WARNING: This could be gross.

As a parent of a one year old, I have come across a rather weird situation. There are often times when I’m alone with my son at home (no big deal), and I got to pee. No matter how well I try to time the day, the need always seems to happen when he’s awake. So I’m stuck with three options: 1) hold it (ya right), 2) lock him out of the bathroom and listen to him scream, or 3) let him into the bathroom with me.

I opt for number 3. I’m not sure what psychological damage I’m doing to my son, but maybe the example will help him potty train. It has to be better than letting my son think his daddy’s locked himself away, right?

Here’s where the gross part comes up. Advert your eyes if you feel it necessary.

My son has that inquisitive nature. You know, the one that means he has to touch everything so he can figure out what it is. Right now, he’s fascinated with the toilet. This has naturally led to a rather awkward balance of one hand taking care of business and the other holding my son away from the toilet.

I was reflecting on this the other day (partly because I’m sure it’s left me with some psychological damage), and it occurred to me that this is often how God ends up treating me. See, my curiosity often gets the better of me, and I go wondering into something I shouldn’t be. God, who is ever so gracious, doesn’t just lock me out. Sadly, I don’t always have the impulse control to keep out of things I shouldn’t be in. I end up forcing God to do a balance of letting me in and holding me back.

It’s amazing how often I look at my son and think to myself that he’s years away from being mature enough to know what isn’t good for him. This begs me to look at my own life and question whether or not I am mature enough. I find more often than not I simply failed to keep myself on the right path and out of trouble.

Yet the amazing thing is this: I, like my son with me, never lose God’s love. No matter what I get myself into, God is always there to guide me out.

So when I’m taking care of business, I reflect on what I’ve gotten myself into that day. When I need help out, I look for the hand of God to hold me back.

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Today, I have the honor of writing the first post of the new year. We all know that the first of January is the signal that we need to take a new look at our resolution list. If you're anything like me, you quit last year's list earlier than you meant to do. You know—like January 2nd.

See, it seems like we always make resolutions that we can't actually keep, things like losing weight, or fixing the gutters, or doing better on our marriage. While those are all great, they seem to get lost… in other things.

Well let me start of the next year talking about one of my favorite people from history. Most of us know the Christmas story and the basic characters. There's Jesus (of course), Mary, Herod, an angel or two, some wise men, and some sheep. Oh, I left out a guy: Joseph. You know, it's amazing how often this father is forgotten.

In his post last week, Dan contemplated what it was like for Jesus to have "emptied himself." What do you think that was like? If he was truly human, he probably screamed when hungry, didn't sleep well at night, demanded from his parents, and probably raised a little hell just to prove his independence. Well, that's what my one year old is doing now. I'm going to be honest, it's not an easy ride. Then again, I wouldn't change it for the world.

See, Joseph gave up everything for his son. In order to protect his new wife and unborn child, he sent his wife to go visit her cousin. I realize customs were different back then, but I couldn't imagine spending the first few month of marriage without my wife. Still, that is a sacrifice Joseph was willing to make. Weeks before the baby was born, Joseph took his family to his ancestral hometown. One the baby was born, they were forced to flee for their lives.

I wonder at times if I am the kind of father that would pack up everything for my son. It's easy to say that I'd be willing to sacrifice for him, but it's a lot harder to actually do it. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was ten months old. That was definitely a rough time. Now he's a year old, walking, and pretty much rearranging our house (with everything somehow ending up on the floor).

This year, as I write my new year's resolutions, I'm not as concerned with getting everything right. If I take Joseph's example as my guide, I realize that at the top of my list is this first resolution:

1) Love my son as Joseph loved his.

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Being a Christian is hard. No, I don't mean because we're persecuted. What do Americans know about persecution? Even as Christians we're at the top of the food chain. What I mean is, following our faith is hard.

See, even Christians still struggle to figure out their lives. Whenever you hear someone says, "God just won't answer me," they really do feel like God has abandoned them. Whenever you hear a person saying, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life," they really mean they aren't sure where the best fit in.

I'm one of those people.

I was catching up with a professor from undergrad a couple weeks back, asking questions about getting some more schooling. The questions I was asking were attempting to figure out if that's what I should be doing with my life, and what the next step would be from there. It's funny when I talk to people about that. Generally, people give me that blank stare which means, "How should I know what you should do with your life? I don't even know what I'm doing with mine!"

This professor friend of mine surprised me. He said to me, "I believe that God gives some people specific tasks, and they should be following them. For others, He points them to the Torah and says to follow it."

This was one of the more profound things I've ever heard.

It turns out, I'm not one of those people who God gave a specific task. I'm not Steve Jobs, out to change the computing world. I'm not Barak Obama, leading the most powerful and influential country in the world. I have not been given a task as profound and deep as that.

At first, I was depressed. Why wouldn't God choose me to do something great? It's amazing that our first reactions always seem to be the negative ones, huh? As I pondered what my professor friend said, I realized how freeing it was. To people like Jobs and Obama, specifics tasks are given and greatness tends to follow, but they walk a very fine line. For them, doing right means leading God's children to a better future; screwing up, well, we all know what history does to people like Hitler.

For the rest of us, our only "task," then, is to follow the Torah. What we do with the rest of our lives, well, is up to us. Essentially, I weigh my hopes and dreams agains the skills that I have, and pick a path that will best suit my joys and help the most people. It seems scary because I still don't quite know what that path will be. Yet, it's freeing because I now know that whatever mistakes I make will not affect the Kingdom too badly; God hadn't placed that burden on me.

Sometimes, Being a Christian is hard. It means following God wherever He decides to take you.

Other times, being a Christian isn't so bad. I get to find the best way of expressing who I am in the Kingdom. That's not so hard. In fact, all I have to do is, well, be me.

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