Author: Tim

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Some People Have Skeletons in Their Closet; Mine’s Packed With Gear

Adventure-wise, I’ve done a lot of weird stuff in my life. I have logbooks, journals, and other things that helped chronicle adventures now long gone. I’ve invested thousands of dollars into equipment most people don’t normally get a chance to use. Here’s a partial list of gear I’ve either owned in the past or still own today:

Cross-country skis, poles, and boots

Skydiving container, parachute, reserve parachute, jumpsuit, wrist altimeter, goggles

Semi-dry suit, wetsuit, buoyancy control device, dive computer, regulators, extra weights, booties, fins, gloves, mask, snorkel, various accessories

Multiple climbing harnesses, four different climbing ropes, 15+ carabiners, rigging plate, pulleys, 100+ feet of webbing, figure 8s, ATCs, ascenders, block & tackle, assorted cordage

Paintball gun, paintball mask, CO2 cylinders, thousands of paintball rounds

Cold-weather gear, rain gear, boots

GPS receiver, two-way radios, headlamps, lanterns, flashlights, spotlight, flares, glow sticks, binoculars, glacier glasses, gear bags, backpacks, various knives, fire-starting metal match, 550 cord, tarps

(I don’t think I’ve ever put together a list like this, and looking at it now, I have to express how fortunate I am to not be maimed, seriously injured, or dead as a result of eccentric hobbies. I have no idea how many waivers I’ve signed in my life. Lord, thank you and please pass along my thanks to my guardian angel(s) for me! But that’s not the point I set out to make.)

It’s fun to still have a lot of these relics from long ago. Many of these items are intended for very specific uses, while others can be used in a variety of situations. When I look at some of this gear now, it’s beat up or well worn due to heavy use. Other pieces are almost brand new, even years later, because they either haven’t been used or I only used them lightly. Some of my most well-worn gear includes my cross-country skis and the climbing harnesses and ropes (considering the condition of the climbing gear, those guardian angels deserve another shout-out!). Other stuff that was pretty much a waste of money includes the semi-dry suit (I used it one weekend and still have it, almost 20 years later) and the wetsuit (I’ve had it the same amount of time, but never even got it wet).

At one time or another I owned all of that gear, so it was up to me how often and in what fashion I used it. Users know every piece of gear must one day be pulled from service because it doesn’t last forever. I sometimes had to make the conscious decision to say “you’re starting to wear out, I’m going to sideline you on this smaller adventure so I can save your remaining utility for something bigger,” or “no, I’m not going to bring you along with me this time because based on what I intend to do, I won’t need you this time.”

If, at any point, any of that gear had said to me “I don’t think I’m up for this,” or started repeatedly protesting the manner in which I intended to use it, I likely would have altered my plans for using it. I probably would have started viewing it as unreliable or not worth the hassle. If you look back at the list of gear I wrote down, most of it is used for activities where you can’t accept the use of questionable equipment. If I have unreliable gear but still have my mind set on taking part in the activity, what am I to do? I can either replace it with a piece of more reliable gear, or figure out another way to do what I’m trying to do using the rest of the stuff I have on hand.

Some of the more worn pieces of equipment I have are the ones that have been most reliable, and I have specific memories of how they’ve come through for me when I asked a lot from them. When you consider that we, as Christians, are tools wielded by the Lord to be used for His purposes (purposes we don’t understand or get a say in), it should be our goal to be up for the challenge whenever the Master opens the doors to his gear racks and looks through what He’s got to work with. If that’s the attitude we maintain, by the end of our lives, we’re going to have a very well-worn quality due to heavy use. That’s a good thing.

Make it your goal to, by the end of your life, lose the shine that accompanies lack of use. We shouldn’t be hung up in the closet, still bright and colorful; we should have frayed seams, some chips and dings, and be a little faded. For those of you who have lived your life serving the Lord, or who have temporarily parted ways with loved ones after their years of faithful service to Him, take comfort in the fact that He has fond and specific memories of the ways you and yours have come through for Him.

One day that shine and color will be renewed, even brighter than the original.

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There’s a Fine Line Between Hooligans and Criminals

Here’s a story that hopefully gives you a chuckle.

