Winning Souls, Part II

After my last blog entry, I did some more thinking on the subject. Yes, I have a responsibility to share the gospel and bring glory to Jesus with my life and my words. But as a husband and father, my first responsibility is to my family. There have been men who did great exploits for Christ and impacted thousands of people, yet neglected their duties at home. Today, their homes are split and their children confused and bitter toward God and the church.

I want to first of all do what God instructed in Deuteronomy: "Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates" (Deuteronomy 6:7-9, NIV). If I don't do this, my other accomplishments will seem empty at the end of the day.

As promised, here's a peek at the world's finest young man.

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Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

Winning Souls

"The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise" Proverbs 11:30.

After years of contemplating this verse, I still am not sure if the writer means a wise person will spend their time winning souls or if it takes wisdom to win a soul. Either way, I agree. The problem is that I don't feel very good at it, and the results, or lack thereof, back up that feeling. There are two possibilities.

1. I am not a wise person because I don't devote enough time and energy to winning souls. While I may not dream about a Mustang like Wendy, I have my fair share of materialistic dreams. Some of them are for the family; some are for me. Nicer house, bigger boat, plump college fund, a small ranch, and on and on. Am I putting soul-winning above all else? I'm afraid to truthfully answer that one.

2. I am not approaching soul-winning in a wise manner. I like to fish, but I don't go that often. When I do, I motor to a likely-looking spot, reach into the tackle box and try to remember what lure I saw Bill Dance on the Wal-Mart video, then spend several hours of (generally) fruitless casting. I usually come home empty-handed, or perhaps with a good story about the one that got away. My soul-winning tactics are similar, and so are my results.

Linda's story, however, is somewhat different. She is both persistent and consistent. Every other month, she drops by the same house. She always greets you with a smile. She remembers the the family's names, even though they've never visited her church. She doesn't pressure you into committing to anything, but she has an upbeat, positive message and she always leaves something, a tract, newsletter, or Bible, in your hand. Then she's gone, with a promise to check in later. She hasn't converted me to be a Jehovah's Witness, but she has convicted me with her dedication and wisdom in soul-winning.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

All in the Family

I had great intentions. I'm off of work for 4 days using my vacation time to stay at home (a first for me), so I planned to get up early each day, fix up the yard, help with the housework, do some reading, and practice my daddy skills. The family had other ideas. First, the kid, Jathan, was hungry at 4:30 a.m. this morning, so I had to sleep a little later to catch up on my shut-eye. Then, his noontime feeding didn't go too well. We're adding cereal to his formula, and evidently he wasn't getting a satisfactory flow today. After he made his displeasure clear to us (and half the neighborhood), we gave him a plain formula bottle. That seemed to take up the early afternoon. Finally, the wife needed to go shopping while she had free babysitting. Luckily, the kid slept the entire time I pushed him around the mall, allowing my wife to spend a few days' earnings to catch up on the shopping she missed during pregnancy. Get home, eat supper, and get ready for quiz practice. I know my days don't go this quickly at work!

Meanwhile, life outside the Lewis household goes on. A passport will soon be required to visit our Canadian neighbors. The world mourns the passing of its most prominent religious leader, while prophecy fiends everywhere wonder whether the new pontiff will be the anti-christ. Catholics just want a little change, but not too much. In the sports arena, North Carolina won a championship for Roy Williams. Sadly, I finished 20th out of 27 in the 90&9 March Mania pool.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!

Test Day

With all due respect to the soldiers, sailors and marines out there, the Air Force usually attracts the more intelligent recruits, as our jobs are generally more technical in nature. To go along with that, the Air Force (aka the Chair Force) has a reputation as the “wimpiest” among the armed services. For a number of years, our physical fitness test was a complex bike test that measured your heart’s response to increasing resistance. This didn’t exactly toughen our reputation among soldiers and marines whose idea of a morning constitutional is a 10-mile jog in full combat gear. It’s now been changed to include a 1.5-mile run, waist measurement, pushups, and crunches, which is almost respectable.

Today was my annual Air Force physical fitness test. The push-ups and crunches are no problem, as I'm able to get max points from them. My waist size, however, had increased 1.5 inches over last year, and my run time was almost a minute slower (10 min, 20 sec). Those numbers were still enough to keep me in the Good category, but bumped me out of the Excellent bracket. I was bummed out—8 fewer seconds would have put me over the hump (of course, fewer cookies would have helped). I actually did better than expected, but I attribute that to my competitive nature. There were two people in front of me on the run, and I was determined to pass them. I may have been a greyhound in my first life--I'd run all day to try to catch the rabbit in front of me!

If there are any dedicated runners out there, let me know how you stay motivated.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!