A short while ago I posted an article here with the tongue-in-cheek title of “A Desperate Jealousy.” In that article I expressed my desire to have a mentor. I said, “I am absolutely desperate to have someone who will invest in me. I am desperate to find a person, or have a person find me, who will play Paul to this Timothy.” That article seems to have struck a chord with other men, both young and old. I received many emails and there were plenty of comments posted beneath the article in which other men expressed the same desire. I had a chat with a friend who is a pastor who told me that he felt a similar desperation for a mentor but was never successful in finding one. Reading the article helped him understand that he could, at least, find a person or two in whom he could invest time and attention.

Since that time (and, to be honest, since long before then) I have been doing a lot of thinking about the nature of men’s relationships with each other. One of the more vivid examples I know of that illustrates the way men interact is found in Bill Perkins’ book When Good Men Are Tempted. I will include an excerpt from the book:

In his best-selling book Don’t Stand Too Close To A Naked Man, [Tim] Allen tells about an experience he had while in jail. The event occurred right after he was placed in a holding cell with ten other guys. The first thing he noticed about the cell was that the toilet was in the middle of the room. He probably noticed that because he had some business he needed to take care of. He said he looked at the can, then at the ceiling, then at the can, then at the ten guys in the cell. He wanted to leave. But the door was closed and locked.

He made up his mind that he would not use that can. No way! How could he take a dump with ten other guys watching? Finally, he wrote, “Digestion being as it is, things must emerge. I ambled tentatively to the can. I turned away and started back to my seat, but knew it was no good. I was committed. I sat down and suddenly all the men began moving toward me. I panicked.

“I didn’t have to. This still blows my mind.

“What they did was form a horseshoe around me with their backs in my direction.” Why had they done that? Allen said, “Because they’re men, too. It was a big revelation. These aren’t just losers like me, but they’re men. They do this so you can have some privacy and no one can see in from the outside.”

That last statement is profound because it describes what every man needs. We need friends who understand our fears and offer us protection, men who will stand guard around us during our times of vulnerability and shame.

It’s too bad Allen had to go to jail to discover the willingness of men to shelter each other, to stand guard for each other. Because most men aren’t forced into such close relationships, they never find that out. As I’ve talked with men, I’ve discovered most of them feel that their struggles…are personal. They’re private. They’re shameful. Like a trip to the can - it’s not the sort of thing they want other men to see.

It was a couple of years ago now that I first read this quote and it has often been on my mind since then. I absolutely agree with the author’s conclusion that men feel that their struggles, whether with lust or finances or marriage or anything else are shameful and deeply personal. From the time we are children men are taught to suppress the expression of pain, fear and helplessness. We are taught that such expression of vulnerability is weakness. Most of us would rather use a toilet in front of other men than confide in them our sin and struggles.

There is nothing feminine or emasculating in confiding our struggles to other men. There is nothing wrong with expressing fear and helplessness to other men. We do not need to do it with hugs and tears and sobbing, nor do we need to use the words “intimacy” or “feelings.” We can express love without using the word “love” and can maintain our pride, our dignity, but still allow ourselves to be transparent before others.

But how many men do this?

As I mentioned, in the days following the posting of my article I received a lot of comments, but perhaps the most interesting comment came from my mother. “Men are lonely,” she said. “Men just do not stick up for other men.” This is not mere pessimism on her part but is a lesson she has learned by watching my father and other men interact with each other. I wonder if she is right. Is it true that close relationships among men, mentoring relationships, are the exception rather than the rule?

Judging by what I have seen and experienced I suspect she may be right. It would be easy to moan about this and to spend my time wishing that some godly man would come along and begin a mentoring relationship with me. But I suspect that the true answer to the problem lies within. It lies with people like me who see the value of mentorship. We are the ones who can be used to make a difference in the lives of other men. And so I encourage men like myself to seek out and to find other men in whom you can invest - men in whose lives you can make a difference. While you may never have that mentor you desire, perhaps God will use you in just that role in the life of another person.

In April of 2002 I was bored. Not just a little bored either, but mind-numbingly, depressingly, discouragingly bored. Having recently been laid off from a job I had held for several years due to the company closing, I was working as a system administrator at a small company in downtown Oakville. The pay was decent and the office’s location was great but the job itself was terribly boring. It was repetitive and boring - there was little to stimulate an active mind. The quality of my work began to suffer as boredom prevailed. I found myself in the unenviable position of knowing that I was expendable to the company. I did not have enough to do, but knew that if I went to my boss and told him this, I would effectively be writing my own pink slip. I tried to keep busy but with little success. So I sat in my windowless basement office, dealing with terrible headaches from the noise of the forty computers I shared an office with, and waited for the day to end. And always I felt guilty for not putting in, and not being able to put in, an honest day’s work.

