As a church family RENEW is venturing through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. What began as deep, rich theology, has turned the corner to the “practical matters” of life. It’s as if the foundation has been laid, the walls are built, and the fixtures installed. Now we’re living in the house God built, full of grace and truth. He enters every room where life is enjoyed and helps us re-order it around the centerpiece, the Gospel of Grace. Next week is about work, our life vocation, while last week was about marriage. This week is about parenting.
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise),
3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”
4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
—Ephesians 6:1-4
In our home we want to see these commands obeyed, from the heart. And not just by the kids. We are all children, even us grown-ups. We all have parents, whether living or deceased. We all were children at one time, with good parents, or bad ones, or mostly likely, imperfect parents who did their best and wanted us to become more than they were (with varying definitions of “more”).
At one time we children stopped obeying our parents, for we grew up and they no longer had authority over us. (Or if your parents were bad and asked you to do things against God’s good and pleasing well, then you had to stop obeying them earlier.) Yet we never stop honoring them. That’s the challenge for us adult kids, to keep honoring our parents, and pursuing creative ways to do that. Just as parents set aside what they wanted to do in order to give us what we needed, now we set aside what we want in order to bless them.
We’ve nicknamed our house the Greenhouse, partly because it’s green, but mostly because we hope to grow up our “starts” into healthy, thriving “plants.” A greenhouse is an optimal environment which provides everything necessary for growth. There’s food, water, shelter, and yet much more. There’s a healthy — even loving — structure and order of things, with a master gardener who ensures every plant thrives in order to “grow up” and one day grow roots down into other soil outside the safe confines of the greenhouse. It takes nurture and it takes discipline. Both are necessary in a nuanced balance. That’s the essence of “instruction,” which is really teaching. And teaching is more than telling others what to do and believe. Teaching involves a relationship; it means walking alongside others as they learn, and letting them fail in safe ways before — and so that — they succeed. Every teacher will tell you it’s hard yet wonderfully rewarding work. I am learning that good parents are teachers.
“I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.'”
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While that setback bummed me out, it was on the heels of the logging the most miles in consecutive months since I last weighed the same as I do now (at age 19). So, taking a long-view helps, for elite runners (or elite-anybodies) are not made overnight. It takes step after step, and mile upon mile. For example, I average more than 30-seconds-per-mile faster than I did a year ago. On top of averaging an additional three miles per run.
As you run: need some encouragement? 
