Ever get into a funky place where you seem restless, irritable, and discontent?

Well, I do.  Sometimes for long stretches, I am sad to say.  And I have found that when I get into one of these grouchy seasons, there is one question that lurks at the heart of the murkiness.  It is a terrible question.  A question that drives me, when I let it.  “What is the Matrix?”  No, that’s not it!  Here it is…

“What do I FEEL LIKE DOING right now?”

Sooner or later, living by this question day after day drives me into the ditch.  It is a lame question for any of us to follow, particularly someone with an “addictive personality” like me.  But we all have a sin nature that calls out in various fleshly ways, convincing us that this question is actually a very reasonable approach to life.

It is not.

Far better to guide my actions from day to day with questions such as these…

“What would be good for me to do now?”

“What is God’s will for me today (as best I can tell)?”

“How can I bless someone else?”

And the irony of it is this: When I pursue those things that I feel like doing, I am rarely, if ever contented by them.  But when I am willing to pursue those things that God would have me do to bless others, I find within my self a growing sense of contentment and joy that I am simply not capable of contriving on my own.

Have a great day – bless someone else by doing God’s will!

Men of the Baton Rouge area (and beyond), it’s here.  The kickoff of a new season!  Men are suiting up and showing up for battle to show what they are made of, and to take their game to a higher level this year.  That’s right, gentlemen.  It’s that time of year again.  Time for…

MEN’S FRATERNITY!!!

I wish words on a blog could adequately tell you how profoundly my participation in Men’s Fraternity impacted my life over the past three years.  Men, I’m telling you, Men’s Fraternity will change your life!  For now, I will share with you the words of one our pastors, who was also my excellent small group leader the first year I joined this fellowship:

Hoping you can somehow forever avoid talking to your kids about sex?  You aren’t alone.  But you also need to face your fears, say a prayer, dig deep, and dive in with your kids.  You may want to start with this post about having the Tough Talks with kids.

As promised in my Parenting 101 interview, below is a big list of varioius resources to parents to help you in talking with your kids about sex as you lead them toward healthy sexuality and making wise choices for themselves.  I would encourage you to take some time browsing through these various resources, and see what is most helpful for you and your family.  First, here are a couple of simple tips to keep in mind:

Having the Tough Talks: SEX

Q.  Why is it so important for parents to talk to our kids about sex?  Can’t kids figure it out on their own?

A.  As long as you don’t mind your kids learning about sex via porn, other kids who think they are experts, experimentation, or entertainment choices that offer no moral guidance, then you really don’t need to concern your self with having this Tough Talk.  Sure, they can figure it out on their own.  Let me know how that works out for them!

Q.  What can parents do about their fears or awkwardness regarding having this Tough Talk?

A.  Before you let your fears and awkwardness stop you from talking with your kids about sex, consider how much trouble they can find sexually if you don’t talk with them.  Maybe your fear for what your kids could experience without your guidance will help motivate you to plunge in and get the talk going.  Also, don’t expect that you have to talk it all out in one big conversation.  Start with some basic information and guidelines before moving into all the nitty-gritty details.  And be sure to offer basic moral guidelines throughout the process.  You will offer the best guidance for your kids with the least stress for both of you if you will work toward making sexuality a part of an ongoing conversation between you where questions and comments can be offered without shame or reactivity.

Living in a “Porn is the Norm” Culture (article from CPYU)

Love’s Got Everything To Do With It! (article from CPYU)

Guess Who’s coming to Breakfast (article from CPYU)

Questions Kids Ask About Sex: Honest Answers For Every Age (paperback)

God’s Design for Sex Series (4 books at 4 developmental levels)

Learning About Sex For Boys (5 books at 5 developmental levels)

Learning About Sex For Girls (5 books at 5 developmental levels)

Teens And Sex (booklet from CPYU)

Pornography (booklet from CPYU)

Next Time I Fall In Love (book)

Sex Q & A (booklet)

Talking About Sex (article from Focus on the Family)

Talking to Tweens About Love, Sex, and Relationships (article from Focus on the Family)

Healthy Childhood Sexual Development (article from Focus on the Family)

How to Start Early (article from Focus on the Family)

Sex Education (articles, etc from Family Life)

I just discovered these great resources today from Ron Deal and Successful Stepfamilies.  While I have not read them yet, I have read Ron’s first book, The Smart Stepfamily, and it is fantastic.  I have also had the pleasure of hearing him present a message live at a conference, as well as sharing a conversation with him over a meal afterward.  He was the real deal then, and he seems to be growing in his wisdom and effectiveness in blessing and guiding stepfamilies over the years as God continues to guide his steps.  If you need guidance through the rough waters of stepfamily and remarriage life, listen to Ron.  He has something worth hearing.

Some of you may consider me a big loser for posing with my friend Pooh Bear, here.  That’s cool.  Others may consider me a big loser for plenty of other reasons.

The reason I am posting this today is because I am very excited about participating in the Biggest Loser 2010: C-K Office Park edition.  Several years ago, I decided it was time to lose weight and get fit.  I did just that, losing 60 lbs in about 6 months.  I kept it off for quite some time, but slowly put almost all of it back on as I slowly lost the discipline to be guided by my goals and values over my impulses and urges.

So, I’ve been THINKING a lot for a while about losing weight and getting fit again, but DOING very little about it.  It seems I needed something a bit out of the ordinary to help me find that catalyst to get going.  Well, I found my needed catalyst.  First was a realization that my unhealthy diet and lifestyle habits are setting the pace for my son, and I am not okay with that.  Second was an invitation from a friend at my office park to pay in $10 and join the Biggest Loser pool for the next three months.  Whoever takes off the highest percentage of body weight takes home the $100 purse.  I’m in!

While my blog is not going to become a weight loss / fitness forum, I do plan to share with you my progress, lessons learned, struggles, and challenges faced over the coming weeks and months.  I thought including this recent “before” picture on my site would be a fun, if painful, incentive for me to really get serious and bring down my weight from my 6’1″ official starting weight of 227.  Maybe I won’t have to find such a rotund photo partner to feel good in my forthcoming “after” shot!

With Hope and Contentment in HIM,

Dr. B

Colt McCoy – hats off to you, brother!  Folks, you’ve got to see this minute and a half interview!  For those who aren’t aware, Colt McCoy was a Heisman runner-up for the last two years, and one of the most outstanding quarterbacks ever to play college football.  His Texas Longhorns played an impressive undefeated season and clearly earned the number two spot to play against the Alabama Crimson Tide for the national championship last night.  In the very first series of Texas downs, he took a hard hit to the shoulder, which apparently caused some type of nerve injury that was significant enough to sideline him for the entire game.  This resulted in the freshman backup QB playing the entire game.  No one knows how the game would have gone had McCoy played, but the Longhorns lost to a fairly dominant Alabama team, despite an impressive rapid buildup of poise and confidence in Gilbert, the green QB sub.

Given all of that, listen to the humble, steadfast words of this incredibly talented young man of faith:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Six days and seven nights at Disney World.  Four parks, plus a special shopping district, and multiple resorts with additional minor attractions.  Special lunches and breakfasts and dinners that include up close and personal visits with the real Disney characters.  Special events and attractions at limited venues.  Three adults.  One child.  Two guys.  Two gals.  Two Disney “veterans.”  Two Disney “newbies.”

Yeah, we needed a plan.  Thanks a million to Phoebe, my mother-in-law for working so hard to organize a basic game plan before we arrived in Orlando, based in no small part on input from friends and family with much more Disney expertise than we had.  I tend to figure out things as I go, and make plans on the fly.  Had I been in charge of our agenda, we almost certainly would have missed out on many of the things that we enjoyed during our time there.  Here are just a few images of the fruits of good planning:

Life is much the same.  If we don’t face it with intentionality, purpose, and some kind of well-considered plans, we will likely miss out on some of the best in life.  We may enjoy those things we stumble upon, but we will shortchange ourselves of the full richness that God desires us to experience in life.  While it is true we cannot actually live beyond the present moment, and can waste a lot of energy trying to do so, we also do well to be mindful of where we are headed and why we are headed there.

But, guess what?  We didn’t stick to all of our plans while we were at Disney World.  We had to take into account our level of energy (and sanity) from day to day, what we actually did and didn’t enjoy once we experienced it, and new possibilities that cropped up during our time.  And so, each day involved deciding which plans to keep, which plans to scrub, and what new plans to make.  Had we not been willing to be flexible, Disney would probably have been a miserable mess.

