Sage Series

John Eldredge has outlined the six stages of a man's life, of which the last stage is the "Sage" stage. After leading a group of fathers of sons through "Raising a Modern-Day Knight," I will be co-leading a group in meetings called the "Sage Series."

The series, which starts September 28 with Pastor Scott Peterson of Living Waters Church, will feature sages sharing their insights on how to raise sons.

We're still looking for sages (who are fathers of sons themselves) in the Twin Cities area to speak to our small group. If you have any suggestions, contact me.

Understanding spiritual warfare

Cindy Trimm

I am convinced that spiritual warfare exists. Every time that I get closer to advancing the Kingdom, the devil steps it up to discourage my efforts.

But how does one handle the battle?

Charisma magazine is hosting a conference call with Cindy Trimm, author of "The Art of War for Spiritual Battle," on Tuesday night. On the call, Trimm will be sharing key tactics and strategies for spiritual warfare.

Unemployed. . .(sigh)

I have written before on this blog how God has guided my career (see this post and this post).

Well, due to staffing adjustments, I was laid off from my employer on Aug. 31 (my son's ninth birthday). I can only assume that God is continuing to guide my career. I remember when I was in college how scared I was, thinking that there might not be a job for me when I graduated. (My dad was let go from his job the summer before I started college, so I believe my fear was directly related to that.)

I was terrified of getting laid off at some point in my career, and now it has happened. My only choice is to live by faith, to see what God has in store for me.

Artist creates life-size portraits of 23 fallen Marines

This very moving TV news clip tells the story of Anita Miller, an Ohio artist who painted life-size portraits of 23 fallen Marines from the Lima Company. Miller said that, while painting the portraits, she asked God to help her to capture their personalities. Based on the reactions of the Marines' family members, Miller captured their personalities perfectly.

Lessons learned from Raising a Modern-Day Knight

In February I wrote about how I would be taking a group of fathers through the "Raising a Modern-Day Knight" curriculum. There was a group of 12 of us, and we learned a lot during our time together.

Here are some of the highlights:

• There are three types of dads:  absent, involved and strategic. Boys need a strategic dad -- one who has a well thought out plan and vision. Strategic dads understand the true sense of masculinity and know how to deposit it in their son's life.
• Every son longs to hear three powerful and universal affirmations from his dad:
• "Son, I love you."
• "Son, I'm proud of you."
• "Son, you're good at ________________."

• A long-range plan is important for fathers to raise their sons to manhood.
• The definition of a real man is:
• Rejecting passivity
• Accepting responsibility
• Leading courageously
• Expecting the greater reward -- God's reward

• Ceremonies define and celebrate a young man's life as he's growing up.
• Joining together with dads to raise sons together provides great power.

There is much more in the curriculum, and I highly recommend it to any dad that wants to raise his son in authentic manhood.

God speaks life into Kathie Hobson's leadership

Kathie Hobson, one of the leaders at Christ-Life Solution, has a powerful testimony. She struggled with perfectionism and performance for a long time until God spoke to her about it.

Here are a couple of compelling excerpts from her testimony:

I remember sitting down one day, excited about filling out a new Bible reading chart. Perfectionists love ways to measure their performance. I quickly read through the Scripture passage for that day because what I was really excited about was checking it off my chart. As I picked up my pencil to check it off, the Lord spoke to me. He said, 'What are you doing? Don’t you know I just want to spend time with you?' It was a profound moment for me. I thought that living a good Christian life was up to me and then when I couldn’t do it as well as I wanted to, I could ask Jesus to come along and help me. I loved God and wanted to please Him, but I just didn’t really know what that looked like apart from performance.

As I went through my healing journey, God gave me a mental picture that when I was on the performance treadmill he was sitting on the comfy sofa watching me. And the look in his eyes was not one of cheering me on, but sadness. He knew what perfectionism was doing to me. He just wanted me to get off the treadmill and sit on the big comfy couch with Him. He was the one that had already finished all the work. He just wanted to BE with me. During this time I read a little quote that has come to mean a lot to me. 'When I work God rests, when I rest, God works.' Instead of a scale of 1-10, I am now at ground zero. That is where God shows up. Anything more than zero is the Kathie Hobson Show, not the Jesus Show. People need to see the Jesus show.

Thanks to God, Kathie no longer feels that she has to be a perfectionist and is less stressed out by leaving everything in God's hands.

No TV = more God?

This week my family and I decided that we're not going to watch TV for the month of August. In addition, we are not going to watch DVDs or play video games -- anything that involves using our television set.

We were finding that TV-related activities were becoming too much of our entertainment focus, and that my eight-year-old son was more interested in watching TV than connecting with the family.

So, with our August moratorium on TV-related activities, we hope to:

• Spend more quality time together as a family
• Enjoy nature and outdoor activities more frequently
• Play more board games
• Talk and get to know each other better.

I also hope that, by cutting out the noise, I will be able to better hear God.