Kosuke Koyama, a Japanese theologian, wrote a very fascinating book called Three Mile An Hour God.  Koyama points out that the average person walks at a pace of about 3 miles per hour, which for a kid who grew up in the hustle and bustle of a big city feels like snail's pace.  Using this analogy, Koyama argued that often this is the pace at which God works: slow, slower, slowest. 

In the 17th century, Isaac Newton (building off the work of Galileo) defined his universal laws of motion. One such law was the law of inertia, which stated: “an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” The laws of physics are helpful in understanding things such as motion and movement but they do little to explain a movement.

Parenting might be one of the hardest and yet highest callings that God bestows upon a person.  It is full of unknowns, anxiety, celebrations, surprises, weird smells, laughter, and a host of other emotions and experiences.  Furthermore, the Bible gives us clear instruction on how the gospel is to be applied in our day to day parenting.  This past week as we finished out our series in the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul gave explicit instructions to parents (and specifically dads): “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged” (3:21).

Unfortunately, many people have had the disappointing experience of making reservations, getting dressed up, and going out for a nice steak dinner…only to find out that the steak was sub par.  One of the things that can cloud your culinary experience is a chewy steak that is more fat and bone than actual meat.  You spend more time working to spit out the parts you don’t like than you do enjoying the parts you do like.

As much as I loathed the idea of starting a new school year - the one thing I looked forward to every year was buying new school supplies.  There was nothing more satisfying than the crispness of a new notebook with the freshness of each blank page.  The clean white pages signified a new start with new opportunities and boundless possibilities.