Happy Sunday, friends. And to those who are fathers, Happy Father’s Day. I sit behind my screen today and write while my daughter takes her post-church nap, and I get my post-church introvert decompress time. Man, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE church, and I LOVE people, but as someone who does not get energy from interaction with people, your boy needs his coffee and quiet time after a Sunday service.
I worshipped this morning and thanked the Lord for what He has done in my life, specifically through my daughter. How lucky am I to be a dad? The girls in my life are the two greatest blessings that the Lord has given me. I am a better man today because of the lessons that my 19-month-old best buddy has taught me. She has reintroduced me to wonder. I often find myself stricken in awe of how the Lord demonstrates his Love so robustly through a 26-pound package that often dawns a pink bow.
But I was also brought to the fact that Father’s Day is hard for many men because they have been chasing fatherhood for a long time. Father’s Day is hard for men who have lost a child, and Father’s Day is hard for people who have absent, abusive, neglectful fathers. And Father’s Day is hard for people who have lost their fathers.
To the people that Father’s Day is hard. I see you and recognize and validate the hurt you feel. You are not weak for feeling emotions and for experiencing the not-so-fun feelings.
In the 19 months that I have been a dad, the complexity of fatherhood has almost become humorous to me. In one moment, your wife gives birth; your adoption papers get signed, or you inherit a child through the loss of a loved one; I want to acknowledge obtaining the title of father isn’t a cookie-cutter process. There are many paths that lead to your new name of Dad. But regardless of how you get there, the transition is instant. One minute you aren’t, then you blink, and you are. And somehow, we have this expectation of ourselves to be prepared for the weight now resting on our shoulders.
I have let this weight crush me for the last couple of years. The enemy is the thief of Joy, and I have let him do that without resistance. Truthfully, I have probably helped him in that part of my life more than I have opposed him.
Joy in the form of Belly-laughing seems foreign to me, a memory of something that I used to experience before I surrendered to the anxieties of adult life because there isn’t a moment that I am not consumed with something else or worried about another thing.
I expand the window of effect out to the day that we learned there was a baby in the belly. I remember the tangible pressure that I INSTANTLY felt.
How am I going to be a dad?
How am I going to provide for this baby?
It’s hard to picture yourself as a good father when you don’t have the right view of yourself. You wonder how you're going to love another being who is completely dependent on you if you don’t really even love yourself.
The Lord has been working on my heart for the last two years, and one of the things that I am still in the process of is the idea of financial provision for my daughter. Well, for my family in its entirety, but the idea of setting up my little girl for success in her life is an added layer to my tear-provoking onion.
But this week, the Lord has been highlighting things for me in His Word, and Holy Spirit is teaching me.
I want to be so rich.
I like to tell myself that I don’t have a love for money. And truthfully, the primary motive for wanting to be wealthy is not self-serving. I want to be filthy, filthy rich and have no soul outside of my wife and financial advisor know. I want to be able to buy people cars because they need them, pay mortgages that aren’t mine, send tired parents on vacations, and not blink an eye at picking up the bill for any meal.
People may be pure in their own eyes but the Lord examines their motives.
- Proverbs 16:2
Money is a tool, and I want to have a whole tool shed. But I would be lying if my motives were purely to bless people outside of my family. I don’t want my wife or my daughter to have to spend a moment of their life thinking about money. And I really don’t think that my motives are sinful, but here is where the enemy wiggles his stupid self into my heart. He tells me, you can be rich, do it yourself. You’re smart enough to invest correctly. Real estate is like Monopoly, and you never lose at the game; you can do that easily. You don’t need to listen to the whispers of Holy Spirit. Do it yourself.
I started consuming all of the material I could around building wealth. Reading books about side hustles. Watching Youtube classes around side hustles. Paying for courses around creating a side hustle. Staring side hustles. With no success. I was not suddenly wealthy despite my countless hours pursuing the worldly recipe for success.
Wealth from get rich quick schemes quickly disapears. Wealth from hard work grows over time.
-Proverbs 13:11
A wise person in hungry for knowledge while the fools feed on trash
-Proverbs 15:14
In the last couple of weeks, the Lord has been doing two things
working on my vocabulary. He has been erasing some of the definitions that I have adopted from the world and replacing them with ones from His Word.
Using those new definitions to reorder the priorities in my life.
I want to be wealthy. But what does The Word of God say about wealth?
6 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.
7 After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it.
8 So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.
9 But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.
10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.
-1 Timothy:6-10
How often have I fallen into the temptation of longing to be rich?
How many times have I wandered from true faith in the fact that God is Yahweh Yireh, the God who provides?
How often have I believed that financial provision was a factor in my ability to be a father?
How frequently have I worked myself into panic attacks and states of anxiety over the numbers in a bank account?
Better to have little with fear for the Lord than to have great treasure and inner turmoil.
