Sucker punch. My heart sank. Bewildered and distraught, I headed back to Chicago that night, having no clue what would become of my daughter. But even in the helpless ambiguity, I sensed G.o.d saying, "I'm still near."

It was around this same season of parenting that Shauna's brother, Todd, was getting his driver's license. His love of cars had been present from an early age. I had taught Todd to drive when he was eight or nine years old, by having him back cars out of the driveway or maneuver boats and equipment whenever opportunities presented themselves. By the time he was sixteen, he was chomping at the bit to get behind the wheel.

When he finally got his license, I noticed that Todd drove a bit too fast. He had been handling cars for years by then, but in my opinion he was simply over-confident. I knew that without some coaching, he could be a threat to himself and to others on the road.

One day I sat down with my son and said, "Todd, you're one of the best young drivers I know, but you drive too fast. If you don't slow it down, there is going to come a day when you will injure yourself or someone else by your driving. I know how sensitive your heart is, and if you ever caused someone else pain because of your carelessness, I know it would destroy your life, let alone the life of the person you harmed."

I thought it was a pretty good spiel-speaking to the sensitive way he was wired-but in response all I got was the teenager's cla.s.sic yeah-yeah-yeah look. He hadn't been dialed in to one word I had said.

About a week later while enjoying a day off in South Haven with the family, I decided to take a six-mile run. I was about three miles in, when suddenly I heard the screeching of tires behind me. I looked over my shoulder just in time to spot Todd, in his car, doing a power slide as he rounded a busy street corner at forty or fifty miles an hour. It was a perfectly controlled slide and looked like the sort of thing you'd see a professional stunt driver do in a movie. Actually, if it hadn't been so blatantly illegal and dangerous to others, I might have been impressed. In this case, I was not.

Todd hadn't seen me, but I had sure seen him. And I ran home faster than I have ever run before, determined to give him a piece of my fuming mind. I was filled with anger for how he had directly violated my warning of a week prior. I stood outside the cottage thinking, "What are all the possible ways that I can punish this kid so that I can fully get my message of displeasure across?"

But something happened before I entered the cottage; the Holy Spirit intervened. In that instant, the prompting came, "Instead of playing the anger card, let Todd see how much you love him and how brokenhearted you really would be if he got hurt or killed in a car accident. Let him know that you're actually scared that you're going to find him in a hospital or in a morgue someday, because of his over-confidence in driving."

The whisper went against my reflexive response. When children break a rule, they must be forced to pay, right? That's how I was brought up, and that's how I intended for this situation to go.

I argued with G.o.d outside the house: "You want me to show Todd fear instead of anger? He's not going to remember fear. What do you want me to do? Bear my soul to this kid, and then let him off scot-free so he can just go out and do the very same thing again?"

The Spirit was unfazed by my cynicism. "Just trust me in this," I sensed him saying. "This time, show Todd your love, not your anger."

I'm not sure if I was more frustrated with Todd or with G.o.d as I stormed into the house, but once I found myself seated across from my son, I caved to wisdom from above.

"Todd," I said, "I was jogging right up to the intersection where you did that power slide a few minutes ago. I saw the whole thing, and your actions were in direct violation of what we talked about last week."

I couldn't tell from Todd's expression if he felt any remorse for being caught, but it didn't matter. I knew what I needed to say, even if it would require far more vulnerability than I felt Todd deserved-and certainly more than I preferred giving.

I took a deep breath. "Had you not pulled your car out of that slide just right, you could have hit the curb and rolled the car. And the thought of picking your broken body out of that vehicle and you losing an arm or a leg unnecessarily...the thought of having to come ID you at the morgue like I had to do with my dad...it's actually terrifying to me, Todd."

Tears flowed down my cheeks, and when I finished my comments, Todd's eyes too were red and swollen. I wrapped my arms around my son and said, "Please, Todd. Please be careful in your car."

To my knowledge, his driving patterns changed that day. I never had to have another conversation with him on the subject, and based on how I observed him driving from that point forward, I think my plea somehow hit home. Who knows what the anger approach would have done? Can you see why I love whispers so much?

Over the years, there were plenty of trivial parenting conundrums-messy rooms and nose piercings, ill-advised hairstyles and tattoos-that Lynne and I felt it wise to let slide. But when it came to matters of morals or character, or things of safety or legal consequence, we needed infusions of wisdom that could only come from above. And now that my kids are grown adults, I see the benefit of having paid strict attention to every syllable of divine direction received.

