It’s hard to know where to begin.
Last week I kept a promise to my son… if he passed high school we would take a trip to Southern California to be around ‘surf mecca’. What it turned out to be was a chance to watch the ‘post-high school’ step, and to see a bigger world open up for him. It was also a chance for the last dad and son beach trip of his teenage years.
Since the separation, divorce, and remarriage, I have taken my son to the beach every summer. As I look back since he was a small child, I’ve watched him grow, but in the last few years watching him start the journey into manhood has been a different train to ride. When he was younger, the mistakes were kiddo mistakes. Now, they are adult mistakes, and wearing a seatbelt is mandatory. Okay, a 4 point harness and a cabinet full of medicine are mandatory, okay not just any medicine… tranquilizers, not for him, but for me! 
All in all, from the first day I held him, I had no idea what this was really going to be like. My first child passed away at an early age, and my perspective on parenting was from the outside looking in. Sometimes the view was mystically beautiful, sometimes, it seemed to be a train wreck, and whatever the equation is of turning out ‘good kids’ to become good adults has alluded mankind …well, since the garden. But over the years one thing has been ‘apparent’, no pun intended… without faith, not even a 4 point harness will be enough, and faith is the point.
So often, and I will speak for myself, I have found ‘figuring’ things out myself was easier than leaning on faith. And let me be clear… not a faith that guarantees a certain outcome, but faith that someone else knows the road and how to handle those mountain curves and steep drop-offs of parenting. To continue the self-revealing, in my past, I was so focused on trying to find an answer from God about certain topics that I never ended up making a decision which really means…
NO DECISION IS A DECISION!
These days, I have to put the brakes on my ideas and put them on hold before moving forward. Not that my ideas are great, goodness no, Jeff Kennon can and does make a train wreck faster than a blink of the eye. But it really comes down to faith. As a flawed human, there is only so much figuring and planning a person can do to attempt and assure a ‘positive’ outcome… whatever you might deem positive. But if I may gently say, without faith, we all will end up in a dead-end street or worse yet a cul de sac. (You are moving but not really making any progress. You have the wear and tear of the journey but none of the growth and accomplishments.)
With my son, we are leaning more on faith than plans and to a degree, it’s like watching a bird take its first flight. As Christy Raedeke said
“…If there is no risk, there is no reward.”
When the risks were getting hurt in a soccer game it’s one thing. But getting hurt in life as a young adult… well… no need to spell out the difference. So where do I put my faith?
The Bible, says in Hebrews 11:6 ‘But without faith, it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.’
Now please don’t take this as an old former dried-up minister trying to sneak in the Bible so I can feel good about my writing… but see what it says… “please God”. In all of my plans, in all of my seeking to figure things out, maybe my orientation should be more toward God and not so much with those plans around me?
Balance is the key, however, between plans and faith, I would highly recommend, for those who are driving in those curvy roads of teen years…
Wear a seatbelt…
Peace on your journey this week.
