Author: gabrieltew

Years ago when our children were in the at-home-developmental-stage, and my wife and I referred to our children as kids, my father-in-law sometimes corrected us.

“A kid is a baby goat,” he would say.

Shepherds often have goats and sheep in the same flock, thus Jesus’ analogy about separating them in Matthew 25. 

There are some examples we can find in the lives of good shepherds that prove useful in raising human children. Here are eight of them:

1. They know their sheep. A good shepherd knows their sheep’s strengths, weaknesses, tendencies and fears; parents can do the same by observing and studying their children, and we have great resources available. My two favorites are The Five Love Languages of Your Family, and How am I Smart?

2. Their sheep know them. A sheep knows his shepherd because that shepherd is consistently present with consistent behavior. If that behavior is consistently good, the sheep will willingly trust the shepherd. For parents, the key words are consistent, present and good.

3. They lay down their lives for their sheep. David risked his life, killing the bear and the lion, for his sheep. What parents lay down is more like their time, their pride and their energy for their kids.

4. They protect them. Protecting kids also often requires sacrifice. Protecting their physical wellbeing involves physical energy, and their mental and emotional protection requires guarding them against damaging words; sticks and stones…is a lie. Protecting them spiritually means teaching and exemplifying God’s love for them.

5. They rescue them and carry them home. Jesus established the Priority of the One Principle. If someone’s in trouble, drop what you’re doing, rescue them and bring them home. The mottos, No Man Left Behind (from the US military) and No Child Left Behind (President G. W. Bush’s education stance) serve as modern day practical examples of the principle. Parents who follow this commit all they can possibly give to rescue their child from whatever real danger threatens them.

6. They provide for them. Laying them down in the green grass…preparing a table for them…their cup running over… These are Biblical examples. What it looks like for parents is putting in the effort to ensure their kids’ needs are met.

7. They give them peace. If shepherds lead their sheep beside still waters and comfort them with their protective rod and staff, how do parents settle the anxious hearts of their children? By doing whatever is necessary to relieve their kids of anxiety.

8. They never leave them. This one, neither shepherds nor parents can promise to the degree Jesus can. What parents can promise is to never, to the best of their ability, leave the child uncared for; some things the parent will be present for, while other things will be wisely delegated to the trustworthy, and all things will be placed by faith in the all-capable hands of God. The parent can also promise that their thoughts and prayers for the child will never cease.

Parents, if we enact these eight practices, our parenting (shepherding) will be great!

This week I have two birthday wishes. I’ll take them one at a time.

First, Happy birthday to Luke! Luke, you’re our youngest son and have always brought laughter and amusement to our family and whomever you’ve been around. 

You were voted Tew Crew’s Funniest for several years running because of your unique sense of humor. You have a way of saying what nobody else would say or even think to say. I love hanging out with you and visiting you in Brooklyn because we always laugh so much. 

It’s something maybe only a dad can understand – the pride you feel when your son makes you laugh so hard, because it’s a gift, a talent not everyone has.

Funny and amusing, as I say, and the amusement is really more like awe or amazement. 

It just seems like whatever you do, you do it with mastery, whether it’s a performing art, a visual art or a workplace skill. It’s almost like there’s nothing you can’t do, and you do well whatever you engage in. I’m so proud of you and the wisdom you’ve developed over the years.

Speaking of years, it’s hard to believe but you rise to the third floor this year, a new decade, and I hope all ten of your thirties years are fulfilling in the best ways!

Happy thirtieth, buddy! I love you and can’t wait to celebrate you!

The second happy birthday is to our daughter-in-law Haley. 

Haley, I was so happy when Nate won you to be his wife, so beautiful, smart and Godly. What I didn’t realize was what an awesome friend you would be to Sharlene and me, as well as the entire Tew Crew. I love the way you obviously care about our family as much as if you’d been born into our family and raised in our household. 

To see you grow as a wife and mom has been a real treat for me, pouring yourself into your husband and four kids the way you do, and still having fuel in the tank to be a great friend, teacher and whatever else God calls you to do. 

