Launching David
Just over a week ago, I dropped my oldest son, David, off at the airport. Upon graduation from the University of Oklahoma, he moved to Greenville, North Carolina. He's now working for Mr. Beast. Before you panic and start quoting from the Book of Revelation, Mr. Beast (or Jimmy Donaldson as he is also known) is the #1 YouTuber in the world with 168 million subscribers. Click HERE to see Mr. Beast’s Philanthropy Channel.
As Michele and I said goodbye to David at the TSA entry, tears filled our eyes. I could not get intelligible words out. I tried to say, "I love you, and I'm so proud of you." It came out more like a slow wail.
Heading back to the car, I shared with Michele how I remember crying when dropping him off on his first day of Kindergarten. The same thing happened when we dropped him off at OU. I hugged him in front of the dorm, said something unintelligible, and cried for 20 minutes in the car at the 7/11 near campus.
Each step of letting go was incredibly hard for me. There are many times I long for David to be just like you see him in the first picture; at the Pottery Barn Kids table in our living room playing Winnie the Pooh games on his iMac. (Okay, I just teared up again.) But as you can see from the second picture, he outgrew that. He certainly can't fit at that table, and by its looks, all of those monitors won’t fit either.
My son was not meant to stay. He was meant to grow and go. That's the tricky thing about being a parent. Success means they leave. They go. Not always to Greenville, but they go.
Jesus calls us to do much the same as believers. Grow and go. But sometimes, I think we are tempted to do the first thing, grow in Christ, and forget the second. We come to know Christ, get involved in a Bible Study and a Church, and it stops there. We keep spiritually feeding ourselves but never leave the Pottery Barn Kids table. We forget Jesus' command to "Go and make disciples…."
I once heard a preacher say that we don't need more Bible Studies. We've got plenty of those. What we need is more "Bible Doing." He's right.
Where are you? Do we really need another Christian book, podcast, or sermon series? Or like, David, is it time to go. To launch.
"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'" Isaiah 6:8
Your heavenly Father is calling. He loves you and is proud of you. It’s time to go.