Author: Tim

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Reintroduction

Endless possibilities…

I hope you’ve either enjoyed or gotten something out of the things that show up on DareGreatlyNow. Now that I’ve posted over 30 entries on the website, it makes a little more sense to explain a bit about it and how the site is laid out.

On and off over the years I’ve had flashes of an idea that is currently embodied in this website. At first I thought about doing a book, then it morphed into some type of devotional, and then it showed up here. The short version is that I’ve seen and done an unusual combination of things over my life so far, or gained unique insights as a result of doing the things I’ve done. Many of the stories I relate in the pages of this website are stories that ought to have become faint memories, but for some reason they haven’t yet faded away. In writing so far, those memories have come to the forefront and I’ve been able to tie a godly or spiritual application to them.

Sometimes in life you’ll encounter unusual circumstances that don’t make much sense until you’re looking back at them in hindsight. Before you get to that retrospective moment it can just seem like a disjointed collection of random experiences, but then something happens to bring it all together.

This is how God works. Not only does He weave your life’s experiences into a plan (or even a masterpiece) for His purposes, He also weaves together the experiences of your life with those of other people’s lives.

Have you ever felt like you were meant for more than just the life you’re living? When you felt that way, you probably were meant for more! You might even be feeling that way right now. Even though the stories on this site jump around all over the place, the central theme to which they all point is the idea that God didn’t intend for you to live a life of mediocrity.

If you’re willing, you can accept the invitation, the challenge, that God has extended to you. You can be a mighty warrior for Jesus Christ.

That concept can be fulfilled through many different avenues. If you believe the Bible, you believe that this world will get darker before it gets lighter. Yet the Bible says that despite all of that, the Church is still God’s plan to reach the lost. We don’t seek to conquer or subjugate anyone, or bludgeon them into converting to Christianity. We’ve simply been commanded to share the news of Christ with everyone. What they do with it is up to them.

The stories posted here are meant to encourage…to inspire…to show that big and daring things are not beyond your reach. Although it is not my aim, it may sometimes sound like I’m petitioning to be the next spokesman for some kind of energy drink. 🙂 I’ve written so far about experiences in the Air Force, having a house knocked out from under me, lifeguarding experiences, going kayaking, flying down a steep hill on a skateboard as a kid, rappelling out of trees or down cliffs, adventures in parenting, and figuring out how to go see the Winter Olympics.

Some of the things I expect to address in the future include more experiences in pursuit of survival instructor status, medical emergencies, skydiving, an adventure sports trip to Australia, kayaking over waterfalls, a few near-death experiences, some kneeboarding, and of course more parenting stories.

These stories are all meant to say that you can do things you think you can’t. Hopefully they’re done in an entertaining way. I hope to encourage you to embrace the idea that God has empowered you to go as far as you’d like with regard to accomplishing things for His kingdom, and that the limits you impose on yourself or allow to be imposed on you are not your actual limits. The only limits that exist are the ones you allow to take hold.

If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to subscribe, but in truth, I’d love even more for you to pass individual entries on to people that you think would benefit from hearing them. The Church today is in a strange place, where it needs to both keep reaching people through traditional means while at the same time evolving to communicate with people in new ways to convey the same truth. If you know someone who’s thinking about moving out in support of one of these directions, by all means please point them to this blog.

Now that the site has a decent number of entries, I’ll explain the categories and tags. When you look at an individual post, down at the bottom of every entry it has categories and tags listed. For every post, I try to list it under two categories: one that tells the type of activity it is, and one that tells the spiritual lesson it’s geared toward. If you look at the site’s homepage, all the available categories are listed. If you wanted to see all entries I’ve written that have something to do with stories about my kids, for example, click on “Parenthood.” Clicking on “God Can Use You More Than You Think He Can” will bring up all the entries I’ve listed under that category.

Tags do more or less the same thing, but through a different way and by naming different topics. The more entries I post over time, the more useful tags and categories will become if you’re seeking a specific post.

So you tell me…what do you like about the site so far? What do you dislike? Are the stories too long? I post on Monday and Thursday mornings; is that too much? Not often enough? How can I help get people off the sidelines and into the game? How can I reach more people so they can be encouraged to live a life of higher impact? How can I get Christians to believe that they have an unparalleled power living inside them, waiting for them to unlock its potential?

Your comments are welcome! If you don’t want to comment publicly where everyone can see it, email me at tim@daregreatlynow.com.

