I want you to know how proud I am to be your father. You have brought so much joy into my life with your humor, passion, your hunger for knowledge, and your love of life. I hope that you will remember this night as a time when I gave you my blessing. Always know that your father loves you and prays for you as I will until I die.

This is your life.

May you find that the only true friends are the ones that will tell you the truth even when it hurts.
May you run toward God because in the end- He’s what this life is all about.
May you seek wisdom above everything else.
I pray that you will have fun. Fun is good. But I pray that you will run away from foolishness. Remember that you can ruin your life in 60 seconds of wrong decisions.
I pray that you will treat women with dignity.
I pray that you will be true to yourself and be uncompromising.
I pray that you will not be caught in the snares that are everywhere around us.
I pray that you will learn the power of relationships.

This night is special too. This night I am giving my first father’s blessing. Tonight I speak blessings upon you and I release you. As much as I would like to keep you under my wings, the truth is you are now the caretaker of your destiny.

I release you into the world. As much as I am able I will continue to invest in your future but from this night on I will become more and more a prayer warrior and a spectator as your choices.

Tonight I want to challenge you to step fully into manhood.  It’s not something that happens instantaneously but manhood is about choices. I’ve learned the hard way in my life. Manhood is not an age but a choice.

A boy is selfish.
A man is sacrificial.
A boy speaks easy lies
A man speaks hard truths.
A boy has a foul mouth relying on a few vulgar words to communicate a myriad of messages.
A man uses a robust vocabulary to solve a myriad of conflicts.
A boy refuses to listen with an open mind.
A man listens much and talks little.
A boy is controlled by anger.
A man channels his anger to create Godly change.
The pleasure of a boy is unbridled and thoughtless.
A man is lives for a cause which ultimately brings him more pleasure than anything a boy could even imagine.

Jesus said: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

I can tell you this one thing that I know for sure:  Life is difficult. And once you accept that life is difficult you will find that it’s not too difficult to handle.

You’re likely to meet your future wife in the coming 4 years.  Choose wisely. Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor of the LORD.

Marriage is learning how to serve.  It’s God’s invention so that men like us could learn how to be like Jesus.

There is no woman on the face of the earth who will be able to make life worth it. It’s got to come from inside you.

Your success will be measured by your ability to do the hard work first and then the fun stuff. Every successful man learns that skill.

Christians will let you down.  It’s a fact of life.  Christ won’t.

You are going to face temptation greater than any you have ever faced. But I believe you have the character to handle it.

Sitting in front of the class will do more to help you succeed than any other college tip I can think of.

I have known five friends that have died from alcohol related deaths- binge drinking, alcoholism, killed by a drunk driver.  Please don’t be the 6th.

Your metabolism will slow down tremendously over the next 2 years. It’s just how a man’s body works.  Exercise and eat right.

You are loved, accepted and celebrated.  Tonight, I regard you as a man. Now it is your turn to change the world.

May your head be full of dreams.

May your heart be tethered to truth.

May your path be narrow and challenging.

May you fight for nobility.

May you never take alliance with fools.

May you run toward God.

May you find romance in life.

And may you seek the approval of God more than the approval of men.

About a month ago I took a swing at the diet phenomenon of intermittent fasting. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the practice of going 16 hours without eating anything. I’d start at around 9 pm and eat precisely 1 pm. It works, but the people who know me best have encouraged me to give it up. I’ve lost weight but it’s best not to interact with me around noon. My personality changes and I say things that are just plain out of character and none of them nice. My hangryness kicks in. I have little patience for anything or anyone. They would much prefer the slightly overweight, jolly, patient, kind person that I am on a full stomach than the skinny, twitchy, crass, impatient, grumpy guy that watches the clock like an astronaut, waiting to blast off toward any loaded platter of complex carbohydrates at 1PM. I have come to the sober realization that I am a broken man with an incredible aptitude for pizza. 

12:30 PM is about the time when coworkers scatter to distant cubicals and watercoolers far from my workstation.  Yes, they know. I try to avoid making any important decisions from noon to 1pm. Decision making on an empty stomach is dangerous. Just ask Esau. I think he invented intermittent fasting and paid a high price for it. After a morning of hunting on an empty stomach he caught the scent of Jacob’s stew and he made a stupid decision: 

He said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, because I’m exhausted.” That is why he was also named Edom. (Genesis 25:30 CSB). 

It doesn’t sound he knew what the dish was!  “Give that uh…. RED STUFF!” And on top of that, he got a nickname: Edom, meaning “red.”  When you get a nickname for something you ate, it’s always bad.  If I were Esau, the scripture might have read: “’I’m starving! Let me have some of those crunchy things!’ That is why they called him, ‘Doritos’.”

It’s just not safe for me to continue intermittent fasting. I’ll stick to fasting for spiritual growth, not weight loss. It’s just not worth it. Appetites are a part of life but just think of all the people who made bad choices because they let their appetites get the best of them. Take it from a recovering sinner, when you’re hungry for food, power, sex, or notoriety, you tend to make stupid choices. You might even sell your birthright.