I’m 30.

I’ve always dreamed of being a young dad. You know, the dad that in 5th grade the kid says, “My dad is 30!” I dreamed that I would have 3 kids by the time I was 25. I am now glad that isn’t true, because I was pretty much an idiot at 25 and wasn’t married, but regardless that’s what I always dreamed of happening.

I’m now 30 and just barely married. (In that I mean I’ve only been married a year, not that my wife is doing chloroform searches on google right now.) My wife, who is gorgeous, is only 25 and wasn’t interested in the least bit in having kids for a while and that was completely understandable. Also, she would be a high risk pregnancy as well and that scared her.

I accepted that I was probably going to be dad that my kid describes as “old” at the lunch table when everyone tells how old their parents are and I was OK with it. This is the plan that God has for me and who am I to say that it’s a bad one.

It’s weird how when we stop making plans for ourselves and just accept that God is in control, things change. My wife told me one night, “I think God has softened my heart on having children right now.” My heart jumped and I tried to hold back my excitement. I didn’t even look up from my book when I said, “Oh really?” Then I said something inappropriate for this blog.

A few days later my wife told me that she was ready to try. We did our homework and knew that it was going to be hard since she was high risk. We knew that it was going to take a while. We had the mindset that if it happened, great. If not, great.

Fast forward a few weeks. My wife was at the doctor because she was still hurting from some cysts that she had. The did an ultrasound and found no cysts and no baby. They weren’t sure why she was hurting so bad. The doctor was going over a disease that it could possibly be when she decided to look at her blood work. She stopped in mid-sentence and said, “Oh, you’re pregnant!”

We are pretty sure that it happened on the first try. The first try! That is unbelievable.

I’m going to be a daddy. Typing those words brings tears to my eyes. I’m going to be a daddy. A semi-young one at that!

February 5th, 2012. I had no clue that day could ever mean anything to me. God did. I had no idea that the second I stopped worrying, God would start working. I just needed to trust.

You aren’t in control. Hear that. Know that. Believe that. God is good. His plan is perfect, even when it seems like it’s not.

You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail. Proverbs 19:21

For the record, I think it’s a girl. If it is, she will be named Riley Grace Howard. (If you are my son and it’s 15 years into the future and you stumbled on a weird thing called a “blog” and are reading that I was hoping you would be a girl, I’m sorry. I love you just the way you are.)

Last month, I had the opportunity to go to Brazil with the high school seniors from our church, LifePoint. I wouldn’t have gotten this chance if the high school pastor, David McCaman, hadn’t decided that March was the perfect time to have his first baby. Well, he didn’t have the baby-but you know what I mean. So, while David was playing peek-a-boo with this son, I headed off to Brazil with 20 high school seniors.

To be honest, I was planning on blogging a lot about Brazil. I had some great experiences down there and met some amazing people, but I never wrote anything. I don’t know why really, I just didn’t. There was one lesson from that trip that has stuck out to me more than any other though and it’s probably not what you would expect to get from a mission trip.

You see I only met those seniors that went on the trip this year. I only knew them as the good kids who loved God and worshipped like it was their last time to sing. I only knew them as the kids who I trusted with my middle school students on retreats. These were top of the line students who loved Christ. That’s all I have ever known them as.

Then I began to listen to their testimonies. I started hearing about mistakes and regrets from their past. I heard about huge moments in their life that brought on serious ramifications that they will deal with the rest of their lives. I heard and found out that they weren’t perfect. Obviously, I knew that they weren’t perfect but I didn’t know the person they were describing in their story. I remember saying to myself, “I had no clue he/she went through that.”

Then it hit me. The way that I saw them – the child of God who wanted nothing more than to worship and share Christ – was the way God saw them. God didn’t see them the way they used to be. In fact, he chose to remove our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west.

12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:12

I didn’t know the person those seniors used to be. I couldn’t imagine them making some of the mistakes they made – and what is so incredible and beautiful at the same time is that God knew them when they were making those mistakes and he knows them as the individual they are now.

