Part of Sermon for 2/26

Proverbs 31:10-31 (ESV)
¹⁰ An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. ¹¹ The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. ¹² She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.

What do you do with the things that you value? My daughter Aidyn learned one of those lessons that every child has to at some point. On Friday she came home from school with a paper cup, some leaves in it and was so excited to show it to me. After closer examination I realize that there were a half dozen potato bugs in the cup as well or as she called the rolly pollies. As cute as this venture was the cup had to put out on the table on or deck and I specifically remember hearing Karin say, those bugs are not staying in our house. So yesterday after returning home from dance class in the morning, Aidyn made her way up the back steps onto our deck, and all she saw was a paper cup that had been knocked over by the wind, and dead rolly pollies all over the table. It is what I like to refer to as the lighting bug lesson. And what do you think her reaction was? I was downstairs working on our fence and I heard the scream, and though I was not there I am sure it was nothing but big crocodile tears for awhile. When you value something first you take care of it, but then if something does happen you are heart broken.

So why is it that often those who we will do the most harm are those closest to us? For some of you that doesn'’t mean a spouse or lover, but yourself. If you really saw your value could you hate yourself the way you do? Every single one of us in this room, has done it even if we cannot remember that time that we shouted at our parents, I HATE YOU. Even if you are here tonight and you don'’t value those around you or even yourself, I want to let you know as unworthy as you might feel, there is someone who knows you completely and values you. Jesus tells this story in the presence of those who were looked at and probably even felt of no value. Read Luke 15

Here it is my day off, and my only goal was to clean off my desk in the office at home. I have been at it for about three hours and I am still not done. I am working on three fronts. First is the home front all those things that have to do with being a part of the Stevens family. Mostly this has to do with finances and filing stuff. Second front is the Church related stuff. This is all over the board from books, to emails to articles, to magazines...I've just started to scratch the surface with that. Thirdly, there is a ton of stuff from Skyline Lacrosse. This is the first year I am functioning as the head coach. The last few years all I did was focus on the kids, when I had them. Now I am managing seven coaches, four teams, and close to one hundred kids. Last week we seperated the oldest kids into A and B teams. This was hard, I lost sleep over it, but in the end I think it went well. But with that pressure all the other stuff got piled up on my desk. Wow. If I want to get anywhere near finished tonight I had better stop writing and get back to work.