“When will you grow up?”  You’ve either been asked this, or at least thought it when watching your children, or someone else’s.  What are we looking for?  And what is missing that would cause us to ask?  We all have a standard that we use to definine growth.  We expect boys to stop joking around and eventually get serious as they grow up.  Play should be replaced with work.  Skateboards should be turned in for cars.  And video games should be replaced by getting a real job.

Ephesians 4:14-15 tells us how God expects us to grow up.  “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.”

There it is.  A standard for each of us to use when determining whether we are growing up.  Whether our family is growing up.  Whether our church is growing up.  We are called to grow up to be like Christ.  There couldn’t be any loftier goal.  How do we do this?  By “speaking the truth in love” in all things.  Our culture today, even the church culture likes half of this message.  Today it is actually quite popular to speak “love in all things”.  But “truth” doesn’t have quite the same reputation.  In fact, if you do happen to speak a little truth, you’ve just stepped over the line and deserve to be flogged and beaten by the loving people you’ve just offended.

Yet the world and the church is running from the very thing that the Word of God says can set them free---Truth!  Truth sets us free.  Our world is craving freedom and yet remains in bondage because it is looking for freedom apart from truth, and there is literally no such thing.

So here would be my belay to you and your family.  Don’t use parenting books to determine whether you are growing up.  Use the Word of God.  It’s the Climbing Guide for this climb.  And this text in Ephesians is powerful.  If you want your cute little babies to grow up, don’t just feed them milk and steak, give them “truth in love in all things”.

Tell them the truth about their sin nature.  Tell them the truth about yours.  Model the truth by repenting of your sin and asking them for forgiveness when you violate the truth.  Study the Truth.  You’ll quickly see that Truth is a person.  Jesus himself says, “I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life…”  You’ll also see Jesus label himself as love too.  It’s no mystery why he does this.  He knows that when these two come together they will ignite and grow a person, a family, a church up to become like Him.

So are you growing up?  How about your family?  If you are lovingly avoiding the truth, you are not loving.  If you are truthfully speaking without love, you are not being truthful.  This mixture requires wisdom that you and I do not have.  We are either prone to melt in love or heat them up with the truth.  When truth is given from a heart of love, this has the power to not only grow us up, but those around us.  Praise the Lord for giving us a standard and a way to grow up.

 We’ve all been wounded.  The person who would disagree with me, is most likely so wounded they can’t even acknowledge it.  It’s impossible to not be wounded.  For our life is surrounded by humans who are going to miss the mark regularly.  Not only that, we were wounded by our first father Adam.  His sin, the Bible says, is now shared by every cute little baby that is born today.  So we we’re wounded from birth.  Wounded during childhood.  And wounded by the big bad world around us.  Why make this observation?

 Because it brings an awareness that should truly awaken us to the importance and gift of the Rope of Grace.  Not only do we need it to climb higher.  We need to give it to those around us.  Especially those closest to us.

 When someone close to me wounds me deeply, it hurts.  Yet when I first look up and remember how much I wound my Jesus, it reminds me of my need for grace.  Then when I look behind the person who has wounded me, I see a life that has been also filled with many wounds.  It’s guaranteed.  You don’t have to know them at all to know this fact.  Their parents wounded them.  Their spouse has wounded them.  Their co-worker.  Their children.  And if they are a part of a church family, they have definitely been wounded.

 This simple awareness can enable us to climb very differently through life.  Instead of taking everything that happens to us personally, we can begin to look more objectively at each wound.  And know that God’s Rope of Grace is not only something I desperately depend on today, it’s desperately needed by everyone around me.

 This doesn’t mean that we don’t draw boundaries and use wisdom when people wound us.  But it does mean that we can forgive them and keep climbing higher without being paralyzed by their wounding.  When we begin to model this in our marriage, our spouse will notice.  And so will our children.  Families climbing on the Rope of Grace know that wounds are inevitable.  They don’t spend their time trying to avoid pain or being in denial of it.  They meet the wound with grace and climb together in truth and love.

 Sounds easy right?  Actually, we’ll spend a lifetime learning how to do this well.  But there’s no time like today to begin.  So, “Got wounding?”  Yep, you do.  And so does everyone around you.  So don’t attempt to climb one step without His Rope.  And don’t try to do one relationship without extending that Rope to the other.  If you both try to climb very high without a rope, it’s only a matter of time before you encounter terrain that is guaranteed to be tougher than your strength can handle.

The way our world has answered this problem is simply, “Don’t do relationship.”  And it’s true.  If you are looking for a path with the least pain, I would definitely encourage you to accumulate possessions in your life, not people.  But God didn’t call us to climb in convenience.  He called us to climb courageously in his steps.  Steps that call us into relationship at every level.  First with Him.  Then with our spouse.  Then our children.  And so on.

Early on in my climb, relational climbing sounded kind of fun, even cool.  Now the phrase itself causes me to shiver with joy and terror in the same moment.  It would be safer to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen than to relationally climb in you family.  Second only to that is your church family.  And then your world.  So are you ready for some dangerous climbing?  I wouldn’t be either, if it weren’t for the Rope.

The climb of life is one we begin before we even know we are on it.  We don’t get to choose the climbing team we are born into.  We do choose the climbing team that we marry into.  If we’re honest with each other, when we said, “I do,” to our spouse we had no clue what we were getting into.  The glorious heights that awaited us and the agonizing depths as well.  When I look back at my climb so far, there are some observations that I’d like to pass on to you that should encourage and even challenge you.  I’ll be sharing these over the next several blog posts.

First, I see just how important and priceless a gift it is to grow up in a family that loves Jesus.  If mom and dad love Jesus, they are also going to love each other.  And that’s good, because we spend the first part of our life watching our parents to see what “normal” is.  If they fought and hated each other, that becomes our normal.  If they lived separate and quite lives, that’s our normal.  If they seek to be unselfish and loving and then have the humility to repent when they mess up, that too becomes our normal.

And by God’s grace, that was my “normal” growing up.  I watched my parents battle their own insecurities and selfishness and seek to be Christ-like” to one another.  They were far from perfect, but just the fact that they were trying to climb like Christ, enabled me to enter my adult life with so much more muscle than I would have otherwise.

Brother, today you may be disappointed with yourself.  You might be thinking that you are letting your kids down because their “normal” doesn’t have enough toys or a large enough house.  Maybe you can’t give them the opportunities that you always thought you would like that vacation around the U.S. or purchasing them their first car.  Or maybe you have the exact opposite situation.  You can provide them everything that money can buy, but nothing else.

Yet the God of the universe has given us very simple and profound instructions that tell us exactly what our children truly need.  That is if we want to have what God intends as “normal” for our children instead of what our culture says.

Matthew 18:6 gives me as a parent a strong warning when it says, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Wow, is that an encouraging verse or what?  Actually it is.  Because our Lord is telling us what is so important that it’s worth protecting.  He tells us that we should be so careful to not “cause” any of our little ones to sin, but to protect their belief.  How can we practically do this?

By first modeling to them a “normal” in their childhood that loves God more than our self.  As we care for their mother, instead of our selfish agendas they will have their belief protected.  As they see us come home and connect our hearts to theirs, even when we are stressed out by the world, their belief will be protected.

Unfortunately too many childhoods have a normal that left them entirely unprotected.  Their belief was easily snuffed out by the ruthless world around them.  By relatives, by friends, by those who bruised children with their wickedness instead of protecting them for holy belief.

So today I’m asking you to look at the “normal” in your home.  And take note of the simple context that you can give to your children.  A life of love that is protected and safe.  You aren’t called to raise your children to be street-smart and savvy like our culture says.  You’re called to raise them to be holy.  And if that holy exists even in a small part today in your home, it’s because of the Rope that is holding you up even now.

This blog entry marks the beginning of a climb that I would like to take.  Though all members of the family are welcome to come along, I will be focusing most of my posts on guys like me.  Men who are deep in the trenches of trying to raise a family in the 21^st century.  A time in history that affords no man a simple walk on the beach.  Times have changed.  The America we were born into is a very different country than our children are being born into.

There are countless blogs and news sources today that will give you ample information as to just how badly we are behaving as a country.  This blog is going to attempt to begin focusing on the struggles that we as men face and the solutions that our God invites us to put in place.  I truly believe that I am speaking to the men who will shape the future of our country. Nothing will change for the better in our country until men wake up and see the heights that God intends for them to climb with their family.

 As we begin this climb, please know that I see blogs as a double-edged sword.  The power they wield is amazing.  On one hand they give us a chance to positively encourage, challenge, and support others.  On the other hand they can easily give off false impressions that he or she who is blogging has somehow mastered the hard parts of life and are now sitting back at their laptop consulting others how to join their success.

 Brothers, I am facing the very same winds you are.  The winds of hardship that expose my fears and insecurities.  Yet it is in those very moments of exposure that Christ can come in and refine my faith and build muscle like never before.  If you are coming to this blog to find a formula for success in your family and a perfect role model, you might need to keep googling.  What you will find here is a father of 8 children and 16 years of marriage who is seeking to do life differently than he was taught in public school or is told in the secular media.  Not for the sake of being different, but for the desire of being holy, as my Lord has called me to be.

 The holy heights ahead require that you and I be humble and courageous.  We have no business climbing without a rope.  Today let’s just focus on that.  The rope.  I call it the Rope of Grace.  God alone gives it and God alone holds it.  He has made it available to you and me brother so that we can climb by faith.  His free gift of grace leaves me no room for boasting, but only for praising.  Praising Him for saving me from a fatal fall on the rocks of my sinful nature.  You and I have the hope of a lifetime of climbing because of that Rope.

 So if you are going to be climbing with me in this blog I pray that you have discovered just how precious and strong our God’s Rope of Grace is.  Believe me, we’ll need it even more as we attempt to climb the heights ahead.