When I was planning this year’s Moody Man Day, I wanted to bring more of a spiritual emphasis to our time together, for a few reasons. First, Nate’s been a Christian for a couple of years now, and he wants to be baptized. I wanted to make sure that he understands what that means. Second, I wanted to begin to steer Nate toward maturity and manhood. Most teenage boys I know (and many young adult men) show little to no maturity, and I want to guide my son in a better, more responsible path.

Nate is always excited for our day together, and yesterday was no exception. He was knocking on my bedroom door at 6 AM, ready to go! At a slightly more sane hour (around 7 AM), I told Nate to get his Bible and bring it to me. So he grabbed his ESV Children’s Bible, and I had him look up and memorize Psalm 119:9-11:

How can a young man keep his way pure?

By guarding it according to your word.

With my whole heart I seek you;

let me not wander from your commandments!

I have stored up your word in my heard,

that I might not sin against you.

Once he had memorized those verses, we left the house and headed to the IHOP for breakfast. Over our pancakes, we talked about what it means to be a man.  I told Nate that today was about beginning a new chapter in his life – he is now officially a “Man In Training.”  As we left the restaurant, I told Nate our next destination: I was going to buy him a new sword.

By the time we pulled into the Family Christian Store parking lot, Nate has already figured out that by “sword” I meant a new Bible.  (It wouldn’t do for a Man In Training to carry around a Children’s Bible, right?)  Nate picked out a nice ESV slimline Bible with a cross stitched into the cover, and I had his name engraved on the front cover.  I also told him that we was expected to read his Bible every morning, and to report to me on what he had read.  (This morning, he began reading Mark’s gospel.)

Our next stop was a hobby shop in Lynnwood.  Last Christmas, we bought Nate an HO-scale train set, but the track never stayed together well enough for the train to work properly. So Nate and I picked out new tracks for his train, and I also let him choose a model to buy as well.  Being a bit of a Star Wars fanatic, Nate chose a Snap-Tite X-Wing Fighter.

We then went to a local Starbucks and sat down at an outside table.  After talking to Nate about how a man must learn to follow instructions – from his parents, his employers, but mostly from God – we assembled his X-Wing together, step by step.

I then explained to Nate that since he was getting older, we would let him experience some new things, like the occasional “grown-up” movie.  So our next stop was the movie theater, where we watched Captain America: The First Avenger.  Nate (and I) loved it.  Afterwards, we had a great time talking about a man shows courage and determination, no matter what, and how the characters in the movie showed that courage.

At this point, our plans took a detour.  My wife was planning to check my business’s post office box and deposit an expected check, but she didn’t have a key to check it.  So Nate and I headed back to Mount Vernon, talking about how a man must take responsibility, even if it changes his plans.

After stopping by the post office, we went home (the girls had left for dinner at the American Girl Store, so we had the house to ourselves) and assembled the new train track. It worked!  We had a fun hour just playing with the train and talking, then headed for dinner at Pacioni’s Pizzaria.  (Side note: If you’ve never had prosciutto as a pizza topping, try it.  Yum!)

At dinner, we talked about how a man protects, cares for, and cherishes the women in his life. So after dinner, we went to the mall and bought gifts of chocolate for Naomi, Carolyn, Abby and Maggie.

Finally, we returned home, and concluded our evening by talking about the significance of baptism.  When I asked Nate why he wanted to be baptized, his reply was, “Dad, I want everyone to know that I’m a Christian.”  So, sometime in the near future, we’ll plan a baptism service, and I’ll have the great joy of baptizing my son.

Dads: What are you doing to help your son move toward godly maturity?  You don’t have to do what I’m doing, but do something!

For a couple of years now, a group of men (myself included) have met at Emmanuel Baptist Church on Wednesday mornings for prayer.  Last April, one of the elders told us of an interesting development from the previous evening’s prayer meeting. A few men from Little Brown Chapel, a small church up in Wickersham (about a half-hour’s drive away), had come to Emmanuel to ask if they knew if someone who would be willing to preach for them (and maybe become their next pastor), since their pastor was stepping down in June.

During our half-hour of prayer time, several men prayed that God would raise up someone to bring God’s word to this small flock.  I, on the other hand, was stunned into speechlessness. The moment that Bruce told us of the need, I knew.  I knew that this was God’s will. I knew that I was going to preach for these people. I knew that I was going to become their next pastor.

When the prayer time was over, three different men separately told me, “You need to look into this, John. This sounds like a good fit for you.”

(At this point, I have to back up for a minute. I’ve always loved preaching and teaching, but for about 6 months prior, I had felt God stirring my heart toward pastoral ministry. I knew that this was impossible – there was just no way it could happen with my current life situation.  But the longing was there, and it was growing.)