Within a six-month period some years ago, I received cards on my desk at work from my kids, both of which proved out the power of letting G.o.d guide each of our steps.

The card from Todd read, "Dear Dad, I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. The older I get, the more I realize why you raised me the way you did. You always challenged me, which made me more confident in myself and in Christ. This past week, I was thinking about all of the experiences I've had that few other kids my age have had, because they didn't have parents who would challenge them. So, thanks for the challenges. And for all of the love and encouragement you've poured into my life along the way. I love you."

I just about lost it as I sat in my desk chair and read that card. For a timid, non-verbal son to express himself with words like that-it went deep into this father's heart.

Around Father's Day that same year I received a card from Shauna. "Dad, I was just thinking about you," it began. "What a great friend and father you've been to me. You're a person I love to be around and love to share life with. Thanks for all the things you've done along the way, and for the flowers and Diet c.o.kes and long walks...and for forgiving me."

The sentiment went on, but I don't type well through tears, so I'll let it close there. The point is, there is a payoff that comes when we stay wide open to G.o.d. Follow his promptings at key junctures, and you'll benefit from it too.

One of the greatest rewards of living by the well-timed whispers of G.o.d regarding raising your family is that one day things might just come full circle.

For many years I craved G.o.d's input so that I could steer my kids in the right direction. But last year, during a vacation in one of my family's favorite places in the world, it was my kids who would hear from G.o.d-and do some steering of their own.

Eighteen months before that vacation, Todd had embarked on his around-the-world sailing trip. He was midstream on the second half of his voyage, and he took a hiatus from his travels to join us for a family connection. On our first day together-as is our habit when we are together-Todd and I took off for a midmorning run. Now, typically I would be the one to set the pace, but that day I was sucking air. He glanced over at me mid-stride and said, "Dad, you're in terrible shape! What has happened to you?"

My mind scrolled through everything that had occurred since I had last seen him: staff reductions and reorganizations, budget overhauls, too many back-to-back hundred-hour work weeks and an exhaustingly long international trip. It had been a tough spring. "Just give me a few days," I offered. "I'll bounce back soon enough."

I meant the words, but something deep inside told me I was being overly optimistic at best.

Late that night, after Lynne had gone to bed, Shauna, Todd and I decided to stay up and talk. We were sitting on teak chairs on a terrace that overlooks the harbor, just savoring each other's company, when suddenly I heard myself say, "You know, I'm not sure that my old work patterns are going to serve me well in the new reality I'm leading in..."

The last thing on my mind that night was trolling for free therapy from my kids. But I think my run with Todd had surfaced some stuffed-down feelings about how distracted and disjointed my life had become of late. And for whatever reason, in the safety of that moment, it all came spilling out. Both of my kids engaged immediately, asking questions and scouring my answers for the truth of how I really was doing. The attention made me feel quite self-conscious, but I must admit, their concern touched me deeply.

After twenty minutes or so of conversation, and following what I now know was a prompting from G.o.d, my wise-beyond-her-years daughter said, "Dad, what are some recent examples of times when you were relaxed and you felt like you were able to connect deeply with G.o.d?"

I thought about her question and answered as honestly as I could. "The South American trip I took last month. That single trip yielded the most consecutive days of deep connection with G.o.d that I've known in a long, long time."

She probed a little more, until it came out that the reason I had felt such intimacy with G.o.d on that trip was because I had fallen into my "trip pattern." I travel more than a hundred days a year, and I find that when I'm on the road, my early mornings in hotel rooms afford me the perfect opportunity to invest extended time studying the Bible, praying and journaling about my inner world. Typically my morning speaking engagements don't start before nine o'clock, so from five-thirty or six a.m. until my ride phones me from the hotel lobby, I can pour a cup of hot coffee, prop up my pillows on the hotel bed, spread out my Bible and study aids, and get centered spiritually. Without people knocking on the door or staff members coming in and out of my office like they do back at Willow, I can perch perfectly justified, uninterrupted in that position until I feel refreshed for my day and reminded of G.o.d's presence and power in my life. The added blessing is that none of my leadership-oriented "stacks" are staring at me from various corners of my desk while I do so. Being on the road definitely has its perks!

