Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Ambiance of Your Home | Ep. 393 | Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Trade the concept of your dream house for God's vision of a dream home. It's not just about the exterior beauty of your house; it's about creating meaningful moments under its roof. While spending quality time with your kids is important, remember that true family bonding occurs during those everyday shared experiences. Today's parental challenge is to shift focus from pursuing a certain lifestyle to actively engaging in life alongside your children. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive. My name is Bro, and we have been talking about family this week, and more specifically about giving our kids roots and wings

so that they can soar with God someday. We've already talked about how we need to give our kids when they're little freedom for discovery, and we need to let them dance their own dance, let them be who God created them to be. And here's one today that I think every kid would say to their parents, I wish you would trade in the dream house for a dream home. Trade in the dream house for a dream home. What I'm talking about here is atmosphere.

Now, atmosphere is something that a lot of us guys don't understand, or at least fully appreciate. For example, you find a little hole-in-wall restaurant that has chairs with upholstery tearing off and formica countertops worn down and burn marks on the floor and a John Deere calendar from 1969 hanging on the wall. But great food, you will find that place jam-packed at noon, and 98% will be men. Why? Because guys don't care a whole lot about atmosphere. Now, when I take my wife out for a special dinner or occasion, do you know what she cares about the most? Yeah, she wants a place with great atmosphere. She wants a place with ambiance. And I have learned the word ambiance actually comes from the ancient Greek word which means what's in your wallet.

Every home has its own ambiance, its own atmosphere as well. I'm observing in our American dream HGTV culture that a lot of people are much more concerned about the architecture of their home, their house, than the atmosphere of their home. So just a reminder to all of us, it's not all about curb appeal. It's not so much the color of shingles that matter

as what goes on under that roof. It's not the beautifully manicured lawn that matters so much. It's whether or not anyone plays there. It's not whether it's hardwood or carpet on the floor that really matters. It's whether or not anybody wrestles on it. It doesn't matter how old that couch is. It's whether or not anyone's ever home to cuddle on it. And I see people who are knocking themselves out,

working long hours to maintain a standard of living so that the family can have a dream house to live in. And they have little energy left over to build what kids really want. Because if you give kids a choice between a dream house and a dream home, they'd say, I'll take a dream home hands down. Proverse 1517 says A bowl of soup with someone

you love is better than steak with someone you hate. If you're going to build a lifelong friendship with your child and give them wings to soar I think you have to create this atmosphere, an atmosphere of acceptance, this ambiance of warmth, peace, serenity,

and acceptance. And keep a sense of humor. Play, tease, laugh, get silly, loosen up, laugh and play some more. Shut down the laptop. Put down the remote, put down your phone, and really listen. Give focused attention. Be present a lot. There's a myth that's been floating around for a long time about parenting.

The myth is this. Quality time is better than quantity time. Well, here's what I've learned along the way. Quality time is really hard to plan. It usually happens in the midst of lots of quantity time. Teachable moments happen unexpectedly in the midst of just, hanging together and to do that you got to be there when our kids were growing up a Debbie and I were walking down the driveway one one night and where we were living it got

really really dark at night we were living out in the country no street lights and I noticed the stars were super bright it was just one of those clear nights and then I saw the moon and it was it was a like one of those fingernail moons but it was really really bright just brilliant and it was really far away and it lit up the sky the stars are very far away but they They were still very brilliant. Then a plane goes overhead with its landing lights at the airport, which is about five miles away. And then a searchlight began to sweep through the sky. All these lights were just lightening up the sky.

But then a lightning bug, a firefly caught my attention, flew right in front of my nose. And my philosophical mind started churning, and I thought, you know what, in my kid's galaxy, I may not be the brightest. I may not be the fanciest or the biggest light. but I can be the closest. My job is to get up close and model compassion in front of them, model authenticity in front of them,

model generosity, model worship, model walking with God and trusting his wisdom, just to get up close and get up close often where I get their attention and maybe the other lights of this world will entice them so much. Jesus told you and me that we are the light of the world. That's true in our families as well.

Shine, so they'll praise your Father in heaven. See you back tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information about all the digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.church slash daily drive. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you,

would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out.