Eddie's Blog

Born Broken

The last few Sundays we've been talking about families. We've called it the "Real Families" series. It's all about what real families are like.

We figured that all families are disfunctional ... and there's a reason why ... We were born broken. We were born into sin. We were born into a broken world. So we've already gotten started off on the wrong foot. So God sent Jesus Christ to fix it. We know that through His blood ... Through His forgiveness, things can be restored.

I've had people ask me, "Why do you think that people get divorced? Why do families break up?" I think one of the things that happen is that we quit doing the things that we were doing when we were in love. The critical years are the 7th and the 11th years. And I think at some point, we sort of become roommates more than realizing what God has given us, especially from the beginning of our relationship. Relationships are difficult anyway ... Then you add children in there. God meant for the family to represent Him. And how we love each other is how He loves us. It's very difficult to do. Wheather it comes to your relationship with God or your realtionship with each other.

What I talked about Sunday was if you want to have a disfunctional family or if you want to lose your marriage, all you have to do is do nothing. Because the normal progression of things is to deteriorate. The normal progression of life is to become disfunctional because we were born into a world that is disfunctional and a world that is broken. If you're going to have anything good in life and you want things to be good and to work, then you're going to have to pay attention to it. There never can be a time when you let up. There never can be a a time when you decide I'm going to coast today. Because if you coast on your marriage and you coast on your children, you're going to lose them. That is just the natural progression and order of things.

It is abnormal to have a loving, caring family. That has to be worked at. Most people don't understand that when they get into a marriage or even into a relationship with God. The relationship has to be worked on. The relationship has to be thought about. We will not naturally progress into a great marriage. We will not naturally progress into having great children. That is something that will have to be thought about and will have to be worked at on a daily basis. We were born broken ... Jesus fixed us. We have the power to live and the power to do things we never thought possible. But when we quit paying attention, that's when we get in trouble.

Satan's greatest tool, and he uses it over and over again, is to replace and misplace. To replace God in your life and  to misplace your time and misplace your values. He's a master at it. The key is realizing that God does have first place in our lives and that we do seek Him out in everyday events and in everyday life. We have to be paying attention to our family ... to our kids. We've got to be careful that Satan doesn't misplace our thoughts ... misplace our energy ... misplace our time .... because those are the things that are needed to have great relationships.

3-D Living

On August 10th I did a message on 3-D Living and how sometimes Satan distorts reality. He does it a lot. Trying to make us believe what is true isn't really true. I had a chance to talk about what happened to me and how I was divorced at a young age when my wife had committed adultry and ended our relationship. I was amazed at the fact that I was able to tell the story. I even told the story in the third person, so that near the end of the message, I revealed to everyone that this is what happend to me.

At the 10:00 and 11:30 services, as soon as I revealed to everyone that it was me that this had happened to, everyone stood to their feet and gave me a standing ovation. And I realized at that moment how divorced people have been feeling for a very long time ... especially living in the Bible Belt. People have treated them like second class citizens or like people who could not be fully used by God. So I basically told them that I am someone that it did happend to and God still used me. The response to that message has been overwhelming. I have received loads of notes and e-mails of support.

One of the things that Satan does is tells people that they can't be fully used because of some of our past mistakes. I grew up as a Southern Baptist and this feeling about divorced people runs like a river through the church community. I had this conversation with the Deacon Board in a baptist church ... How God allowed the Apostle Paul, who once murdered Christians, to write half of the New Testament; and how incredible it was that God used him ... But yet a divorced person can't be used.

They can't become deacons. Some churches won't even let them teach a Sunday School class. In these churches, you can be a drug addict, be forgiven, AND still be a deacon. You can have an affair on your wife, reconcile, AND still be a deacon. You can be a murderer, be reconciled, do your time, AND still be a deacon ... BUT you can't be a divorced person and be used in that capacity in a Baptist church.

There's a story about a pastor in Georgia, who had done just that. He had been in prison for murder and served his time. He got out of prison and became the pastor of a local church in Georgia. God has always been in the habit of using people that nobody else wanted to use. He used the Disciples. He used people in the New Testament who were basically outcasts to the religious community. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ and I believe that.

Marathon has been a place where people can come and get a second chance ... People can come and find life again. And I think that Sunday was a great example of when people are set free and suddenly realize that they CAN be fully used by God. I want Marathon to always be that place where people can find hope and find a second chance and a new life. That's what God gave us all.

The Dolly Disaster

A couple of weeks ago Lynn and I decided to take Faith up to Gatlinburg to celebrate her adoption on July 17th. We were just up there hanging out at Dollywood and Splash Country having a wonderful time. It's one of the best trips we've ever had as a family.

It's so neat to see Faith come along and feel comfortable about going places, and especially to understand that we are her mom and dad. She's made alot of progress and changes through the whole process.

So, we were at Splash Country where Faith usually wants to ride everything. Oh man, she gets so mad when she can't ride something because she's not tall enough. Faith is a real daredevil and doesn't mind taking risks. And Faith doesn't mind getting on the biggest slide there is and taking off to wherever it may lead.

We had been there about all day and it was getting close to time to leave. It was about 4:30 and they close at 6 PM. We had been on the Lazy River, The Mountain Twist and other wet & wild rides.Then Faith saw a couple other little slides, and I told her I'd go with her on them. So, after she had been on those slides about 10 or 15 times I told her I was going to move to the front of the slide so I could watch her come down ... But by the time I could get around, probably not more than 10 seconds, Faith was standing in the shallow water in a pool of blood! She had come down the slide, ran into the back of another little boy and busted her lip wide open!

Now, I've never experienced a "boo-boo" this big as a parent ... seeing your child bleeding like that. Before I could get to her, all of the sudden the Splash Country lifegaurds had blown their whistles, moved in and grabbed her, picked her up and shut down the pool. Then the lifeguard pressed a big patch of gauze on her mouth and taken her to the First Aid tent. I was running right behind them, and Faith was crying, "Daddy, save me! Daddy, save me!"

It was an interesting experience for me. My heart just went out to her! I've never felt that feeling of helplessness and wanting to help your child so much. I can only imagine how God must feel about us when we get hurt. But it was an experience that I will never forget. Within 10 minutes, Faith was already hollering, "I want to go slide again!" So it all worked out. But it did help me understand how God loves us when we hurt. To be able to feel that pain and helplessness that we have as parents. All in all, it was just a bump in the road because we had the greatest trip yet.

First Sunday Back

It's tough coming back from vacation... I don't care where you work or what you do. Getting to sleep late and play golf... you know, enjoying the fun things in life. It's always tough to give that up and get back on track. Sunday was my first day back in about four weeks, and it was really good to be back! I could feel the energy and I realized why I love the people of Marathon so much! The music was INCREDIBLE! All the stuff we get to do is so awesome.

I got to be a part of the Membership Class. I always like to drop in so I can talk to the new members and ask them what they like about Marathon ...why they're here. You know, it always comes down to, "I love Marathon because the people are so friendly." "I love Marathon because someone spoke to me." Those are the things that we hear. I always like to share the vision of Marathon and why we do Sunday morning the way we do. Being able to bring people to the church who are not Christians ... lost people. Being able to be comfortable with that. Basically, what I tell them is that Marathon just takes away all the excuses why people won't go to church. Whether it be clothing issues or messages that aren't relevant to them. We take away all of that. The idea is for us to remember to hang out with people. Hang out with lost people. Get to know them. Establish a relationship with them so that we can invite them to church. That's one of the things that came out in the Membership Class...that Marathon isn't judgmental. That people can come to church, whatever their situation, wherever they've come from, whatver their background. And they can find God there. They will be accepted. That's always been the case at Marathon. There was a lot of energy in the Membership Class.

There has been a lot of energy over the summer at Marathon on Sunday mornings. I'm just enjoying it and I'm glad to be back! I'm looking forward to going into our new Student Building some time in September. We're already making plans for the new building: We're looking at doing over-flow services, and all the things that we're going to need when we hit fall. We're trying to do five mail-outs a year now, so we've got a new mail-out going out the end of August that's going to hit over 100,000 homes. We're really looking forward to seeing what God is going to do with that!. Then, of course there's football. So there are a lot of great things coming up real soon.

The Real Family

We've started a new series for August. We're talking about Real Families. The way God set it up -- the ABC's of families -- The way it should be -- The role of the father -- The role of the mother. You know, we're trying to let people know that this is the way that God wants it to be. We understand that we do have an enemy. Our culture is always trying to rearrange the order in which God has placed things. When we let that happen, it really messed some things up. I'll tell you what was alarming to me, and I'll just give it to you ... I had Cathey, my secretary, do some research for me and I found out some things about "Fatherless Homes." I want to give you some of those statistics.

Fatherless homes account for:

63% of youth suicides

90% of homeless/runaway children

85% of children with behavior problems

71% of high school dropouts

85% of youths in prison

well over 50% of teen mothers.

It is alarming to think what it does to the children and what it does to the family when the father isn't there. Even when the father is living there, he may be what I call an "absentee father" ...he's living in the home but he's not doing what he was designed to do. He's not fulfilling his role. I don't know why some men do what they do, but it could be that they just don't know what to do. Maybe they weren't raised that way. Everybody has come from some place when it comes to their upbringing. Now fathers and husbands are trying do to only what they know and maybe they didn't have the best teacher. That's why we're trying to go over roles and what it does to kids and what it does to the family. The bottom line for the whole family is that God should be at the top. Everything starts with Him. The father is to be the spiritual leader for the wife and the children. We did talk about one thing and that is that we've got to be careful to protect our marriage. We can't let the children take over the home and become the focus of the marriage. The marriage should remain between husband and wife. Like I said on Sunday morning, the best thing you can ever do for your children is to have a great marriage.