung out with the ones who tested all the limits. Maybe that had something to do with it.

I wouldn’t call myself a kid person. I mean, I worked with a LOT of kids at a daycare for a couple years and enjoyed most of it. I enjoyed the interaction - the questions, jokes, funny faces, and laughter. But outside of the job, I never paid much attention to kids. Reason? I couldn’t see what was in it for me.

Kids need things. They don’t offer much, except for some love and loyalty. On the downside, they need food, shelter, education, discipline, entertainment, intimacy, friendship, and encouragement. That’s a lot of stuff. Stuff that takes time and energy and offers very little back in return.

But I went to the gym tonight. I went to play basketball, but there weren’t enough guys to play. I practiced my shot for a solid 20 minutes before leaving. While I was shooting around, I watched this guy play with his kid. I don’t like this guy. He’s an adult child. He throws fits over everything. He’s 6′6″, black, mid to late 20s, and he’s got a major chip on his shoulder.

Today was different, though. I saw him line his son up against the wall and then bounce a tiny basketball to him. He was teaching his son to step in front of the ball and catch it. His son was maybe three years old (and did I mention adorable?) I wasn’t moved by the father’s behavior, although it was uncharaceristicly fatherly of him. Then I looked at his son. His eyes were SO wide. HUGE. He was SO EXCITED about playing with his dad. He looked at his dad with all the admiration in the world. His dad was god. His dad was the be-all end-all of existence. The sheer innocence of his trust and enjoyment of his father moved my heart.

I was petrified and awed at the same time. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks: I will be everything to my child and have the power to crush or create with him or her. The power and responsibility became more real to me. I haven’t even met my child yet, and I feel this weight of responsibility overpowering me. How can I ever take care of this child without hurting it?

I’m two months away from meeting my child. Don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. Won’t know until the birth day. But even now, it’s like pregnancy flipped this switch and I now notice things I’ve never noticed before. And I feel things more powerfully than ever. Being a father is an AWESOME thing. And by awesome I mean awe-filled and amazing and terrible.

I have a hard time imagining my child without the kinds of attitudes that come with pain. Thoughts of wide-eyed innocence seem false and manufactured, mostly because I don’t recall that part of life. Logically, I want that innocence and joy for my children, even though I cannot recall or imagine what it feels like.

Having a child on the way stirs up a lot of things. Things we often hide under the rug while we go about being functional adults. But a child demands more. A child needs to be taken care of. And I must somehow find a way to meet my baby’s needs.