Early in my time in the Air Force, I tried out to be a survival instructor. The class only started twice a year at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. While waiting around for the next class to start, we did lots of exercising and other physical training to prepare our bodies for the rigors of the upcoming course.

One of the things we did on a weekly basis was load up our ruck sacks and go on long hikes in a state park or some weird trail or on public land out in the boonies. The idea was to keep our bodies accustomed to bearing heavy loads for a long time as we moved over miles of terrain, and along the way practice some land navigation. We were fortunate enough to have some pretty relaxed superiors while waiting around for training to start, and since we’re talking the Air Force (not the Army or Marines), they told us “hey, as long as they’re decent, you can wear civilian clothes during this ruck; the only guidelines are that you wear the issued boots you intend to wear during the course and you must bring a loaded ruck.”

Now, when you go for long hikes once a week, it doesn’t take long before you start repeating trails. One of the sergeants in charge of us had an idea to help break up the monotony. He had family an hour or two away from the base; his parents lived in Idaho somewhere, I think. He worked out a plan to have us go for a hike near their location, then we could spend the night at his parents’ house, and we’d come back to base the next morning. As far as training goes, this was very casual and actually a really generous thing for his parents to do. (Would you be willing to host 20-30 very fit and very hungry males with an extra dose of testosterone at your home? I wouldn’t.)

When we went on our hikes, we physically took up a lot of room. There were a lot of us, and we each had a large ruck sack, so we normally took a big bus that was pretty much a navy blue school bus with a very “for official use only” look to it. We piled in, drove off to whatever trail we were going to hit that day, and did our hike.

I don’t remember the details, but for some reason, when we finished our hike and got back to the bus, we needed to kill some time before we could go to the house. We ended up driving into town where a high school baseball game was going on. I think maybe the sergeant wanted to say hi to the coach, who was an old friend or something. We didn’t really know, our attitude was “hey man, I get on the bus when they tell me, I go where it takes me, and I get off the bus when it stops.” Well, they told us to leave our rucks on the bus and come outside to watch the game.

As we spread out on the grass, dozing in the sunshine, shooting the breeze, or watching the game, we looked around and started noticing some of the locals looked uneasy. None of us could figure out why. We hung out for maybe 20 minutes to half an hour, then got back on the bus and rolled out to wherever we were going next. We later found out they thought we were from a nearby prison and were out on a work detail whose very limited supervision was chatting up the baseball team’s coach and not paying much attention to the bunch of rough-looking guys, wearing the same boots, with similar haircuts and no facial hair, all piling off the government-issue bus.

I guess if I had to pick a moral to the story, I’d say even though it might not be your fault, sometimes people are going to make assumptions about you based on how you look or the vibe you give off. Before you get mad at them, don’t be afraid to step back from the situation and maybe even laugh at yourself a little. Cut them some slack. You might’ve jumped to the same conclusion if you were in their shoes. Or boots.

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Hoping for the Best is Not a Course of Action

I went into college not knowing what I wanted to major in. That kind of thing is fine, as long as you figure it out a semester or two into the degree. I didn’t figure out what direction I wanted to go until I started running out of general education classes and had to decide what to start concentrating on. I’ve written before about how the choices (or lack thereof) I made early in college affected how the rest of my college career turned out.

I think I was halfway through my sophomore year when I figured out I was going to pursue a degree in biology. If you’re majoring in any kind of science, you’ll need to complete a lot of science classes (imagine that!). Science classes normally come with a lab session that occurs in the afternoon, so a typical science class meets for three hours during the mornings of a week, and one afternoon a week there will be a three-hour lab session. If you stack up two or three science classes in a semester, you start running out of room in your schedule. You can see how it’s nice to spread out the required classes over eight semesters rather than five.

Since I found myself running a little behind schedule, I looked around for opportunities to catch up. It turns out my school offered something called a May term. After the regular spring semester ended and most students went home, a handful of classes were available. One-credit courses like tennis lasted a week. Two-credit classes went two weeks, and so on. One of the options was a four-credit science course I’d need for graduation. I ended up enrolling in it and stuck around after the spring semester wrapped and all my friends went home for the summer.