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Blind As a Bear

When I was in college I majored in biology. It wasn’t pre-med biology though; the program was geared more for a career in wildlife management or forestry. As a result, I had a lot of courses that had interesting field trips. We radio-tracked deer, did forest surveys, went behind the scenes at a zoo, toured a fish hatchery, visited botanical gardens, and generally spent a lot of time in the fields of western New York during all parts of the school year.

One of our professors knew a guy that worked for the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which opened the door for us to do some neat stuff. As it turns out, a farmer probably an hour away had discovered a black bear hibernating in one of the big round hay bales in his field. The farmer invited the DEQ to come and survey the situation, which would add data to the organization’s knowledge of the bear population in the area. Our class got to go along and observe.

We arrived at the farm and waited a safe distance away while the DEQ folks tranquilized the bear. (When bears hibernate, they’re not in a solid, deep sleep the whole time; they wake up and move around on warm days, so they had to make sure it wasn’t going to do anything unexpected.) I’m not sure what method they used to do it, but after they stuck the bear, it got scared and took off running. It probably made it 100 yards before it stopped running and laid down. The farmer and DEQ folks then gently loaded it into the bucket of a tractor and brought it back to the area right in front of the den, where they weighed it, checked its teeth, determined its age, and collected some other information.

It’s a tricky thing to tranquilize something when you don’t know how much it weighs. If you use too little tranquilizer, the bear’s going to start moving sooner than you’d like, but if you use too much, you’ll have a hard time reviving the bear. Whoever was responsible for this part did a good job, but you’re never quite sure if the estimate is going to be good enough. As a precaution, they used a bandana to cover the bear’s eyes after they had laid it down on the ground. The thinking was that as the bear began regaining consciousness, it would stay a little more calm if it couldn’t see how close all these people were. Keeping it more calm would hopefully prevent it from trying to lash out without even having regained full control of its body, which could be harmful for both us and the bear.

It didn’t take very long for the DEQ folks to collect all the desired information, so after they finished they pretty much just needed to monitor the bear until the tranquilizer wore off. In the mean time they let people take pictures with the bear. After a bit, they shooed us all away because they didn’t know how much longer the drugs would last. We left to head back to school, and we found out later that as the last DEQ employees were getting ready to depart, the bear started growling. (If that’s not a “time to go!” signal, I’m not sure what is.)

Have you ever asked God to let you know what’s going to happen if you proceed in a certain direction, only to be met with increased murkiness? He might just do that on purpose. A lot of times it’s because we can’t handle knowing what’s on the other side. You don’t know what will happen if you obey, but if you did, you might not follow through with what you know you’re supposed to do. That might be because you believe the personal cost of the outcome will be too great, or it might be because you’d be overwhelmed with seeing just how far beyond you your actions will go and it just seems too daunting to begin. Either way, the result is the same: you’re not setting out on the calling God has laid before you. In many cases, we’re better off being kept “blindfolded,” like the bear, because too much information will actually be detrimental.

Instead try this. Think of your obedience to God’s calling in terms of chapters, rather than as a pamphlet. You need to find out what happens in one chapter before moving on to the next. By the end of the book, you’ll have the whole picture, but if you had started out knowing what happens in the end, some of the important stuff that happened in the middle would lose its significance or change the outcome.

It might feel as though you know what God’s prodding you to do, but it seems insignificant. Well, that might be true, but part of the reason for that is because you might just be starting a new book. You’re blindfolded right now, but don’t just lay there growling. Step out in obedience and faith; chapter two is waiting for you, but you can’t start it until you finish chapter one.

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A Temporary or a Lasting Peace?

Our youngest child is at the stage where she still has bad dreams fairly often. She wakes up crying during the night, and my wonderful wife usually goes running into her room to try to settle her down before she wakes up anyone else in the house.

A few mornings ago my daughter woke up crying. I was already awake, laying in bed, when I heard the cry begin. I jumped out of bed before my wife started stirring, trying to return the favor. I went into my daughter’s room and told her “Daddy’s here now.” I brushed her hair out of her face, rubbed her shoulder, and kissed her cheek. She calmed down and we prayed, but she wasn’t settled. I stayed with her a little bit longer, and then went back to bed.

Laying there for a bit, it wasn’t long before I heard her little feet came walking into our room. But she didn’t come walking over to my side. She made a beeline right for Mommy. My wife talked and cuddled with her a little bit, then brought her back to bed and got her tucked and settled in, where she stayed for the rest of the night.