I went home and told my wife about it, sure that she would be totally against the idea. And who could blame her? Leave our comfortable church of 600+ with a terrific children’s ministry and top-notch preaching for a congregation of 20?  Plus, Naomi (a missionary/pastor’s kid herself) had made it clear that she could handle anything but being a pastor’s wife.

“I think you should call Christian and follow up on this,” Naomi told me.

So I sent Christian Smith, my pastor at Emmanuel, the following email:

Hi Christian -

This morning at prayer group, Bruce shared with us about the visit to the elder’s meeting from the Wickersham church who are looking for someone to preach. I don’t put much stock in inner promptings, but I immediately felt prompted to volunteer to help this congregation out if the need hasn’t been filled already. I don’t know if this is a good fit (as my pastor, you can perhaps judge that better than I), but I’d be remiss if I didn’t reach out to investigate the possibility.

- John

Three minutes later, I got an email back from Christian, which began like this:

Wonderful! I had you in mind too!

The next day, I got a call from Ray, who heads up the elder board at Little Brown Chapel, and I was all set to start preaching on June 12, and to continue through June and July, at which point “we’d see how’s it’s going.”  (In other words, this was a trial run – kind of like 7 weeks of candidating!)

Oh, and since their departing pastor was going to be out of town on May 15, would I be willing to preach that day too?

(Stay tuned for part 2!)

• Christian Smith – elder statesman and Starbucks addict
• Eric Abisror – extrovert extraordinaire and tour guide
• Caleb Brown – wide-eyed “newbie” and pizza vacuum
• John Moody – your humble narrator and uber-geek

Our destination: Chicago, Illinois, for the 2011 Gospel Coalition (TGC) conference.

Thanks to the amazing driving skills of Jim Brown, we made it safely to SeaTac Airport, where Caleb took one flight and Christian, Eric and I took another, and four hours later (or six, if you factor in the miracle of time zones), we reunited at O’Hare Airport in not-so-sunny Chicago.

Then it was off to the hotel to check in, then dinner. Eric took us to Giordano’s Famous Stuffed Pizza, whereupon we feasted upon approximately 2.3 metric tons of deep-dish pizza:

After finishing our dinner at about 9 PM (and stopping by a Starbucks because Christian made us) we went for a walkabout of downtown Chicago. And that’s where we met Tony.

Tony had a mission in life: to shine shoes. And Tony was not going to be hampered by the fact that it was 9 PM at night, or that we were obviously not looking for footwear enhancement services, or for that matter, anything at all. In about 3.7 picoseconds, Tony had assessed the shoes of our group, and determined that of the four of us, I was the one who needed his love, attention, and shoe-shining services this fine evening.

“Hey, you know what you need for those shoes?”

“No thanks.” Keep walking. Maybe he’ll go away, I think.

But I, apparently, am a fool. Tony is not to be deterred so easily!

“I’m Tony. Your shoes just need a good shine.” He pulls a bottle of something out of his little shoe-shine bag-o-tricks, and aims it at my shoe. This is not going to end well, I realize.

“Seriously, no thanks, man.” I start to turn to walk away, but Tony is too fast for me. Tan colored goo is squirted onto my shoe. And at this point, I am at his mercy. He is going to shine my shoe, and then he is going to ask for money. I resolve then and there that no money will flow from me to Tony this night. If he gets mad, there are four of us, and only one of him. Plus, I hear that Christian knows kung fu. (Or is that Hebrew?)

Tony begins to scrub/buff the puddle of goo on my left shoe in, cajoling me for letting my loafers get into such a pitiable condition that he was forced to stop me on the street and correct the matter before the Shoe Mafia decide to deal with my disrespect for all things shoe.

And, then my salvation appears. A police car pulls up to the curb, and the officer in the driver seat begins to have a conversation with Tony. It appears that they are old friends. (I didn’t get to see the state of the officer’s footwear.)

I look down at my shoe. The goo has been brushed in enough that I can walk around like a respectable person. (Or, at least the left side of me can – the right side is still sadly unbuffed.) I turn and walk, and my traveling companions laugh at my misfortune as we head back to the hotel, ready for the conference to begin in the morning.

I think they’re jealous of my left shoe.