That class had to be one of the most stressful classes I took for my whole degree. The course material that was normally spread out over a semester got compressed into four weeks. Class all morning, take a lunch break, then meet in the lab for three or four hours every weekday afternoon. After that, grab some dinner, go back to your room and work on a paper or read the next chapter for the following day. I would read the material, but my mind just didn’t have the time to absorb it like it did during a normal semester. The lab sessions relied heavily on genetics experiments we did with fruit flies, which had a 14-day life cycle, and we needed to get at least two generations to have results for our final paper, so there wasn’t much room for error. While students in other classes spent their afternoons playing ultimate Frisbee or sunning themselves on the quad, I spent my time worrying about bug larvae.

The weeks went by, and as the shorter classes finished up, fewer and fewer students remained on campus. I was so stressed. I was the oldest person in the class; everyone else was an honors student who had spent the second half of their freshman year doing a semester abroad, and this class was mostly available to help them keep up with their pre-med degree plan. I wasn’t quite on the same level as them academically.

I eventually made it through the class, but it was a rough go for awhile. Here’s the important thing: I did this to myself. I didn’t do it on purpose, but it was my lack of planning ahead that led to this predicament. I had to live with the consequences of my own actions.

As Christians, we have the hope of the life to come, but first we have to make it through this one. People of all races, nationalities, and backgrounds are Christians, and Heaven will be full of incredible diversity as we’re united in Christ. All of us, however, will have had to live with the consequences of either our actions or someone else’s actions. That could mean broken relationships, poor credit history, self-inflicted medical issues, or a variety of other challenges.

As a Christian equipped with spiritual gifts, how are you empowered to either help yourself or help others through the unique challenges in life?

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You Won’t Know how Strong you are Until Being Strong is Your Only Option

I’d bet few of the people reading this have given much thought to the types of rope used in rock climbing. Climbing ropes are meant to catch somebody who’s lost their grip and taken a fall. As you might imagine, if you’re going to be betting your life on the integrity of your equipment, you don’t want to use just any old rope.

When used properly, the gear used in climbing can withstand harder shocks than your body can. The human body itself is the weak link in the system. To help the climber endure hard falls, the rope itself is designed to have some stretch to it.

As you can imagine, it’s very important that the rope’s owner/user keep track of the number and intensity of falls the rope sustains. Some falls are very easy on the rope; sometimes a climber just kind of slowly loses their balance or their grip and rolls away from the wall without actually falling. In this case the rope holds the weight of the climber, but doesn’t absorb a shock. On the other end of the spectrum, if a climber freefalls 8-10 feet before the rope starts going taut, not only is the climber going to be wincing in pain, but the rope will have used up a great deal of the stretch it’s capable of. That portion of the rope is now both less stretchy during a future fall, and it has less tensile strength and is more likely to break since the stretch is gone. After enough falls, that rope can no longer be considered safe, has to be pulled out of active use, and is retired.

In the last post we talked about succession and training your replacement. This time I’d like to focus on people that may feel like they’ve been forced into something different.

Although many times God will move you from one challenge to a larger one, there are other times He seemingly pulls you out of something and just kinda…leaves you hanging for awhile. Whether it’s ministry or some other profession, or something in your personal life, sudden changes can throw you for a loop. A job loss, a sudden injury, or maybe retirement that came sooner than expected are all examples of a situation leaving you scratching your head and saying “well, what now, God?”

In college I had a professor who taught us about how to safely set up ropes for climbing. He taught us all about knots, setting anchors, and proper care for ropes and gear; these are all technical skills needed for safely scaling or descending walls. As a part of the course he gave all us students a piece of climbing rope about a foot and a half long. He expected us to bring the ropes to class and we used these ropes to practice different knots throughout the course. He didn’t just take a new rope and chop it in pieces; it was a retired rope repurposed to be useful in a different way. Cutting up an active rope to serve this purpose would have worked, but it would have cost the overall enterprise.

If you’ve been forced into a position you wouldn’t have chosen, it’s certainly something easy to grumble about. Maybe you simply can’t perform the same way you previously could, and others that have been waiting for a shot at the role you held are getting a turn at it now. Don’t think that means you have less value. It means your value is going to be used differently. If lots of people can do the job, maybe it’s better to move into something fewer people can do, like a role benefitting from hard-won experience. Just because you can no longer do something you formerly could doesn’t mean you’re without purpose; it means your purpose has changed.