My kids took in all of this detail before Shauna continued. "So, why don't you take your hotel strategy and turn it into an approach for your life at home?"

I knew my daughter was on to something. Todd nodded in agreement, and although it was nearing the bleary-eyed hour of two a.m., the three of us began talking about what my hotel strategy might look like at home, and how the proper execution of such a plan could potentially restore a sense of sanity and spiritual connectedness to my life.

At this writing, it's eight months into my experiment of inst.i.tuting my hotel strategy at home, and so far, so good. I awaken early, but instead of hurrying through a shower and rushing off to work, I step into a room that overlooks our back deck and spend the first critical hours of my day with G.o.d. The difference it has made in my life could be a whole separate chapter in this book; suffice it to say, this change in my routine has been a much-needed source of sanity for me. And it all started with a two-a.m. whisper from G.o.d through my daughter and son.

Admittedly, there is no perfect parent, there is no perfect child and, consequently, there is no perfect family. I can't conclude this chapter on parenting without relaying an extreme example of this reality: While in a grocery store some time ago, I witnessed a family meltdown I never will forget. The father and the mother started arguing with each other in plain view of everyone else around. Their crudeness and rage kept escalating until one of their three young children got scared and started to cry. Not knowing what else to do to find comfort, the little girl raced up to her father and tried to wrap her arms around his leg. But the father, now completely out of control, was in no mood for affection. He backhanded that child with such force that she tumbled onto the ground and fell on top of her smaller sibling, who then fell against a shelf full of canned beans. Before I or other onlookers could step in, store management and security personnel came to break up the fight.

Talk about a devastating thing to witness! I left the store physically shaken and thinking, "There is nothing uglier than a family that is out of step with G.o.d."

When a family is not functioning well, its members often feel diminished and confused and frustrated and alone. And you don't need a Ph.D. in sociology to realize that an alarming number of families are struggling these days, not just with the mundane questions of who gets to handle the remote control or whose turn it is to clean up after the dog, but with significant issues like, Do we really love each other? Are we going to make it as a family? Will our kids turn out okay?

But when imperfect people make a point of receiving input from the One who is without fault, it's a game-changer for all involved.

When a wife obeys G.o.d's whisper to approach her husband with a tender, carefree spirit once the kids have been tucked into bed for the night; when a father follows a prompting to leave the office a few hours early and surprise his daughter by showing up across town at her volleyball tournament; when a set of parents listen for G.o.d's input on how to nurture and mentor their son as he steps into adolescence; when dads invite divine direction regarding drawing out the unique wiring patterns of their kids; when moms pay attention to the supernatural nudges that help them fulfill G.o.d's desired roll in the family for them-when these and a thousand other manifestations of being attuned to G.o.d's whispers unfold in the life of a family, a legacy of blessings, not curses, lives on.

You and I have got one shot at this thing called our heritage, my friend. We will pa.s.s on either goodness to generations that come behind us, or we'll pa.s.s on something less. My vote is for the good stuff, for the whisper-led way of life.

Parenting has proven to be one of the toughest challenges of my life, but knowing that to the best of my human ability I've invited G.o.d in at every turn rather than keeping him at arm's length, I rest in the blessed a.s.surance of knowing that I have done the best job I could do. My kids love G.o.d and give him free rein to guide their lives. It doesn't get any better than that!

CHAPTER 8.

WHEN G.o.d SPEAKS.

THROUGH OTHERS.

DURING MY EARLY DAYS OF MINISTRY, I HAD THE MIS-fortune of watching a friend of mine who was an integral part of our church self-destruct. For many months, I had noticed that he was spending quite a bit of time with a woman who was not his wife. I wasn't intentionally doing detective's work; I just kept spotting the two of them riding in cars together or enjoying dinner by candlelight at nearby restaurants.

What's more, I began to notice that periodically when this friend agreed to a lunch appointment with me, he'd fail to show up. I would wait for an hour or more at a table for two and finally bail, figuring he'd been held up in traffic or had to tend to an emergency at work.

The next time I would see him, I'd say, "Hey, I waited for you for an hour on Thursday. What happened?"

"Oh! I got a.s.signed to a two-day trip to New York City and forgot to call you," he'd explain, after scrambling to think up an excuse.