I hope you have a wonderful birthday! I look forward to celebrating it with you as we show our love and appreciation for you!

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed at how far beyond my deserving God pours out His blessings on me. And this week, with a double portion of birthday celebration, is one of those times. 

God is good! All the time! To the Tew Crew!

Happy Birthday, Luke and Haley!

There aren’t many ways for which I can point to myself as the model. And even for this one my wife would not agree that I am.

The fact is that she and I are incompatible when it comes to shopping. Either one or both of us ends up dissatisfied when we shop together. 

I admit that she’s smarter and wiser that I am, and that she usually is the one who’s right when we disagree. 

But when it comes to shopping, I think I have the better approach. 

Here’s the difference:

Once we’ve found what we’re looking for, she wants to look further and I want to make the purchase and get out of the store. 

Her argument has some validity: we may find an even better bargain. But mine says: we’ve found what we came for; let’s move on. 

My point in all this isn’t to pick a fight with my wife, especially publicly. It’s to make an application to marriage. And I know she’ll agree with it. 

The whole shopping thing is just laying the groundwork for an analogy. You probably know where I’m going with this.

Once you’ve found your mate, stop shopping. 

This seems like a no-brainer, but there are those who don’t shift out of shopping mode once they’re married. And the spirit that hates God and all His ways and His creation beckons us all to keep searching for what we already have. Don’t be content with what God has provided, it says, but look around and see what else there may be. Isn’t that pretty much what the serpent said to Eve? She and Adam had been provided the most complete garden ever, yet they decided to shop for the forbidden. 

Husbands and wives of our age have the same enemy that attacked with lies in that ancient garden, and he still uses the same alluring invitation: look over here. It’s even better than what God has provided. 

But it isn’t, it never was and it never will be. 

Now I may still lose the shopping debate; I wouldn’t be surprised, given my history, but we all win when we choose to be content with what God has provided. And in case you don’t see your spouse as the one God provided, remember Jesus’ words, whatever God has joined together let no person separate. If you’re married, His will for you is to be married to your current spouse. Pray for help and be content with loving your spouse. 

And no more shopping!

Hubbies, I’m about to do you a huge favor. No thanks necessary or compensation in any form, just enjoy the gift.

There’s a reason you’ve been frustrated with your sex life, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Your wife needs you to check all the boxes before she can cooperate with your hopes and dreams of having sex. Here’s the checklist:

Foundational. These are the factors that need to be in place long before you decide to make your move. They’re who you are as a person, the qualities your wife saw in you from the beginning, somehow – whether in the form of potential or demonstration – and you need to live out that vision she has of that best person you can be. 

1. An Admirable Man. Are your character, mentality and attitude soundly Godly, compassionate, determined and uncompromising in your work ethic and your treatment of others, especially your wife and children? If not, you have to begin today building that kind of foundation. If you’re in good shape in that department, great. A wife is turned on by her husband’s life style of demonstrating admirable qualities.

2. A History of a Considerate Sex Life. Your wife’s response to your romantic advances come from her filtering them through the history you’ve built with her from past times of sexual intimacy. How selfish or unselfish you’ve been, not how impressive your physical prowess or skill is or isn’t, is what most influences her response.

Recent History. I mean your very recent history. Like in the past twenty-four, forty-eight, or ninety six hours at the most, how considerate, sacrificial, kind and gentle you’ve been contributes to your wife’s mood and emotional outlook even more than her hormonal and bio-feminine factors.

3. Fatigue. Your wife knows how energetic or exhausted she is, and why she is one or the other. If you’ve contributed to her having energy, you’ll both enjoy your time together. But if her exhaustion is because of you – or if you haven’t even noticed that she is exhausted – enjoyment is off the table for both of you. 

4. The State of the Home. Your wife has to be at peace with how things are, from the laundry and kitchen to the bank account, from the kids to the neighbors. If anything is in disarray or in unresolved trouble, she can’t relax. If she can’t relax, she isn’t free to be intimate with you. 