That same professor told a story about when he was younger and managed a nearby ropes course. Since the course was fairly secluded, it was inconvenient to carry ropes back and forth each time the course was going to be used, so the staff had a shed or a box near the course where they secured the ropes after being used. He arrived at the course one day to find the shed had been broken into and one of the ropes stolen. Strangely, a few days later the rope showed up again at the shed.

Not quite sure what to make of this, he knew better than to trust the rope. It had been outside of the ropes course staff’s control, and could not account for the activities that had been done with it. He later heard through the grapevine some students had “borrowed” the rope to pull a car out of a snow bank or something. If that’s true, it was probably a few guys that simply didn’t know their use of the rope would cause it to be retired. I don’t know what my professor ended up using the rope for, but there are plenty of other possibilities. Aside from cutting it up to be used for instruction, rope can also be used for hauling gear up and down a wall, lashing gear to packs, tying down equipment to keep it safe during high winds (or in the back of a vehicle), acting as a drying line for wet gear, improvising shelters out of tarps, etc. After its retirement, the same rope can be used for all of these purposes before they stop being useful.

If you find yourself in a situation where a few bozos made a snow bank-like blunder that ended up costing you, I’m sorry things went down that way. It’s understandable to be upset for a bit, but I have to ask…how long will you dwell on it? If you’ve still got plenty to offer and you’ve got the desire, what other ways can you use your knowledge and experience to benefit others?

It’s never too late to be who you might have been. –Mary Ann Evans

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Have You Thought About Training Your Replacement?

Not long ago I went to an estate sale. I don’t know that I’d ever been to one before. For those who don’t know, when someone passes away and their heirs/loved ones begin the process of emptying out the home, there’s often a lot of “I don’t need this, I don’t want this, or I have no room for this.” The heirs set aside what they want to keep, then hold an event where pretty much everything left in the home is up for sale.

It’s both very interesting, and very sad. On the one hand, you’ve got this eclectic collection of items that tells a story about the person that last lived here. “This lady obviously loved sunglasses, ravens, and hedge trimmers.” On the other hand, you see just how much clutter they lived with, and it’s a little depressing to see crowds of complete strangers coming in, picking through the departed’s belongings, and haggling over already-low prices. “Why in the world would anybody hang onto this, and why in the world wouldn’t the people putting on the sale throw it out before starting the sale?”

A few years back, I chronicled the story of how our family unexpectedly lost my wife’s dad, Lee, to some health struggles. We thought he’d made it past the most difficult part of his health challenges, but it turns out God wanted him to come home more than He wanted him to stay with us. Lee was a devout Christian, and everybody who knew him understood his faith to be an important part of who he was.

As the pastor concluded Lee’s memorial service, he issued a challenge. “Today we’re saying goodbye to a very godly man. I ask you, who here will take his place?”

Today I’d like to talk about the idea of succession.

Think for a moment about the capacity in which you serve the Lord. It could be any number of ways, and none of them need to come with a fancy title. The day will come when you no longer fill that role. My challenge for you today is to think about this: are you helping to prepare someone else to fill the vacancy you’ll one day leave behind?

In some cases you won’t be able to see the transition coming, and you may not be available to offer advice or insight during that chaotic time. In other cases you might still be around to lend your expertise. I’ve written before about how once you complete a task God’s laid before you, there’s often another, larger task waiting for you. I once heard a famous leader say “if you’re still excited about the same thing you were excited about five years ago, you’re not growing.” Part of the reason you should regularly think about training your replacement is because if you consistently demonstrate faithfulness in smaller things, you should expect God to “promote” you into something larger. It doesn’t mean you’re giving up on something; it could mean God’s used you to set up a situation for someone new, it’s time to move you into another challenge, and now it’s time to turn things over to someone else who’s stepping into a larger challenge of their own so they, too, can keep growing. What feels like closing the door on something is actually a profound opportunity for you to demonstrate leadership and expand your Christ-focused influence.

