ONE RED PILOT

thoughts on God, Family, Worship, and Life

Be the man, Pt. 5

Psalm 128: 1-3
Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table.

I work in full-time ministry. That means I invest a of time into caring for people, planning services, building relationships, and encouraging people to grow in their gifts and use them to serve the Lord.

I’m a family man. That means I invest a of time into loving, providing, caring for my wife and 2 kids. I plan stuff for us so we can experience things as a family. I invest time into the relationship with my wife and kids encouraging them in their gifts and how we can use them to serve the Lord.

Since moving and taking over a worship ministry, a lot of my time, focus, and energy has been placed on my ministry at the church. As a result, my ministry at home has suffered. The Lord has really been getting my attention with this because letting my family slip IS NOT AN OPTION.  My wife and children are my priority, not my team at church. Thinking through how to shift my priorities 2 areas came forward where I need to step it up:

1.) Time

Church- I meet with key volunteers to encourage them and let them know that I’m thankful for what they do. Usually I’ll buy them lunch or coffee

Family- I need to be more consistent with date night. Buy my wife dinner. Tell her how much I value all she does in our family and encourage her in her womanhood and motherhood. Spend one on one time with my kids acknowledging their love language and loving them in that way.

2.) Planning

Church- I spend a lot of time planning experiences for our church members. I want them to walk away from Mosaic and say “wow, I love my church”.

Family- I need to spend more time planning family days, not just laying around expecting my wife and kids to entertain themselves so I can rest. As my kids grow in to teenagers I want them to say “I love our family”. They will only say this if I show them that I love our family.

Who knows, in 10 years I might not be working for this church or even in full-time ministry. I do know that in 10 years I’ll still be married to the same woman and I’ll have the same 2 kids. My family is forever, ministry is a season and seasons change.

favor to you,

nate


March 2, 2009 Posted by nate d. | Be the Man | | 2 Comments

Be the Man, Pt. 4

The past 2 weeks or so the Lord has been getting my attention with a certain area in my life that I need to step up. Let me give ya a little back story…

My son is the early riser of the family. My wife, daughter, and I are sleepers. We all love to sleep in…love it. So the plan my wife and I devised was before we go to bed turn the T.V. to a kids channel. That way when Nathaniel wakes up he can stumble in to the T.V. room and just turn on cartoons without having to disturb us…horrible parenting I know.

OK, back to my convictions. The Holy Spirit has been very clear and specific on stepping up my game in this area. Psalm 128 1-4 says:

“Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD.”

So, how am I stepping it up? By doing exactly what God is telling me to do. I need to get up BEFORE my son and have my QT. The specific time I heard from the Lord was 6:30am. For some of you that is a normal day…maybe earlier. For me…this is a HUGE deal and the Lord knows it. Why do this, you may ask? I’ll tell you…

The verse above says if I fear the Lord and walk in HIS ways it will spill over into my wife and my children. I need to be the one leading this family in to the new day the Lord has given us…not my 4 year old! When my kids wake up and stumble in to the T.V. room I want them to see their dad already awake, reading his bible, praying, and taking this being a follower of Jesus thing SERIOUSLY. I want my wife to see her husband conquering something that is very hard for him and doing it because he loves Jesus and this family more than himself.

Men, we need to continually be stepping up our game to lead our families. Next to loving Jesus, this is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN OUR LIVES! Not your job, not your ministry…let’s make THEM our job and ministry!

favor to you,

Nate

December 4, 2008 Posted by nate d. | Be the Man | , , | 4 Comments

Be the Man, Pt. 3

Now that we live a lot closer to the mountains and actually have a “Fall” season I wanted to take Carrie and the kids to see the fall colors. Accompanied with that I wanted to take the kids to an actual Apple Orchard to pick apples. So, I put abut 3 weeks of planning into finding a place and timing out when the leaves were changing. The result was an AMAZING day out in God’s creation…I love being a family man.

October 23, 2008 Posted by nate d. | Be the Man, Family, Parenting | | 3 Comments

Be the Man, Pt. 2

“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”

Deuteronomy 6:5-9

This installment of me stepping it up and being the man in my family involves us really taking this verse literally. As you may or may not know we are building our first home. It’s been a dream of ours since we were married and the only way that it is happening is because of the grace and mercy of Jesus. Last week we went to the house after they were done framing and wrote scripture on the walls. I’ve been looking forward to doing this since they broke ground. It was an awesome opportunity for me to share with the kids about how God has made a way for us to build and live in this house and to much that has been given much is required. It was an amazing afternoon and something I look forward to sharing with everyone who comes to The Davis Family home.

Men, we need to be EXTREMELY intentional with our wife and children. They need our leadership more than anyone in our lives. They need to know that we are very concerned with their well-being mentally, emotionally, physically, and most important spiritually!

How have you been intentional with your family?

favor to you,

nate

September 20, 2008 Posted by nate d. | Be the Man, Family, Parenting | , , | 3 Comments

Be the man pt.1

I know what your immediate reaction to that statement was, “but nate, you are already the man!” :o )

The other day during my quiet time the Lord really got me with this verse in Deuteronomy 6:5-9:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.

So, that what I’m doing. Being that they are 4 and 2 it gets a little challenging to hold their attention but I’m starting to put it in practice. That way when they are older it’s just part of what we do. I hope to start adding post on ways that I’m trying to implement this into my home on here…so keep me accountable!

nate

September 16, 2008 Posted by nate d. | Be the Man, Family, Parenting | , , | 1 Comment