Final Moments. In the final moments leading up to your intimate time, don’t blow it. If you’ve checked all the boxes up to this point, all you have to do is love your wife unselfishly, consider everything you know about her and try to make this a very happy moment for her. 

5. Push the Right Buttons. You know your wife well enough to know what to do and what not to do. Make sure it’s all about her peace, joy and satisfaction. Continue to pay as much, or more, attention to her emotional pleasure as to her physical pleasure. 

6. Enjoy the Moment. Believe it or not, your wife is pleased by knowing she pleases you. Don’t keep that a secret from her. Celebrate your mutual pleasure together in a tasteful way. This will also pay dividends in the future as it contributes to the history you two have together, adding to a pattern of a very positive sex life. 

Again, gentlemen, no need to thank me. Just enjoy your wife and your marriage!

Sometimes, when I officiate wedding ceremonies, I’ll include this statement in the vows:

I vow to do my best to make it easy for you to love me

The idea is that, even though we’re called by God to love our spouse with agape-love (the love that requires nothing in advance or in return, that we give regardless of circumstances), it’s best if we don’t keep them in a position of having to love us in response to unpleasant conditions, if we  provide for them traits and behaviors for which they’re thankful and by which they’re inspired, even to which they’re attracted. 

It contributes greatly to our sense of feeling secure to have a spouse who we will love us no matter what. But it’s also nice for them to carry traits that are pleasant, inspiring and desirable.  

So, I think it’s best if each spouse will commit to love with agape love while helping their spouse live as happily as possible. 

I don’t like the statement, I left my spouse because I wasn’t happy. But I love the statement, I want to do everything possible to make my spouse happy. 

If my goal is for my spouse to be happy, rather than to be happy, myself, I’ll be a good spouse. And the marriage with two good spouses, both of them endeavoring to make the other happy, is a very good marriage.

So, here’s the dare: I dare you to ask your spouse, How can I make you happy, so you don’t have to love me with only agape love, but have gratitude, inspiration and attraction concerning me as your spouse?

That’s the Spouse Question. Encourage them to be completely honest; and be ready, yourself to be challenged by their response. 

Take the dare and see if your marriage isn’t transformed.

Open Letter to my oldest daughter, Kristin, whom we call Kwi:

Dear Kwi,

Your nickname, Kwi, came about because, when you were three and four years old, you did everything so fast, you had trouble pronouncing your Rs (Kwistin, you’d call yourself), and you were so energetic, that I dubbed you Kwick-kwick. You were the fastest kid in your soccer league, and you could even outrun your older brother. Well Quick-quick was eventually shortened to Kwi. 

What a joy it was seeing you move with such energy and speed. The only problem was that, since you were always on the move, I rarely got a good look at you. I’d watch you sleep sometimes because it was the only time you were still. 

When you were older, we enrolled you in a dance program called Glory Academy of Fine Arts (GAFA). We wanted you to gain the poise and composure dance could offer you in carrying yourself with grace. Well it worked, but you saw dance as more than an exercise in poise. You loved dance – all the disciplines, but especially hip-hop – and poured yourself into it and became the top dancer in the academy. 

You’ve repeatedly won the Tew Crew Funniest Award, voted on by the Tew Crew members, because of your advanced sense of humor. And that’s nothing to sneeze at (or laugh at), since our family is filled with hilarious people. It’s such an awesome thing to be able to laugh with my daughter, and you always provide plenty of humor when we’re together. 

Since you’ve grown into a mature adult woman and professional, we all know you as someone with extraordinary organizational skills. I, myself, have brought you projects that had become overwhelmingly confusing and asked you to help me get them into a manageable system, and you’ve applied your talent to bring order to them, much to my amazement and gratitude. How proud I am when I watch you operate with such a gift!

And now you’re 33 years old. Unbelieveable! Seems like yesterday you were only 3 and I was trying to get a bead on the blur flashing by that was you. 

I wrote in my journal 29 years ago of my sadness that you had finally learned to pronounce your little brother’s name correctly. You could now say Jacob, and Butcheck would never come from your lips again. I cried, I remember. And still I am crying now.