He was there for comfort and correction during the mistakes and now that’s he’s dropkicked the transgressions from the westside to the eastside, he is there to receive their worship and sees them as the pure child of God that they are. Blameless. Washed. Forgiven. Doesn’t even know them as the person who messed up. Doesn’t see them that way and never will again.

You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.

I know I have only been a student pastor for about 8 months now, but I have picked up on some things already. For example, I know how to successfully navigate a 5 minute conversation with someone and never let on that I have no clue what their name is. Don’t get me wrong, I WANT to learn everyone’s name but there’s a time and place for “What’s your name again?” and it’s not to be done in the middle of someone pouring out their heart about their two week relationship gone sour after he was square dancing partners with another girl! Have some respect!

One thing I have learned though is how to be a pastor on facebook. No, I don’t mean copy and paste your latest message into 54 different status messages each week. I mean, well, you will understand once you see for yourself. Oh, and also – I didn’t learn the hard way on all of these. Just a few.

1. Don’t poke back. Under no circumstances should you ever “poke back” someone. I don’t care if they poked you first. Don’t do it. I have NO clue what it actually means, but the mystery and non-explanation from facebook should tell you enough that it’s not the greatest of ideas.

2. Turn chat off. I would love nothing more than to spend my precious facebook time chatting it up with 26 different middle school kids, but I just can’t do that every time I am on facebook. I mean, I have to change my status and check to make sure my students haven’t committed any murders in the past 24 hours and then go click “like” on every status my wife posts (yes, that’s a part of a husband’s job these days.) Actually, I take it back. I really wouldn’t love chatting it up with 26 middle school students every night. Just on Wednesday’s.

3. Uh, check your pictures. People can tag you in any picture these days. So, take a look through every now and then and make sure that one picture of you from college where you are witnessing to the toilet bowl isn’t on there. Not saying you have to appear to be perfect, but come on…let’s not get too extreme.

4. Don’t be Big Brother. You aren’t the facebook police. One of the easiest ways to keep kids away from your ministry is by constantly pointing out how “bad” they are. They wanted to be your friend on facebook because they like you, not because they want you to comment “tsk tsk tsk” on every status message about talking to a boy. Also, don’t comment on everything going on in someone’s life just because you already have seen it on facebook. I did do this one and was called a “creeper” for knowing stuff that was made public. Yeah, I didn’t get it either, but certainly learned from it!

5. Be normal. Not every post has to be a verse or have some kind of spiritual significance. Be yourself. Students are interested in hearing how normal you are. Obviously a filter is needed, but don’t think I don’t post about using my wife’s deodorant! Cause I do. Post about it…not use my wife’s…wait, I did do that.

There’s 5 easy to follow rules for being a student pastor on facebook. Learn those and you are quickly on your way to building meaningful, deeper relationships with students. Plus you will learn all the new cool shorthand ways to say things. Who knew that SMH meant “shaking my head.” SMH.

Week 3 was the big one. Purity. We talked about it all. You know, portable grills, neural pathways and fish. Yeah, really we did. Purity is so much more than just sexual purity. It begins in the mind and we challenged the students to create healthy neural pathways (google it, I promise I explained it), and when it comes to temptations – don’t be fish. Fish are nothing but an appetite. See the bait, want the bait, eat the bait and before they know it they are hooked and being reeled in. Don’t nibble. Don’t take the bait. Make your purity a priority.

It’s going to be tough. It’s not going to be easy. We know that. We know that because a lot of the times all we do, all, all, all we do is sin.

Week 2 consisted of bringing “Godly Back.” As in bringing God into a relationship. As with every message in this series, I am telling my students that these are intended for their future. At this age, they just don’t need to be in a relationship. But let’s face it, they aren’t going to listen to me on that one. So hopefully they will listen to me on this one.

If you want to bring Godly back in a relationship:
- Become who you want to marry.
- Talk about God.
- Your relationship should bring you closer to God
- Always keep in mind. Dating is a process for marriage.
- Ask yourself, “Does my relationship glorify God?”

Here’s the video we created. It’s set to Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back.”