Have you ever experienced the power of a wave beneath you as it pushes you to shore?  Or the wind blowing against you during a violent storm?  Seemingly limitless power restrained by the physics of this world.  But what if there were no boundaries?  What effect would that same power have if it were unleashed?

Now think about God.  Have you ever considered what would happen if the Spirit of God were unleashed on humanity?  Have you ever dreamt of what would happen if the Word of God were unleashed into all the world?  Have you ever imagined what life would be like if the Church of God were unleashed in this world, faint but growing lights in this bleak and utter darkness.

This past week, at WestHillsCommunityChurch: Downtown, we began a series titled “Unleashed: Spirit, Word, Church” a study of the book of Acts that examines what Scripture teaches about that very reality! 

Acts is the account of the Spirit, the Word, and the Church being unleashed.  Written by a man named Luke, this account tells us the effects of that power.  What was Luke’s agenda?  To show how a small group of people were able to have a magnificent and powerful impact on the world they lived, through no power of their own.  The reason for all that these people had and the reason that they were willing to endure what they once forsook is simple.

Jesus Christ.  His gospel, His story, and His glory.

In the first of 7 panels, Pastor Brad Keller unpacked how Luke attempted to show the beginnings of the effects of this unleashing in Acts 1:1 – 6:7.  Below is a brief summary of his major points and thoughts.  If you missed it, visit our website and listen to it.  It is worth it.

Main Point:  The Gospel spreads throughout the world by the Spirit, and theJerusalemchurch is planted. 

#1:  The Spirit was unleashed: Holy Spirit empowers the work of the church!
#2:  The Word was unleashed: The work empowered is the spreading of the gospel!
#3:  The Church was planted: the spreading of the gospel leads to new believers!

How can we apply these truths to our lives?

1.  Live life in dependence on the Holy Spirit!
2.  We must proclaim the word (the gospel)!
3.  Church planting is a priority!
4.  Have confidence that the Spirit will do the work!

Join us next Sunday as we continue our journey through the book of Acts (Acts 6:8 – 9:31).  Join West Hills Downtown as we strive to make a difference in the Bay Area, specifically in downtownSan Jose, for the glory of Jesus Christ.  If you find yourself in downtownSan Josethis Sunday, and you want to hear what Jesus is up to in this world, come and pay us a visit at 10:00 am.  We would be more than happy to see you there!

Miscarriage, Christmas, and Alone

Two years ago, Alison and I flew to Phoenix, AZ to visit my family during Christmas week.  We really had one objective:  surprise my mother with news of our first pregnancy.  Alison was excited about it, but I was anxious.  I confess freely now (though I did not then) that when I found out we were pregnant, I was not excited.  Alison’s news revealed to me how inadequate of a husband I had been up to then and that in turn would eventually create much resentment towards our unborn child. This new child would interfere with my efforts to correct my first three years of marriage.  I was not ready to be a dad.  I did not want to be a dad.  I wanted time to fix my mistakes.  I was frustrated with myself, with God, with my wife, and my unborn baby.

Our plan was to tell my mom on Christmas Day, a Friday, that we were 9-10 weeks pregnant.  On Wednesday morning, Alison started experiencing severe pains.  By the end of the day, she had miscarried and we had lost our first child.  My mom was at work all day, our friends were in San Jose, and we felt incredibly alone.  Instead of giving my mom the good news of her being a grandmother, I had to explain why Alison couldn’t even get off the couch.  It was painful.  I was distraught.  Alison was in emotional, spiritual, and physical pain.  Our baby passed and it was just the two of us again.

