{"id":7546,"date":"2012-12-06T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7546"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:56","slug":"a-life-lesson-from-my-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7546","title":{"rendered":"A Life Lesson from My Dad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My dad owned and managed a True Value Hardware store and built a lifelong reputation for common sense, common decency and uncommon integrity.\u00a0 In his lifetime he interacted with thousands of customers and\u00a0hired, trained and guided\u00a0scores of teenagers and\u00a0dozens of\u00a0adults.\u00a0 Of course, my brothers and I also worked at the store while we were growing up, so I got to see firsthand what my dad was like as a boss.\u00a0 Here is\u00a0one truth (among many) that was impressed upon anyone who ever worked for my dad:\u00a0 he would never ask\u00a0someone\u00a0to do\u00a0a task\u00a0that he himself refused to do or one\u00a0he felt\u00a0was somehow “beneath” him as the boss.\u00a0 There was no such task.\u00a0 If he\u00a0presented an employee with\u00a0a boring, messy or uncomfortable task,\u00a0that employee\u00a0at least knew that dad\u00a0knew firsthand exactly what it was like – having done it himself many, many times before.\u00a0 Here’s why I bring it up.\u00a0 Melissa and I have spent this past year asking friends, family members and even complete strangers to financially support us as missionaries to Haiti.\u00a0 We talk about the Great Commission and how it’s a call on every Christian’s life.\u00a0 We acknowledge that Scripture teaches that all we\u00a0own comes from God and we are to be wise stewards.\u00a0 We point to 2 Corinthians 9:10 and similar verses which describe how God gives us bread to eat (for ourselves)\u00a0AND<\/em> seed to sow (for others).\u00a0 We affirm that God has a passion for the poor, the oppressed and the lost (all of which can be found in Haiti in abundance).\u00a0 We\u00a0tell others\u00a0it a privilege to be involved in building God’s kingdom around the world through financial sacrifice.So it would be strange, wouldn’t it, if Melissa and I didn’t practice what we preach?\u00a0 If we asked others to do something we ourselves\u00a0neglected to do?And yet it seems a lot of\u00a0people\u00a0believe that “some are called to go and some are called to send” and thus assume that\u00a0we, in striving to\u00a0go<\/strong> to the field, are therefore exempt from the call to send<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But the fact of the matter is ALL believers are meant to be about building God’s kingdom and doing God’s will; we hold that all<\/strong> are called to go with the Gospel – whether that is\u00a0overseas\u00a0or\u00a0an office or the grocery store or\u00a0a classroom AND<\/em> all<\/strong> are called to send.\u00a0 Unless I get sidetracked, I will devote an upcoming post to the two missionaries we support financially on a monthly basis.\u00a0 They are advancing the kingdom in two very different ways – one serving at OMS headquarters and working with web development and the other heading to the Philippines to work against human trafficking – and they are both very dear to us.\u00a0 And we believe their work is very close to God’s heart and we want to be a part of it.I am sure my dad would have approved.P.S.\u00a0 We also have a couple of missionaries who\u00a0are giving to send\u00a0us<\/em><\/strong>!\u00a0 Awesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My dad owned and managed a True Value Hardware store and built a lifelong reputation for common sense, common decency and uncommon integrity.\u00a0 In his lifetime he interacted with thousands of customers and\u00a0hired, trained and guided\u00a0scores of teenagers and\u00a0dozens of\u00a0adults.\u00a0 Of course, my brothers and I also worked at the store while we were growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7547,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions\/7547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}