But several days later, when I'd ask about his time in the Big Apple, he would forget that he had gone. "New York?" he'd ask. "Oh! Yeah, yeah. Uh, it was great! It just seems like so long ago!"

"Hmmm...I bet it does," I thought. Something just wasn't adding up.

Around the same time that my discernment meter was beginning to register on "high alert," I was teaching a series at Willow based on the life of King David. The t.i.tle of my final talk in the series was, "Everybody Needs a Nathan." It addressed the idea that, in addition to providing encouragement to fellow members of the body of Christ, being someone's spiritual brother or sister also means warning them of potential pitfalls in their lives-sometimes even before they themselves see trouble on the horizon.

You probably remember the story of David and Bathsheba. In short, from his palace rooftop David eyes a beautiful (although married) woman bathing; he sends his servants to fetch her; he engages in a s.e.xual affair with her; and after later learning that she has become pregnant, he immediately arranges for the murder of her husband so that he can take Bathsheba to be his wife and the mother of their child. It's a pretty bad scene. If David had been asked to keep an annual tally of his sins, this was what you'd call a Very Bad Year.

Interestingly, although everyone around the palace undoubtedly knew what David had done-and that what he had done was terribly wrong-apparently n.o.body said a word to him. n.o.body told him the truth. n.o.body, that is, except Nathan-an old friend of David's, now a prophet sent to him by G.o.d.

One day, Nathan approached his former-shepherd friend and told him a story strategically targeted both to David's past and present. It was a story about some sheep.

"There were two men in a city," Nathan said. "One was rich, but the other was poor. The rich man had many sheep and cattle. But the poor man had nothing except one recently purchased little female lamb. It shared his food and drank from his cup and slept in his arms. The lamb was like a daughter to him."1 Nathan continued the tale: A traveler stopped to visit the rich man. A meal was in order to feed the traveler, but because the rich man didn't want to use up one of his own sheep or cows to feed the stranger, he stole the precious lamb from the poor man, killed it and then cooked it for his visitor.

David was appalled. The very thought of such a selfish, evil deed enraged him. "As surely as the LORD lives," he bellowed, "the man who did this should die!"2 Nathan's tale had struck home.

"You are the man!"3 Nathan said.

David never saw it coming.

Nathan's wise and bold confrontation ultimately led to David's wholehearted repentance before G.o.d.

After teaching this whole story to our congregation, I exhorted them not to shrink back from making high-risk, high-stakes plays like Nathan's in their relational worlds. "Nathan was the only one who would tell his friend the truth," I explained. "We all need a little of Nathan's spirit in us."

My own words were still fresh on my mind when I received a prompting from G.o.d regarding my friend who was "not" having the affair.

"If you want to be a good brother to this guy," the Holy Spirit seemed to say, "then go ahead and broach the difficult subject, but do it in a non-accusing way. The goal is not to prejudge him; the goal is to find out the truth and remind him of his marriage vows."

The following week, I corralled my courage and approached my friend.

"Listen," I said, "you know how much I care about you, and you know how committed we're trying to be as a church to shooting straight with each other, to telling the truth at every turn. I need to raise a little concern with you, just to be sure that things are okay..."

My friend nodded and told me to go on.

"Well," I said, "it just seems like you're spending an awful lot of time with another guy's wife..."

As the words rolled off my tongue, he looked at me with a piercing gaze and physically took a step backward. For a split second, I thought he might thank me for raising the issue, since of course he wouldn't want to behave in a way that would cause misperceptions. But his eyes showed a different response.

"Oh, I see how it is," he slowly seethed. "Now that you're a senior pastor of a church-albeit a tiny church that meets in a rented movie theater-you're going to start playing G.o.d and telling people who they can and can't be friends with! You're going to be Mr. Relationship Cop, the guy who snoops into everyone's business and polices their dinner companions! Is that how it's going to go, Bill? Is that who you've become?"

I wanted to say, "Wait, wait, wait. Don't you remember how the Nathan/David deal wound up? We talked about it in church just last week! After Nathan courageously said his piece, David said, 'I have sinned against the LORD,'4 he gave Nathan a friendly man-hug, he went and wrote a bunch of great worship music and everyone lived happily ever after! Remember?"

But it was no use. My friend had already stormed off.