Hope and New Beginnings

After working through the miscarriage with God and my wife, I realized how selfish I had been.  I forget that life was not about me, but about God.   My real spirit and the real condition of my soul had been revealed with Alison’s news to me of her pregnancy and then humbled with the miscarriage.  I was a broken man, with a hurting wife, and the only one I could turn to was God.  As usual, He is faithful.  He gave me hope.  He healed my heart, my feelings, my marriage, and renewed my lazy focus which had made me into what I knew was an adequate husband.  I learned tremendously from that experience and became ready to serve Him in whatever circumstance of life that He was going to place me in.  Much to my joy, three months after we miscarried, Alison was pregnant again.  After 12 weeks, we heard the baby’s heartbeat.  Medically, that meant that the chance of miscarriage falls to less than 3%.  While Alison got to experience this new life in her body, my heart was cold and distant, not ready to commit to the feelings I had towards this new baby for fear of loss.  But when my daughter was born, all bets were off.  I was ready.  We were ready.  God had blessed us with a beautiful daughter and new beginnings.

Enoch Lives  (Gen. 5:21-24; Heb. 11:5)

After the creation of humanity, marriage, the fall of humanity into sin, and punishment, Scripture paints a pretty meek picture for the next few chapters of Genesis.  Death reigned.  Not just death at the hands of others, but death in general.  Instead of the life that God had offered in the garden, you read these sections of Scripture where God seems to make it a point that death was the result of the fall.  A common phrase in Genesis 4-5 is “and then he died.”  This man lived this many years, “and then he died.”  That guy died, this guy died, everyone was dying.  When you are reading about life and things being good (Gen. 1-2) and then moving into this literary valley of death, it is so clear that God wants to make a point:  there is life in the midst of death.

The author of Genesis makes this incredibly clear when you read about a guy named Enoch.  You see, the Bible said that everyone was living their life, having their children, and then dying.  Except for Enoch.  The original Hebrew text paints this beautiful picture of Enoch and his relationship with God:  Enoch walked with God and then he was not.  The reason:  God took him.  Enoch never experienced death.  God took him away so he did not have to deal with that.  The point is that there is life in the midst of death.  It was God’s way of pointing to Jesus Christ, even in the Old Testament!  If there is life in the midst of death with Enoch, how much greater life would there be in Jesus? 

Jesus Offers Life in the Midst of Death

We will always be surrounded by death. The nanosecond we enter in this world, our bodies experience the process of moving toward decay. That is reality. Death is inevitable.  Relationships die. Careers get shot. The natural world experiences death all the time.  People are killing each other.  People are dying.  It is a unarguable fact and reality for us.  Of course, our natural instinct is to hide from it, shelter ourselves from it, pretend it does not exist, or act like there is nothing we can do about it.  In some sense, we can’t do anything.  If we feed the starving, they will die eventually.  If we give water to those who thirst, they will die eventually.  If we give homes to the homeless, they will die eventually.  Please hear me when I say:  WE SHOULD BE DOING THOSE THINGS.  But we primarilry need to offer them life in the midst of death.  As Christians, we know that the only life that can be offered in the midst of death is that of Jesus.

Jesus Christ offers life in the midst of death, through His own death. He does not just offer us eternal life, though that is His mission’s goal. But Jesus offers people hope, joy, and peace that no trouble in the world can take away from that.  As a Christian, I hear people arguing all the time that this reality of giving our life up to Christ is simply not enough. People need tangible help, too.  If you want to argue about how that’s not enough, I would challenge you to reconsider whether or not you believe in the full and complete gospel that Jesus Christ offers.  It is hard to share something, if you find no value in it.  Take some time and think about whether or not that’s your struggle.

Jesus offers you eternal life. The consequence for all of us is death. Not so with Jesus. In the midst of death, Jesus offers us life. He is the only one who can offer such an amazing gift, through the work He did on the cross. He offers it to everyone who believes.  Believe. Repent of your sins and believe in Jesus.  Share the good news of the arrival, death, resurrection, and second coming of King Jesus with everyone you know.  Believe.  Have hope.  Believe in life in the midst of death.  The gospel of Jesus Christ offers you eternal salvation and so much more in the present life.  He is waiting.

Believe.

