Love Does podcast notes

Here’s the deal with love. Love isn’t just an emotion. Love isn’t merely a feeling. Love doesn’t just mean well. Love doesn’t just hope for the best. Love does. Love reaches out. Love makes a change.

Dad’s understand that love does. Dad’s just do. That’s what dad’s do.
Dad’s change the oil in the car
Dad’s mow the lawn
Dad’s kill the giant hairy bug in your closet
Dad’s capture the lizard that snuck in the house
Dad’s shoo out the bird that flew into the kitchen.
Dad’s yank the tooth when it needs to come out
Dad’s fish the dead rat out of the pool
Dad’s get the mouse out of the closet

At least this dad does. Want to hear the story. I’m glad you asked. 10 years ago I’m sleeping in my bed and in the middle of the night I feel something crawling on me in my bed. The moment it happened I was instantly awake and aware that there was either a rat or a mouse crawling on me. So I quickly rolled my body over so that the rat would fly off of me and onto my wife. Kidding of course. My wife has a phobia of rodents. I aimed for my closet. So the next day I woke up and I realized I had to find that rodent or my wife is moving out of the house. That’s not an exaggeration. We had mice once before and she said in no uncertain terms, “You get rid of these mice or I’m moving into a hotel.” That was motivation because I didn’t want to pay for her hotel. So the next day I’m getting my shoes on and I remember saying to myself as I looked at my shoes, “That’s a pretty long shoe lace.” It was the tail of the rat. I tried to reach for it but I couldn’t get myself to do it. So I went down stairs and got a bucket that used to hold Costco laundry soap. So I bring up the bucket with the lid and I look in my closet for the rat. I can’t believe it but it’s only moved a few inches from when I first saw it. With all the courage I could muster I grabbed the rats tail, picked him up and put him in the bucket and slammed the lid. Do you know why. Love Does Baby. We went on with our thanksgiving and I did not tell my wife until a year later.

Dad’s get it. Love does. Not every dad is a get the rat out of the closet dad. Some of you are more pay a guy to get the rat out guys.

Love Does

Love doesn’t just say, I’m thinking about you. Love doesn’t just make the statement, I’m praying for you. Love does.
Love prays on the spot
Love brings flowers on a rough day
Love vacuums the rug before the wife comes home
Love feeds the homeless

Love stinks. There are times when you just need to roll up your sleeves and get to work. There are times when you need to hang in there through the muck. Some of you know what I’m talking about

Sometimes you have to hang in there in a marriage. You started out saying “til death due us part” but didn’t realize how long that would seem. You’re spouse seems checked out. There is more arguing that conversation. The passion is gone. Right now you are just hanging in there. You’re doing the dirty work of love.

It can feel that way as a parent sometime. When your kids are little you are literally doing the dirty work. Wiping noses, cleaning wounds, changing diapers. I remember coming home once when we had our first and as soon as I got home I could smell that I needed to jump into action. So, being a good dad, I changed the diaper. Within minutes, he was at it again. So I changed him again, but as I did, I turned to my wife who had been home with our son all day and said, “I’ll do this one, but I think next time it’s your turn” to which she replied, “Look, if you want to keep score, we can keep score. But I don’t think you’re winning that battle.” There is a lot of dirty work to having kids. I’d like to say that it goes away as they get older, but it doesn’t. Then it’s drivers licenses and broken hearts and school stress and I’m only touching the surface. As kids get older, the problems don’t go away, the stakes just get higher.

Love Hurts
Let me take a moment to give you a fact on love. Most of you have learned this, but just in case, let me put it to you straight.

If you risk loving someone or something you will almost certainly get hurt. The reality is, love hurts.

If you risk a dating relationship and it doesn’t work out, love hurts
If you do fall in love and actually marry that person, there will be times of pain and conflict and disagreement. Love hurts
If you decide to have children you will fall in love with how wonderful and talented and funny they are, but when they get sick or when they battle depression or when they have their heart broken your heart will be broken. Because love hurts.

