Review: You Can Do It! By Tony Dungy

Super-Bowl-winning coach and bestselling author, Tony Dungy, tries his hands at a children's book with You Can Do It!. Written and illustrated for children in probably 1-3 grade, Dungy tells a true story from his childhood. Linden, Tony Dungy's younger brother, didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up. He only knew he liked to make people smile. The Dungy's dad would regularly tell them, "Whatever it is that you want to do, you can do it. Trust God and dream big!" Tony knew he wanted to be a football player. His sister's knew what they wanted to do, be nurses or doctors. But Linden didn't know. His dad told him to pray that God would help Linden find his dream. The next day, while getting a filling at the dentist's office, his love of making people smile found its dream: Dentistry. The Dungy's dad told them to dream big and they did: Professional football and dentistry. And years later, both dreams came true.

Dungy writes in the afterword, "I'm glad I had parents that helped us to dream. I'm glad they taught us to pray about things that were on our mind. And I'm really glad that God answers our prayers...Our parents taught us to dream, but they also taught us something more important. Whatever we dreamed about, we should tell God because He is the one that can make those plans succeed."

It is good and right to teach children of a Christian household to pray to God, to tell Him what's on their mind, to ask him for things. God says in Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." My concern for this book lies in what is left unsaid and with how, without further guidance, God is made to look like His primary concern for us is to give us our dreams. God cares so much for His children that He died to save us from ours sins and reconcile us to himself (see 1 Peter 3:18). God is the greatest gift we could ever desire, and if you delight yourself in Him, He gives you Himself. But nowhere in the Bible does God promise to give us what we dream or everything we ask for (see James 4:3). The God of Dungy's You Can Do It! may give children the impression that God lives to make them dentists, professional football players, and nurses. It is true that the one who seeks to glorify God in everything (Colossians 3:23-24) will likely succeed, and the children should be taught to work hard and honor God in everything, even ask him for wisdom and guidance and blessing. However, the answer to these prayers is not always, "You can do it!" Sometimes, often it will be to say "no" to worldly success and the things that seem to matter here, and instead give trials. The message to a child who is being taught to honor God should be, "Seek first the Kingdom of God" (Luke 12:31) and then even in the face of losing everything, Jesus says to those who have trusted in Him, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

I am thankful that Dungy wants to encourage kids to dream big and try hard. I recognize that this book had a different aim than that I described in the paragraph above, and I suspect Dungy might even agree with my paragraph. He was emphasizing something different. Something I think that without qualification or explanation is dangerous or even wrong to emphasize. My fear is that much of Christianity today takes the statement "have faith" to mean little more than "have faith that God will bless you [in this world], and He will." Dungy makes many statements similar to this (For example, Dungy's dad when Linden was wondering if he would ever have a dream says, "Just keep having faith."). It is right to ask of God and have faith that He will do what's best. But if getting what we want is the focus of where we put our faith, we are missing everything of Christianity. Have faith in God to save you from your sins and give you Himself. Because of misplaced priorities and a high likelihood of communicating unbiblical and ungodly priorities, proceed with much caution; if it is to be read to a child, do so with much discernment and emphasis on what is missing from this picture of God.

Keywords: dungy,review

Review: LiquidAUX iPod/iPhone Remote Control for Your Car

I have fallen in love with the Kensington LiquidAUX. It is ingeniously designed and is an inexpensive option for safely using your iPod while in the car. If you want the aesthetically most pleasing solution to integrate your iPod and iPhone controls into your car stereo, this is not it. This device is specifically designed for the individual, like myself, who had their iPod sitting on the seat next to them or on the dashboard, connected to their stereo via an auxiliary input or cassette adapter. So contrary to some reviews, an aux-in on your car stereo is not mandatory for use, making this device usable in older cars with a tape deck and newer cars with the aux-in port.

In my mind, the primary benefits of using the LiquidAUX instead of simply manually controlling your iPod while in the car are two-fold: 1) Safety, 2) Ease of use.

Safety: I consider myself a pretty competent multi-tasking driver, but even still anything that keeps my hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road has to keep me safer. My wife has pointed out that I swerve a little less and keep a more consistent speed - signs of not being distracted - since using this device.

Ease of use: The LiquidAUX wireless remote that is mounted on the steering wheel has four buttons: Play, back, forward, and shuffle. The first three are obvious and any remote would be lacking without it; but the fourth, shuffle, is my favorite. In the car, I love to use shuffle to listen to random songs from either my entire collection or one of my playlists. Often I find myself reminded of an album that I love or haven't heard in a while. I wish I could take shuffle off and finish the album. To do that on the iPod, I would have to go into the settings menu, then take shuffle off (at least five seconds with my eyes on the iPod and not on the road). That's what the shuffle button does with one click. If you get to an album you want to keep listening to, hit that button, and you will continue on that album or artist. Then when you're sick of it and want the shuffling to continue, hit the button again, and off you continue on random again. All of this without even touching your iPod. So the LiquidAUX provides safety and convenience. Of course, you are still able to control your iPod the "old-fashioned way" while connected to the LiquidAUX...just make sure you do it at a red light ;-).

The box comes with a charger device that connects from the cigarette lighter (DC Power) to your compatible iPod (basically everything but a shuffle) or iPhone. There is a small wireless remote control (battery included) that mounts to your steering wheel for easy ability to control your iPod without being distracted from driving. Finally, the charger device has a 3.5mm output to connect to your cars auxiliary in (an extension is included in case your aux-in is further than a few inches from your cigarette lighter.

My car does not have an aux-in so I was concerned that I would not be able to use this device. But the headphone jack on the iPod still outputs audio even while under the control of the LiquidAUX, so I am able to connect to my stereo using a cassette tape adapter. This does make for quite a few wires, however: 1) From charger to iPod, 2) charger to aux-in port, 3) iPod to cassette-adapter (only if you don't have aux-in on stereo). This would be my number one foreseeable complaint. But these are also features that make the LiquidAUX not confined to a single car. Take it with you in a rental car on vacation, use it in a friend's car on a road trip, or swap it between your vehicles. I could not be happier with the LiquidAUX; it is engineered excellently to do that for which it was designed.

Keywords: ipod