{"id":246,"date":"2026-04-27T10:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/?p=246"},"modified":"2026-04-27T12:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T17:04:28","slug":"only-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/only-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- POST TITLE: Only Jesus | A 6:15am Moment I Did Not See Coming -->\n<style>\n@import url('https:\/\/fonts.googleapis.com\/css2?family=Oswald:wght@400;600;700&family=Lato:ital,wght@0,300;0,400;0,700;1,300;1,400&display=swap');\n.su-wrap{--stone:#4A4A4A;--ash:#F0EDE8;--gold:#C9933A;--shadow:#1C1C1C;font-family:'Lato',sans-serif;color:var(--stone);max-width:700px;margin:0 auto;padding:2rem 1.5rem;line-height:1.8;font-size:1rem}\n.su-tag{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.65rem;letter-spacing:.25em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--gold);margin-bottom:.4rem}\n.su-sub{font-family:'Lato',sans-serif;font-size:.85rem;font-weight:300;color:var(--stone);margin-bottom:2rem;letter-spacing:.03em}\n.su-verse{border-left:3px solid var(--gold);background:#f2ede5;padding:1.25rem 1.5rem;margin:1.75rem 0;font-style:italic;font-size:1.1rem;color:var(--shadow);line-height:1.6}\n.su-verse cite{display:block;font-style:normal;font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.7rem;letter-spacing:.15em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--gold);margin-top:.5rem}\n.su-beat{font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;font-size:.65rem;letter-spacing:.25em;text-transform:uppercase;color:var(--gold);margin:2rem 0 .4rem}\nhr.su-rule{border:none;border-top:1px solid #ddd;margin:1.75rem 0}\n.su-callout{background:var(--shadow);color:var(--ash);padding:1.5rem 1.75rem;margin:2rem 0}\n.su-callout .su-beat{color:var(--gold);margin-top:0}\n.su-callout p{margin:.4rem 0 0;line-height:1.65;font-size:1rem}\n.su-foot{font-size:.72rem;color:#bbb;margin-top:2rem;padding-top:1rem;border-top:1px solid #eee;font-family:'Oswald',sans-serif;letter-spacing:.12em;text-transform:uppercase}\np{margin:0 0 1.1rem}\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"su-wrap\">\n  <p class=\"su-tag\">Stumble Up &bull; Personal Reflection<\/p>\n  <p class=\"su-sub\">Only Jesus &bull; A 6:15am moment I did not see coming<\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"su-verse\">\n    &#8220;Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.&#8221;\n    <cite>&mdash; Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV)<\/cite>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <p>It was early. Way too early for the thoughts God decided to drop on me this morning, honestly. But that is pretty much how he works, so I should not have been surprised.<\/p>\n\n  <p>My son is a freshman. He is out there fighting for a spot on a high school football team, and this morning that meant loading up before the sun had any business being up and driving him to a practice that most grown men would not voluntarily attend. He was ready. Gear packed, shoes tied, not a single complaint. Just a ninth grader with somewhere to be and the willingness to go be there.<\/p>\n\n  <p>I dropped him off and watched him jog toward the facility without looking back. The way kids do when they are fully in the thing and you are already beside the point. And I sat there in the driveway for a second before I pulled away, doing the thing parents do in those moments where we try to hold onto something that is already moving too fast for us.<\/p>\n\n  <hr class=\"su-rule\">\n\n  <p class=\"su-beat\">The Song I Did Not Plan On<\/p>\n\n  <p>I had added a song to my playlist last night without really listening to it first. <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/_eQd3K2Fxp4?si=WjIqFxEtP64XQYgH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" style=\"color:#C9933A;font-weight:700;\">Only Jesus by Casting Crowns.<\/a> It came on during the drive and I let it play. I was half paying attention, thinking about the day ahead, thinking about my son, thinking about the hundred things that live in the background of a man&#8217;s head at any given hour.<\/p>\n\n  <p>And then I dropped him off and started the drive home. And for some reason I hit restart on the song.<\/p>\n\n  <p>You know why. I did not know why in the moment. But you know why.<\/p>\n\n  <p>I made it about three minutes before I was somewhere between crying and ugly crying on Glade Rd. at 6:15 in the morning, which is not my most dignified moment but is apparently what God had scheduled for this Monday morning.<\/p>\n\n  <p>The song asks a question that I have been quietly sitting with ever since. It is the question underneath all the other questions a man asks himself when he watches his kid show up fully for something and wonders whether he is doing the same. Not about football. Not about schedules or success or any of the tangible things the world tells us are the measure of a good father. Something deeper than all of that.<\/p>\n\n  <p>Was my life the proof that there is only One whose name lasts forever?<\/p>\n\n  <hr class=\"su-rule\">\n\n  <p class=\"su-beat\">What the World Tells Us to Build<\/p>\n\n  <p>We are surrounded by a version of fatherhood that is mostly about provision. Give them the opportunities. Show up to the games. Build the name. Leave the legacy. Make sure when it is over that there is something to point to, something to be remembered by, a scoreboard somewhere with the right numbers on it.