Around this time I began to wonder if I should begin my own business. I began to pray for clarity and wisdom as I considered the joys and trials of being a small business owner. I am an enterprising sort and knew that being my own boss would fit my personality very well. One day, during my lunch break, I went out walking along the shores of Lake Ontario. I had taught myself the basics of web design and had been doing a small amount of this type of work on the side. I enjoyed the creativity it required and the challenge it created. I had a couple of companies for which I was doing part-time work with their computers and networks. As the work increased I began to think about the prospects of starting my own company. I desperately wanted to do something that I liked and something that would keep my mind active. I looked forward to the prospect of working from home and being able to be my own boss. It was about these issues that I prayed that day, asking God to give me clarity. I remember praying “God, please just make it crystal clear what you want me to do.” I had a different view of God’s guidance at that time and I suspect that I was asking God to tie a note around a brick and to heave that brick through my kitchen window. “Start your own business!” the note would thunder to me. Still, I submitted myself to God’s will and returned to the office feeling encouraged.

Still uncertain of my future I returned to the office ready to finish out the day. No sooner had I walked in the door (five minutes early, as always) that I was told to see my manager immediately. I entered his office and found him sitting there with his boss who had apparently decided to fly up from headquarters in the States. I sat with a strange smirk on my face as I heard them say that my whole department was being closed down and that my manager was going to be the next to leave. As I heard their words I thought back to my prayer and I laughed. I even told them exactly what I was laughing about and how I had just prayed about my future. They smiled politely, wished me the best and had someone accompany me to my desk to pick up my things.

As I was cleaning up my desk I was dreading having to call my wife to tell her the news. She drove me to work each day and had the car, so I would have to share the news over the phone rather than telling her face-to-face where I knew I could comfort her. She was pregnant (and therefore emotional) and I did not want to have to share with her that I was out of work and then make her drive to get me.

As I fretted about this the phone rang. Answering it I discovered it was my close friend (and pastor of our church) calling. He had never called me at work before, but said that he was at the traffic light outside my building and had just remembered something he had to ask me. I told him to pull into the parking lot and I would be right there! I grabbed my things, walked upstairs into the fresh, spring air and left the corporate world behind. Mere minutes after returning home and sharing the news with Aileen the phone rang once more and this time it was a friend calling to say that their company needed a new web site and someone who could contract with them to manage their network. And just like that my company was born.

That was almost four years ago. I began the company without money and without loans. Since that time we have never lacked for anything important. There have been times where we have had to be frugal, and truthfully, we live very frugal lives (at least in comparison to the average person in our town). But God has always provided for us.

It is rare, I think, to receive such a dramatic and instantaneous answer to prayer. God had clearly orchestrated that day’s events, down to the finest details of my prayer to Him, the company’s decision to cut my department, and even my pastor’s schedule so that he just happened to be outside my building at the right moment. It was truly an amazing day.

In many ways I give this background information with an overwhelming sense of shame.

It was not long before I began to worry. Not the kind of worry where I would think the occasional thought about a dwindling bank account, but the kind of worry where I would wake up at night bathed in sweat, wondering how I was going to make ends meet. I would get ravaging headaches as I worried about how I would come up with another $400 by the end of the month. Every few days I would draw up a list of all the money we had in our accounts and all the bills we had owing and feel a flutter in my heart as I saw the potential discrepancy. I tried to forecast our finances over a week, month or year and continued to predict how we would fall short. And yet there was always enough.

What is perhaps worst of all is that there was never a time when we were a day or two away from needing rent money and did not have it. Never once did we have a check bounce and never once did we have to miss paying a bill (though, through lack of faith, I would sometimes allow bills to collect on my desk for a month or two before paying them). I cannot remember even having a close call.

And still I worried. It is only in more recent days that I came to see that I truly felt my worrying was somehow effectual. Effectual worrying: let me explain that term. Effectual means “Successful in bringing about a desired effect.” It means “Producing or capable of producing an intended result or having a striking effect.” I honestly believed that my worrying was somehow making the difference - that my worrying was bringing about the result of having enough money. If I were to stop worrying, I felt, the money would dry up. If I stopped making my little lists of assets and expenses, I would one day wake up to find out that our rent check had bounced. If I stopped worrying, God would surely stop providing. I truly believed that my worrying was effectual, bringing about what I desired.

