Hi.  Hope you all are doing well.  It's been quite some time since I wrote an actual post.  I'll get one up shortly. but until then, here's a link to a sermon I preached a week ago. 

Beseeching the Brethren

Here's a message I preached some time ago.  It's from the book of Hosea and is entitled "A Call to Action" 

A Call to Action

Lessons from Vacation. . .

My lovely lady, our three boys, my best friend, his wife, darling daughter and son all went on vacation together.  We pooled our resources (limited as they are) and spent a week in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  More precisely, in a cabin about 15 minutes from said National Park.

Contrary to popular belief, we survived the week with all of our friendships intact--the kids still want to play with each other, my buddy and I are even closer friends and the ladies are still best friends.  I learned a lot of things while on vacation.

1.)  If the advice is good for the kids, it's good for me.  We had a hot tub on a back porch overlooking a cliff.  We warned the kids time and time again not to leave anything hanging over the porch rail as the wind might blow it down onto the drop off below.  The kids managed to listen pretty well.  One day, we took an excursion into the park and went down to a river bank.  Somehow, I managed to soak my socks pretty well.  (see more about this particular lesson below).  We got home and I thought to lay my jeans and socks out on the porch rail to dry in the sun.  About an hour later, I thought to go check on them and I could only find one sock.  I back tracked all through the house trying to find that missing sock.  Then it hit me.  The wind.  I went out to the back porch and looked over the rail.  Laying there on a large rock was my sock, laid out perfectly.  My words came back to my ears.  I realized something, all the advice that I give my kids can and should be applied to my life.  You know, like "I don't care if everyone else is doing it, you're not going to do it."  Just because we get "all grown up" doesn't mean we don't need reminded of this every once in a while.  Remember this:  if it is important enough for you to warn your children about it a certain danger, it is important enough for you to heed that warning as well.

2.)  Rocks may indeed be slippery when wet.  As I mentioned in the paragraph above, we took an expedition to the national park and walked a "quiet trail" to a river below.  Absolutely beautiful.  The mountains, the trees, the river, all were absolutely beautiful.  We carefully made our way to the banks of the river.  We walked on the banks and then the spirit of adventure took over and my buddy and I began to climb the rather large boulders scattered across the riverbed like a giant tossing a handful of marbles.  We did our very best to be careful, but every once in a while we would find a rock that was indeed slippery.  We would loose our footing and have to quickly recover our balance and footing before we plunged into the water.  Some of us did this better than others.  At one point, I slipped and put my foot down into what I thought was a shallow place but wound up soaking my pant leg, socks, and boots up to my ankle.  I learned exactly how cold a mountain river can be in March.  I was the lucky one, I just got wet up to my ankles, my buddy, he got wet up to his hips.  We learned that just because something looks perfectly safe, there may be a hidden danger that you cannot clearly see.  I also learned that the old saying "still water runs deep" is quite true.

We did learn a lot.  The most important lessons learned came from the eyes our children.  As I saw my children take pleasure from the simplest things--throwing rocks into a river; playing a very bad game of pool with their Daddy.  I was reminded that those things in life we find the most important--jobs, status, possessions, are nothing compared to those things in life that are the most important--family and friends.  Treasure those that mean the most to you.

This week we spent more money than I care to think about on trinkets, souvenirs, food and lodging.  However, the investment we made in our relationships will reap dividends for a long time to come.   What investments are you making in your relationships?