A Lesson in Margin from my 2 Boys!

This morning on the way to school, I had the opportunity to teach my 7 year old and 4 year old about Margin. I was attempting to help them understand why we want our mornings to be Peaceful and not Stressful. Here’s a synopsis.

• We live crazy lives. Which is okay, in fact we prefer it this way, most of the time. Once we get to school, or work, our life is full of details, homework, friends, teachers, lessons, responsibilities, etc.
• We want our mornings to be peaceful. The more relaxed our mornings can be, the better we’ll be for the rest of the day.
• The way to have peace is through Margin. Put another way, Peace lives in the Margins of our lives. Show me someone with no peace, & I’ll show you someone with no margin. No peace in your finances? I bet you don’t have margin. No peace in your calendar? I bet you don’t have margin. No peace in your personal life? I bet you don’t have margin.
• Margin is the distance between where you live and your limits. Foolish is the person who resides on the side of a cliff. We wouldn’t think to build a home within 6 inches of a cliff, but we do it all the time in other areas of our lives.
• Margin is everywhere. I pointed out to the boys that roads are built with margin. Books have margin. Papers have margin. 7-Eleven signs have margin. It’s everywhere.  And it was God’s idea. My 4 year old asked me if trees have margin.  I said, “yep, it’s called bark.  Without, the wood is exposed to the elements and the tree won’t survive.”
• Blessing live in the margins. We got to school 10 minutes early and rather than drop them off in the car line, I walked them in. I told them, “because we have margin in our time today, daddy got to walk you in.” Then my 7 year old asked me, “Can we stop at the drinking fountain before class?” I answered yes. Then he said to me, “Because we have Margin, right?”

I just smiled.

Want to live a blessed life?

Want to have peace?

Examine your margins. That’s where they live.

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt Keller

“Hey Daddy, we have a Surprise for you!”

… were the words I heard when I walked in the door tonight. But I had to play the “Hot and Cold,” game to find it. It was so cute watching my 2 boys in their “I don’t do Mistletoe” pajamas leading me around our house all the while saying, “You’re gettin’ warmer…” or “You’re gettin’ colder…”

After a few minutes of downstairs rabbit trail chasing, they finally led me upstairs and into the laundry room. I opened the washer (to which Drew looked in and acted surprised to find a load of laundry). Then as I started to open the dryer door, both boys broke out in spontaneous shouting: “You’re burnin’ up!!!” (which I found ironic, since I was at the dryer…)

As I opened the door, I seriously had no idea what I was about to find… That’s when I reached in to discover a brand new GPS! Perfect for my new found hobby… Geocaching!

I was so blown away. Apparently they had been planning all week to surprise me, and man they sure pulled it off.

I’m most excited to make some great memories with the boys in the days ahead. They’ll love treasure hunting and I’ll love being with them.

Thanks guys for my GPS. May the Geocaching begin!

Just a GPS bloggish thought,

Matt

How do you explain Daylight Savings Time to a 7 year old?!?

So last weekend, my oldest son, Will, started asking me about the time change. (Of course, he thinks the time change is just a great excuse to go to bed an hour later and get up an hour earlier) so this has been no small amount of trepidation on our part! Anyway…

So Monday morning he’s in the bedroom at 6 am asking me to explain to him how it’s possible to “lose or gain an hour.” I tried to explain as simply as I could by using such logic as, “Well, see the government declares a time when we all move our clocks forward or backward and then…” or “okay so you have to look at the whole thing in light of a one year period of time.” All of which yielded no fruit.

So finally, I got out a piece of paper and drew the numbers 1 to 24 in a big long row.

then… I said something like, “In March, we all “rename” 2 am, 3 am, and 3 am, 4 am, and 4 am, 5 am…”

to which I think he responded, “That’s funny.”

Then I drew another set of numbers under that and said, “Then in November we all “change the names back” to what they were before.”

