Titles I’ve been given. . .that mean the most to me . . . that I did nothing to deserve:

• Husband
• Dad
• Son
• Brother
• Child of God
• Youth Minister

When my son was born, I was given the title “Dad” but I didn’t feel like I deserved that honor; I hadn’t struggled with any sacrifices (sleep, money, patience, time, or whatever else fatherhood will someday demand of me). I didn’t even have to change his diaper for the first couple of days in the hospital.

While we were still in the hospital, I realized that same thing was true of all the most important titles that I have. Most significantly, Child of God-I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve that grace. God offered me salvation before I understood what that word meant. God offers me all these blessings without a resume, an interview, or a reference. He just trusts me. . . .He trusts that I will fulfill my calling to love the people in my life. How can he trust us that much when it is so easy to mess up and hurt people?

I am so humbled by his love.

My Title: Blessed One.

Now that I’m a parent, I suppose I’m supposed to have a messy car with sticky door handles and rotting Cheerios under the seats.

Today I went shopping while hungry . . . I did good though, I only splurged on a tasty looking coffee milkshake thing.

When I got back to my car I dug it out and discovered it had one of those plastic seals around the lid so you would know if someone had tampered with the bottle. I appreciate the protection, but I was in no mood to mess around with a “tamper proof seal.” I twisted the cap as hard as I could assuming the seal would give way and I could enjoy my treat. No luck. The seal was made of thinly-woven Superman hair.

There were no perforations on the seal, so I don’t know how the manufacturer expected me to take it off. I gave it a couple more twists hoping that would do the trick, but I failed. Now I was hungry and irritated.

“Think, Doug, think!” And it came to me. My best friend gave me a mini Leatherman as the groomsmen gift and it was in my glove compartment! Pleased with my quick thinking, I snatched the knife and cut off the seal. That’s when I noticed the “Shake Well Before Drinking” sign on the cap. That made sense, so I jerked the bottle up and down, the cap (which was loosened from all my twisting) flew off, and coffee goop splashed across my dashboard, passengers’ seat and door, and in my lap. In the bottom of the bottle there was about a half of a sip left; just enough to confirm my suspicion that this would have been a delicious treat.

So my car smells like coffee, and there is goop everywhere, but I’m not worried, because I just remembered I can blame it on my kid.

They’re all gone! ALL of them!!! Someone in the office must be reading my blog . . .

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

We just received a ton of Valentine’s candy . . . I’ll keep you posted. (see Sweet Success 1 & 2)

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Is it dangerous to have someone “in charge” who doesn’t know what is going on?

Tonight I planned a little dinner for my fellow youth ministers. The plan was simple; we were to meet at Boone Tavern at 8pm for fellowship, dinner, and a touch of YM training.

Attempting to be the punctual leader, I show up 15 minutes early. Being proud of my “lead-by-example” early arrival, I strut up to the hostesses and announce, “My name is Doug Royal. I reserved a table for 8pm.”

“We don’t take reservations,” replied the hostess. Since I was already over confident (I had also just finished five glasses of soda at birthday party with some friends) I smugly assumed that I was dealing with an inexperienced hostess who obviously didn’t know everything about her restaurant. So I though if I change the wording and maybe speak a little louder, she would see that she is obviously wrong. “I reserved a room in the back for a party of 10.”

The other hostess chimed in with, “We don’t have a room in the back.” Clearly they were wrong, so I tried one more rewording.

“I called Boone Tavern on Monday, and reserved a room.”

“Um, this is Flat Branch.” . . . And the two of them had a well deserved laugh.

After I appologized, I asked for directions, and they tried to oblige me. They didn’t know exactly where Boone Tavern was, but assured me that it was on the south side of Broadway. All I needed to do was drive around and I was sure to find it.

It was now 10 minutes until 8:00, and I was feeling rather foolish. I drove around for about 5 minutes but couldn’t find Boone Tavern, so I decided to stop at another restaurant and ask for direction. Harpo’s had a parking spot out front, so I swerved in and slammed on the breaks. After playing frogger with the traffic I made it in and asked directions. Apparently I had asked the manager . . . and he didn’t seem very eager to give me directions to a competitor’s location. After a short hesitation he decided to give me the directions.

I arrived at Boone Tavern a mere 5 minutes late, and half of our Ministry Team was already there. I told them my story, they laughed and forgave me. We had a great meal, and I finished another 5 glasses of soda . . . so now it’s midnight and I can’t sleep.

The moral of this story is: If you’re going to be late, forgiveness will come easily if you give everybody a chance to laugh at the “leader.”

Have you ever heard about the experiment with the frog and the boiling water? . . . If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water he will jump out immediately, but if you put him is warm water and slowly bring it to a boil he will stay in there until he is cooked to death. . . Getting old is kind of like getting cooked to death, because it’s hard to recognize exactly when you get old.

I used to think I was a pretty technologically savvy guy. When I was 12 I taught myself Apple Basic, and Q Basic. I even programmed a couple of dumb word games.

Today, on my lunch break (in case my boss is reading this . . . actually, I’m writing this from the office now, so I guess I’ll be working late tonight) I stopped by a gaming store to check out the Wii. I haven’t had a system in years because I was spending too much time playing games (now I spend all my time messing around on the computer and reading books . . . oh well, so I’ll never be an international kick-boxing champion). I walked up to the display and was immediately baffled. There were no controllers. I knew that Nintendo had developed something cool with their controllers, but I didn’t realized they had discovered how to tap into my brain waves. I didn’t want to touch anything because I was afraid of looking stupid. Instead I just stood there with my jaw drooping and my nose scrunched up while my eyes scanned every tiny label and sticker to find some instructions. After a couple of minutes of this a store cleark, who looked to be about my age and was considerably more pale than me, greeted me.

“How’s it going.”

“Not bad.” I replied and hesitated before asking, “Is this a touch-screen system?”

“No the batteries are dead on the controllers.”

Ahh, the batteries! That one has always got me. Two weeks after my 10th Christmas I tore apart my first remote-controlled car trying to fix it. My mom approached me right about the time I had dismantled the car beyond repair and asked what I was doing. When I told her she informed me that the batteries were probably just dead, then walked away because she knew that car would never drive again.

So either I’m getting old, or I’m just dumb.

Someday I’ll have to tell you about my first encounter with a DVD player . . . it took me about 4 hours to figure out how to make it work.