leftovers: raising the bar in your family

Hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day - whether you've actually given birth or are the offspring of someone who has.

Admittedly, Mother's Day is one of those days when a lot of moms get a sense of their worth from the gifts they do or do not receive. Maybe you're a mom and buy into this, or perhaps this isn't true of you but something else in your life is. Isn't it odd how simple things like positive feedback or the absence of a phone call can cause us to feel all sorts of insecurities, no matter who you are or what your situation in life is?

Yesterday when our church gathered we looked at the situation in Genesis 31 when Rachel, one of Jacob's wives, steals her father's "household gods." Tracking back a couple of chapters, we see in Genesis 29 and 30 how she and her sister Leah tried to be the one Jacob loved more... simply by giving birth to the most kids. Even further back, we looked at Genesis 2-3 and how this kind of stuff is simply the product of people looking for their security in something other than God.

Good stuff, right? Except due to a whole lot of factors happening in the room, not to mention stuff that had occurred the week leading up to Sunday, I felt way out of groove with my message. Consequently, I left out some key points I'd hope to hit, including this little joke:

A census taker went up to the door of a home and a woman answered. "How many children do you have?" he asked.

"Four," the woman replied.

The census taker wrote that down and asked, "May I have their names, please?"

The woman answered, "Eenee, Meenee, Minee and George."

That seemed a bit curious to the census taker, so he asked, "Okay, that's fine. But may I ask why you named your fourth child George?"

The woman answered, "Because we didn't want any Moe."

Just a joke... no big loss. But then there were those other points I missed or felt all over the map on.

So here's the irony... I spent the day kicking myself for being out of sync on a message that was to remind us to be sure we get our worth in Christ and not in our accomplishments or even what our family things of us. Imagine that.


Two weeks ago I spoke on how we need to raise the bar in the workplace... and then all of sudden I had to deal with many, many, many issues related to our working relationship with people around town.


Last week I spoke about raising the bar in our finances, and we faced financial increases with our rent, low tithing, and some expenses in my own family.


Yesterday I hit on how we raise the bar in our family and how our sense of worth can affect the whole family at large... and then this.


So if the trend is that God makes me deal with whatever I preach on, I think this Sunday I'll be talking about how we all need five million dollars to arrive anonymously in he mail, be given classic DeLorean cars to drive, have a Gino's East pizza place move next door, and win a winter home in Hawaii.