Father's Day Message:

"I'd rather burn out than rust out!" sounds rather noble. But either way you are "out."

People who burn out leave lots of singed relationships and those who rust out might last a long time, but who cares, they aren't making a difference that matters. Staying out of jail doesn't excite me.

As a dad, I'm challenged by "Dallas Willard's comments that the ultimate two questions in life: are what is a good person, and what is the good life."

Throughout history fathers have had to wrestle with those questions, whether the inquisitor is secular divinely inspired

There is more to life than just knowing the facts and more than just being, existing, life is about doing as well. Knowing, being, doing. In shorthand it is - know, be, do. Say that a dozen times for fun.

God designed fathers to be whole, to know the truth that will set us free, but more than the mental, He designed us to be men of integrity who do the things in life that bring Him pleasure.

Chuck Swindoll wrote in Man to Man about the book, The Velveteen Rabbit. It is a reminder that we all need to become more real as fathers... Enjoy."

"In it is a revealing nursery dialogue between a new toy rabbit and an old skin horse. As they are lying side by side one day. Rabbit asks Horse: 'What is REAL?

Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?' 'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are REAL you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. "Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

So cheer up all you bald, paunchy, "used to be an athlete," dads and lets enjoy being who we are in Christ, real dads who understand that God's strength is made perfect through our weakness.