If you want to talk about Jesus, about the Bible, about life or death, about hope, please contact me.  Just send me a message on here or on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/_tonycruz.  I will be praying for you

When was the last time you were deceived?  I think for me, it was about six months ago.  I bought a 2006 Vino Classic scooter for $900 from a guy who said that registration was not needed to ride.  With just a helmet, some gas, and a sweet new ride, I had freedom.  Not so.  I found out I had to register the bike.  When I did, I found out that I also had to pay for the previous years of registration, which turned out to be almost as much as the used bike.  Lesson learned.  Oh yeah, then there’s that Louis Vuitton commercial before the movies:  “Does the journey make the person?  Or does the person make the journey?”  Dang it!  They always get me with that dumb commercial!

Deception is no fun.  But my deception has little consequence for the human race.  Not so with Adam and Eve.  As the progenitors of humanity (that’s a fancy way of saying we all originated from them), Adam’s and Eve’s deception by Satan had more far-reaching impact.  It seemed pretty easy, since God gave Adam and Eve only two objectives: have lots of sex and take care of creation.  Easy enough, I think.  Adam and Eve had a great relationship with God, with one another, and with the world.  It was then that they were utterly deceived by the craftiest being alive: Satan.  Satan coyly suggested that what God told them about death was not true.  Disobedience would not lead to death, but to enlightenment. If they would only eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil, their eyes would be opened.   For some reason, I never realized until this week that the lie (you will not die) was couched in truth:  you would become like God, knowing good and evil.  Adam and Eve believed the serpent instead of God, ate the fruit, and their eyes were opened.

Adam and Eve had been deceived and Satan used some truth against them.

You Were Meant for Than This.

We can all learn from their encounter with the adversary.  The lie that Adam and Eve believed was cleverly hidden in truth:  you were meant for more than this.  Simultaneously, this statement is both deception and truth.  We live our lives yearning to find purpose, meaning, and identity in creation.  We are deceived if we think we can find it there.  We live our lives struggling to find complete and utter emotional joy, satisfaction, and peace in other people.  We are deceived if we think we can find it there.  We live our lives trying to change the world around us, so that it will be a better place than it was, while we’re in it, and after we’re done and think that is why we are alive.  We are deceived if we believe that.  How can I claim that being meant for more is truth, then?

Because Satan deceived Adam and Eve outside the context of their creator.  He was arguing for something more outside of God and they believed it.  For that reason, they fell from perfection.  But God had intended more for them.  That was His initial promise, that was their greatest mistake, and we’re still paying for it.  The greatest deception worked because it contained a bit of truth.

Nothing but the Truth Can Set You Free.

The good news is that, in Jesus Christ, we are meant for something more.  While Satan was able to tempt and deceive that first Adam, he was not able to tempt and deceive Jesus.  Jesus is the new progenitor for humanity.  As a type of Adam, He offers everyone who believes a chance to start new.  The truth is, outside of Jesus we do not have much to live for.  You can never please yourself.  You are always going to want to be better than you are.  You are a merciless and ungracious god.  The truth is, Jesus can free you from the burden that the deception of self-idolatry brings.  Jesus pleases God the Father, on our behalf.  Holy Spirit dwells us, aiding us to become more faithful people.  Because of Jesus, God is eternally gracious and merciful to those who believe.

Believe in Jesus, who is the King.  You were meant for more than this.

But when I read that, I couldn’t help but think, “You’re wrong, bro!  My wife is the right person for me to be married to!  She accepts me for who I am and she fulfills my desires.  I love my hot wife.  So there!”

Pretty compelling rebuttal, right?  I know.  I’m in grad school right now.

Agreement with Keller

Culturally, I agree that people who do not have a biblical understanding of marriage have failed to understand why marriage is so difficult.  Keller rightly argues that these people “do not see marriage as two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love and consolation.”  I completely agree.  In fact, at a wedding ceremony I performed a year and a half ago, I emphatically told the young, awesome couple that:

According to Genesis, the two of you are complementary, yet flawed and fallen creations, and are choosing the path of most resistance:  a union that attempts to reconcile on earth an imperfection whereby a man and a woman will join together to mutually create an environment in which they, equally and in cooperation, move closer to Christ Jesus each day by faith, with hope, and in love for as long as you both shall live and through that marriage demonstrate the grace and love of Christ to the world around them.

