Happy Birthday Titus

Titus Jeremy Haskins was born five years ago today in Birmingham, Alabama. Wow! I have been a dad for five years now! The joy of watching Titus and his three siblings (Nathan 3, Anna almost 2, and Charis 6 months) is a testimony of God's grace in my life.

Titus was named after Paul's pastoral apprentice, Titus, in the New Testament. In Titus 1:4, Paul refers to him as, a true son in the faith. Our prayer for our son, by birth, is that one day we can call him a true son in the faith. We want more than anything for him to believe in Jesus for salvation from his sins. We also want to send him from our home one day as a gospel warrior.

Psalm 127: 3-4 say, "Behold children are a heritage from the Lord; The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth."

By God's grace, we are seeking to prepare this little arrow to pierce the darkness of sin in the world with the light of the gospel of God's grace in Jesus. Our desire is to see him speak the Good News to those who have never heard or believed, beginning in Lexington and extending to the ends of the earth.

After being called as a missionary to South America, Jim Elliot wrote his family saying,Grieve not, then, if your sons seem to desert you, but rejoice, rather, seeing the will of God done gladly. Remember how the Psalmist described children? He said that they were as an heritage from the Lord, and that every man should be happy who had his quiver full of them. And what is a quiver full of but arrows? And what are arrows for but to shoot? So, with the strong arms of prayer, draw the bowstring back and let the arrows fly—all of them, straight at the Enemy's hosts. Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious, Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way, Pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious. And all thou spendest Jesus will repay.

May God graciously allow us one day to hear similiar words from the lips of our son!

Happy Birthday T-man.
Fly Arrow Fly!