I don’t know… I think he got it, I’m not sure I ever fully answered the question of “Why” for him though…

Maybe it’s cause I don’t really know why we do that myself…

Oh well, I guess I’ll try again in 6 months…

All I know is, I’m still hungry at 11 am and tired at 10 pm. Weird.

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt

A Great Veterans Day Talk with my Son

So time change has been no small adjustment for the Keller boys. My oldest actually thinks that it’s cool that he gets up an hour earlier now. More time to be awake I guess. Anyway, this morning at 6:15 am, Will came in and was laying in our bed while I was praying in the bedroom, and Sarah was getting ready. Apparently, he heard me praying something and he says to me: “Dad, we can be thankful for 3 things: Freedom to pray, Freedom to Worship, & Freedom of speech.”

At that, I sat down next to him and began talking to him about his comment. It was such a great 20 minutes.

• I shared with him how people in other countries don’t have the freedom to pray, or worship.
• I had him imagine what it would be like to be talking to his friend about Jesus and for the police to come and take him to jail.
• Then I got to share with him about our missionaries and how they work in countries where it’s illegal to talk about Jesus.
• I told him of one of the missionaries we support at NLC who went to jail recently because he was helping pastors, like daddy does. He was totally getting it.
• Then, I told him how our soldiers have to fight for our freedom of prayer, worship and speech.
• I shared how his great grandpa was a soldier in World War II and he helped stop a “bad guy” named Hitler from taking that freedom away from the Jews and from the whole world.

I’m actually going to be telling that same story this weekend at NLC, I have chills just thinking about it.

6:15 am & I’m teaching, U.S. History, Missiology, & Military Philosophy to my 7 year old.

It’s truly an amazing life…

See you Sunday. 9:40 am – Kid check-in & Coffee. 10 am. Veterans Day.

Matt

Legos & Love!!!

So I’m playing legos with my 4 year old son, Drew, the other night. We were building a tower next to a swimming pool, that started out as a space ship or something, I don’t know. During the building process, there was a tall staircase that I was in the process of placing on the top of our spaceship turned tower. In a worried tone, Drew asks me, “Dad, what are you doing?” To which my simple reply was, “Trust me!”

What happened next, took my breath away… Without hesitation, he says back to me, “I love you, Dad.” To which I stopped and looked at him. Well, he’s giving me this “matter-of-fact, cute, simple, half smile,” (like only Drew can do) thus implying, “Duh, dad, of course I trust you… I love you.”

Trust is implicit to love. To have one is to have the other. How in the world does my 4 year old know that??? How does he know that when you love someone, you trust them implicitly?

Zoom out to us… Why is so hard for us to trust God? I mean, we love Him right? We believe He loves us right? Then why don’t we trust Him more? Not just with the big stuff (like salvation) but with the small stuff too? (like relationships, finances, our future hopes & dreams).

Where in your life is your Heavenly Father saying, “Trust me,” and hoping that our response will simply come out as:

“I love you, Dad.”

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt

Who are you taking the journey with?

Today is the first day of school for my kids, and several thousand other kids here in Southwest Florida. My prayer for my kids as they start this school year is the same as it has been since last year at this time. It’s a simple one, but I believe it is an absolutely, priceless one as well.

My prayer for my kids this school year is that “God would bring them friends that they could take the journey with.” In other words, I am praying that God would pair them up with a few others who want to live for God, and that together they could experience the adventure together. I know they are only 4 and 7 years old, but I beleive that the people we surround ourselves with will make or break us. No matter what age.

So here’s my question to all of us: Who are you “Taking the Journey of Faith with?” Who are the people closest to you that share your faith and beliefs in Jesus, and that you can take the journey with this year?

September 9th is Rally Day at Next Level Church. That’s the day when we launch a new semester of Connection Groups. If you are a part of the NLC family, I want to strongly encourage you to dive into a Connection Group on Rally Day. It’s doing life together deeply, that is truly life-changing.

I heard Rick Warren say recently, “You don’t need a lot of friends, but the ones you have, have to be good ones!” Who are you taking the journey with?

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt