What is a "daddy"?

Man. this is tough. I was trying think through a "Dear birth parent" letter for Pam and I to add to our this-is-who-we-are photo book (this book is given to prospective mothers to decide if they want to meet us and have us adopt their baby).

If you take a minute and try to figure out what you would say....not easy. It's not easy to come up with the words and then the words that I think of are not easy words either. The version that I prefer started with "I'm scared of you" and talked about my jealousy as a dad when I hear my daughter talk about her "father" (as she has taken to calling her birth dad). I then went on to talk about other things too, but Pam didn't think that "I'm scared of you" was a good start. :o)

So, what is a "daddy"? What makes a dad a dad? I obviously don't think it is the blood. I know that I am a dad to Maya K and we don't share any blood at all (though you wouldn't know if you saw us spending time together). So, if it isn't in the blood and it isn't genetic, then what is it?

My father-in-law once gave a sermon about how all children should be adopted because even biological parents need to adopt their own children. This was based (if I remember correctly) on a broad definition of adoption. That being to take something that is not our own and make it our own. That is, just because a child is your own blood, does not mean that the love and relationship is there until you put in the time and energy required to make that relationship happen. If love is a choice, then it does not happen because of your genetics, it happens because someone chooses to love you.

It was really cool. For Father's Day, Maya K filled out a little form about me. So, "My daddy is as big as _______" and she filled in the blanks. (For that one, she put "a refrigerator") Here's the one that mattered though. For "I love my daddy because _____________" do you know what she put? She put "Because he loves me." How humbling is that for me? To know that she loves me and in her 7-year old mind, she recognizes that I loved her first. :o) If I hadn't loved her, what reason would she have to love me? I'd be no different than any other adult male out there, except I'd live in the same house. That's not good enough though.

OK, I'm not here to talk about how great I think I am, because I don't. What I do know though, is that God is my Daddy. He loved me first and loved me so much that I couldn't ignore it. He loved me enough that it got my attention and I said, "I love my Daddy because He loves me."

Church history and doctrine

This will be short today, but I felt like giving an idea of where I've been and some posts I hope to do in the future.

Have people always ignored history? Have we always been so attached to today that we don't think that yesterday is important enough to try to learn from it? Well, we should know better...shouldn't we?

OK, raise your hands: Who had a boring history teacher in school? Who had a great history teacher in school? For whatever reason, I find that a large majority of people who don't like history today will tell you that they didn't like their history teacher and a majority who do like history will tell you that they did like their history teacher in school. Why is that?

Because history can be incredibly boring if we don't breath life into it.

I found a quote in a large quote book that I have and it says that, "A Wise man learns by the experience of others. An ordinary man learns by his own experience. A fool learns by nobody’s experience."

Now, personally, I'm kind of glad that Hitler was a fool and he did not learn from the experiences of Napoleon in Russia. if he had, he would have probably been more prepared or patient. (your war historians can make comments, but don't rake me over the coals for over simplifying that one please! :o)

On a lesser scale, for Christians, let me ask you a question: what doctrines really matter? I mean, let's be honest; there are plenty of doctrines that Christians get into fights about that are not going to be the difference between heaven or hell. Ex: predestination. That one might change how you act in this life, but it won't change your eternal destination one bit.

So, which doctrines matter. Which ones might be the difference between heaven or hell? As a Baptist, I would say that infant baptism for saving grace vs. baptism that is a demonstration of our salvation would be the difference between heaven or hell. So, that's one. Now what?

Well, let me encourage you that it is much easier to get into church history and find some REALLY smart guys who have wrestled with things we have never even imagined. Especially as 21st century American Christians who have faced very little to no persecution. I have personally never been faced with "would I be willing to die for that belief?" So, a great source for which doctrines are important would be the doctrines that were made catholic (that is, universal) during the early years of the church when they were being burned at the stake (or sent to "fight" lions, or beheaded) for their belief in Christ. Then, if they were willing to stand up and fight for a specific doctrine or belief, you would think it would have been an important one.

As an example, I believe it was the first two instances of heresy (if not, it was two of the first few) were about the nature of Christ. One group believed he was not God and another believed he had not been human. These groups were years a part from each other, but you can see that those ideas would have been important and key to Christians and they would still be key and important to us today.


I am hoping to do a series of blogs on some of these heresies. I will probably touch on the different councils as well as many of the heresies that were addressed at these councils. No promise on the time frame of these posts, but hopefully they will be soon. :o)