1. 16 years is a long time to be married. Many of my friends from high school and college didn’t make it that long before succumbing to divorce. One friend from college lost his wife to cancer. I’m blessed to have spent such a large part of my life in partnership with one woman.
2. 16 years isn’t a long time to be married. I think of John and Hannah Roduner (Naomi’s grandparents) and of John and Edith Moody (my own grandparents). Though all four of them are in heaven now, their marriages endured (over 100 years between the two marriages). They made it – and they set an example for us to emulate.
3. While living in South Florida, we had the privilege of knowing Frank and Joyce Phillips, an older couple who married late in life. They shared with us the idea that if you assume that the year of marriage ahead of you is “the one everyone struggles with”, you’ll be ready for the trials when they come. So I’m watching our for year 17 – I hear it’s a doozy!
4. Married people really do grow more alike as time goes on. Case in point: Naomi will now (sometimes) watch football with me, and I now eat squash.
5. I married a babe. Just sayin’.
6. One of the great joys of life together is the accumulation of shared stories, “inside” jokes and shared vocabulary that no one else will ever understand. Ask Naomi about the “sugar cookies” incident sometime for an example.
7. When we were newly married, we decided that we needed pet nicknames for each other. So I was christened “pain in my butt” and Naomi was “thorn in my flesh”. (Sounds better than “smoochy-poo”, right?)
8. When you’re married, you end up having to forgive your spouse for the same failings over and over. This is easier to do when I remember how often God has had to do that for me. (Although Naomi has to deal with this a lot more than I do, truthfully.)
9. Being married to your best friend – your honest-to-God best friend in the world – is a glorious thing.
10. I still remember the lump that came into my throat when I saw Naomi walking down the aisle on our wedding day.
11. As beautiful as Naomi was on our wedding day (and trust me, she was gorgeous!), she was 100 times more beautiful lying on an operating table, wearing one of those hair caps they make you wear in operating rooms, looking up at me as I’m holding our firstborn daughter for the first time after 31 hours and a cesarean delivery.
12. There’s nothing like married life to show you just how selfish you are.
13. I am supposed to love Naomi like Jesus loved the church. The tenses there are important – I am supposed to love (present tense – meaning a continual action) like Jesus loved (aorist tense – a past, point-in-time action) the church and gave himself up for her(also aorist). In other words, Jesus died for the church, and I’m supposed to die daily for my wife. I’m not there yet – not even close.
14. Did I mention that I married a serious hot babe? I did? Oh well – it’s worth repeating.
15. I am totally unworthy to be married to this woman. Like pretty much all of God’s blessings to me, being married to Naomi is a gift of sheer grace. I thank the God who created her, who brought us together, and who has sustained our marriage all these years.
16. Naomi, I want to grow old with you. You game?

• Basic Christianity by John Stott
• Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper
• Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris
• The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul
• Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris

Just missing the cut, but still recommended: Don’t Waste Your Life, The Pleasures of God, and God is the Gospel by John Piper, The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, Putting Amazing Back Into Grace by Michael Horton, and Knowing God by J. I. Packer.

• A king dies in the place of one of his subjects
• The eternal God of the universe take on humanity and dies in the place of one of his creatures

Obviously, as great as the first is, the second is greater by several orders of magnitude.

I bring this up because in church today, we sang a praise song that is theologically accurate and edifying – and yet it annoyed me tremendously. Here’s the chorus of that song:

Amazing love, how can it be
That You my King would die for me
Amazing love, I know it’s true
It’s my joy to honor you
In all I do, I honor you

The first two lines probably sound familiar to those of you who were raised singing hymns. It’s a modification from Charles Wesley’s hymn “And Can It Be”. Here’s the first verse:

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me who caused His pain,
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love – how can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

So, although Christ is our King, and a king dying for his subject is an awesome thing, it is a much more massive, significant and praiseworthy truth that it was not just our King who died for us, but God himself. I don’t know what the author of the modern chorus was thinking when he wrote it, but to take Wesley’s words and water them down as he did – frankly, it ruins the song for me.

(By the way, this is not a criticism of the worship team at my church. In fact, it’s not a criticism of anyone, or at least it’s not meant to be.)

This work of God, no work of man
My only hope, my only life
Has given me a place to stand
Has made me love what I despised
- Jeremy Casella, “Cast Away Stones”

My “place to stand” is the righteousness of Jesus reckoned to my account, just as my many sins – and my constant sinfulness – were reckoned to His account and paid for on the Cross.

What’s your “place to stand” in 2010? If it’s not Jesus, your firm foothold will ultimately turn out to be quicksand.

DA Carson on “permit” in 1 Timothy 2

Oh, I’m into everything I hate
My spirit is not fooled
My members take the bait
Oh, I’m into everything I hate
Still not dead enough
To stifle this debate

Smalltown Poets, “Everything I Hate”

Or, as someone else put it: Who will deliver me from the body of this death?