West Cocoa Chat

Perhaps a sign of maturity is when a child matriculates from asking a parent “what” they do to “why” are they doing what they’re doing? If so, then my son took a little step forward last night. Before I expound let me just say that I feel that way because it demonstrates some evidence they have been thinking about someone else beside themselves.

On the way home from Steven’s pitching lessons last night, Steven asked me a question. I guess I wasn’t paying attention (Probably due to the fact that he was driving and my eyes were glued to the road!) because my answer apparently didn’t match up with his question.

Steven told me I seemed distracted lately. He said, “Dad, you’ll probably think this is an immature question but why are you an elder?” I told him I was proud of him for asking such a question. It is in the asking of such questions that we grow for we must re-examine ourselves. As I told him, it’s not a question I haven’t asked myself periodically in the last few years.

Steve followed up his question by letting me know the fact that my father had died relatively (age 54) young was weighing on his mind. He told me I seemed distracted and that I always seem to have something on my mind. He was worried that all of the stress was going to result in high blood pressure and that concerned him. I wanted to hug him at this point but he was keeping the car on the road and that was most satisfying to me.

Any way, he asked me if I had “elder stuff” on my mind when I was distracted. I was honest and told him it was probably true most of the time.
Again the question – “So why do you do it?”

Big pause.

I told him the thought of resigning as an elder had crossed my mind occasionally and it certainly had it’s upside. As for reasons to support my continued service I came up with:
1. The church needs me right now. Not that I’m anymore qualified than the next guy but we tried to appoint some elders about a year ago and ended up with about the same score (elders – 0, FSU – 7) FSU dropped on the Gators.
2. I actually “like” serving (most of the time) the church. Call me a sick guy but I do “enjoy” (if that’s the right word) being involved in people’s lives.
Final reason:
3. I’m excited about the light for Jesus our church can still become in our community. I actually want to have a part in that process.

When I gave Steven those 3 reasons he gave me one of those looks that I often give my students, one of amazement. I don’t know if he understood or bought what I said but he did say something very important that right now, has me leaking as Steve said yesterday.

He said, “O.K. Dad, I’ll pray for you.”

Maybe today is a good day for all of us to ask Steven’s question to ourselves. Why am I doing this?

Have a good day my brothers and sisters.