All the experiences – happy and sad, good and bad – continue to culminate into your story, and I’m so thankful to be a part of it. 

Happy birthday, Kwi! I love you and I’m so proud to be your dad!

This weekend is my wife’s birthday. We’ll be celebrating her, but I want to share with our readers some thoughts to honor her on her special day.

Sharlene was born into a home with Godly parents who were also entrepreneurial and committed to excellence in everything they did. 

Sharlene and her three siblings are all products of the family culture with strength in the areas of organization, leadership, business and service. 

Sharlene has been a blessing to me in more ways than I can list, but it’s obvious to me that she was hand-crafted by God to be a wife, mother and grandmother. She’s known to our nine grandchildren as Lolli, and if there’s one thing I’m dissatisfied with about Lolli it’s that she gets more grandkid attention than I do.

I had a major stroke in 2020. I lost the ability to open the fingers on my left hand and the ability to sing. Sharlene helped me through the difficult days of my recovery at home, making me more thankful than ever for her compassion for me. 

I’ve been a singer-songwriter for most of my adult life. In 2019, the year before my singing and keyboard skills would come to an end, I wrote some songs for my family and did a backyard concert for them. 

I wrote two songs for Sharlene. One, her namesake, was a fun, light-hearted one. Here it is:

I also wrote her serious song, called The One for Me. Watch it here:

I look forward to celebrating Sharlene on August 29^th, a day that (I won’t give the year.) will go down in history as the birth of one of the greatest wife-mom-Lolli’s in all of history.

Happy Birthday, Lolli! I hope your day is half the blessing to you that you are to us!

My son, Jacob, turns 31 in a couple days. I want to take this space to honor him on his special day. 

So our readers can gain something useful for their own character-building, I’ll share some of Jacob’s qualities; if we adopt them, we’ll be better people.

All Heart. From the time he was a little kid, Jake has always had an intensity about him, and he still has it. Whatever he does, he does it with laser focus and a lot of emotion. As an athlete (at age twelve, he ranked 24^th in the nation in the floor event as a gymnast, was later an excellent high school basketball player and a college golfer) Jacob was so much fun to watch, for his parents, yes, but also for spectators in general. He graduated college with honors, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.

But here’s the most impressive (and unusual) thing about his intensity quality. As he moved into a different phase in life, he applied that intensity to his relationship with God and with his family. Now a husband, father and insurance professional, he goes at his current life’s goals with the same passion that he used to apply to his student-athlete life. Many who were athletes when younger are never able to apply their lessons learned to more important pursuits, living in their past glory days but not having an equivalent current day focus and passion. I’m very impressed that Jacob has distanced himself from that trend. He still has a lot of heart. It’s just a heart for things of greater maturity and significance now.

Generosity-Driven. Who can say this? Anytime I’ve been with my son (when he was aged 26 to 30) he’s paid for everything: meals, events, gas, etc. That’s true of Jacob. And it isn’t that his income has been massive; it’s that he prepares and positions himself to be ready for opportunities to be generous. He’s slept in his car on business trips, instead of spending money on lodging, and not for any purpose but to be prepared for opportunities to be generous. 

And it isn’t just money that Jake invests in others, but his time and energy, as well. And it isn’t just Jake who gives so freely of time and efforts, but his wife, Karissa, is in lock step with him in this way. The two of them are as generous as any couple I know. My wife and I – and Karissa’s parents – are very proud of the way those two live their lives. And their kids (two boys, so far) are likely to be the same kind of people, with such wonderful models as Jake and Karissa. 

Magnetically Humble. Jesus said the meek’s blessing will be that they inherit the earth. The Greek word used for earth there is oikoumene, which most often refers to the inhabitants of the world, people. The way it works is that humility (meekness) is such an attractive quality that people are drawn to those who have it. Thus, meek, humble people inherit a following in a very organic process. 

I see people gravitate toward Jacob, and I believe it’s because of the humility with which he carries himself through life. It’s probably how he won the heart of his beautiful wife. 😊

These are three of the qualities I celebrate in Jacob on his 31^st birthday. And may we all absorb his example and be better people because of him. 