That sounds like life, too, doesn’t it?  Plans and purposeful decision-making are essential, but without flexibility, we snap.  Sometimes, today just doesn’t unfold like I anticipated it would yesterday.  I can stay hung up on yesterday’s expectations and plans, or I can regroup, adapt, and face life on life’s terms today.

While we’re at it, here are a few Butner family images of Disney memories that we owe to our willingness to adapt (Chemaine would kill me if I posted the picture of her sitting on the “Barrel of Fun” – the best “ride” at Disney that only cost 25 cents per foot-massaging minute):

I know.  For those of you who have been following me on Twitter and/or Facebook, you realize this statement comes near apostasy for me.  But what you may not realize is that I grew up in Little Rock, AR, home of Jennings Osborne and family.  Click here to get a visual tour of the world record home Christmas lights display (year after year after year) that truly makes Clark’s efforts look about as bright as a matchstick at dusk.

Reading the account on the Osborne website paints the neighbors as Grinches and themselves as altruistic. I’ll take the middle ground.  It was truly something breathtaking to behold, but the traffic was an absolute nightmare, and I don’t even want to imagine being a next-door neighbor to the Osborne compound on Cantrell.

Between viewing Christmas Vacation last night, reflecting on the otherworldly light spectacle that grew exponentially for years on end at the Jennings Osborne compound, and reading Trey Morgan’s post this morning, I have been thinking about how over the top we can go about things that have such little eternal value.  Can you imagine a world in which followers of Christ were as passionate about living in the Way of the Kingdom of Heaven as we can be about decorating for Christmas, or cheering for our favorite athletics team, or watching entertaining movies, or posting stuff on Facebook that gets lots of comments, or generally eating, drinking, and being merry?  Sorry, John Lennon – that’s the world I want to imagine!

Here’s to the prophets of living on fire for Christ today – Shane Claiborne and Francis Chan and John Eldredge and Dallas Willard and Richard Foster and Eugene Peterson and…  Who else would you put on this list?

Just checking in to share how wonderful it was this morning when I was driving my son to school, and he asked to listen to some music.  He wanted to listen to “The Law and the Prophets,” which is what he calls the song on his Steve Green cd of Scripture songs for kids that is based on Matthew 7:12 – a verse well known to many as “The Golden Rule.”  I cannot fully express how delightful it is to this father’s heart to hear his son joyfully singing about a life of showing love to others in the Way of Christ.

Today is a good day!

With Hope in Him (and hope for him),

Roger

I am increasingly realizing that I have been terribly duped for much of my life.  My flesh has conspired with the American culture of hedonism to raise me on a steady diet of the consideration, “What do I feel like doing?”  Some regular variations include, “What would make me more comfortable?” “What would make me happy?” and “What is easiest?”  Let’s face it, a great deal of the advertising that bombards us on a daily basis is built on these kinds of questions.

And it usually starts very early.  As a parent, I have a tremendous responsibility to train my child in the reality that being led by these flesh-directed considerations will not bring him to fulfillment, joy, and freedom.  No small task, when the millions of mighty voices of our worldly culture are chanting in unison, “Have it your way!”

I am sick of being duped by this insidious lie that my flesh will lead me to contentment.  It never has, and it never will.  God, have mercy on me.  Lord, free me from this self-imposed slavery.  Spirit, lead me in the paths of righteousness.

And so – last night I decided to defy this old way of life.  I checked my schedule for the coming day, and realized I didn’t have to be in the office until late in the day.  “Yes!  A perfect morning for sleeping in!!!  My wife will head to school for the day with our son, leaving me to enjoy the peaceful slumber of an empty house.  Beautiful!” Thus spoke the old familiar voice of Comfort.  And then another voice spoke within me.  A voice more removed, and yet, somehow more intimate.  “You don’t need more sleep.  Your son does need more time with you, though.  And, haven’t you been seeking to cultivate a life of greater discipline?”

Okay, Lord, you guide my steps.  And, so I said, “Hey son.  How about if I drive you to school tomorrow?  Would that be cool?”  So this morning, I got up “early,” led my son through his morning tasks, and drove him to school.  And not that there is always an immediate, tangible reward for following the voice of God rather than the voice of Comfort, but today there was.  As we sat in the car line, waiting for his teacher to bring him to his classroom, we discovered he had his first loose tooth.  It was a wonderful moment of growth and mystery and creation and relationship.  A moment I would have missed if my lazy bum had been lying in bed, slumbering to the soothing melodies of Comfort.