How many of us are like that? Whether we like to admit it or not, there’s a God-shaped hole in all of us. We’re restless until it’s filled. We try to fill the hole with different things…anything. For some it can be destructive things; alcohol, drugs, relationships that aren’t built to last, more serious types of crime, or even dark spiritual things. Others try to fill it with things that might be good, but don’t quite quench the thirst. Making more money, performing charity work, being very active in community groups, donating your time/energy/resources to civic or political causes you believe in, etc.

The problem is, those things are like Daddy trying to settle his daughter in for the night after a bad dream. They might serve as temporary solutions, but they don’t bring a peace that lasts.

To fill the God-shaped hole in your life, only Christ will satisfy.

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The Unexpected WILL Happen

Starting your senior year of college is unlike the start of any other year of college. Last year’s seniors are all gone, and now YOU are part of the class that’s graduating next. It’s the last time you head back to start a new academic year. You’re either excited about the prospects of the coming year, or terrified of what comes after you graduate. For me, one of the highlights of the coming year, to be sure, was a road trip across the country with a buddy to go see the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. We originally hatched our scheme a year earlier, and now here we were only about five months away from actually doing it.

At the start of my Senior year, I had no early class on Tuesday/Thursdays. That Fall I didn’t have to be in class until 9:40ish in the morning. One Tuesday morning about two or three weeks into the year I walked into a class in the science building and grabbed a seat in the classroom. Something was off, though. Everybody just had kind of a different mood and the place was abuzz. It took me a minute to piece together what was going on.

They told me that two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City and the two buildings had collapsed.

At first I was just confused and didn’t believe them. What was this, some kind of a sick joke? I had been to those towers before. They were immense. How could two planes have crashed into two buildings right next to each other on the same day? I didn’t yet understand that it was commercial jets that had crashed into the towers, that it had been done on purpose, and that there was a coordinated effort between terrorists on four different aircraft that participated in that day’s events.

I don’t remember what the lesson was that day. I just remember trying to wrap my head around the idea that those two buildings were no longer there. We had family in Brooklyn, and ever since I was a kid we had frequently taken trips there and would sometimes go sightseeing in Manhattan, including trips to the World Trade Center. After all the trips we’d taken into New York City, I couldn’t imagine the NYC skyline without the World Trade Center.

With some family atop the World Trade Center, probably a year or two before 9/11/2001

I thought back to the last time I had been there. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew who worked in those buildings, but I remembered riding in the elevator for the long ride up to the observation deck. The last time I took that trip, there had been a guy at the elevator’s controls that talked to us a little bit during the ride, and then without missing a beat turned to a little boy and started speaking fluent Spanish to him about sight-seeing in the city. I later found out about others I knew who worked in this area of Manhattan, but that day this elevator operator was the only guy I could think of in the towers. I still have no idea if he was in the towers that day or what happened to him.

I don’t think it became real to me until after I saw news coverage and replays of an aircraft striking the second tower, the subsequent collapses, and the terrified people running through the streets. Back then nobody had ever heard about the Taliban. Hardly anyone knew where Afghanistan was. Nobody knew what was happening, but everyone’s lives changed that day. As the reality settled in over the next few days, I started to wonder if there would even BE an Olympics for us to attend.

It was scary stuff, for sure. There are going to be times in your life where everything stops and your reality gets turned upside down. You’ll be devastated and in shock. It might be the death of a loved one; financial hardships; a diagnosis you didn’t see coming; a natural disaster. You can see no good reason why God would allow things like this to happen. The only question you’ll keep coming back to is “why?” In all honesty, you might not find an answer to that question this side of Heaven.

Some of you have already had experiences like that; others of you may not have. September 11th was a national tragedy, and it was on everyone’s mind and for awhile it was all anyone thought or talked about. The only good thing about it was that we mourned together. As time marched on and the events of that day have faded into the past, new or more urgent struggles have taken priority. It’s important to remember though, that the people with whom you come in contact any given day may be attempting to cope with an immense personal struggle.

Back in 2001 we mourned as a nation, but every day there are people who honestly believe that they are all alone in whatever struggle they find themselves. Please consider that the next time you feel the urge to really let someone have a piece of your mind. Not only that, but please be on the lookout for people that are fighting just to make it through the day. You might be the only lifeline God throws to them.

Taking a break from the Olympic chapter for a bit, but don’t worry, we’ll circle back later! If you know someone that you think will be encouraged by these posts, please let them know about DareGreatlyNow. Those are the people I’m posting for!