Every now and then I would think back to the beginnings of my company and see how clearly God had answered prayer, and what was no doubt a faulty and selfish prayer at that, and I would feel guilty. And well I should have, for God had left me a pillar, a milestone that I could refer to that would show me just how obvious it was that He was in this with me. When I felt myself worrying I should have been able to look back to His answer to the first prayer and have confidence that He would provide.

But I didn’t. I continued to worry.

I am thankful to say that it was a losing battle. If there was one great benefit I received from working in that little office in the basement, it was the lunch breaks. Every day I would take a good book to the local library and read it for half an hour or forty-five minutes. I read several books by John MacArthur and a particularly brilliant one by James Boice. It was there, in the Oakville Public Library, that I really began reading and enjoying Christian books. It was there that I began my first book reviews. And it was through these books that I came to see the value of submitting my life to God. And I believe it was (and I foresee jaws dropping all over the world as I write this) a Bob George book that helped me the most in that time. He provided some biblical teaching on the nature of Christianity that spoke right to my heart. These books led me to the Bible and led me to a deeper relationship with the Author of the Bible.

As I continued to read in the years that followed, and to get more deeply into the Scriptures, I was able to surrender my worries to God. This is not to say that I now lead a worry-free life, but that I really no longer stress about finances. We continue to lead frugal lives (though we seek not to make frugality an idol) but lead full lives. We do not have a lot of extra money, yet when friends or family are in need, we have often felt blessed to be able to help them. Our prayer has been “just enough.” We ask God that He would give us “just enough” and allow Him to define “enough” as He sees fit.

Worrying is a dead end. There is no benefit to worrying. Worrying does bring about various effects, but never the desired ones. Worrying brings physical and emotional infirmity, it damages interpersonal relationships and, for more seriously, seperates us from the Lord. It brings about no benefit. I am thankful that God has helped me to see the wisdom of Job - the wisdom that opposes worry. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." I have surrendered to God’s control, to God’s providence, and trust that there is nothing to worry about.

By the midpoint of this article all those people who homeschool their children will probably be giving themselves a big pat on the back. The strange thing is that I might not blame them.

The following conversation took place over dinner a couple of nights ago. My five year old son had a few questions for my wife and myself.

Son: “Daddy, next year am I going to go to French school or English school?”

Dad: “Probably French school. We’re not sure yet but we think we’ll have you go to the French school.” *

Son: “How do French people say ‘Hello’?”

Dad: “They say ‘Bonjour!’ It means, ‘Good day!’ Sometimes they say, ‘Salut!’ instead.”

Son: “Bonjour! How do French people say “Goodbye?”

Dad: “Au revoir!”

Son: “Au revoir! How do French people say, ‘storm the castle?’”

Dad: “You know what? I don’t even know.”

Son: “Oh. How do French people kiss?”

Dad & Mom: “What!?”

Son: “How do French people kiss?”

Dad: “I don’t think you need to know that. You’re only five and there are some things that mommies and daddies can know but five year olds don’t really need to know. We’ll talk about that when you’re a little bit older.”

Son: “I think I know.”

Dad: “You do?”

Son: “I can’t believe they stick their tongues…”

Dad: “STOP!”

We had a little chat with him and found out that Jack, a little boy who goes to school with my son, decided to share this knowledge with him and some of the other children in the class. They are in a mixed junior/senior kindergarten class. In other words, they are all four or five years old.

Now obviously my wife and I know that in our role as parents we will have a few of these awkward moments throughout the years. They come with the territory. Every parent is caught unprepared at times. But we were quite unprepared to have one of these moments when he was only five. Thankfully he did not seem to think much more about it, believing it is just some silly thing that French people do. I hope his little mind just forgets all about it for at least another few years.

After discussing the situation, my wife and I decided that she ought to speak to my son’s teacher just to let her know what had happened. We were gratified to discover that the teacher was horrified and stated that in all her years of being a teacher (and she is retiring after this year so has been doing this for a while!) she has never heard a child that age use the term with knowledge of what it means. She said to my wife, “What on earth are parents telling their children these days?” My wife suggested that perhaps Jack has an older brother who has being a negative influence, but the teacher corrected her, pointing out that Jack has only one sibling and that he is younger. The teacher said that she will speak with Jack’s parents and will also have to make the situation known to the principal.

I suspect the real question is “what are parents allowing their children to watch these days?” I am sure that it is not entirely unusual for small children to have such knowledge. We live in a culture which is becoming increasingly sexualized and pornified (to borrow a term from Pamela Paul’s book). Knowledge that was once reserved for adults is now widely-available for children of any age. The question facing parents is just how hard do we work to preserve our children from acquiring this knowledge? Do we withdraw from the world in order to preserve their innocence, or do we just do our best to moderate the knowledge they acquire and seek to balance it with a God-centered focus? What is my responsibility to my children? What is my responsibility before God? What is a parent to do? As with a couple of nights ago when talking to my son, I have far more questions than answers.

* - In Canada there are several options for education. Public and Catholic schools are provided by the government and are paid for by taxes. Christian and private education is available but not subsidized by the government so is expensive ($8000/year for the local Christian school). Within the public system parents can choose between standard education or French immersion. We are likely to send our children to French immersion (half of classes are taught in English and the other half in French) because the schools tend to be a little more conservative and the standards of education are a little bit higher. Parents can also homeschool if they so desire.

Last week Laura Brumley, she of A Practice in Belief fame, wrote a little article she entitled (rather verbosely, I thought) “blogging, the ninth commandment, and your prerequisites to reading this blog.” It seems odd to me that Laura can read “A Reformation Debate: Sadoleto’s Letter to the Genevans and Calvin’s Reply” and “The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love” but she cannot capitalize her titles. But I digress. That post coincided with my reading of Humility, the most recent of Wayne Mack’s books and what I trust was some deeply biblical teaching on the value of humility. And then I received in the mail a DVD presentation by Sovereign Grace Ministries entitled Milestone Weekend. Let me weave together the two of these seemingly isolated events.

Laure wrote the following:

When I set up and maintain my little corner in cyberspace, it is obviously a rather controlled environment in which to present myself. I have the final say in how you see me (figuratively and literally), I am able to choose my words more carefully (in the means of communication that I most prefer, writing), if you comment and I find your last name, I can do a modified background check on Google…and so on. Needless to say, this is not the most natural form of interaction. This is where people get the idea that blogging is creepy, and that the Internet is for people who “have no life.” I’m inclined to grant them that it certainly could be that way…

…I’m going to try to be more mindful of my duty to ensure that you are getting a truthful picture of Laura Brumley - as if, we could say, I were writing a autobiography for everyone who knows me best to judge for its accuracy.

What struck me was Laura’s desire to present to her readers an accurate depiction of who she is. I reflected on that and came to realize that I have not always been entirely truthful in what I have written. I’m sure you understand that it is a difficult thing to post personal articles or reflections for all the world to see. This was not even so difficult a year ago when I was far more isolated, but recently I have more often emerged from behind my keyboard and have actually had face-to-face meetings with people who read my site. I often now find myself in the odd position of meeting people who know a lot about me when I know nothing (or almost nothing) about them. They know about my theology, my family, my likes and dislikes and even my struggles, while I know only their name. Now don’t get me wrong - I have found it extremely edifying to meet these people and have enjoyed it tremendously, but sometimes, in the back of my mind, I find myself wondering what they really think of me. I wonder if the reality of who I am will match the version I portray on my site. In my more lucid moments I realize that most people would not even stop to think about it.

Despite that, the tendency I find myself drawn towards at times is to present a glorified, sanitized version of myself in my writing. It is easy to leave out details or to maybe just change them a tiny bit to present a somewhat less than accurate but more likeable version of myself. It is easy to remove my flaws, doubts and disillusionments.

But that is not the only temptation. I am also tempted at times to be less than honest in my opinions, beliefs or understanding of certain topics. I sat down and thought of a few times where I have not taken a hard line on an issue when I know in my heart what I really believe. I came to see that I often avoided confrontation either because I simply did not care to have to deal with the potential fallout of such a stand (though the fallout would likely be little more than having to defend myself in a few comments from readers or potentially a bit of nagging and cajoling from the folks at Boarsheadtavern). Or maybe I’ve worried that I would so offend or disgust readers that they would never return. Of course I do not get paid for every reader that comes here (or paid in any other way, for that matter) so this hardly matters. I guess it all comes down to pride.

Ah yes, Pride, the very opposite to humility. “Pride is the shirt of the soul,” said George Swinnock, “put on first and put off last.” Jonathan Edwards compared pride to an onion. “It takes many forms and shapes and encompasses the heart like the layers of an onion - when you pull off one layer, there is another underneath.” I was surprised to see that pride had taken that deep a hold in this area of my life. I had allowed it to so influence me that I was willing to speak partial truths or to stop just short of what I believe in order to satisfy my pride.

Through reading Mack’s book and through reflecting on C.J. Mahaney’s book (also titled Humility) I saw not only the importance of humility but also biblical teaching on its practical application. Through watching the Milestone Weekend DVD I saw people reflecting on C.J. Mahaney who is, from all accounts, a truly humble man. Through reflecting on the 9th Commandment I realized the absolutely importance God places on honesty and humility. And through it all I was convicted that one way I can practice godly humility is to be more honest in the presentation of myself and my beliefs.

I am not saying that things will be vastly different around here. I am not going to begin haphazardly pouring out the secrets of my soul. But I will take stands where I know I should take stands and I will seek to either give the whole story or give nothing at all. In short, I will seek to remove the pride which keeps me from truly honoring God’s 9th Commandment. I trust I will be the better for it.

Today is my 29th birthday. Yes, I know that I’m younger than you thought and that you have children older than me. I get that a lot. Actually, having a birthday in December has always meant that I’m younger than my peers so I am quite accustomed to people saying, “You’re younger than I thought.” I don’t know that I have ever actually revealed my age on this site and know that many of the readers believe me to be older than I actually am. Not anymore. In an attempt to be a little more transparent (something I will post about a little later) I thought I’d put that little detail on the table. I’m 29 and proud of it! (See 1 Timothy 4:12).

I had my day pretty well planned out until the government intervened. I need to renew the tags on my car every year on my birthday and this year I have the double honor of also having to renew my license. As always I left it until nearly the last moment. Yesterday, as I prepared to head over to the license bureau I noticed a little red asterisk on the form. It turns out that I need to get an emissions test performed on my car before they will renew the tags, so now a simple little jaunt has turned into a bit of a bigger deal. I can only hope that the car passes without any trouble or it could also quickly get expensive. Beyond that I plan to do some work, to have our real estate agent take us through a nearby home that is for sale and then to kick back this evening with a movie. It sounds like a decent enough day.

Of course being the kid that I am I have no intention of waiting until this evening to open my gifts. I know they are around here somewhere and I intend to listen to whatever music Aileen bought me while I work today! [Update: Between the time I wrote this and the time I actually posted it I opened by gifts. Among them was the new Rebecca St. James album (yeah, yeah, I know, but I read several positive reviews and thought I’d give it a try). You’ve got to see what she is wearing in her photos in the liner notes. It is beyond horrific! It’s not a bad album, though.]

I tend to get quite reflective and maybe even a little morose on the milestone days of the year: birthday, New Years and so on. Today is no different. There is some strange kink in my personality that keeps me always looking forward. I am always wondering what is coming up around the next bend. When I examine my life I am far more likely to wonder what I will be than to reflect on what I have become. I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but at least some good has come of it. It allows me to look forward to getting older. I know that by this time next year I will have read another fifty or one hundred books and will have studied another few hundred chapters of the Bible. I will, Lord willing, have a third child and will have celebrated my eighth wedding anniversary. I trust that God will continue to bless me and that I will look just a little more Christ-like 365 days from now. God truly is gracious.

Earlier this week I finished reading Rediscovering God’s Love by Frank Allred, a retired Anglican minister. Time and time again I marvelled at his wisdom knowing that much of this wisdom has come by virtue of age. Of course age has also brought him physical infirmity and much sorrow. But oh, for that wisdom! Increasingly I find myself looking forward to being that wise, knowing full well that with it must come many things that are far less wonderful. Yet I am sure a man like Allred counts these as but a light affliction in comparison to the riches of wisdom. And so, I trust, will I.

I reflected this morning on my vocation. At the present time, as you probably know, I am a web designer. It is a job I very much enjoy and one I seem to be reasonably good at. Best of all it allows me to be self-employed and this provides me great freedom to devote time to this web site and to other projects or people that require my attention. And yet when I gaze towards the future I don’t know that I always see myself in this role. I do not see myself designing web pages for another 36 years and retiring after 40 years of being a designer. Once more I am faced with the question of “what will I be?” It is not that I am discontented with what I do or that I am planning on stopping anytime soon. I genuinely feel that I am honoring God with my talents through what I do. Yet there is always the nagging suspicion that I will eventually move on. But what will I move on to?

What I am beginning to wonder, I suppose, is when will I stop becoming and just be? Will there ever be a time when I look at what I am doing and realize that this, this very thing, is what I was created to do and that it is what I want to do for the rest of my life? Truthfully, the times I feel that now are the times when I am writing. When I become swept away with some new discovery and begin to pour out praise to God through the written word I feel complete and fulfilled in a a truly exciting way. Does this mean anything? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I suppose I have reached the conclusion that I still have a lot of becoming ahead of me. Clearly there is a lot of becoming in the way of Christ-likeness. As a father, husband, son, brother, friend I have a long, long way to go. I look forward to improving in each of these areas and have confidence that God will so bless me. As for my vocation, well, who knows? As with other areas of life I look forward to seeing just what it is that God has in store for me. Perhaps 29 will bring clarity. Or maybe it will have to wait until 30 or 35. Either way, I am looking to the future and looking forward to it.

There were some things I had hoped to say today before all of my American readers disappear for a long weekend filled with thanks, gluttony and excess. Unfortunately, because of the unexpected call last night which took me out of the house for much of the night, I am awfully tired today and don’t trust myself to say anything profound. So rather than embarrass myself by posting some incoherent rant, I thought I’d simply post a link to a particularly relevant music video.

This video, made several years ago by Riley Armstrong and a couple of the guys from Audio Adrenaline, is for his song Sleep. It is a great little video and pretty funny too. I have met Riley a few times and he is a humorous and genuine guy. He is quite a talented musician too. Perhaps best of all, he’s Canadian.

In case you need them, here are the lyrics:

looking straight at the light
it never used to be that bright last night
but it’s a new day with fuzz in my eyes
alarm is still ringing when I open the blinds
how do these people do it
they are like driving around like there’s nothing to it
I imagine it’s like the medication they’re on
or probably just the coffee but
one thing is certain in life
and that is that today I’m going to eat cereal
I mean come on let’s get our priorities straight
but before I know it I’m out the door late
just trying to catch some rat or some race
or something I’m not quite sure what it is
so for now I just best keep moving
and by nine a.m. my brain and my body
finally decide to meet
and we come to the same conclusion as yesterday
that I never get enough sleep

{chorus}:
sleep, no I never get enough
always waking up tired
sleep, no I never get enough
if I don’t show up I might get fired
sleep, no I never get enough
always waking up tired
sleep, no I never get enough
if I don’t show up I might get fired

they call it commuting
but I think they should call it intravenous
cause it’s what I need every time I get
stuck behind a truck, just trying to turn left
just trying to turn left, why are you trying to turn left
why don’t you park your silly cube van
hop in I’ll drop you off
cause at this rate we’ll both be late
but I’d rather be late than sitting here doing nothing
and by nine a.m. my brain and my body
finally decide to meet
and we come to the same conclusion as yesterday
that I never get enough sleep

{bridge}:
sleep go on and sleep some more
sleep go on and sleep some more

We finally got the call. For the past couple of weeks we’ve been on “baby watch.” Our friends are expecting a baby and had asked us to watch their children while they go to the hospital for the birth. Today, sometime shortly before 2 AM, on what just so happens to be the due date, we got the long-awaited call. Because it was the middle of the night they asked if I would be able to come to their house so they would not have to wake their two children. Because the contractions were only three minutes apart they asked if I would be able to do it quickly.

So I suppose this is a logical time to apologize to the Ontario Provincial Police and the Halton Regional Police Department for what probably amounted to a good few traffic offenses, most of which were based on driving too quickly on snow-covered highways. One member of the HRPC no-doubt saw me slam on my breaks as I realized I was about to blow past an unmarked car on the highway. Thank you for being too interested in that big ‘ol cup of coffee to pay attention. I could use a cup of Joe right about now.

Anyways, I managed to wake up (kind of), get dressed (I think), and drive clear across town (literally) in about fifteen minutes. That’s pretty good for a guy who, as my wife can attest, has trained himself to sleep through pretty well anything related to babies.

And now we wait (and pray, of course).

6 AM Update

A healthy baby boy, Alexander, was born at around 4:30. Woohoo! As soon as the kids wake up I’ll take them to meet their little brother.

I am desperately jealous of Josh Harris. Of course I would assume that there are lots of people who are jealous of him. After all, he wrote a silly little book about dating courtship that must have sold more copies than The Prayer of Jabez and probably made him filthy, stinking rich. If my understanding of the Christian publishing industry is accurate, and I think it is, Harris must sleep every night on an enormous pile of gold, some of which was no-doubt donated to the cause by my little sisters and every girl I wanted to court date in high school. But Harris’ billions of dollars and gold-plated toothbrushes are not why I’m jealous of the guy. After all, a toothbrush made of gold will soon get covered in that nasty, white toothpaste residue, just like my plastic one, and I’m sure the gold coins dig into his back while he sleeps on them. Selling lots of books is probably not nearly as fulfilling as we might think. And of course a godly guy like Harris knows this. So let me tell you why I’m so jealous of the guy. I’ll get to it in a minute.

My pastor laughs at me. He laughs at me, respectfully I think, for my total commitment to the Doctrines of Grace. Sometimes in a sermon he’ll say something like, “In order to understand this passage, and Tim will like this, we need to be a little more Calvinistic in our understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty.” I think I am known in the church as being a guy who is over on the conservative wing of Christianity. And you know what? I don’t mind at all.

My pastor also laughs at me (respectfully, still) for unintentionally putting new staff members through their theological paces. Our church has planted several daughter churches and whenever a new staff member arrives in town (they are almost always imported from the United States) I immediately get to know the person, usually over a coffee hot chocolate and donut. I am genuinely interested in meeting these people and, while I may claim that my interest in the person is based on my desire to help him get a website going, in reality I want to know the person and understand his understanding of Scripture.

It has taken me a few years but I have only just realized why I do this. It came as a bit of an odd revelation and one that is actually quite embarrassing to me. Still, because the nature of the Internet allows me to be safely removed from the bemused stares of those who read this site, I thought I’d share it anyways.

I am desperate for a mentor. I am absolutely desperate to have someone who will invest in me. I am desperate to find a person, or have a person find me, who will play Paul to this Timothy.

I sat down last night to think about this for a little while and realized that, as far as I can remember, I have never had a single person (outside of my parents) who has invested in me in this way. I have never met a man who was willing to challenge me, to strengthen me and to teach me in this type of relationship. Not one. I have had some great pastors and teachers who have taught me in a group setting, but never one who pulled me aside and really invested himself in me.

This brings us back to Josh Harris. Here are a couple of quotes from his website: “…Josh relocated from his long-time home in Oregon, to Gaithersburg, Maryland, to serve as a pastoral intern under C.J. Mahaney, senior pastor of Covenant Life Church. Motivated by a desire to be mentored and the conviction about the importance of the local church, Josh lived with C.J.’s family and immersed himself in the vibrant community of the 2,500 member body… In the fall of 2004, Joshua assumed the role of Senior pastor at Covenant Life Church where he had been serving previously as executive pastor. C.J. Mahaney who had trained and mentored Josh for pastoral ministry set him in the role that he had served in for 27 years.”

There is little doubt in my mind that part of what has made Harris such a gifted teacher of the Word is that C.J. Mahaney invested so heavily in him. I’m guessing that Harris would be the first to agree with me. Harris had his mentor in Mahaney, and I couldn’t think of too many guys who would do a better job of it. There isn’t much I wouldn’t give to have that type of relationship with a man like Mahaney.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not comparing myself to Harris, except in so far as we are both young, Christian men. I know that Josh is an exceptionally-talented guy and one who has a lot to offer not only his local church but the wider church body as well. God has given him a large audience and, from all accounts, Harris is using his talents in a way that truly honors God. I trust and hope that Harris never loses sight of the amazing gift Mahaney gave him - the gift of himself.

So here I am. I’m not sure if I am writing this in the hopes that pastors and leaders will read it and it will help them understand that there are men in their churches who are just waiting and ready to be mentored. Maybe I’m writing it so even lay-people like myself will take a hard look at ourselves to find those men within our own churches who could be waiting for us to come to them. Or maybe this article is entirely selfish and I’m just putting my hand in the air and asking someone to notice me. I honestly don’t know. As a bit of an introvert I don’t think I would ever be that bold. What I do know is that I feel like I’ve come to a point in life where I not only want, but really need, someone to play a mentoring role in my life.

So I suppose this article is really a type of prayer request or maybe even is a type of prayer, asking that God would stir the hearts of Christian pastors, leaders and lay-people to invest in those who are younger than them, whether they be younger in age or younger in the faith.

This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyways. I have nothing but respect for Josh Harris and any comments in this article that may have implied that he misuses the billions of dollars that came his way through his books were meant purely in jest. And Josh, I’m sorry to admit this, but I never read your book. It made me angry because I wanted to date rather than court. I probably should have read it anyways but I am hoping my children will atone for my mistakes and will read and study it when their time comes.

I have no idea where she picked it up, but my daughter has begun to answer my son’s apologies with the phrase, “Sorry doesn’t know how to count!” She may have made it up. Wherever she got the phrase from, she does not seem to understand what it should logically mean. To her it means something like, “I don’t accept your apology.” In reality I suppose the phrase should be concerned with grace, with saying, like Jesus, that we should forgive an infinite number of offenses.

