What Kind of Example are you showing

​A few years ago, I was not making the best choices or setting the best example.  I got caught up in bodybuilding.  Bodybuilding was my life and I was doing everything I could do to succeed in this. I was at the gym at 4am and then again at 6pm. It was all about me and my desires. I also got caught in things that I had no business being a part of. These things only made me think only of myself what I wanted (or thought I wanted). By doing this, I succeeded and change my body to compete and place in the bodybuilding shows. People would say to me WOW you are so dedicated, I wish I could do that. What people didn’t see is who I was letting down. Not only was I letting myself down, what I didn’t see and most importantly, I was letting my daughters down.
 
My daughters lost their dad. I was not in a good place and it was all about me. I was not showing them the Godly example I taught them to be for so long. What they saw was a man who put God in the corner and was only focused on himself. My daughters distanced themselves from me and I didn’t see it at first because I was only focusing on me.  At that time, I was not the most loving Dad that I should have been. I was not showing them the Godly Father that God called me to be.  When I put bodybuilding aside and stop the things I was doing, it was then I found myself in such a dark place.  I saw how I was acting and the decisions I made were not the best examples for my daughters.  It was on a Saturday that I found myself in such a dark place I just wanted God to take me home and if he didn’t I would help him.  It was a place that I never want to be again in my life.  It was a place only God could bring me out of.  I realized that my actions were not Godly examples and I was not going to live this life knowing I was not being the example to my kids that God called me to be. So, I had to make the decision to let God bring me back to be the dad my daughters knew or continue to live in the black hole.  I found myself allowing God to bring me up from this dark place to be the example I needed to be. 

So what kind of example are you? This brings me to Titus 2:7 “in everything set them an example by doing what is good.”  What kind of example are you? Are you the kind of man or woman whose life serves as a powerful example of decency and morality? Are you a man or woman whose behavior serves as a positive role model for others? Are you the kind of person whose fidelity, and love for the lord? If so, you are not only blessed by God, you are also a powerful force for good in the world that desperately needs positive influences such as yours. Phillips brooks advised, “ be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be Gods paradise.” And that’s sound advice because our families and friends are watching…. And so, for that matter, is God.

Don’t be like me and love yourself more than the things around you and almost lose things that are so close to you. I look at my daughters and think, was I that the kind of man I want them to marry or the man the God called me to be? I am not saying I’m perfect by no means and I have made a lot mistakes in my life, but the question is, what did I learn from them and now how will God use me to not only to teach my daughter but to teach others.  My kids have seen a Dad that that strives for worldly things, and now I want them to see the Godly dad.