-Proverbs 15:6
Fear of the Lord is often misunderstood as a shaking in the boots that if we disobey God, He will strike us down in anger. When it actually is a deep understanding of what a life of intimacy with the Lord feels like and a fear of ever living outside of His presence.
Man, how often have I moved forward with an endeavor without consulting the Lord about His thoughts on the matter? Sure I asked him to bless it.
“God bless this idea that I have that I think will be really good for us. You think that too? Cool cool. You’ll bless it then, I am sure.”
But what if He had better plans for me, and all I had to do was listen for his response?
What if my actions were in line with His will?
Commit Your actions to the Lord and your plans will succeed.
-Proverbs 16:2
In the last couple of weeks, I have given the Lord space to speak on the matter of wealth.
Here is what he has taught me.
The root of my pursuit of wealth at the beginning was this. I wanted to be a good dad. I wanted to provide for my family, and a bank account with a whole bunch of zeros was my solution. It was the answer taught by the world for the insecurity created by the questions of the enemy.
Last night my wife, daughter, and I blasted worship music through the house as we danced and twirled flags (kitchen towels). My daughter giggled uncontrollably as she spun in circles, just abiding in the presence of the Lord.
I may or may not leave my daughter with a massive financial inheritance. She might have to work a couple of days in her life. 🤯. I don’t know.
But I do know this. As her father, I will teach her that wealth is true godliness and contentment. That she serves a good God.
I will teach her that a fear of the Lord is the greatest thing she can possess. She will know the Holy Spirit, and that Holy Spirit is a gift that she has access to forever.
And because we are His children, God has sent The Spirit of His Son into our hearts. Prompting us to call him “ Abba Father”.
-Galatians 4:6
I think that the world, specifically LinkedIn, has done a good job in my heart of creating a fear of the future. If I am not doing something now, someone I care about will be affected negatively later.
Here is the truth.
The money left to my daughter is irrelevant. Finances are nothing to the Lord. But the inheritance that my daughter will receive is an understanding of the Trinity. A love for the Lord. A relationship with the Spirit and a reverence of God. And I have to have faith that we serve Yahweh Yireh. And that regardless of the financial systems that I have in place for my children, they will serve a God who is good to the lilies. How much better will he clothe my babies?
🎙️Weekly Podcast
I am being taught a lot right now by Pastor Landon at Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth.
This message on Joy is important. We experience Spiritual Warfare relentlessly in all aspects of our life.
I think this podcast would be a good listen for your commute this week.
Listen Here!
🔽🔽🔽
🙌🏼 Weekly Worship
The song that my family danced to for 20 minutes last night.
It’s long. I am not sorry.🤷🏽♂️
It is saturated with scripture💧, and 20 minutes of that in your ears is better than a majority of the crap we consume from the world. 🗑️
Listen Here!
🔽🔽🔽
📚 Weekly Book
I am going to try something new here.
I am going to be re-reading “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S Lewis in the next couple of weeks.
The book is dense and written in the 40s. It can be really chewy and hard to digest due to the nature of the style of writing and the time period that it was penned. BUT the content is so important and very, very relevant to the world we live in today.
I am going to be doing a book study through my podcast with the “Screwtape Letters.” Chapter by chapter, talk through, process, and translate C.S Lewis vernacular to the best of my ability 😂
I just remember sitting on a plane reading this book in awe of how parallel it was with our current world and thinking, “man, if only he wrote in a more palatable way, then this book wouldn’t be so intimidating because the content is crucial.” Well, I want to talk about its content.
You can buy it through my Amazon link here.
If you want to join in the convo that I am going to have through my podcast. You can listen to my podcast right here!
💪🏼 Weekly Challenge
The idea of placing things in the right order has been heavy on my heart this week.
I oftentimes put things above the Lord in terms of priority simply by giving them more mind space than they deserve. I fail to surrender certain things that I shouldn’t be carrying in the first place.
Right now, that thing in my life is finances.
My challenge to you would be to ask the Lord to illuminate what things you are thinking about more than you are thinking about him.
We serve a jealous God. He doesn’t like you thinking more about other lowercase g gods than you think about him, the One True Living God.
🙏🏼 Weekly Prayer
This week I am praying for babies. I am intentionally and consistently going to be praying for my friends and family members who are trying for babies, and it is taking longer than they had hoped. I am praying for men who have allowed the enemy to illegitimately attack their worth because they have not been able to have children. I am praying for women who have felt the same shame.
In the same breath, I will be praying for the miracle babies who have been born to parents who were told by doctors that they couldn’t have babies. I am praying for the babies that took their time in coming at the perfect time.
I hope that this week’s edition of the Weekly Weapons Newsletter was beneficial to you in one way or another.
As this thing evolves, I would LOVE feedback or just responses.
You can email me at mitchparsonscreative@gmail.com
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Until next time.
PEACE✌🏻