I’m reaching the end of an area of dad-knowledge. I can see it. There is a “horizon” for what I know. I think my oldest son is beginning to realize it, too. Where once I knew virtually everything (in the minds of my children, at least), I have begun to reach a plateau. When faced with the question: “Can you help me with my math?” I’ve never really thought, “Well, I’m not sure if I can.” Addition? Yes. Subtraction? Oh, I can talk to you about borrowing from the tens column like nobody’s business. Multiplication? Anything below the number 12 and I’ll make Mrs. Huntsberger, my 3rd grade teacher, proud. After 12, big numbers? Well, I’m a little rusty. Division? Sure. Mostly. Kind of. Ok. But, I can handle math.

Only now, as this year is underway, I’m finding that handling math is no longer a foregone conclusion. Credit my son with wanting to work at it with me. We spent about two hours last night going over a ton of it. In all of what falls into the category of  “I ought to know this,” I’m having to double check everything on a calculator. I’m watching YouTube clips and visiting tutorial websites to jog my own memory. Over the course of the time spent pouring over seemingly endless and unnecessary geometric proofs and a smattering of “solving for x” I could see something happening both within me and my son.

It was as if both of our minds needed a kind of old-timey crank start, like an early Ford Model-T. You’ve seen footage of this kind of thing: a driver has to stand in front of an old car, insert an elongated z-shaped wrench into a tiny hole in the hood and upon fastening it to the motor, start the engine by making a few energetic revolutions until the engine sparks to life. The math-machine was in its early, albeit rough, stages of warming up. But, it was going to get there. We were going to get there. We could feel it. Things were beginning to come together. What was initially a journey into a world of apparent nonsense, started to become something, a working system – actual math.

My faith-journey is not all that different. I allow a lot of stuff — good stuff — to go neglected and unattended over the course of time. In looking at this fall season, I have to clear away the rust that accompanies some lack of use, and machete the weeds of summer distraction to clear a pathway forward. My own attentiveness to God has grown a bit less acute than I’d like. I find that my ability to live with compassion and understanding is likewise somewhat lacking in their performance expectations. So, I need a jump start. I need to get things moving again — even if the initial stages are a bit effort-laden.

For us to become the people God intends us to be, we’ll have to consider there are very few great things that come about without some degree of effort. We’ll have to face the deeply introspective questions about what things have been abandoned in us (usually, at an imperceptibly slow pace) over the course of time and a thousand tiny “yes’s” to really good things. We’ll have to examine why good things possess a hidden tyranny over the things that matter most — the greatest things. And, what we’ll find is that we need outside help. We need someone to help us turn the crank, to tell us to stick with it, to remind us how things are supposed to work. We’ll need each other. We’ll need to re-up our life group. We’ll need to finally join a ROOTED group. We’ll need to work through all of our good excuses on the belief that there is a fuller, richer life and a journey of great adventure ahead if we could just get it started.

This Sunday, as we launch our first-ever 5pm service, it’ll be as great an opportunity as any to re-jumpstart our lives and give fresh energy and attention to the things that matter most. For a little extra motivation, we’ll provide free IN-N-OUT (5pm service only) to help in fueling that process.

See you Sunday,

Jeff