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For Big Journeys, It’s Okay To Start With Little Steps

My buddy Jeremy and I decided during our Junior year of college in western NY state that we wanted to go see some of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City (SLC) during our Senior year. We didn’t know how we’d get there, where we’d sleep, or what we’d see, but we were going to figure out a way to make it happen.

Initially we brainstormed some crazy ideas just to see what kind of options were available to us. We looked into hostels, renting a camper, driving to a slew of different airports to fly out from there, all kinds of stuff. College was expensive; we didn’t have a whole lot in the way of money, so whatever we were going to do needed to be on the cheap. Looking at hotels in/near SLC during the block of time we were looking at was a joke; everything was either already booked or way too expensive. Over time it became obvious that if we were serious about this, we weren’t going to have a building to sleep in, and that meant we would have to be prepared to sleep outdoors.

There was plenty of public land near Salt Lake City, but for a lot of it you had to head up to higher elevations in the mountains. As you might expect, it turns out that it’s snowy and cold in the Rocky Mountains in February. The amount of snow in the mountains was large enough that you wouldn’t want to just walk into the forest with a backpack; you needed to have either snowshoes or cross-country skis. Since we were both familiar with cross-country skiing, we opted to go that route. Now we were looking at bringing skis, backpacks, multiple sleeping bags each, a tent, cooking equipment, and a good amount of warm, bulky clothes. The sheer amount of stuff we needed to bring meant flights were out.

Right, so we’re going to drive over 2,000 miles across the country with all this gear. What vehicle are we taking? Jeremy had a pickup truck, but without having a cap it was impossible to secure all the stuff we were bringing along. We had to keep it all safe while we were attending events, because we were going to depend on it when we needed it. I had a little hatchback, and we could probably squeeze everything inside, but we couldn’t really sleep inside it overnight while all of our stuff was inside. We needed a different vehicle.

We were willing to rent something, but what? Lots of rental places didn’t want to rent cars to people under 25, so we were even more limited in our choices. I wrote a few letters to the marketing department of a few different car manufacturers, telling them what we wanted to do. I figured it would be a cheap way for them to make a commercial to help demonstrate a given model’s versatility as far as gas mileage/dependability, roominess, and ability to handle winter weather. Either nobody was convinced or I wrote to them too late, because we never heard anything back from anyone. (Still a lost opportunity for them, in my mind!)

Jeremy found a place in one of the cities not far off our route that was willing to rent to younger drivers. We could leave our home base, drive to that city and swap cars, and then make the rest of the trip from there. On the way back we’d stop there again to switch out, then finish the last leg in the original vehicle. Whatever we ended up renting would need to be decent on gas mileage, able to handle a long trip, handle acceptably in the snow, and be roomy enough for us to stow all our gear and still have both of us sleep inside.

Our plan started taking shape. After we settled on the main concept, we just had to fill in the details. We looked into ticket sales and figured out which events we wanted to see. We found a bundle package of different events we’d like to see that were priced within our budget, so the timing of those events largely drove the dates we planned around. It turns out that even though we’d have to miss some class, there was a mini-break in the school calendar for a portion of the time we’d be gone. That would help minimize the catch-up work we would have to do.

The school I attended had a pretty robust program for outdoor life. I majored in Biology, but my minor was in Outdoor Recreation. The classes in that program many times cultivated leadership skills for guiding others through outdoor challenges, and taught many of the technical skills that went along with those situations. As a result, the school had a sort of “camp closet” where a lot of equipment was available to rent cheap. Since Jeremy and I knew the student in charge of renting out the equipment, and he thought what we were doing was pretty cool, we could procure a lot of our needs for a small price. Through him we obtained sleeping bags, backpacks, a cook stove and fuel, cookware, and a bunch of little odds and ends.

As the pieces started falling into place, we got excited. “Yes! We can do this!” The whole time, we had been trying to figure out if something this crazy was even possible. When it started looking like we could make it work, the magnitude of what we were thinking about doing hit us. “Whoa, are we really going to do this?”

Of course we were. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I know I personally got the jitters every now and then, though. Up until that point, the only time I slept in a tent was in the backyard of someone in my neighborhood as a kid. Now I had to come to terms with the idea that I was going to drive across the country to sleep in the snow for a few nights, and not actually sleep inside a building for a week or so.