So I agree with Keller on that point.  But, does he paint a holistic picture of a healthy God-honoring Christ fueled marriage?  My gut tells me no.  And I think the Bible says so, too.  Keller continues and writes that culture has made marriage about people “looking for someone who will accept them as they are, complement their abilities and fulfill their sexual and emotional desires.”

I disagree with the implication of his assertion that it is not okay to look for those qualities.  Is it that culture has made marriage about people?  Or is it that culture has intended more for marriage than it was designed to give, outside of the context in which it was intended to be in?  Yesterday, I posted on the big fuss about marriage in the church right now and outlined some of my initial thoughts which support the following idea:  Within the context of a biblical, Messiah worshipping relationship, isn’t what Keller is arguing against what we see as marriage’s purpose in Genesis?

What the Bible Teaches:  It is Not Good for Man to Be Alone.

According to the Bible, on the sixth day of creation, everything that God made and beheld, including man and woman and their union, was declared good.  There was only thing that God identified as being ‘not good.’  It was the state of the man, Adam, whom He had created.  Adam, in perfect relationship with the living God (remember, this is pre-the fall of man), was described as being alone.  How could God identify Adam as being alone, and that not being a good thing, when he was in relationship with God?  Perhaps because being created in the image of God compels us to find relationship.  That’s an important observation.  It goes against the argument made by Duke University Ethics professor Stanley Hauerwas:  Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy . . .”  In some sense, God saw that Adam was not whole without Eve.  Adam even recognized it as he saw and named all the male and female animals God brought before him.  It is not good for man to be alone.

What the Bible Teaches:  God Makes People as Suitable Helpers for their Mates.

Furthermore, God actually wanted to create someone for Adam that would be his helper.  This would mean that whoever God created to be with Adam would complement his abilities exactly as Adam needed.  Adam was to rule over creation and Eve was to help Adam with those commands.  Let me rephrase that:  God created a person specifically crafted to complement the purpose, gifts, abilities, and mandate that He had given to Adam, for His glory.  Doesn’t that mean that as we are looking for someone to marry, compatibility is something that is okay to pursue?

What the Bible Teaches:  Just the Two of Us.

Of course, it goes without saying that Adam and Eve did not necessarily have to deal with compatibility, since they were the only two in the beginning.  But they were in perfect relationship with God, which meant that being the only two did not matter.  Submitting to God’s ultimate authority was what mattered, and their relationship with each other and with God was intact and healthy until they stopped obeying Him.  Which leads me to my next point.

What the Bible Teaches:  As A Follower of Christ, Any Person Who is a Follower of Christ is the Right Person to Marry.

At the end of the day, I think this is where I land concerning Keller’s article.  It is not so much that you will never marry the right person.  It is that, as a follower of Christ, any other follower of Christ is the right type of person.  Why?  Only when both people are submitting themselves to Christ, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God, does marriage work.  It is when we search outside of that context that we miss the point.  An insightful pastor, Gary Thomas, once wrote, “Marriage is not meant to make you happy, but holy.”   That is absolutely true.

Here’s what I think that means:  you can expect and enjoy the awesome fruits of the process of becoming holy, even during the more difficult times.  That’s what I see Keller missing when he writes his article.  He leads us to a better understanding of what one problem is without sharing what marriage is ideally created for, achievable only through Christ.  Marriage is awesome because, in Christ, marriage is not just where we learn what it means to be holy but also where we get to enjoy the benefits of our state of holiness!  How great is that!?

Confession:  I am a hopeless, idealistic romantic.

Keller writes, “Love without truth is sentimentality . . . Truth without love is harshness.”  These are both true.  I would like to add teh following:  love without hope is obligatory:  we don’t believe that marriage can be everything God made it out to be.  Hope without love is fantasy:  we don’t really care about a person; we only care about what they can offer us to fulfill our desires.  Love without the Gospel is idolatrous:  we worship love and all it offers us.  I think this is what Keller argues against.