What does that type of preparation look like? The possibilities are limitless. Some of them are on the process and technical side of the house, like CEOs, family businesses, specific ministry work or leadership roles, etc. Others include volunteer roles, or maybe even roles without titles. Some examples include Sunday school teachers, mentoring someone younger in the faith than you, being the person that shovels the driveway of an elderly neighbor, brings meals to a shut in, or drives someone to a doctor’s appointment or to go grocery shopping. “Grandmother” is a title that carries a lot of weight, and being a godly influence in your grandchildren’s lives comes with an opportunity to have a lasting impact years after you’ve taken your last breath. These roles are less about technical skills than they are about willing hearts and people skills, and those attitudes need to be lived out or demonstrated to others before they can learn them.

Think of the Christian leaders in your own life and the influence they’ve had on you. They don’t need to have held an official title. You don’t need a degree or special training to offer God-honoring advice to a friend, neighbor, or co-worker. You just need to use the influence you’ve got to show others around you what Christian living, especially in difficult times, looks like.

Succession planning is a natural part of any endeavor. You can cling to something if you really want to, but are you giving careful consideration to the idea that the thing you’re refusing to let go of may suffer because of your unwillingness to let go, and you may even be preventing someone well suited for a new role from having the opportunity to grow into it? “Today we’re saying goodbye to a very godly man. I ask you, who here will take his place?”

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Consequences Come Whether or not You Know the Truth

The older I get, the tougher it is to maintain the same weight. I used to be able to eat a ridiculous amount of junk food and my metabolism would laugh and say “bring it on!” As I age, my margin of error for staying inside that desired range shrinks smaller and smaller.

I’ve been very fortunate with my overall health. These days, when I know I’m going to be involved in a particularly messy project around the house or in the yard, I’m able to pull on one of my old stained or ripped pairs of jeans I wore when I worked in construction more than 20 years ago.

I can still fit in those pants because I’m at or near the same weight I was back then. The main reason that’s true is because almost every morning I step onto the scale to get hit with the cold, hard truth. The scale doesn’t lie. On some occasions I know ahead of time it’s going to be bad. Sometimes there’s a jaw-dropping “no, that can’t be right!” Monday mornings are usually the worst. Other times there’s a mental fist pump.

The harsh reality is that the scale always speaks the truth, and even though the truth can hurt, I need to know it. Accepting what the scale’s saying has to happen before choosing what to do with the information. What the scale fails to do, though, is speak the truth in love. Christians, while it is our duty to inform others in the world about the truth of their need for the savior, we have to remember the importance of doing it with compassion and love.

Put yourself in a nonbeliever’s place. It’s not easy to hear someone tell you you’ve been living your life in a way that means you’ll miss out on Heaven. It’s even tougher to maintain an attitude open and willing enough to say “what can I do to make it right?” It’s not enough for us to proclaim “you’re a sinner, and you’re destined for Hell.” All that does is turn people off to what you’re saying. God can use any of our botched efforts, of course, but come on, have a little empathy and compassion.

Obviously, presenting the difficult truth of humanity’s shortcomings is important. Coming alongside people and letting them know not just about the bad news, but about the way out of the bad news, allows them to see the hope instead of just the stuff they don’t like thinking about. Speaking the truth in love is going to make all the difference.

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Need a Confidence Boost?

Most of my posts are somehow geared at being willing to step out in faith to accomplish tasks you think are beyond your reach, yet which God has enabled you to perform. While I absolutely believe in that idea and use it as the blog’s central theme, it’s also important to help lay the mental groundwork for meeting such challenges. If you think of my normal blog posts as a movie, think of this one as their prequel.

I’ve learned through experience that if you’re willing to take risks in just about any aspect of your life, usually one of two circumstances hold true. The first possibility is that your back is against the wall and you’ve got no real choice; the risk you’re taking is probably the best of your bad options or it’s your last resort. While I acknowledge this as a driving force behind some risky behavior, it’s not the one I want to focus on.

The second possibility is that if you’re willing to take risks, you’re secure enough in who you are that the idea of failing doesn’t paralyze you with fear. If Christ is your savior, He will call you to do things you’re not comfortable with. It’s a risk to obey. You might fail. You may look like a fool. It could cost you.

I don’t know who I’m talking to right now, but you need to hear this. If you’re a Christ-follower and feel God’s called you to some challenge requiring a lot of faith, let me remind you: you are a child of the One True King. Walk down the path with the confidence that comes along with your position. If the Lord commissioned you to pursue a specific undertaking, remember the enemy can harass you, but he cannot harm you without permission. Your idea of what success looks like might not jive with God’s take on it, but it’s part of the life your Lord called you to, so take that next step.

