This little post is for me, to help me remember how the small things are not small. Let me explain.

This weekend was absolutely exhausting for me but it was a good exhaustion. Here’s how:

1. On Friday I was able to baptize a man that I (and others) have been ministering to for years now. He grew up in the Roman Catholic system, but he was given eyes to see that justification in an act of grace by sovereign God. He and I have spent a lot of hours together talking over doctrinal issues, and answering questions that growing Christians normally have. I could share many stories of how I have seen God grip this young man and reveal his (God’s) wisdom to him (the soldier). In short, however, I was deeply touched by the fact that this man, and now my brother in Christ, asked me to baptize him in the name of the triune God after he graduated from Ranger school recently. True to his nature, he was completely self-effacing and told me, “This whole journey has been about giving glory to Jesus.” Folks, I know and work with countless Rangers, and that is the very first time I have ever heard a man of his physical puissance and his bright military future, say anything like that. He was completely consumed by the grace of God and by his being a child of the King of kings. Blessing # 1.
2. On Friday night, my bride and I drove to Alabama. Friday evening, we had dinner with some precious friends. My bride used to work for our friend M. He is also the minister who officiated our wedding. And his wife, K., is an nationally board-certifed teacher, a woman who is the textbook definition of a loyal wife, shepherdess, caretaker and teacher of children, and just great friend. She loves the Lord, and it all oozes from the ways she treats people. She’s one of those people who, after you leave her presence, you feel like the world is a better place because you know she’s in it. She renews your hope in people. Blessing # 2.
3. Saturday night, we drove back home. I was able to sleep in my own bed for the first time this week. And I was so excited to be able to open the Scriptures to our Sunday school class at church today and look again into Matthew 5:14-16. I only got to one verse, because we had solid deep discussions. But we were together, assembled, gathered as a body, around the authoritative Scriptures. That’s the key. It is not about gimmicks or traditions or anything except hearing about the Lord and his revealed Word. We are all just partakers of the bread that descends from his table. Our class knows this, but they bring me (and my bride) a joy that makes sometimes long and lonely weeks away sweet beyond measure. Blessing # 3.
4. My younger child is a teenage son. I am an older man now, but I am not so old that I have forgotten what it was like to be a teenage boy. I erupted with hormones; I was worried about my pimples; I wanted to be bigger and stronger than I was; I wanted a nice car instead of no car (or a hand-me-down); I thought church was shallow and irrelevant to my life, at least most days, etc. But today after SS and church, my boy asked me to listen to some podcasts he had listened to about predistination vs. man’s ‘free’ will. I listened to them, as did my bride, and we offered our solicited feedback. My boy is grappling with these issues, folks. I am thrilled beyond measure. He is actually thinking, not just parroting talking points. He is wrestling with issues. He is not a bookworm like I am. He is not an introvert like I. He is almost totally opposite of this old man, his dad, but I cannot tell you how it warms my heart to see my boy, who has grown into an athlete, a thinker, a swimmer, a growing guitar player, and (I so pray) to be a Christian. That is what I long for more than anything else. I can pass him a library of theological tomes, but unless and until the sovereign God who formed Adam from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life breathes salvific breath into my boy, my libraries of theology are only so much reading. But just to have him pondering, wrestling Jacob-like with theological issues, makes me so proud of him that he is at least thinking about the things that most matter. Blessing # 4.
5. And one more: Our daughter is rocking her grades in courses she is taking. She’s found her niche. And I think God is on her and in her thinking. And I am quite optimistic that the prayers of her mom, the goofy blundering parenting I’ve labored to do, and the love of her brother, (and the love and prayers of her extended family) are soon to bear fruit. So, contrary to this blog’s title, this is … blessing # 5.