Several months after that excruciating exchange, I discovered that an affair had in fact been going on. My friend had missed our lunch appointments and faked those trips back East because he was entangled in a series of secret meetings that involved the "other" woman in his life.

In the end, the guy's marriage and innocent family would get blown apart. Untold amounts of pain and suffering would result from his mistakes, in part because he refused to let a friend shine light into a dark part of his life.

What I taught in that series back in the early days of Willow is true today: everybody needs a Nathan, and lovers of G.o.d all would do well to cultivate a "David" state of mind. Sometimes G.o.d routes pain-sparing whispers to us through the ears and lips of another person. And periodically, he chooses us to deliver a message to someone else-regardless of whether or not it will be well-received.

Having a "David" state of mind can mean the difference between continuing down a path destined for self-destruction or turning from that path toward life and restoration. A recent example of this truth played itself out some months ago, when I gave a thirty-five-minute talk at a weekend service on the subject of reconciliation.

I spent the first third of the talk carefully explaining that when you are involved in a relationship that has fractured because of a disagreement, the Bible says that first and foremost, we must clean up our own side of the street before we cross the street and point the blame at the other person. We need to begin by owning our part of the relational breakdown-our att.i.tudes, words or actions-so that when we sense that it is time to build a bridge of reconciliation with the other person, we come to the table with clean hands and a pure heart.

Again, I spent thirty-five minutes on this topic, working out for the congregation how to move through the reconciliation process gently, humbly, earnestly and with a deep spirit of grace. Get the picture?

Immediately after the service, one of the first people to greet me down front was a man who introduced himself as a visitor from Ohio. He was a big guy, a linebacker-type whose physique seemed about to burst out of his seams. What's more, he was a close-talker-a s.p.a.ce invader. The guy was in my face. And the more he talked, the more uncomfortable I felt.

"My wife is way out of line," he said. "She isn't talking to me these days, and based on what I've just heard in your sermon, she's the one being unbiblical. She's the one at fault!"

With each proclamation, spit from his words sprayed my gla.s.ses. I took a small step backward. No use. As I moved back, he moved forward. We were doing something resembling a miserable dance. And anyone who knows me knows I hate to dance, so I stood my ground.

"Tell me those Bible verses you mentioned again," he demanded, "because I'm gonna go home and quote them to her, and straighten her out once and for all!"

This was going nowhere fast. The more the guy talked, the more amped up he became. Something had to give.

Reaching for his elbows, I nudged him back a step. "Let's back up this whole thing a little bit," I said. "And while we're at it, how about you lower your decibel level by about 50 percent?"

He laughed a nervous laugh. "I guess I can get kind of riled up!" he said.

"Your physical presence and proximity are beginning to intimidate me," I said. "Which is a bigger achievement than you likely realize. I can only imagine how your wife must feel, unless she's six-five and pushing three-fifty."

I reminded the man that I had spent the first twelve minutes of my sermon on the topic of handling your own business before charging ahead with an accusing spirit toward someone else. I had talked about humility; I had talked about gentleness; I had talked about grace-all things that clearly had not registered with this guy.

"I'm going to shoot straight with you," I said, bracing myself for impact. "You seem like an angry, out-of-control guy." (We have plainclothes security people around Willow, which gives me the confidence to talk big in these kinds of settings.) To his credit, the man shifted his demeanor.

"I've struggled with anger all of my life," he said.

"Now we're getting somewhere," I responded. "You've just given a cla.s.sic 'David' response, if ever I heard one. Way to go!"

Because this man had graciously received my observations, we were then able to engage in fifteen minutes of productive dialogue. He just needed a Nathan to come alongside him, hold up a mirror and say, "This is who you really are." I don't know how this man's story played out back in Ohio, but I admired his willingness to take a look in the mirror during our talk.

If you and I claim to believe G.o.d's Word, inevitably the time will come when we will need some help applying it to our lives. G.o.d didn't create us to live in a vacuum. We need others. We need someone with skin on to help us achieve the righteousness we crave. Again I point you to Proverbs 11:14, which says, "Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances" (MSG). As I reflect on the good direction G.o.d has whispered in my life, I realize a major portion has come from the lips of trusted friends. I wasn't always mature enough to be thankful for that "wisdom" at the time, but usually (though not always), I'd try to heed the direction I received.