Love with the Gospel is the goal:  when God remains fixated as the center of worship, because through the Spirit, we can be all that we were meant to be in marriage.  Messiah’s work on the cross allows us to accept one another as redeemed and justified sinners.  Because of grace, we can move forward in the process of sanctification together.  As we live life together, we get to fully enjoy the original intention of marriage as authored by our good and perfect God.  This is what Keller and I agree on as being the key to a successful marriage.

I think that the distinction Keller fails to make clear is this:  marriage cannot give us more than it was assigned to deliver.  With that, I will close, and wholeheartedly agree, with his closing argument:

“The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the Gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel is—we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” – Tim Keller 

 Amen.

1. Marriage makes you happy:  biblical or cultural?
2. Marriage makes you holy:  biblical or cultural?
3. You Never Marry the Right Person:  biblical or cultural?
4. There is a Soul Mate:  biblical or cultural?
5. You Deserve to Get What you Want:  biblical or cultural?
6. All Your Desires and Needs are Fulfilled in Marriage:  biblical or cultural?
7. Do you think Keller overemphasisez the equation of compatibility with impossibility?

• Going above and beyond the call of duty authentically, out of love, is key.
• For the first time, the number of singles outnumber the number of married.
• Fewer people married, but more people living together before marriage.
• One pastor thinks our culture has taken God out of the bedroom.
• Another pastor shares how he keeps God in the bedroom.

What is the data actually revealing?  If culture is changing, shouldn’t the church just accept that and move on?  Can’t the church just deal with the fact that people are looking for other ways to meet their relational, sexual, and emotional needs?  In other words, what is the fuss all about?

Relationship: the design, the longing, and the answer

The fuss is all about marriage.  And we can find the answer, among other places, in the genesis of marriage.  Our God is a God of relationship, a God of community.  He is a Trinitarian God:  One God, three distinct persons, all equally God.  That is the Christian understanding of what we call the Trinity.  Why start there?  Because as humans made in the image of God, we were designed to be in relationship, to long for relationship, and to seek out relationship.  That is how we were created.  The design, though, only allows for a man and a woman in relationship, bowing under the authority of the one God.  That is the design of marraige.  So what happened?

Serpent: the destroyer, the liar, and the accuser

The never-resting enemy of God, Satan, compelled man and woman to turn from obedience to and worship of God towards a desire to become like God, to answer to no one and worship oneself.  That is what happened to tear the best thing (a man and a woman in loving relationship) from its context (bowing under authority and obedience to the one God) making it a good thing, which our communities, culture, and country make into a bad thing by pretending like marraige is not a divine design, being okay with pornography, and forgetting its original design and intent.  That is the nature of sin.  That is its destructive ability.  That is the issue we face today.  What is the answer to this dilemma?

Messiah: New King, New Covenant, New Life

God is the answer.  God sent the second person of the Trinity, who we call Jesus, to live among humanity, fully God and fully man, in order to free us from sins.  He is called Christ, which means that He is the New King.  He brings a New Covenant, that whoever believes in His name will have the right to be called children of God.  He brings new life, which means that, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, we can live out our relationships the way they were intended.  That is the beauty of Messiah.  That is the wonder of a life lived under the authority of Jesus.

What Now?

As you live your life seeking out relationship (which you inevitably will), recognize that it was the way you were designed and that you need God’s help, not just to find it, but to commit to it when you do, and to help you be faithful through it.  You cannot do it on your own.  That is the exact reason Jesus came.  Relationships are amazing things.  Marriage is a beuatiful thing.  But the only way to make it work is as a repentant sinner, who longs to glorify God and desires to bring Him the most honor, and can by the grace of God through Christ.

1. What do you look for when you look for relationships?
2. Who has the healthiest marriage you know?
3. What can you do today to face Jesus and say yes to the love, the hope, the forgiveness, and the new life that He offers?

