Me: “Are you a princess?”

Lily or Abby: “Yes!”

Me: “Whose princess are you?”

Lily or Abby: “Daddy’s!”

This short conversation is one of the more important ones that I have with my two daughters.  It is so important that my girls know that they are loved by me and special to me.  I do love them dearly and want to make sure that they always know that.

We recently went to Disney World for a final visit before we uproot our family to Seattle. Disney sets up a studio where the children can go in and meet the princesses. My daughters live for this!

In a conversation with Sleeping Beauty the girls were asked, “Who is your prince?”  They responded as you might expect. “Daddy“, they said.

What Sleeping Beauty said next put a giant smile on my face.  She responds with, “And you know that he is the only prince you can have until you are 33.”  Great work Sleeping Beauty!!!

Ok, so I don’t really want my girls to wait until they are 33 but it is important to me that I do the best I can to model the type of prince I would like them to choose.

I pray for my girls, that I honor God as a dad and that they would know the love of my Dad in heaven.  Only by His power and in participation with Him as their dad and prince will we see our girls live in to God’s purpose for them.

Here’s a little clip of my princesses in action…enjoy!

Because I work full-time with Campus Crusade for Christ and Kelly stays home with the kids most days (changing diapers, picking up the house, breaking up fights, picking up the house, coloring, making meals, picking up the house, etc.) I don’t often get a full picture of what really goes on.  It’s come to my attention that I don’t always greet my wife after a long hard day at work with the care and love that she needs after a long hard day at home.

1 Peter 3:7 says,

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

Kelly said to me the other day that she just wanted to be understood when we were talking about the challenge of packing up the entire family for a weekend trip.  I thought of this verse.

Last weekend Kelly went away on a retreat and I had the kids Friday through Sunday.  I had a blast with all the kiddos and I was glad to have the time alone with them.  However, it was very challenging to run the house alone during that time and this gave me a new and fresh understanding of what she does most every day.

I am very proud of her and thankful to have such a wonderful woman as a wife and mother to our kids.

Dad, you do a lot.  There is no doubt about that.  And, so does she.  The next time you have a chance to walk in her shoes, do it.   In fact, why not ask her for an opportunity?  It will increase understanding and appreciation for the blessing in your life.  It will also increase your love for your wife.

Jones said recently on Hardball with Chris Matthews that in response to radical Islam, “our message must be radical and we feel that this message will be received as it is intended, as a warning.”  This puzzles me because the very action that Jones is condemning is the same thing he is doing by burning the Koran.  It seems clear to everyone but Jones and his followers that this is an act of hatred and violence.  Richard Hays, Dean of Duke Divinity School, makes an alarming observation comparing Jones’ book burning to the Nazi regime when they held a book burning ceremony of their own in 1933. There they burned more than 20,000 Jewish books.  We are all aware of what came after.

Jones addresses this in his post, Ten Reasons to Burn a Koran. Under reason 10 he claims that they are not like the Nazis. He says that his followers are, instead, like the 1st Century christians who brought their scrolls of witchcraft to burn following their conversion (Acts 19:11-20). The conflicting issue with this association is that those new converts brought their own books to burn as a symbol of their repentance. They were not burning others’ books, as Jones is doing, in order to radically communicate a political message and send a warning.

I believe that as Christians, and as Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) at the University of Florida, we do have a radical message and we are called to communicate that in a radical way. We differ from Jones, though, in both our message and our method.

Our message is radical. We are all sinners and enemies of God deserving hell, we all need to be saved and only Jesus can do that (John 14:6). Is that radical? Absolutely.

Our method is radical. We love as Jesus loved in that, while we were still sinners and enemies of God, Jesus died for us. We now give our lives to love our friends and enemies alike, not hate them (Matthew 5:43, 44). Is that radical? Absolutely.

John, a disciple of Jesus, wrote that Jesus is the fullness of grace and truth (John 1:14). When we only live by truth, we burn Korans as hate-filled extremists. When we only live by grace, we huddle together as ashamed inclusivists. When we live in the tension of both, we unapologetically engage our world with their need for the forgiveness of sin while finding common ground in our need for that same forgiveness.

Mr. Jones, you say you want to be radical?  Don’t burn Korans.  Follow Jesus by loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you.

This is the photo that I entered into at contest that Gary Vaynerchuk held last fall. The photo won me a trip to NYC to have dinner with him.  Gary is one of my heros and I am super thankful for all that I have learned about leadership and Web 2.o (a.k.a. Social Media) from him, in order to build a more powerful brand.

I am also very grateful to Jordan Smith (@jordanflamingo) of Green Flamingo Photo who selflessly joined me on an wild afternoon adventure last fall to help me create this scene as well as shoot and edit the photo. THANK YOU!

Also, a big thank you to others (Rick Kingsley and Josh Doody, among others, that helped me brainstorm a vision for this idea.)

I believe this scene captures a lot of who Gary is and what he believed to be true about old media outlets at that time.

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I share some of my thoughts on why I am passionate about reading the Bible everyday.