It begins with us

Well, I decide to start blogging again and then I get hit by the enemy and haven't blogged in over a week.  I have sat down to blog on a couple of occasions and NOTHING, nothing at all, my mind was blank as all get out.  I sat at my computer for about an hour and I typed and erased, typed and erased, until I finally gave up.

My struggle is coming from the enemy saying to me, "what do you have to offer?"  and to that I say I have nothing to offer, but, Christ has something to offer through me and through writing this blog.  So my prayer for this blog is that it will not be me in my strength and it will not be about me, but that it will be all about Christ in me saying to me and to you (the reader) exactly what we need to hear the Father say to us.

So with that said, let's talk about that lie.  What do you (or I) have to offer?  That is a lie that I believe most of us struggle with.  As a father and husband I have struggled with this.  What do I have to offer, except the ability to go to work and provide for my family.  Don't take that wrong, providing is a good thing, but that is not all we have to offer.  I think we have put ourselves in this box that says all we are good for is providing for our family, that we have nothing else to offer except that.  We somehow have come to believe that we have little to nothing to offer around the home.  If we are handymen, then that fits the place of fixing things and we can offer that.  But what do we think we have to offer when it comes to our wife and children?

I don't know about you, but this thinking of "what do I have to offer" at home, is what kept me working long hours at a job and then coming home to exhausted to offer anything to my wife or kids.  At times I have even thought that my wife was more "spiritual" than me so that too would lead me to think, what do I have to offer?  My kids are pretty well behaved, in public, and so again the thoughts roll in, what do I have to offer?  My thoughts would continue down the path and go something like this, "how could anyone as screwed up as I am have anything to offer" (to any relationship).  So we sit back on our tails and hope and pray (sometimes) that God will watch over them, and that He will lead, guide, and direct their paths.  Well, I do believe God will do that, but I don't believe that we are suppose to sit back and let him do it all.  We are called to LEAD our families, as difficult as it may be, that is the calling we have on our lives as men.