Does the sun lose its glory after having warmed our face all afternoon?  Do the clouds passing overheard minimize the beauty of a clear summer’s day after overtaking it?  Does the laughter of a child diminish the beauty of discovery after its sound has faded away?  How foolish for us to think that what has passed needs no further attention.

While the idiom of change, “Out with the Old, In with the New,” might ring true each year for things that are meaningless, causing us to forget those things that are easily replaceable by an updated version, it is profound that we, as Christians, find unspeakable peace in the hope of the One who does not change:  Jesus, who is the Christ.  With Him, we have a new life, a new identity, a new purpose, a new destiny, a new legacy.  With Him, we are a new creation.  Those truths can never get old.

Jesus Christ: the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). 

You know what else does not get old?  Reading the Holy Scriptures.  To think, that our God would see it fit to reveal Himself through the words of man, collected together in an unassuming book known by many names throughout the ages:  the Law adn the Prophets, the Scriptures, the Bible, the Word of God.  Whatever the name, the Truth it contains will never change.  Never.

It is my conviction this year to read through these ancient texts to see how God has revealed Himself to humanity.  Starting next week, I will post what I’m learning, beginning from Genesis.  I will make my way through the Pentateuch, from history to poetry into prophecy, from the gospels to the letters to the final vision of what is to come.  If you have time, join me each day.  Listen to what the voice of God has to say.

I can guarantee it will change your life.  It will never grow old to be new.  Praise God, the possessor of heaven and earth.  May He change your heart, your mind, your life, and ultimately, your destiny.  Forever.  Amen.

However, I think few of us spend the amount of time necessary to create those visions and goals for our lives that might lead to a gospel legacy.  To a legacy of ours that could only be described or identified as being the product of a God whose redemptive purposes in our life is catalyzed by, resourced with and focused on our savior, king, and friend, Jesus.  Whenever you dream of attempting to accomplish the seemingly impossible so that God can be glorified, you begin to realize how incapable you are of accomplishing those visions and goals on your own power.  It is in that moment that you begin to acknowledge that God does, in fact, have a plan that He Himself will resource.  He equips those whom He calls.

Yesterday, I met with the leadership team of West Hills Community Church – Downtown to talk strategically about the 2012.  We laid out goals for our church plant.  We created a plan on how to accomplish those goals.  But nothing was more suprising, more encouraging, more humbling, and more hope-bulding than the prayer that preceeded it.  Be assured that prayerful and humble men will be heard by God when they desire to lead His church.  I am so honored to be with these guys.  Vision and goals that lead to a gospel legacy are ambitious, radical, ridiculous, and risk filled.  But they are being inspired and resourced by God.  You know, the one who created the universe and everything in it.  The more confidence you have in His ability to produce good for His glory, the more faith and hope you should have in pursuing those visions and goals.

1.  What vision does God have for your life in 2012?
2.  What goals have you set for your life in 2012?
3.  How can God’s vision and your goals create a gospel legacy?

I haven’t been blogging as frequently because I’m incredibly busy.  No surprise there.

This quote is a refreshing reminder to me of “what is” and “what is to come.”  I’m in a season in life where I am all about the incremental changes.  Incremental is certainly a lot of work.  Moving incrementally in life takes more patience, more trust, more humility, and more courage than anything else I have done.  Patience: because you are not moving as fast as you want.  Trust:  because the things you want to do are happening without you (which reminds you that God is, in fact, in control).  Humility:  because you realize that you are not as important as you thought or want to think.  Courage:  because focusing on incremental improvement forces you to look at more areas with greater intensity and scrutiny.

The exciting reality, though, is that soon I will have more freedom to stretch out and contribute with a more revolutionary urgency.  By that I mean that I will have more time, energy, resources to contribute to the cause of Jesus Christ than I ever have before.  Not yet, but soon.  That reality excites me.  But for now, I must continue to be patient and prepare myself.  Because things will get harder.  Things will get more stressful emotionally.  People will tell me that I will fail.

As long as what I do is glorifying God (and i have the utmost confidence that it will), I do not care.  I trust Him, know Him, love Him, believe in Him, have seen Him work, and have no reservations about what He will do, with or without me.

