“What would it be like if Heidi and I had our own reality show modeled after Jon & Kate Plus 8?”

There would be probably be some hilarious interaction on the “interview couch” between me and Heidi while I interject random “phhhrttt” noises when she’s trying to talk.  Then there would be the scene where my 3 year old son Connor uses his golf club to stir the toilet and run around in his underwear with his cowboy hat yelling “emergency, emergency, the sky is falling!”.  My 1 year old son Hunter, who has a whole lot more running through his head than we realize, would probably be attempting a back flip off the couch just to show he has no fear.  

Yeah….TLC probably isn’t going to be knocking down my door, but I was pretty sad today when I heard that Jon and Kate were separating.  It seems like for months I couldn’t even buy tic-tac’s at the grocery store without seeing a tabloid about the Jon & Kate rumours.  As soon as there were some photographs taken that raised some potential questions regarding the health of their marriage, it seemed like the media went nuts with an agenda to split them up.  While Kate says that divorce was probably a chapter that would have played out whether the cameras were there or not, the media frenzy surely didn’t help.

Once the media decides that you are on their list, there is no rest.  They camp out and take random pictures of you blinking, sneezing, etc. so that they can have this horrible picture to post to an article whenever you do something they consider bad.  They go after how you look (did you see that hair? should a mom wear that?) and then they question your motives (why did they go there?  how could she spank her kids? where’s their spouse?).  It reaches a point where they probably felt like there could be a story no matter what they did. 

One of the quotes that really got to me is when Kate said “My goal is peace for the kids.  If peace needs to brought about by this (i.e. separation/divorce), then I’m in agreeance.”  I immediately thought of my wife Heidi and my boys and I determined in mind: “I refuse to have this by our story”.  God is peace and His Kingdom is ruled by peace.  If peace is brought about because I or my wife leave, I don’t believe that’s true peace; rather, it is the absence of conflict.

I need to love my wife and family more than my ministry, my writing, my job, or my blog.  I love to blog and I love to minister, but if those things are placed on a scale with my family on the other side, it’s not even a close decision.  That’s why I don’t feel guilty if my blog goes 2 months without a post yet my 3 year old son Connor still goes to bed saying how much fun he had.  That’s why I don’t feel condemnation if my phone is turned off so I can wrestle with my 1 year son Hunter on the floor.  I lose no sleep over missing tv shows, postponing my book/writing projects, etc. yet my wife can hold her head high and know that I cherish her and truly love her.

So, while there may never be a “Matt & Heidi plus 2″ show for the world to watch, I’m watching a story unfold before my own eyes of my family coming closer together and seeking God.  My son Connor had been getting up in the middle of the night afraid and wanted to sleep in our bed.  After a few nights of this, I talked to him at prayer time and the following was our conversation:

Daddy:  “Connor, whenever daddy is afraid, I ask Jesus to help me not to be afraid and He’s right there!”. 

Connor: “Daddy, where is Jesus?”

Daddy: “He’s sitting right here”.  (Note: when I said that, the presence of God filled my son’s room and I knew that Jesus, God of all, was watching this interaction with my 3 year old boy)

Connor: “But I can’t see Him”.

Daddy: “Someday you may see Him (alive, face-to-face), but I can tell you that Jesus is sitting right here” (Note: don’t squash your son’s dreams of being able to see Jesus just because we don’t have the faith to believe for the impossible at times)

 Connor: “Oh, ok”

Daddy: “So if you wake up in the middle of the night and you are afraid, say ‘Jesus, please help me not to be afraid’.”

The next morning, Connor slept in past 7 AM (which is a rare blessing!).  He walked over to my wife Heidi and said:

 ”Mommy, Jesus helped me not to be afraid last night!”.

I will have a home filled with peace and I will have a home where the presence of God feels comfortable resting. 

P.S. I’m hoping that the “Matt & Heidi plus 2″ name will work for a while.  I know that “Matt & Heidi plus 3″ kinda rhymes, but hopefully people would watch the show whether the title name rhymes or not.  :-p

At the STALL website, you can watch videos of what their ministry is about.  As I watched these videos yesterday, I was overcome with a variety of emotions.  Anger (how could this happen?!?)…Guilt (this was happening the whole time and I didn’t even give it any concern or prayer?!?)…Sadness (these girls don’t seem to have any hope!)….and eventually Hope (awareness regarding this issue is increasing and it’s my hope that my generation will rise up and contend with this evil and say “Enough!”. 

For further information on this, you can email my good friend Steve Hogan at stevelhogan@msn.com.  He and his wife Karen are starting to get more involved with this ministry and I want to thank them for introducing me to this!

 “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.” Nehemiah 4:14 (NKJV).

Nehemiah was busy obeying God by leading the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the rebuilding of the city’s walls. Things were going well; the people had a mind to work, we are told, and the wall was half-finished. Then a couple of troublemakers, Sanballat and Tobiah, when they saw that simple derision wasn’t working, moved on to active conspiracy against Nehemiah.

Nehemiah’s first reaction was to pray. It’s a good sign of your spiritual health when prayer is the first thing that comes to mind. But prayer isn’t a substitute for action; it isn’t a cop out from the responsibilities God has called us to carry out.

