Six months ago, Jen and I invested in two potty seats, hoping that Jacob and Joshua would quickly make the transition out of diapers.

I have to admit that I was motivated by money. I estimated that we could save about $50 per month once we were out of diapers.

The transition has hardly been quick. Jacob seemed mildly interested in the potty seat, occasionally using it after getting out of the bath tub.

Joshua, on the other hand, seemed almost defiant in his approach.

One time I was reading Joshua a book about Baby Ernie (from Sesame Street) using the potty.

I made a comment to Joshua about how Ernie is a big boy because he doesn’t wear diapers anymore. I then told Joshua how big boys don’t wear diapers anymore. I thought this would be an incentive for Joshua to discard his diaper to become a big boy.

Joshua replied, “I love my diaper.” I asked Joshua when he thought he would quit using his diaper. He replied, “when I drive.”

I suddenly had an image of a 16 year old boy behind the wheel of a car, wearing an adult diaper. I wondered if we would ever be out of diapers.

In the last two weeks, we’ve been more intentional about training the boys to use the potty seat.

About every 5 minutes you can hear one of us asking, “do you need to use the potty?” The boys are slowly starting to make the transition out of diapers.

As I’ve been thinking about this whole potty training situation, I realize how similar potty training is to everyday life.

Essentially, Jacob and Joshua were comfortable wearing diapers. It was all they knew and the idea of change was completely foreign to them.

How similar it is for us. At our core, we are creatures of habit. I find that I have these character traits that I’d love to change, but I find myself acting the same way.

For example, I’d love to be more patient. But have you ever tried to simply be more patient? It doesn’t work. Especially when you’re in the middle of potty training! That’s why we need to “train” ourselves in righteousness (2 Tim 3.16).

This is where spiritual disciplines come in. I must admit though that the idea of training seems tedious. But if we ever desire to become big boys (mature in Christ) by shedding our diapers of worldly character, we must be committed to a complete reconditioning of our heart and mind so that being impatient or angry is just as uncomfortable to us as wearing a dirty diaper is to a 3 year old.

Please pray for us as we take a one-month sabbatical during the month of July. Pray that we would be able to recondition our hearts and minds to become more like Jesus!

A few weeks ago, we had a Spring retreat with our students. It was a tremendous time of celebration and encouragement. One of our students named Jessica wrote this note of encouragement to us: