One Good Thing This Week
I cherish time with my son. This week, I introduced him to the GOAT… His Airness. I brought my son to an event where I was speaking in Chicago. We went up the day before and caught a Bulls game. The Bulls are trash this year, so we got tickets on the cheap [praise God], enjoyed some stadium food, and stood on holy ground as we got our picture with Mike. It was a great day.
And here is what I am discovering: I am better when I am with him. I’m happier. More kind. Playful. Cheering at the game, it was hard to tell who was 12 years old and who was 42. The more time I spend with my kids, the more I realize Dostoevsky was right: "The soul is healed by being with children."
Brothers, a good reminder:
75% of the time we spend with our kids [in our lifetime] will be spent by age 12.
93% of the time we spend with our kids will be spent by age 18.
Get in as much time as possible. For their sake and yours.
"Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work." – C.S. Lewis
Something Beautiful This Week
This week, I purchased a copy of the King James Bible illustrated by Barry Moser. The illustrations are incredible. Beautiful. Here are a few…
My favorite is Nathan, looking [at David] with eyes that say, "I know what you did."
One Concerning Thing This Week
I am going to keep talking about the population decline we’re in… Among men born in the late 1980s, by 2016, 50% of them had never been married and had no children.
Brothers, get married [early] and have babies. For the first time in history, more people are cohabitating than married in our country. Quit getting the milk for free. Put a ring on it.
Nobody likes temporary tattoos—they’re not cool—you want the look of a tattoo without any of the work and pain. Cohabitation is a temporary tattoo: you want the looks and benefits of marriage without any of the hard work.
Not cool, bro.
My 3 Favorite Quotes of the Week
"Your 5-year-old son watching you fold laundry with your wife teaches him more about biblical manhood than 100 sermons on headship. 'For none of us liveth to himself' [Ro. 14:7]. Real leadership is built in these quiet moments." — Anonymous
"The secret of success is to have success in secret…" — David Balyeat
"There is no success without sacrifice. If you succeed without sacrifice it is because someone has suffered before you. If you sacrifice without success it is because someone will succeed after." — Adoniram Judson
Stat(s) I Found Fascinating This Week
Despite recent 'data' from the NYT, the Church is not 'winning.' My man
is out here breaking hearts… According to Ryan, who, in my opinion, is the leading expert in church growth/decline trends:1. The rise of the Nones has hit a plateau recently.
2. That won't last. Gen Z is 45% Nones. Boomers are 28%.
Generational replacement means the Nones will continue to rise [Tuesday’s post will address this head-on]:
My Favorite Pic/Meme This Week
I need these…
Song I Had on Repeat This Week
Discovered Travis Meadows this week [thank you, Bryan Hurlbutt]. Meadows has lived a hard life… sings like it too. Incredible. He said, "I used to be a liability…" LOL, I feel you Travis…
And a bonus song… Travis got the title for this song while at an AA meeting… Someone said, "I tried to take the pain and hurt and push it down… but it came out sideways…" It always does…
Book(s) I Read This Week
No book update this week, but I got videos… Below are the links to the four sessions from the PNMC: Word/Work/World/Woman. Incredible. Be sure you share these with a friend…
Session 2:
Session 3:
Session 4:
What God Showed Me This Week
"Deny thy self…" — Jesus [Matt. 16:24]
John Piper wrecked me this week…
"Yes, there is a doctrine of self-denial in the Bible. We must deny ourselves sand so we can build on rock; we must deny ourselves the praise of men so we can enjoy the approval of God; we must deny ourselves moth-eaten treasures so we can have eternal wealth; we must deny ourselves safety among men so we can enjoy security in God; we must deny ourselves drunkenness and gluttony so we can be guests at the biggest, longest banquet of the universe; we must deny self-reliance so that we can say, 'The Lord is my shepherd, I have no wants.' Never, NEVER does God ask you to deny yourself a greater value for a lesser value. That's what sin is. On the contrary, always, ALWAYS God calls us to surrender second-rate, fleeting, unsatisfying pleasures in order to obtain first-rate, eternal, satisfying pleasures."
Too often, I speak and act in such a way that I think God is withholding something from me. Like Adam looking at the fruit, I think, "What is God hiding? What is He holding back? Just one bite can't hurt."
I'm busy playing with sand while He’s calling me to come rest on the rock.
This week, I am asking God to help me uncover all my second-rate, fleeting, unsatisfying pleasures so that I might trade them up for eternal, satisfying ones. I’m asking God to expose me, and not just the secret things, but the good things—the good things that I have made God things, causing them to become bad things.
I want Him first, and everything else a distant second. One of my biggest problems is that I have access to everything. It's not persecution that hinders me; it's prosperity.
Wrestling with this…
"Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped." — Calvin Coolidge
If you’re in these areas over the next few weeks, I’d love to connect:
COMO Christian Men’s Conference, March 8, Columbia, MO
BetterMan Champions Gathering, March 28-29, Ft. Worth/Arlington, TX
ISI Champaign, April 5, Champaign, IL
Brothers, my pledge to you…
"You will never suffer at my hands. I will never say nor do anything knowingly to hurt you. If you're down and I can lift you up, I'll do that. I will always, in every circumstance, seek to help and support you. If you need something and I have it, I'll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you, no matter what happens in the future, either good or bad, my commitment to you will never change."
For the King,
—Harp
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I was marveling with my wife last night at the epidemic of self deception I see all around me. For example, men seeing design in nature and creation and then declaring that evolution must be intelligent and that it learns. That it is beautifully creative. Like evolution is a god essentially. As I lamented to her, I went to bed in utter stupor at how people out there can see the evidence of God so clearly and turn around and replace the incorruptible with the corruptible.
And then I woke up this morning.
And I sat and marveled at how amazing I am at the very same thing. How many of the things in my life are the very products of my own self deception…so I prayed and asked God to help reveal the areas in my life where I’ve been lying to myself, seeing a truth from God and quickly replacing it with some self justification or excuse or a historically preconceived notion.
Then I read your stack. God has a sense of humor, this much is clearly true…
Best part is, I almost skipped it. When you quoted Piper, I jumped down to the next paragraph. Then I jumped back up and read it again.
“On the contrary, always, ALWAYS God calls us to surrender second-rate, fleeting, unsatisfying pleasures in order to obtain first-rate, eternal, satisfying pleasures."
So now I’m here sitting in stupor at the sheer magnitude of second rate (or third rate?!) pleasures that I’ve been holding on to, self deceptively knowing that God has something so much better in store that I am missing.
Thanks for sharing Harp. No doubt we need more men to help us on the journey. We can’t do this alone. Time to go grab the pliers and start removing this log in my eye here…