It has been a great weekend, but boy am I tired. Sarah left Friday morning to go down to Maryland for the weekend to see her sister and attend her nephew's dedication. The kids and I have kept a regular schedule and it has been fun to have them for the weekend. Of course, I am totally exhausted and I have all the more respect and admiration for how my wife is able to do this all the time. I do not know how single parents manage it all the time. The team-work aspect is really indispensable. Today I really got a lot accomplished. Did two loads of laundry, washed the kitchen floor, supervised the cleaning of the playroom, helped my daughter wash dishes, took the kids on a trip to Route 4 Pets to buy some new fish for our aquarium and to Save-A-Lot to pick up a little something for our special project tomorrow morning plus the sitting and holding kids and reading books that is part of having fun as a dad. Now we have a deacons meeting in an hour and I am tired! We are all looking forward to mommy coming home tomorrow and she should be surprised at the cleaning we got done. Now a note of commentary. I am a little surprised at the number of people who tell me that I am "brave" to take the kids for the weekend as if it is a strange and special thing for a dad to do. Perhaps it is in this culture, but I think that is a sad commentary on our culture. I have always objected when people call me having the kids "babysitting." I say, "we don't call it babysitting when my wife has them." We prefer to call it Parenting. Somehow we have turned the raising of children into woman's work. I don't believe that is even close to Biblical. The Bible puts the responsibility for children first and foremost on the father. This is so important to the Lord that failure to take responsibility in this area is evidence of a lack of ability to lead in the family of God. Even studies in the world show the importance of strong and supportive father figures. Now my wife is the primary caregiver to the children. I have a job (or two) and many responsibilities outside the home. This means that she spends more time with the kids than I do and does more direct teaching than I do, but that does not lessen my responsibility in the least. If anything, it increases my responsibility as I must make sure that I save enough time and energy out that my kids always feel that they have a primary place in my life and love. This is hard work. It is easy to allow the demands of ministry and others to capture too much of my time, but if I do not take regular time to connect to my kids, my relationship with them will be one of distance and disconnection. That is why I have thoroughly enjoyed this weekend as I have been primary care-giver. They have had a lot of my attention and we have had great connection times. It's almost like a retirement account. You should start investing early, investing often, if you want a good return later on. You can't wait until the end and hope you can put enough in to pay off.

Yesterday Mac and I went to Waterville to attend a Peacemaking seminar with Ken Sande, the author of "The Peacemaker". It was a great time and a great refresher. It was great to network with other pastors and churches including some old friends. The day brought back vividly the reality that peacemaking is the gospel with feet on it. Too many Christians talk the talk but when conflict comes, they are more interested in winning and prevailing in their way than in peacemaking. I think that is even harder for people in a leadership position because pride makes it hard for them to take the steps that true peacemaking requires. It is sad to see Christians who will quickly claim they have been wronged, will fight the fight, and will harbor anger, unforgiveness, resentment, and stop communicating during and after the conflict. When we fight against conflict, we miss the chance to be taught by what God is doing and benefiting from conflict. My wife and I have conflict (both being human and all :) ) and we have to work through the conflict each time, communicating even while hurt, until we reach an understanding. We have never failed to do that and as a result, all our conflicts have been good for us. I will say that even as I have had conflict with others who have never chosen to work through it, the principles of peacemaking and the counsel of Godly men have allowed me to not be scarred or hardened by conflict and the actions of others, but instead softened by God and made more understanding of others. I long for the day that all relationships will be restored. It may take heaven, but the day will come. :)

Following up on yesterday's blog, here are a couple of big quotes from a Newsweek Article that talked about how young men are delaying "adulthood". I present this as evidence of the "drift" I cited yesterday. Our society is doing what feels good, but just because you want to doesn't make it right or even good for you.

They're also among the most distraught—men between the ages of 16 and 26 have the highest suicide rate for any group except men above 70—and socially isolated, despite their image as a band of backslapping buddies. According to the General Social Survey, a highly regarded decadeslong University of Chicago project to map changes in American culture, twentysomething guys are bowling alone when compared with the rest of society. They are less likely to read a newspaper, attend church, vote for president or believe that people are basically trustworthy, helpful and fair. Meanwhile, saddled with an average of $20,000 in student debt and reared with a sense of entitlement that stops them from taking any old job, the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents has nearly doubled since 1970, from 11 to 20 percent, according to economist Bob Schoeni's research with the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. The happy family man, on the other hand, is an alien concept in Guyland, and all too scarce in popular culture. Men like me, who actually embrace married life in their 20s, are seen as aberrations—or just a bit odd. According to a study released last month by the Parents Television Council, prime-time broadcast audiences are three times more likely to hear about people having sex with pets, corpses or two other people simultaneously than they are to see a blissed-out married couple between the sheets. If the domestic man does appear, the study finds, the guy who pants in Lamaze class rather than a stranger's bedroom is portrayed as freakish, fuddy-duddy and frequently religious: an uptight Boy Scout in a Peter Pan culture. "Today's prime-time television," the PTC concludes, "seems to be actively seeking to undermine marriage by consistently painting it in a negative light."