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Is Your Horsepower Put to Good Use, or Just Idling?

In the world of high-performance cars, horsepower plays a crucial role. Speaking generally, the greater the available horsepower, the more speed is attainable. Two of the essential components of maximizing horsepower are adequate amounts of air to facilitate combustion and adequate amounts of fuel to ignite in the combustion chamber. If either one of those components suffers a reduction, the horsepower drops.

Sometimes vehicles with a lot of horsepower are illegal to use on normal public roads. For people who own one of these cars and want to use them out on the streets, one of the options for making them “street legal” is to install a restrictor plate. This is a physical barrier that reduces the amount of air making it into the engine, leading to a loss in combustion efficiency, and causing a corresponding loss of horsepower and drop in speed. It’s kind of a shame, really.

We’ll come back to that in a minute. The world seems like it’s getting darker at a more rapid rate these days. The news media doesn’t often carry good or uplifting news that makes you think positively about humanity’s future. The demise of morality leads me to think it’s not a stretch to believe that some people alive today will still be alive when the Rapture occurs.

If this is true, I believe two things are going to happen along the way. The first is that evil will become more blatant and more prominent. Things formerly only done in secret will be accepted out in the open. A few months back (as our family was driving to church, no less), we stopped at a red light, and I saw the car in front of us had a bumper sticker that said “Satan loves me.” It was disheartening for sure, and I felt a profound sadness for the young lady driving the car and for anyone believing this lie.

The second thing I believe will happen is a more potent display of God’s power through His saints. What that looks like I don’t know, but supernatural involvement will be obvious to any witnesses who are intellectually honest with themselves. Sometimes it will mean believers doing things they shouldn’t be able to do. Other times people will show up in places without knowing why they traveled there, only to find they’re part of some unlikely series of events that unfolds to reveal God’s hand in the process. People will testify of God’s provision in their lives, either by having their material needs met in unusual ways or by receiving hope in very dark times. In some cases, likely growing in frequency, Christ-followers will be killed because of the Master they serve, but God will empower those saints to rise to the challenge placed before them.

Not a rosy picture by any stretch, I know. Yet it gives me hope to know God can and will equip those who trust Him. This brings me to the main point of this post. Though you may trust Christ as your savior, you’re the one that decides how much to limit His ability to use you for building His kingdom. Although each of us has unlimited potential to do the Lord’s work, it’s His call as to how much He wants to let each of us accomplish, so that’s out of our hands. What each of us can decide is our minimum level of willingness. Imagine if Moses had persisted in making excuses until God said “fine, I’ll send someone else.” Imagine if Billy Graham had said “no, I think I’ll avoid anything to do with public speaking, thank you.” Are you willing to accept some discomfort and unknowns for the sake of letting God use you more than He’s currently using you? I’m not just talking about being an usher at church or singing in the choir (though those are good things). I’m talking about the stuff you’re ill-equipped to do and is outside your comfort zone, yet you still feel God tugging at you and saying “this is the direction I want you to go.”

Said another way, you are your own restrictor plate when it comes to serving the Lord. You can’t guarantee high performance, but you can absolutely guarantee you don’t reach your maximum potential of using your spiritual gifts and abilities to be a productive agent of the Lord.

I’m impressed by today’s young people. It seems those in high school and college are consistently a different type of passionate for Christ. Somewhere between that age and mid-life, many of us peter out in terms of our willingness to boldly step out in faith to follow where Christ calls us to go. We get our own place to live. Some of us get married. We achieve career milestones. We have kids. These can all be good things, but somewhere along the way, many of us lose that awestruck attitude of “Christ can do anything through me,” trading it for one that’s more like “but this is probably as good as it gets.” We don’t allow God the chance to do big things on His behalf through us because we close the door on the possibility of Him doing them. We walk away from Isaiah’s attitude of “Here I am, send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)

Everyone, of course, must make their own decisions about how much they’ll let God use them. From now until the time your heart stops beating, though, I’d urge you to be on the lookout for opportunities to step into roles Christ offers you. Darker days mean opportunities to shine brighter for the Lord. God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do, but someone’s eternal fate might switch from lost to found because of your willingness to be used by the Lord. Isn’t that something you’d like to be a part of?