After he prayed, Nehemiah set a watch. If the enemy attacked, they would be ready. The Bible tells us that some built with one hand, and carried a weapon with the other. Nehemiah knew that the building of the walls was vital if these people were to survive and see their dream of a rebuilt Jerusalem become a reality. He made the people realize that if they wanted their families to be safe, no effort could be spared — they had to fight for their families!

The opposition really got going at the halfway stage; that’s a particularly vulnerable time. You’ve worked long and hard and you know you’ve got all that to do again — the perfect moment for discouragement to set in. You’ve also done enough to prove you’re serious! When Nehemiah and those with him got those walls halfway built, that’s when their enemies really started getting nervous. As long as you look like you won’t achieve anything for God, the enemy won’t worry too much about you, but when you start getting things done — get ready for a fight. Satan will do his best to stir up trouble whenever he can, but if you really do start winning loved ones to Christ, or if you just appear to be starting to win the battle for their hearts and minds, you can be certain this won’t go unnoticed. Just as you think you’re getting somewhere with your family, don’t be surprised if it starts to feel like you are in a war zone.

Don’t forget that the fight doesn’t always involve a frontal assault. Sanballat and Tobiah tried all kinds of tricks, but Nehemiah stayed vigilant and wasn’t fooled by any of it. When it comes to fighting for the salvation of our loved ones, we need to be on the lookout for anything that’s designed to get us sidetracked. The enemy will try to get you focused on anything except winning your family members to Jesus. If he can get you distracted or discouraged, you won’t be winning souls in your household. All kinds of issues can suddenly seem to be important, and they may really be important, but you can’t let anything knock you off your battle plan. Even our well-intentioned desire to see our loved ones “living right” can get us so far off target that instead of fighting the enemy, we end up fighting with the very person we’re trying to win.

Every day, a little bit more needs to get done. If you’re focusing your efforts on a particular loved one, what will you do today to touch them with the gospel? I’m not talking about preaching at them, I’m talking about a deliberate strategy to both generate and seek out opportunities to make Jesus real to them. It might be a simple selfless act that says much more about what’s really in your heart than all the preaching in the world ever could. There’s no telling what will be the catalyst that brings your loved one into the Kingdom, but if the praying is still getting done first, and the actions of battle are prudently planned and diligently executed, this is most certainly a fight you can win.

Remember what you are fighting for — it’s your family’s eternal salvation that’s at stake. If you’re under attack, remember the One who is fighting with you. The fight may be on, but we have God’s strength to call on, and He has promised us the victory. Opposition may be coming, and the wall may be only half built, but “Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.” Household Salvation is worth fighting for!

For those of you who don’t know Connor, he will be 3 years old in April!

When I came home, Heidi had to remind him what he said at the dinner table, but when she did, he says “Oh yeah!” and grabs my hands and prays for daddy’s headache.

Watch out world!  My son is learning the habits and importance of prayer at a young age.  He is going to grow up thinking that praying with people on the spot is normal….and it is.

Right as we were getting ready to leave the house, Connor decided it was time to play with fiberglass so we had to rush him to the sink to wash his hands before it got “itchy”.  It was very worth it and I wouldn’t have traded it even if I knew it advance how crazy it would be.  Hunter and Connor did great (although I think the fact that Connor was going to be getting a lolipop if he was a good boy didn’t hurt any either!) and Heidi was beautiful as always.  Enjoy the pictures and have a Happy Thanksgiving!  I probably will not be blogging until early next week.  God bless!!

This particular night, we went to Cheesecake Factory to grab some dinner and, of course, cheesecake.  They sat us at a table instead of a booth – which I can’t stand!  Besides that, the tables were really close together.  We tried to keep Connor occupied and happy, but I think that he must have been getting bored….something like that. 

After our waiter came by to make sure we were all set with drinks and napkins, he leans over to the table right next to ours to check on them too.  While he is semi bending over, my son Connor thought that it would be fun to stab our waiter in the rear end with his fork.  What possessed him to do that is beyond me. 

The waiter was cool about it but I almost had to be carried home I was laughing so hard.  Unbelievable!  My son Connor, the Impaler!!

Servant of a wicked cool God,

Matt Legere

Daddy!  Bubbles!

Right in the middle of my busy day (working at home), I’m interruped by my son Connor asking me to do bubbles with him.  I couldn’t really break away so my response to him was “bubbles later”.  As most 2-years olds are, this answer only satisfied him for about 46.1 seconds.  After that time elapsed, he was back to saying: “Daddy!  Bubbles!”  My workload hadn’t decreased during 46.1 seconds (approximate guess) so my response was the same “bubbles later”. 

This went on for a while throughout that day and, before I knew it, the day slipped away and Connor was in bed before I remembered what I told him.  It was probably the next day or two that now, instead of asking for bubbles, he pointed to the bubbles and said (kinda of sadly) “bubbles later daddy”. 

I almost lost it.  It hit me right then and there that, although he’s only 2 years old, I’m building parenting habits now!  He now thinks that the bubbles is pronounced: “b-u-b-b-l-e-s_l-a-t-e-r“.  He is at such a crucial stage where his personality and judgments are being formed and I blew it! 

Later on that day, I made sure that me, Heidi, and Connor went to the park to play bubbles.  Those simple words were enough of a wake up call to me that I need to honor my word to my son and truly live a life of no regrets.

Servant of a wicked cool God,

Matt Legere