Comedian. Half end in marriage, the other half end in death

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
CS Lewis

The only way to never feel those things is to not risk loving. Don’t love parents or kids or a boyfriend or a wife or even a dog. Who here loves their dog? Let’s find out how much. Who’s got a picture of their dog on their phone? Who has more pictures of their dog than their spouse? That’s bad. I counted my phone and it’s 7-6 dog over wife

Now let me give you the option. Their is a second thing that can happen to your heart when you feel that pain. It can awaken your passion. It can bring to life your compassion. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s beautiful when it does.

Love can bring pain but that pain can awaken passion

Maybe your broken heart won’t be the beginning of an outreach program. Maybe your broken heart will awaken in you a compassion for other broken hearted people. Other people who have battled depression. Other people who have walked through divorce. Other people who have struggled with cancer. Other people who have been lonely.

Love Does Finds God’s calling

You cannot wring enough life or meaning out of secular accomplishment to satisfy your soul. The hole you are trying to fill has an eternal and spiritual dimension that only matters of eternity and spirituality can satisfy. This is why it is imperative that yo discover and participate in God’s vision for your life. It is what you were made for. Your homespun visions-as challenging and demanding as they may be- fall short. They will always leave you wondering. Andy Stanley

A God Calling can start by simply checking it out

It starts with a passion.

I want to help the homeless
I want to go back to school to get my degree
I want to write music
I want meet a nice guy and get married
I want my spouse to become a Christian
I want to go on a mission trip
I want to start my own business and be my own boss

Those are all great goals, but they can be overwhelming. How do I start my own business? How long will it take to get my degree. How am I supposed to meet a guy? The first step is to check it out

Go online and look at what it would take to get your degree. How many classes, what would it take, do they have night classes

I have a family member who is a great example to me about this idea of checking out an idea before you jump in. I’m kind of a jump in and ask questions later person, but he’s not. I’m talking about my son Riley. For about a year he’s been thinking of going to law school. But he didn’t just sign up and go. I’ve never seen anyone research anything more throughly than him. He has researched schools. He researched what it takes to do well on the LSAT which is the entrance exam to law school. He has talked with every lawyer we know, every judge he could talk to, every professor. He asked questions about what school to go to, what the lawyer lifestyle is like, what each different job is like. I’ve never seen anyone do his due diligence more than Riley. Recently I commented to him how impressed I was with his networking and he made this comment. “Dad, it’s a no brainer. I call all these guys and set up lunch meetings and they give me their wisdom and they pay for my meal.” Like father, like son I guess.

A God calling grows by sharing it with others

Years ago I challenge my elder board to follow their dreams. I bought each of them a book called The Dream Manager, by Matthew Kelly. It’s a very simple read that tells a fictional story of a company that helps people reach their dreams. I actually have a few copies here if anyone wants one. At the end of the book the author gives a simple challenge to write down your top 100 dreams. But it doesn’t stop there, after you write down your dreams you need to get someone to keep you accountable to set a time to reach your dream. So we read this as a board and I sat down with each of my board members to set some dates. It was pretty exciting. One of our board members named Charlie wanted to climb Half Dome in Yosemite so he set a date and he started training. It’s 17 miles round trip and Charlie wanted to do it in a day so for months he went hiking several times a week to prepare. One weekend he accomplished his task. I remember it was a Sunday because he was hiking half dome during a service and I called him and all of Canyon Springs yelled “Hurray, Charlie” over the phone. Charlie reached his vision, but he never would have done it if he didn’t share it with someone.

A God calling usually gets criticized

Oliver Emberton put it like this (allow me to paraphrase) If you aren’t ticking someone off, you probably aren’t doing anything important
Meaningful achievements are, perversely, more likely to annoy the world around you. Are you losing weight? “You should be happy with your own body!” Saving children in Africa? “You should save your own country!” Curing cancer? “What took you so long?” Whatever you do, you’re going to annoy someone.

I guess Billy Grahams parents could have said the same thing. All they did was to pay the bills, keep the family together, get food on the table and raise Billy Graham.