I have been teaching the children about apologizing. One thing I have been trying to help them understand is that there are two words that do not belong in a proper apology: “if” and “but.” Just the other day I saw a situation on television where a person said, “I’m sorry if I offended you.” I don’t think that is a real apology at all. There is something objective about an offense. Either the person offended the other or he did not. He should not, then, apologize if the other person was offended, but he should apologize that the other person was offended. So I am trying to teach the children that, before they apologize, they should know who they offended and why that person was offended. They will then be able to make a heartfelt apology - an apology based on the knowledge of their own poor behavior.

I have also been teaching them that an apology does not include the word “but.” We all know these apologies. “I’m sorry I did that, but…” The “but” is simply the person’s way of showing that while he may feel apologetic he is not truly so, for he clearly believes that the fault really lies with the other person. “I’m sorry I smacked you, but I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t taken my toy.” That is no apology. Again, an apology is an acknowledgement of a transgression against some objective standard. Regardless of why my child sinned, he should be able to see and understand his own guilt without blaming the other party. This sounds an awful lot like Adam’s protest when he said to God, “But the woman you gave me…”

So there we have it, two tiny little words, but ones that may prove an apology to be anything but sincere.

I have received a few “complaints” of late that I have not been writing enough articles of a personal nature. That is probably true and I hope to remedy that, at least somewhat, next week. In the meantime I thought I’d share an article I wrote a couple of years ago to honor my father on Father’s Day. This was and remains one of my favorite pieces of writing.

Like most boys I idolized my father. You would have had a difficult time, when I was a child, convincing me that there was anyone smarter, faster or stronger than my dad. I really did believe it when I told my friends that “my dad can beat up your dad!” And it may well have been true. You see, dad was a landscaper, and for eight months of every year he spent just about every waking hour hauling loads of soil from his truck to the gardens and manipulating enormous rocks to make sure they looked just right. Though this took a physical toll on him, it left him stronger than an ox. When he and I used to wrestle, I could make absolutely no headway against him. I would run at him and hit him with all that I had, but even with a full head of steam I could not knock him off-balance. He would just grab me with his rough, leathery hands and toss me aside like I was barely even there.

Dad had working man hands. I’ll never forget those hands, for they were hard as rock. Holding dad’s hand was like holding a sanding block and just about as uncomfortable. As he labored day-in and day-out, his hands built up so many rough calluses that they soon became as hard as dried leather. They were scarred with the evidence of so many bumps and bruises inflicted on job sites. I saw in his hands an ideal, for to me they represented a hard-working man who labored diligently to support his family. I felt pride when I compared his hands to those of men who spent their lives at desks - there really was no comparison - and looked forward to the day when my hands would be hard and callused like dads’. I believe there is something inside each of us that really wants nothing more than to carry out God’s original command to humans which was to till the soil and to care for the earth. Dad had the privilege of doing that every day and the even greater privilege of loving nothing more.

Yet behind his love for working with plants and rocks and soil, I think dad always felt a twinge of shame. He grew up in an affluent family, one which had a long history of politicians and lawyers. My grandfather was a Supreme Court judge, and dad’s uncles were members of parliament. Surely, dad felt deep inside, landscaping was not a profession suitable for a man from such lineage. Finally succumbing to the pressure he had created in himself, he returned to school, upgrading his two Bachelor’s degrees to a Master’s. For several years he worked diligently, studying languages, history and theology. A strange thing happened. As the months turned into years I noticed that his hands no longer felt like leather. The longer he labored in school, the softer his hands became. Before long his hands were much like mine - soft and free from calluses.

Dad graduated with a Master’s degree and tried so hard to be happy in an office job. He tried his hand at a few things and it wasn’t so much that he wasn’t good at them as that he just did not enjoy them. He found himself thinking nostalgically of burying his hands in fresh topsoil and sculpting beautiful gardens where there had been nothing but weeds and chaos. Finally it became too much and one day dad went and bought himself a great, big pickup truck. He returned to tilling the soil he had left behind.

Now whenever I see dad he has dirt under his fingernails. His hands are once again as hard as dried leather and I can’t imagine my son feels any more comfortable holding his hand than I did so many years ago. As he returns shamelessly to the task for which God created Him, his hands again bear evidence of his labor.

It occurs to me as I write this that one day we are all going to stand before God and he is going to reach down to each of us and feel our hands. He has assigned to all of His children the same task, and it is a difficult one. We need to take His message into all the world, diligently and shamelessly proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. If our hands are not as rough as sandpaper and do not feel like old leather, perhaps we are not being diligent in that labor. If our hands bear no scars, perhaps we have not received the cuts and bruises that are bound to come to those who go forth on His behalf. One day God is going to reward those who labored diligently for Him and all the evidence He is going to need will be written on our hands. God will reward those who, like dad, have working man hands.