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Beauty’s in the Eye of the Beholder, But Don’t Give His Eyes Too Much

This one’s kind of tricky because it’s easy for this post to get crass quickly. I’m talking mostly to my sisters in Christ here. I have to say right up front…the information in this post has the potential to be very helpful for others if you use it well, but you can also harm them tremendously with it. Please, please, please…use it for good. If it turns out you’ve been doing some of this stuff unknowingly, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. If you use it with bad intentions though, you’re going to have to stand before the Savior and answer for it someday.

In some way or another we’re all guilty of saying to ourselves “that’s not how I think” or “that thought never even occurred to me.” Okay, well, that might be true, but not everybody thinks (or doesn’t think) the same way as you. Believe me, this is a thing.

Have you ever just been going along, minding your own business (even trying to be on good behavior), when BAM! A thought from left field comes and completely derails you? Sometimes you know what triggered that derailment, other times it’s a mystery. Now imagine discovering you’re the one that derailed someone else in that same manner.

Unfortunately there’s no way to look at someone and accurately judge their character flaws, so you’ll have to treat the following statement as if it’s true all the time, because you just don’t know. While it’s certainly not universally true, a lot of us men are pigs. There’s not really an easy way to say this. Ladies, many of you are making your brothers in Christ stumble because of the wardrobe choices you make.

Here’s the part I’m trusting you to use good judgment with. When it comes to the female form, our piggish eyes tend to be drawn to at least one of three areas (aside from your lovely eyes, of course): chest, caboose, and legs. I know this from years of being a guy and from years of being around guys in the field of construction and in the Department of Defense. If you’re blessed in one or more of these three areas, believe me, there are lots of dudes that are very, very happy for you, even prompting some to spontaneously praise the Lord. Unfortunately, there is a very large number of men out there that struggles with lust, and the struggles that come from our sisters in Christ seem to be unnecessary.

Now some will balk and say “oh, come on, it’s nothing they don’t see everywhere.” While absolutely true, that’s the problem. If you let a guy see a little too much, it’s one more knick in the “death by a thousand paper cuts” idea. The choice of whether or not to indulge in sinful thoughts or actions ultimately lies with the individual, of course, but if you’re his sister in Christ, the way you dress shouldn’t prompt thoughts that shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t a man be safer from temptation-inducing thoughts when he’s around a fellow Christ-follower?

Now I’m not saying you need to wear a burqa or puffy clothes everywhere, not at all. Here are some things I’ve noticed, though. In church, I’ve seen dresses or tops that are a bit more low cut than they ought to be. Is that dress or are those pants a little too tight in the rear? I’ve seen dresses or miniskirts with hemlines higher than the wearer’s extended fingertips. Probably the most common “visual stumbling block” to your brothers in Christ out there now is the prevalence of leggings/workout pants. I totally understand wanting to avoid loose-fitting clothes when working out or participating in activities where you don’t want clothes flapping around, but if you’re not engaged in anything like that and you’re walking around in skin-tight pants out in public, you can see how this might be a problem for a guy who’s trying really hard not to look. Heaven help us when we go to the gym and there are attractive, fit women wearing clothes that draw attention to all three of these areas. Again, the individual man is responsible for his thoughts and actions, but he can’t always control the things that prompt certain thoughts. Imagine if you’re a recovering alcoholic and when walking down a busy sidewalk, store owners are handing out samples of booze. No, alcoholics know they need to avoid certain places, but for “lust-aholics,” church, along with environments known to be populated with a high prevalence of Christians, should be safe places to be.

If you’re already aware of this phenomenon and dress in a way that makes it easier on us, thank you. Fellas, I’ll bring you back into this now. I’d ask that you, along with your ladies, please influence your sisters, daughters, nieces, and granddaughters with these things in mind.

For the young ladies out there, your clothes go a long way in determining the type of guy you attract. Dress like you respect your body and you’ll probably attract one that treats you better over the long term. Dress like you want guys to ogle your body and you’ll attract the kind that might treat you really well in the short term, but the nice treatment probably doesn’t last real long and you’ll likely end up going through more relationships. Believe me, the quality guys will notice too, but they’ll be crowded out or intimidated by the chuckleheads licking their chops while circling you.

