KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

I know I already wrote about Austin’s birthday but I wanted to say a couple other things. Yesterday was his actual birthday and it brought back a flood of memories about when he was born. All I can say is I’m grateful that those days are now in the past and Austin is out of the woods medically speaking. God did some amazing things to take care of us and him that year. Now he’s the most energetic 3 year old I’ve ever met and he never slows down. From 6AM till 8PM he runs throughout the house wrecking havoc, sometimes that get annoying, but when you look at this picture and then what he’s like today, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Happy Birthday big boy, I’m proud of you

We celebrated Austin’s big 3rd birthday this weekend and it was a blast. Obviously a little bit early as his birthday isn’t until June 30, but it worked and he had so much fun. He’s been talking about it forever. We’ll ask him, what do you want for your birthday and he’ll say, “balloons, kids, pool, ice cream, cars.” He loves matchbox cars, and I mean loves them. He’s probably got about 100 of them and got about 20 more for his birthday. Every time we go to the store he asks if he can get another one. That doesn’t happen.
I can’t believe he’s already 3. It’s hard to believe that just 3 short years ago we were living in Costa Rica, Crystal as on full time bed rest and Austin was about to make his dramatic appearance 6 weeks ahead of schedule. He’s still making dramatic appearances, just this time they are a little less dramatic thank God. Either way, we are super blessed to have such an amazing little boy living in our home and I can’t help but thank God daily for allowing me to be his daddy.

So recently I’ve been fascinated by the father/son relationship and how many similarities there are between our relationship with God. I love being a father (on most days), I love that Austin has so much security in my presence. In his eyes there is nothing that can go wrong if daddy is around. I just laid him down for a nap and it’s been a rough day so far. As soon as I walked out of the room he went ballistic and crawled out of bed bawling his eyes out. So I laid down next to his crib on the floor where he could see me and he just laid there knowing that everything is fine since daddy was there.

Man if we could just grasp the concept that the Holy Spirit is present with us everywhere we go and in everything we do how much different would our actions and thoughts be?

Check out these verses:

1John 3:1- See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

Gal 4:6-7- Because we are sons we can cry out Daddy and we are no longer slaves but sons and because we are sons, we are heir w/ Christ

Not only these, but just think about what you would do for your own son

1. Austin is secure in my presence
2. There is nothing Austin could ever do that I won’t forgive
3. I will always love Austin without condition or regard
4. I will always be approachable to Austin no matter where I am or what I’m doing
5. I will always be willing to give Austin what he needs or desires

And all these things God does a million times more intense- What a God we have and what an awesome relationship we have with Him- Maybe you should say thanks?

Austin has done a lot of developing lately. He’s developing into the most crazy two year old ever, or maybe he’s just being a normal two year old. For example, the last week and a half we’ve been staying in a small mission apartment at one of our supporting churches in PA. It’s a pretty nice little room, and just enough room where the bed is to set up his packnplay. So one day Cris and I are sitting on the couch right after we laid him down for his nap and heard a strange noise from the room. I opened the door to find him standing right inside the door, out of his crib! What in the world. So I put him back in and told him to show me how he got out, and sure enough he did. It was rather funny, but the next part is not. The other thing he has learned how to do is remove his diaper all by himself. This is not a good thing at all, because soon approaching is the day we walk in to find poop smeared all over the walls! Yesterday he pulled one of these stunts- poop free thank God- but he did pee all over the place. His bedding was soaked, the walls were soaked, thankfully we didn’t have any clothing close by or that too would have been soaked. O the joys of being parents of a two year old, I hear it gets a lot more fun!

I’m learning a lot about fatherhood lately. Seems like especially after that last post I made about Austin. Specifically the comment “he’s an amazing little boy, the best to have even on his worst days.” Well since I wrote that statement we’ve had the worst of the worst days and today it really caused me to think. I think Austin is growing a lot right now. He’s been sleeping a ton, wakes up and immediately said “EAT!”, I also think he’s growing some more molars as he’s biting everything in sight. Everybody can sympathize that when you grow your body is in pain. It just hurts a lot and I take that into account for his attitude lately, but some things just aren’t negotiable even with pain as a factor. Today he got 4 disciplines before 10AM for hitting, biting, and throwing everything in sight. Yesterday I got so mad at him when he bit a whole in my leather couch! What in the world. Cris hasn’t been feeling all that well this afternoon, so I put my phone calls on hold till tomorrow morning and decided to let her rest and Austin and I would head to the park. We walked for a while, ran a little, played hide and seek, he played on some of the most unsafe jungle gym equipment the world has ever seen- seriously jagged metal edges, suspended wooden boards that are broken in half leaving you able to easily fall through, among many other things. During this time we were walking along and he wanted to walk a certain place and I said no, so he took his little matchbox car in his hand and slung it at me! He’s done this repeatidly in the last days and no matter how many “disciplines” he receives for it, it just doesn’t go through that little head of his. So today I said to him, “Austin if you love me, you’ll obey me.” And at that moment my eyes were opened to a reality of scripture that sometimes you have to experience before you fully understand. We all know the passage- John 15:10 if you keep my commands you abide in my love. So why is it so hard at times to keep his commandments? Well I won’t state the obvious answer there but there is another verse that comes to mind about this. 1John5:3- Says that we show God our love for Him by obeying His commands and o by the way- HIS COMMANDS ARE NOT BURDENSOME! I used to think that okay I love God but He says that if I keep His commands I love Him yet why is it so hard to keep from sinning? Even at one point questioning my salvation because of this fact. Was I really one of His children because there was a point in my life that I struggled with sin? I guess the question to be addressed here is can one be saved and not love God? But that’s a whole other theological fight that we aren’t going to get into in this blog or the next and I’m going to tell you to read the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan because he does a great job of addressing this issue in his book.

So how do we wrap this up? I can’t say that we strive after obedience because we all know we’ll utterly fail at every attempt. I guess we have to leave it in the hands of a merciful and gracious God who knows way better than we ever will and He will get us to where we need to be by the help and leading of His Holy Spirit. Thank God for that.

Words to ponder I guess. I’m interested in your input in this one…