But traditional marriage doesn't matter, our society is telling us. There is no anchor!

Beyond the practical dangers, the world of twentysomething males can also be an alienating place, where the entrance fee is conformity and the ride is less than advertised. At a waterfront bar on Fire Island, there is gleeful solidarity as the guys chink glasses and catcall en masse to passing women (who resist). But on their own and without their liquid courage, there is also isolation and discontent. A 28-year-old Emory graduate, who declined to be named for fear of ridicule, talked of feeling ashamed of his life, which has led to countless conquests but not the literary success he'd hoped for; he's living at home in New Jersey and working at a hotel front desk in the meantime. Another guy, 26, an Arizona State alum who lives in Tempe, is a coupon-book salesman, but clearly self-conscious: he carries fake business cards touting him as an MTV entertainment executive. If only all the posturing paid off. College guys believe that 80 percent of their friends are getting laid each weekend, says Kimmel, whose survey of 13,000 kids, mostly 18 to 22 years old, puts the actual figure at closer to 10 percent. After college, he says, the percentages merely get worse. Meanwhile, the angst associated with adulthood may not be warranted. A raft of recent studies suggest that married men are happier, more sexually satisfied and less likely to end up in the emergency room than their unmarried counterparts. They also earn more, are promoted ahead of their single counterparts and are more likely to own a home. "Men benefit from just being married, regardless of the quality of the relationship. It makes them healthier, wealthier and more generous with their relatives," says Scott Coltrane, author of "Gender and Families" and dean of the University of Oregon College of Arts and Science. It accelerates men's journey toward stability and security. "In general, those are the things that lead to happiness," he adds.

Isn't this interesting. And remember, this article appears in a liberal magazine. I find it fascinating that they can identify signs of drift but not realize that drift is taking place.

Today's title is a quote from an old hymn,

"In times like these you need a Savior, In times like these you need an anchor; Be very sure, be very sure Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock! Chorus This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He's the One; This Rock is Jesus, the only One! Be very sure, be very sure Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

I was thinking about the idea of an anchor and drifting today as I was working and keeping an eye on the news and on people's posting on Facebook. Here are some of my observations.

• A lot of people very concerned with "Marriage Equality" AKA gay marriage.
• Obama's peace prize: Do we admire the saying more than the doing?
• Roman Polanski: how about all those celebs who defend him even though he raped a 13 year old?

It is quite interesting to read all the debate and see all the points of view. It made me think of the above hymn. In times like these, you need an anchor. Our society is drifting, it has no anchor, but I don't believe it realizes it. Education over the years has transformed from teaching us to think to teaching us what to think. Of course, maybe it was always so, just the what has changed. Either way, the anchor got pulled up (or the rope was cut) and we as a society started drifting but no one realizes that this is the case or understands that it is actually a bad thing. Elements of the drift are even regarded as progress by some. What am I getting at? Why is "marriage equality" good? Equality is good, right? Well what does that mean? We treat everyone the same. That's good, right? But how do they define their terms? Do we allow people to marry their pets? Marry their sister? Marry their son/daughter? That's not what they are fighting for. But they say that homosexual marriage is not only right but "a right." That to deny that "right" is to discriminate. But by calling anything "wrong" aren't we discriminating? It comes down to what you use to determine right and wrong and your "rights." I use the Bible. I just read it plain. It says that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. I don't always like what it says because sometimes it gets in the way of what I want to do, but there it is. Now those who argue that this is wrong and discriminatory have a harder time. What is their concept of right and wrong based on? Their thoughts. Their opinions. What they want. The Bible describes this point of view clearly in the book of Judges. "Everyone did what was right in their own eyes." No anchor, nothing to secure them to something. How can you call one kind of sexuality right, another wrong, without some moral compass or authority beyond what "society thinks." If our standard is what makes us happy, there are a whole bunch of things that ought to be legalized. And the Christian church? Well, we as a group lost our moral authority a long time ago because our anchor slipped too. As a church, we held onto theological purity not Christ's purity. Pastors and lay people had terrible marriages, got divorced, provoked their children to wrath and lived lives in opposition to the life of Christ but were ok because they believed the right things. We made our stand in the right place but walked in the wrong place. The Rock is Jesus, yes, He's the one. My moral authority is Christ and his revealed Word. It makes some things right and other things wrong no matter how convenient or difficult that is for me and my desires. I must hold on to Him as a person, not him as a theological idea or doctrinal point. I must be transformed by Him, which is very hard to allow. Our society is drifting away from any anchor that will hold them. Let's make sure as Christians that we are holding first and foremost to Christ, not as a concept or our idea of Him, but who He truly is as revealed clearly in the Bible.

Great Article in the Washington Post about the pastor that Obama will tend to hear the most. It is exciting to see how God can put His people in the right place. Pray that this man will be a powerful and loving force for God in the lives of the Obama's that if they do not know Christ in a saving way, that they will. Politics aside, THAT is what matters. LINK to article.