<\/p>\n\n  <p>And none of that is wrong exactly. We should provide. We should show up. We should work hard. But there is a version of all of that which is quietly about us. About our record. About what our kids will say about us someday, about how the chapter reads when it is done.<\/p>\n\n  <p>The song cracked something open in me this morning because it named that ambition and then laid something else right next to it. The only name that lasts is not the one we are building. It is the one we are supposed to be pointing to. And the question that matters at the end is not whether our kids remember what we did for them. It is whether our lives were evidence that there is something worth trusting beyond what we could provide.<\/p>\n\n  <p>Did I live the truth to the ones I love?<\/p>\n\n  <p>That sentence landed somewhere specific this morning. Because I can answer the provision questions. I know where we stand on the scoreboard the world keeps. What I am less certain about, and what God had apparently decided 6am was the right time to bring up, is whether the way I am living is actually pointing my sons toward Jesus or just pointing them toward a father they can be proud of.<\/p>\n\n  <p>Those are not the same thing. And I need to make sure I know the difference.<\/p>\n\n  <hr class=\"su-rule\">\n\n  <p class=\"su-beat\">My Son Showed Up at 6:15 am<\/p>\n\n  <p>Here is the thing about watching your kid jog toward a football field without looking back. It is one of the best things you will ever see. That kind of wholehearted, uncomplicated commitment to something hard. He did not need encouragement this morning. He did not need me to talk him into it or pump him up or tell him it would be worth it. He just got up and went.<\/p>\n\n  <p>And sitting in that parking lot, watching him go, I felt two things at the same time. Pride, which is the obvious one. And a quiet conviction, which is the one that God apparently wanted to spend the rest of the morning working on.<\/p>\n\n  <p>My son got up before sunrise to fight for something. Am I doing the same? Not for a roster spot. For the thing that actually matters. Am I showing up with that kind of wholehearted commitment to the life God asked me to live, to the men my boys are becoming, to the marriage that is the foundation under everything they are building their lives on top of?<\/p>\n\n  <p>Or am I mostly showing up for the tangible version of fatherhood, the one the world can see and count and applaud, while the deeper thing gets whatever energy is left over?<\/p>\n\n  <p>I do not have a clean answer to that this morning. I am in the honest part of it, the part where the question is fresh and I have not had time to package it into something presentable. But I think that is okay. I think God is more interested in us being in the honest part than in us having a polished answer ready.<\/p>\n\n  <hr class=\"su-rule\">\n\n  <p class=\"su-beat\">Only Jesus<\/p>\n\n  <p>The thing that broke me open in the car was not complicated. It was the simplest possible version of a question I have been circling for years without landing on it this directly.<\/p>\n\n  <p>If my sons remember me, will what they remember point them to Jesus? Or will it just point them to me?<\/p>\n\n  <p>Because I want them to know their dad loved them fiercely. I want them to know he showed up. I want them to know he worked hard and told the truth and stayed. All of that matters. But if that is where it stops, if I am the end of the story instead of the arrow pointing toward the story, then I have missed the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n  <p>I only get one life. And the question the song asked me this morning was what I am letting every second of it point to.<\/p>\n\n  <p>I am not there yet. I fall short of that every single day in ways I am more aware of than anyone around me knows. But that is what we are here for, right? Not to perform the finished version of ourselves but to keep orienting. To keep pointing the arrow back in the right direction every time it drifts.<\/p>\n\n  <p>My son showed up at 6:15 am and jogged toward a football field without looking back. I want to do the same thing with the thing God called me to. No hesitation. No half-commitment. Just up and in it, fully, because it matters and because the one we are doing it for is worth that kind of showing up.<\/p>\n\n  <div class=\"su-callout\">\n    <p class=\"su-beat\">The Question Worth Sitting With<\/p>\n    <p>Not &#8220;am I doing enough&#8221; for my family. That question keeps us focused on the scoreboard the world keeps. The better question is: is the way I am living pointing the people I love toward the only name that lasts? That is the one worth getting up early for.<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <p class=\"su-foot\">stumbleup.me &bull; #StumbleUp &bull; #OnlyJesus &bull; #LetYourLifesongSing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stumble Up &bull; Personal Reflection Only Jesus &bull; A 6:15am moment I did not see coming &#8220;Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fatherhood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-27-2026-10_01_47-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumbleup.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}