Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend!

A weekend full of excitement and anticipation.

First off, football is here! My guys wear red & black and they have been anticipating this day for 9 months! Redemption. Revenge. Whatever you want to call it, they’re hungry! Whether your favorite team is wearing red, orange, crimson, or gold; one thing is certain, the tailgate gear is packed and ready to go.

Dove hunting (generally)! This year the cards didn’t fall in favor of the GA hunters. So, we’ll wait til next weekend I suppose. But the tradition of lunch in the dove field, coolers full of Mountain Dew and Little Debbie’s, and propping shotguns against hay bales has created some of my favorite Labor Day weekend memories.

Cooler weather (maybe)! Trips to the beach are winding down. Now people are gathering kindling for fire pits and barbecues. We’re reaching in to our closets and knocking the dust off our light jackets, flannels, jeans, and boots.

School (if we must)! I live in one of those towns that still declares this weekend as the inaugural weekend for going back to school. It’s a spectacular setup of 3 months to spend with family through the summer! The beach traffic is light through the month of August for sure. And now, the educational grind begins!

Car deals! This weekend always presents a big push for the latest sales in the auto industry. Big bang savings on the style of car you’ve been dreaming of for months. Every vehicle in the inventory must go. Making room for the new models coming in next month. Guys with gel in their hair and a slick pitch convincing you that it’s just the right ride for you to cruise in to this new season.

Preachers begin new sermon series (this week or next). They know you’ve been on vacation. They’ve even been on vacation. Letting the youth pastor, executive pastor, children’s pastor, even the former pastor or the pastor down the road fill their pulpit. But now the pastoral grind! A new series on becoming the new you! A new found vision for the church. For the members. For the soon to be members.

And a new era to revisit some of those resolutions you considered back in January. Losing weight, eating healthy, saving money, spending more quality time with family, starting a business, and the list goes on. And somewhere along the way our resolutions got in the way of maintaining the comfortable lane we had rutted out for days, months, years of spinning our wheels in these areas of our lives.

Sure, initially we despised the person we had become. Tons of fast food bags in the back seat of our car. High blood pressure. Significant relationships fractured by the distance created by egos and long hours on the job. Buying gadgets for the moment instead of investing for the future. Showing up to a job we don’t particularly like but scared to take the plunge of chasing a dream.

The beauty of Labor Day weekend is that it can become a catalyst into a much brighter future. A second chance of sorts. Redemption for all the failed attempts and past mistakes. Jon Acuff, a motivational speaker and author, calls it the SeptemberJanuary Challenge. Why waste 12 months when you can conquer some goals you considered in January for the remaining 4 months you have this year?

That’s what I want to do. I want to re-charge and re-calibrate the batteries of my soul. My identity is constantly wavering on the success and failure of my circumstances. And that’s my fault. I often forget that I am not the sum of my daily fortunes and mistakes.

I’m a teacher. I’m a coach. I’m a father. I’m a brother. But more importantly I’m a son. I love my job. I love coaching. I absolutely love being a dad. And I love being the middle child that competes for the laughs in my family.

But my life has been marked with greater purpose, greater vision, greater grace. I’m not just any son. I’m a child of the King. God’s grand design is constantly reminding me that I’m adopted in to His family; into His kingdom.

So this weekend I choose to remember where I’ve been. What I’ve done. Who I am. Where I’m going. My future is bright because my God is the light of the world. My future is secure because my God is the great I AM.