In early January 2015 my wife, Laura, and I took our oldest daughter, Katherine, to Sydney, Australia to study at Hillsong International Leadership College. It was a wonderful trip and Laura and I were truly blessed by the opportunity to help our daughter get checked into school and help set up in her new apartment.

As we were preparing to leave I started thinking about the change that was beginning to take place in our lives. Our daughter was now living in Sydney half way around the world and our youngest, Alie, was also in college. We were returning home to an empty house. (Fortunately our three golden retrievers were still there to welcome us home.) While Laura and I sat on the plane getting ready to depart from Sydney I said to her, “How am I going to continue to give my daughters spiritual guidance and continue to share with them how much I love them.” It was then that I decided to start writing a blog.

Now what do I write?

Years ago I decided to make Deuteronomy 6:4-9 a life verse. My wife and I both chose to live our lives in a way that our daughters would know how we felt about them and what we believed.

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

To me, there is no better way to express the love that we have for our children than to proclaim the love we have for Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. This isn’t something that happens without being intentional, and just because my daughters are beginning to step into their adult lives does not mean I am no longer intentional in their lives.

Even now as I continue to ponder and meditate on this verse I can see a bigger plan that God has had for each of us, and it all has to do with how we love each other.

When I was my daughters’ age I can remember thinking, “How can I love God first and most when I only have so much love in my heart?” There was no concept of being able to love beyond what I could see and what I understood.

What I know now is there is no limit to the love I have for my wife and daughters, because there is no limit to the love Jesus has for me. When I place Christ first in my life and live my life for Him I am not only honoring and brining glory to God, I am brining honor and glory to my family.

My commitment to God is the same to my family. I will love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my might. I will teach His words of truth diligently to my family and talk in His ways no matter where I am or what I am doing.

As I pray for my family and seek God’s guidance I hope to share the revelation of His love to each of them through this blog. I can only imagine that this journey will continue to have its challenges, as His ways are not the ways of this world.

Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. ~ Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground… Isaiah 30:21&23