Happy Birthday, Jacob!!!

This is the week of my mother’s birthday. She’d be eighty-six; she left us for her eternal home more than eleven years ago. 

I confess that I didn’t understand her full value and positive impact (I probably still don’t – maybe never will) until she was gone. With her missing from the earth now, I often find myself reflecting on the way she used quiet moments to teach me and help me know God. She actually had a way of creating quiet moments, even amid the noises of life. 

As a parent and grandparent, my eyes are ever open to opportunities to impact my kids and grandkids the way my mom did. I confess, I’m not as good at it as she was, but at least I have something to shoot for. 

In case you’re interested, here are some things she accomplished with her whispers:

She taught me to be still and know God. I can’t tell you how many times I was in turmoil, nearly always self-inflicted, when she would move in close to get my attention and softly ask a thought-provoking question, like, “Have you asked God what He thinks about it?”

She taught me to be genuine. Mama played the piano and taught two of my sisters and me to harmonize, perform well for an audience and carry ourselves with an air of professionalism. I feel safe in saying that we were pretty good. We often won contests and were generally known and acknowledged as making beautiful music.

Sometimes, when we were practicing, she would stop and say, “Make sure you mean what you’re singing, It ain’t worth a flip if you don’t sing it from your heart.” She’d speak it softly, but her meaning was loud and clear. It seemed trite at the time. But when I went on to earn a degree in music, and even sing professionally for a time, I took that lesson with me as it echoed in my heart many times during my practice and performances. 

She taught me to be humble. It isn’t easy to teach someone to have confidence and meekness at the same time. Nor does everybody have a knack for inspiring ambition while having you keep a down-to-earth mentality. Mama would do that by reminding me of that truth with the simple statement, “Everything good about you was a gift from God, so make sure He’s pleased with you.”

To be honest, those lessons didn’t take, since I didn’t have ears to hear them, until probably ten or twelve years after she spoke them. Truthfully, I’m still learning them today. 

I can still hear my mother’s whispers. And how powerful they are! Thank you, Mama, and happy heavenly birthday!

If something is holy, that means it’s set apart by God, with God and for God. 

It was God who came up with the idea of humans enjoying sex together. That covers the by God piece. 

God intended and intends that He be included in, not left out, of sex. Obviously not in a physical sense, but He wants His design for sex to be acknowledged and followed. That’s the with God part.

God has a purpose for sex, more than one, actually. Its most obvious purpose is procreation, but that’s not all. Apart from conceiving children, sex between a husband and wife connects them, unifies them, in the most intimate way possible. Not only are they physically intimate during sex, but through sex they also create an extremely strong bond mentally, emotionally and spiritually, the kind God wants a married couple to have. With this bond comes an intense level of joy and satisfaction.  

A husband and wife experiencing this God-designed fulfillment are closer to each other than any two people can be. 

As I say, holy means to be set apart by, with and for God. If a someone gets off track in their sex life, they’ve perverted it; it’s turned in the wrong direction (per = completely; vert = turn). They can correct it by repenting, which means to turn in the right direction. (re = again; pent = turn). So sexual perversion is turning away from God’s design for sex, and to turn back to His design produces fruit of repentance. 

You may think that holy sex can’t include what perverted sex does. While that’s true, holy sex is more about what it includes than what it’s missing. 

God prefers that sex would occur in a process where it’s preceded by some important things. These things are like foreplay, but in a broader sense. Here they are:

1. Christian Fellowship. Fellowship means having something important in common. Before having sex, the first thing is to determine if you’re compatible spiritually, to see if you’re fellows in Christ.
2.  Friendship. To jump into bed without building a friendship first means you’re opting for a shallow, carnal relationship, missing important non-sexual things for an intimate relationship.
3. Covenant. Skipping covenant means the relationship is devoid of commitment, dedication and loyalty. These virtues do far more than keeping one person from ending the relationship; they also establish a sense of confidence so they can enjoy sex on a bed of peace and security.

So, when we don’t leave out what God intended to be included, we’re preparing for a better sex life. That’s how we keep sex holy.