I cannot wait to throw myself more fully into what He is calling me to do.

]]> http://remnantlegacy.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/inspirational-insight-steve-jobs/feed/ 0 remnantlegacy Steve Jobs http://remnantlegacy.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/a-letter-to-my-daughter-on-her-first-birthday/ http://remnantlegacy.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/a-letter-to-my-daughter-on-her-first-birthday/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:04:09 +0000 Tony Cruz http://remnantlegacy.wordpress.com/?p=779 Continue reading →]]> Dear Soleil,

I remember the first time I met you.  You were born at 4:24 am on October 31 last year.  When you were born, you cried briefly but not a lot.  Your eyes were open and you were already trying to hold your head up to look around.  I remember holding you seconds after you were born and just staring at you.  You were staring right back.  You looked like you were looking for answers.  “Why am I here?”  ”Why is it so cold?”  “What are you?”  ”Where am I?”  ”Who woke me up?”  “Can I go back?”

I had no answers, but I knew that leading you on this adventure was gonna be exciting.

I also remember the love that your mommy had for you immediately after you were born.  She loves you so much, Soleil!  She was so happy to meet you and, I’ll have you know, is one of the best mommies around.  She takes great care of you.  I love watching the two of you play around when I get home from work.  It’s one of the best things in the world.

Today, Soleil, you turn 1 year old.  Your mommy and I are looking forward to getting to know you more and to loving you more and to introducing you to all kinds of amazing things and people.  Here are some examples:  my chili, mommy’s cornbread, Thanksgiving dinner, cutting down a Christmas tree, your daddy’s dad, your daddy’s grandma, the Vogels in Seattle, Disneyland, puppies, peanut M&M’s, fluffy unicorns, and so many other things! 

There are also some things and people in this world, Soleil, that are not exciting.  There are things like hunger, where people do not or cannot eat food and homelessness, where people do not have a crib to sleep in or even a house to sleep in.  There are orphans, babies who do not have mommies or daddies, because they died, were sick, or did not want babies.  There are things like sadness.  Sometimes, it’s when some people do things that do not make sense and hurt other people.  Other times, it seems as if there is no reason why sadness needs to exist.  All these things, Soleil, is because of sin.  People are not perfect creations, though they were meant to be.  The world is not perfect, or as it should be.  But one day, things will change.

One day, we want to introduce you to our King.  His name is Jesus.  He is God.  It might not make complete sense to you today, at 1 year old, but your mommy and I pray that one day it will.  You see, Jesus came into the world just like you did:  as a little baby.  He grew up, like I hope you will grow up.  Then, Jesus was put on a cross, died, and was buried.  But something magnificent happened, Soleil.  Three days later, Jesus was no longer dead.  He came back to life.  When He did that, He proved that He could fix everything that was wrong with the world.  Evil was not the eternal future of the world.  It would be good.  All because of Jesus.  Until He comes back, though, people like your mommy and I are doing our best to serve Him.

This means that we look each other.  This means that we take care of you.  This means that we tell other people about Jesus.  This means that we use the money that God has given us to try to help as many people as we can, in the name of Jesus.  Because all of us were created in the image of God, Soleil.  That makes every person, every baby that is born, special.

Today is your 1 year old birthday, Soleil.  I do not want us to just celebrate your life.  I want us to celebrate the Life that Jesus offers to anyone who believes in His name.  God loves you and did more than I ever could.  He died, so that if you believe, you could live forever with Him.  I cannot do that, Soleil.  You will turn to me to do amazing things for you, but I will always fail you.  I will be the best daddy I know how to be, but I know that I will fail you. 

That’s okay, though.

Soleil, there’s a better Daddy than me.  One day, you’ll meet Him.  I can’t wait for that.  I pray for that every single day of my life.  Until then, you and your mommy and I will have some of the greatest adventures ever!  I can’t wait to get back home and celebrate your birthday with you! 

I love you.

your daddy