I was probably around twelve years old when I walked into Sunday School one morning and found that our classroom had disappeared.
In its place was a biblical marketplace.
There were tents and cardboard roofs set up around the room. Tables were covered with food from the Middle East. There were stations where we could make bookmarks and other crafts. Some of our teachers even dressed in costumes to make the whole thing feel a little more real.
We had been studying the Bible and memorizing the books of the Bible, and this was our reward. For a twelve-year-old kid in 1989, it was pretty impressive.
At the end, they gave each of us a Bible. Mine was a New King James Version with my name on it. Inside were the names of my Sunday School teachers.
I still have it.
I don’t remember every Sunday School lesson those teachers taught me. I couldn’t tell you what we studied the Sunday before the marketplace or the Sunday after it. But prior to that year, I remember Martha Penfield. I remember Pat McGehee. I remember them creating a place that I didn’t want to miss. I remember teachers who took the time to turn a room into something a twelve-year-old boy would still be talking about nearly forty years later.
At the time, I just thought it was cool. Looking back, I see something more.
God was using people.
The People Along the Way
Our entire church started a seven-week study of Philippians this week. The first message, from Philippians 1:1–11, was called A Church Worth Thanking God For.
Paul certainly had one.
He loved the church at Philippi, and when he thought about those people, he thanked God for them.
“I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you.” Philippians 1:3
I have people like that too.
My Mama is near the top of the list.
Sunday mornings growing up meant Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for breakfast. They’re the same cinnamon rolls I make for my family on Christmas morning now. After breakfast, we loaded into the van and headed into town. Sunday School started at 9:45. Worship started at 11.
And we went.
There wasn’t much discussion about whether we felt like going to church that week.
Church was what the Wood family did.
There wasn’t children’s church either, outside of a few minutes when the kids might be invited to the front for a short lesson from Brother Paul Woodford. We sat in the service with the adults. We heard the sermon with everyone else.
Church wasn’t limited to Sunday mornings either. My brothers and I were involved in choir and dramas, and if we had lines to learn, Mama made sure we learned them.
We would sit somewhere in the house with our scripts. She would read everybody else’s parts while we practiced ours.
Then we would do it again.
And again.
Sometimes there were a lot of lines. Somehow, we always knew them when we needed to.
I didn’t understand what she was building at the time. Neither did I understand what those Sunday School teachers were building.
They were helping make church more than somewhere I had to go.
They were helping make it somewhere I wanted to be.
Someone Standing in the Chair Beside Me
After high school, my faith had to become mine.
I changed churches and reconnected with Kevin McGehee. I also met Pat Steward, who became like a second Mama to me.
Kevin became something like the big brother I never had.
I was going through a difficult time, and he gave me room to vent. More importantly, he kept pointing me back to God and telling me to cast my cares and worries on Him.
He also gave me opportunities to serve.
I helped with the youth. I went on mission trips. I attended classes and eventually taught some myself.
A lot of what I do today grew out of those years.
Kevin gave an illustration in one of those classes that I’ve never forgotten.
Imagine you’re standing on a chair and someone else is standing on the floor. Try to pull that person up onto the chair with you.
It’s difficult.
Now let that person try to pull you down.
That’s much easier.
His point was that we needed to be careful about the people we allowed to have the greatest influence in our lives. When it came to dating and marriage, find someone standing on the chair beside you. Find someone who will encourage you to stay there.
I was dating Karen at the time, or at least I think I was. It’s been a while.
But I remember immediately thinking the illustration described us.
When we were dating, Karen and I would leave Bible verses for each other underneath the windshield wipers of our cars. We’d put them in envelopes for the other person to find.
Yes, it was encouragement. It was also Christian flirting.
Whatever works. I still have those notes in a box.
We didn’t use words like sanctification while sliding envelopes underneath windshield wipers. We were just trying to encourage each other and keep Jesus exactly where He needed to be in our relationship.
Smack dab in the middle.
Twenty-six years after we started dating and twenty years into marriage, we’re still trying to do that.
We’ve gone from encouraging each other as two young people to raising four children together. We’ve walked through good seasons and hard ones. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve learned. We’ve grown.
I’m not the same man Karen started dating. She’s not the same woman I started dating.
We’re better and closer to Jesus. Thank goodness.
The Work Isn’t Finished
One of the main verses from Sunday’s sermon was:
“I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
That’s sanctification.
God is working on us throughout our lives, making us more like Jesus.
I can look back and see places where He’s changed me.
When Karen and I married in 2006, I was working in retail. It didn’t take much for something going wrong to stress me out. Plans changing could frustrate me pretty quickly.
I still don’t particularly enjoy plans changing. Let’s not get carried away with how sanctified I’ve become.
But I’ve mellowed.
I’ve learned that fewer things are worth getting worked up over. I’ve learned there aren’t nearly as many hills worth dying on as I once thought.
One of the phrases my family hears from me all the time now is, “I can only control myself.” You’ve heard me say it more than once in my writings.
That guy was not around in 2006.
But…
I’m thankful he’s here now.
I’m also very aware that God still has plenty of work to do.
I got a pretty good reminder of that Sunday morning.
We Don’t Go Down That Hallway Anymore
For eighteen years, Karen and I have had a child somewhere in the birth to preschool to lower elementary area at church.
Sunday morning, I walked Grayson toward his class just like I have countless times before.
He went toward his old classroom, and I stood outside watching through the glass wall to make sure he got where he needed to be.
Then it hit me. He wasn’t supposed to be there.
He had moved up.
Apparently, neither one of us got the mental memo that we already knew about.
I went back and got him. He was about as surprised as I was, and we found where he was supposed to go.
Later, I told Karen what had happened.
That’s when the bigger realization sank in.
For the first time in eighteen years, we don’t have a child on that hallway anymore. He was the last one.
Next Sunday will be different. We won’t even turn that direction.
Meanwhile, Brighton just turned eighteen and is starting his senior year of high school. Chloe is beginning her last year of middle school. Sophie is beginning her last year of elementary school.
Everybody is moving up.
And Dad better keep growing too.
From Helicopter to Lighthouse
The father Brighton needs at eighteen isn’t the same father he needed at eight.
We’re having a lot more adult conversations now.
I didn’t have many men giving me words of wisdom when I was eighteen, and I want things to be different for him. I’m trying to let him spread his wings while making sure he knows there is always a safe place to land and learn.
I’m not really a helicopter parent as much anymore. I’m trying to be more of a lighthouse. I can’t fly around controlling where my children go or every decision they make. I can’t make them follow Jesus. I can’t choose who they become.
But, I can point them toward Him.
I can help them recognize some of the rocks ahead because I’ve hit a few of them myself. I can be there when life gets rough.
And something interesting has started happening with Brighton. He’s sharpening me too.
He reads and studies biblical and Christian writings more than I do sometimes. He’ll tell me something he’s been studying, and we’ll talk about it. He brings what he’s learning. I bring some of what God has taught me through living it.
Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another.”
Sometimes that’s exactly what happens between us.
A Year From Now
At the end of Sunday’s message, Pastor Sam talked about an old Dodge Ram that belonged to his dad who passed away several years ago.
It has more than 250,000 miles on it. It has bumps and bruises. The air conditioner doesn’t work. There are plenty of reasons to replace it, but the truck means something to him because of the memories attached to it, including driving it while his dad was going through cancer treatments.
The truck is still the truck. Sam isn’t the same Sam who drove it all those years ago. Then he challenged us to think about our lives with Christ.
A year from now, Jesus will not have changed. But we should have.
That stuck with me.
A year from now, I want to be closer to Jesus than I am today. I want to know God’s Word better than I do today. I want to be more focused on others than I am today. I want to be a better husband to Karen and the father my children need for whatever stage comes next. I want to take the opportunities God gives me to write, speak, and tell people what He has done in my life. I hope a year from now I can look back and see that God did some work on me.
Because He isn’t finished. When I look back at the work He’s already done, I see His fingerprints everywhere.
But I see a lot of other fingerprints too. Sunday School teachers who turned a classroom into a biblical marketplace. A Mama who made cinnamon rolls and made sure three boys got to church. People like Kevin and Ms. Pat who invested in a young man and gave him somewhere to serve. A young woman who left Bible verses underneath my windshield wipers and eventually became my wife. Four children who have given me plenty of reasons to grow and occasionally shown me the places where I still need to.
God alone does the saving. God alone can change a heart.
But I’m thankful He gives us people to walk alongside us while He’s doing the work.
Paul had people like that in Philippi.
I have them too.
And when I remember them, I thank my God.
Live It
Take a few minutes this week and think about the people God has used in your walk with Him.
Maybe it was a Sunday School teacher whose name you haven’t thought about in years. Maybe it was a parent or grandparent who quietly made faith part of the rhythm of your home. Maybe it was a pastor, friend, spouse, sibling, or mentor who stood beside you when you needed someone.
Thank God for them. Then, if you still can, tell them.
After that, ask a harder question: Am I allowing God to continue His work in me?
Don’t compare yourself to somebody else. Look at your own walk. Think about who you were a year ago. Where has God changed you? Where does He still have some work to do?
And finally, look around.
Whose story might God be using you in right now?
Dinner Table Devotional
Read: Philippians 1:3–6 and Proverbs 27:17
Talk About It:
Who is someone God has used to help you grow closer to Him? What did that person do?
What is one way you can see that God has changed you over the past year?
What is one area where you want God to help you grow during the next year?
How can our family do a better job of sharpening and encouraging one another?
Pray:
Thank God by name for some of the people He has placed in your lives. Ask Him to continue the good work He has begun in each of you and to help your family encourage one another as you grow closer to Jesus.