Now, within the context of marriage…how do I say this? Green light. Full throttle. Go to town, especially if you worked hard for it. Christians don’t need to be prudes. Have you read Song of Solomon? If you got it, flaunt it (to your one and only). Try to make the hubs say “God created woman, and he saw that it was goooooood.” Desire is a powerful thing, and marriage is the only place God intended it to be fulfilled. For both husband and wife, don’t give up and throw in the towel on your appearance after the “I do’s.” Honor, respect, and appreciate one another for the long run, in all kinds of ways.

Finally, for those out there that may be struggling to find their calling…maybe someone reading this needs to consider trying the very challenging task of designing or making new lines of very fashionable, yet perfectly appropriate clothing. It could be any type: street clothes, professional clothes, athletic apparel, you name it. Give it a shot. God will probably bless you if it’s your calling.

On a lighter note about the differences between male and female bodies…

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Only Jagger Moves Like Jagger. Try Moving Like You.

In my early Air Force days, I pursued training to become a survival instructor. The Air Force is the only branch of service where you can spend a whole military career as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Specialist. The other military branches have them, but they’re only temporary assignments, something you do for a few years at most before returning to your regular job. Anyway, that’s free info; now back to my story.

The main SERE school is at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. The course all SERE Specialists were required to pass only started twice a year, so folks put together a program to keep us busy and out of trouble while we were waiting around for class to start. We were together just about all the time. Every weekday we worked out in the mornings, and then afternoons varied. One day a week we’d do a full PT test in the morning and a timed 7-mile ruck march after lunch. One afternoon a week we’d have details (more or less do chores, restocking supplies, cleaning up or repairing things around our building). Once a week we’d go to a state park or something similar and go for ruck marches up and over mountains, where we’d practice our land navigation and keep our bodies accustomed to carrying heavy weight for a sustained period. There were lots of other odds and ends to keep us busy while we waited for class to start (help unpack moving vans for the families of students who had started class and were out in the field, help perform maintenance on the equipment getting used by the class ahead of us, etc.).

One of the standard activities we did was to spend time in “the back 40.” The back 40 was a section near us where we went to learn and practice some of the skills we’d need once we started class. Here we learned to sharpen and swing an axe, how to start fires with the stuff around us, how to build a shelter out of parachutes, all kinds of skills you’d need to survive in the wild. The course we wanted to pass had a high failure rate, and the instructors found that this type of orientation helped prepare students for the training, resulting in fewer washouts.

We were all part of a very physical career field, and as a result, it seemed like someone was always heading to the doctor. Although we’d all gather at a certain spot before heading out to the back 40, it became common practice for those returning from appointments to meet up with the group at a certain spot the group passed on their way to the back 40. One day we were all heading out to the back 40 when we saw a guy in the same uniform as us, wearing his ruck sack just like we were, standing motionless and waiting for us at this spot. Someone among us asked “who’s that?” We all took a look up ahead, trying to figure it out. Someone said “he stands like Jones.” A quick look around the group verified that Jones wasn’t among us, and as we got closer, it turned out that it was indeed Jones. We spent so much time together that someone in our group was able to identify someone off in the distance, who was dressed just like us and had the same haircut, simply by the way he stood.

There’s a story in the Old Testament where something similar happened. In 2 Samuel chapter 18, an aging King David was waiting for news from a battle. As he sat near the city gate, the watchman on duty announced two separate men running toward the city. While they waited eagerly for the messengers to arrive, the watchman said in verse 27 “I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok.” Here again is someone who’s able to identify another from far off by the individual’s kinesthetics. The way their body moves, or their posture, gives away their identity. Each of us is so different from one another that the way our bodies move gives us away, like a fingerprint.

Of all the people God could’ve chosen to live the life you’re living, He chose you. We’re unique individuals God stitched together, with no two looking, moving, or behaving exactly alike. In all that uniqueness, God prepared challenges for you in this life that you’re superbly qualified for. Other people could do it, but God chose you to do it. Embrace your uniqueness, whatever that looks like, and live the life God’s called you to live. You’re the best person for the job.