God’s kinda funny sometimes. He’ll plant something in your mind that, try as you might, you can’t shake loose. It starts with an idea, and it’s not even fully formed. After you stop trying to ignore it, you turn it over and over in your mind, trying to figure out different aspects to it or new ways to look at it. Sometimes you get paired up with a partner on an idea, and the two of you complement one another and spur each other on. You look at this huge idea you’re having, and you start breaking it down into more manageable chunks. Looking closer, you just might find that your circumstances dictate your options, which lays out the path for you.

Before you know it, the only thing stopping you from doing something so bold, so brash, so unconventional…is you.

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The Right Friends are Important

In college I had different types of friends. Throw a bunch of high-school graduates together for four years and you’re going to find all kinds of people. I had friends I ate meals with, friends I exercised with, friends I studied or worked on projects with. Some friends I spent my free time with. There were friends I only saw infrequently, others that were “situational friends” for the duration of a class and then I never saw them again. Some people might be great friends, but would be horrible roommates. Some people were friends of friends.

With all the different kinds of friends out there, what kind of friend do you link up with if you want to do something audacious?

During my Junior year in college my friend Jeremy and I decided we wanted to somehow get from Western New York to Salt Lake City to attend part of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Out of all the people I knew at school, Jeremy was the only person I’d be comfortable attempting something like that with. There were other people at school that were perfectly capable of taking on such an adventure, but I hadn’t built the same level of trust with anyone else.

In my very first college class, Jeremy was a classmate. What started as a shared experience suffering through an 8 am history class neither of us cared about ended up as a mutually beneficial friendship. He taught me to shoot, and I taught him how to rappel. He showed me how to skin a deer, and I showed him how to cross-country ski. His instinct was to push forward or be more aggressive in pretty much whatever task he was involved. In the same situation, my instinct was to hold back and consider the effects of my actions. Our personalities meshed in such a way that regardless of our instincts, he’d give me the push I needed when it was time to get something done, and I’d give him pause during times when restraint was best.

Mom, if you’re reading, skip the next paragraph.

We did (or almost did) all kinds of bonehead stuff in school, but all of it ultimately built the trust we had in each other. One winter night when we were bored, we decided to do something dumb under the guise of “testing winter gear” for our upcoming trip. After dark, I put on some of my warmest headgear and ski goggles, and got in the back of his pickup truck. As he drove down a long, straight stretch of road, I may or may not have stood up in the back of his truck as he substantially exceeded the posted speed limit so I could see how the gear would stand up to the wind. (Don’t try this.) (The gear worked great.)

It’s a dumb story about my youthful indiscretions (one where my instinct of holding back did not win), but it helps show that level of trust. When one of us half-jokingly brought up the idea of traveling across the country to a place neither of us had been so that we could spend a week without heat while attending Olympic events, neither of us laughed. It was one of those occasions where we just kind of sat there silently for a moment and then looked each other in the eye as if to say “I’m up for it.”

You’ve probably had big, bold, brash ideas before. Big ideas are not to be shied away from, but you’ll probably need some help to tackle them. For the ideas that are merely “big,” you probably have a handful of people that you can think of that you’d be willing to partner with in order to try to make them happen. What I want you to focus on is your idea that is so immense, so enormous, so egregiously large or crazy that you can only think of one or two people that you’d be willing to even mention it to. This is the idea that you’re too scared to tell anyone about, and you have to pick and choose who you let in on it. The people with which you’re willing to share your idea are special people. You’ve developed a level of trust with them that even though you might not feel comfortable bringing it up, you’re not afraid that they’re going to make you feel like you’re a fool for having dared to dream so big.

This is a blog about encouraging Christians to live up to their full potential in Christ. For that, I make no apologies. I also recognize, however, that a lot of what I write on this site has parallels with the world of innovation. To both types of readers, I say: Live up to the full potential of your God-given gifts! If there’s an idea that’s been tugging at you and it won’t go away, giving it a try might be your best shot at getting it to leave you alone (unless it involves criminal activity, that is). Maybe Walt Disney can offer some additional inspiration. He once said “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Don’t choke those big ideas. Stoke them. Know that if you want to get them off the ground, you’re going to need some help. If you know who it is that you’re going to need to talk to about it, set up an opportunity to bounce it off them. Sometimes there’s only one person that can help you make it happen, and until they’re on board with you, your idea is going nowhere.

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It Starts With an Idea

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve thought that the Olympics were fun to watch. The idea that you’re seeing someone who, at least for the moment, is the best in the world in their sport…the gold medals, the national anthems and flags being raised…it was so straightforward and patriotic. At the beginning of my Junior year of college, the Summer Olympics took place in Sydney, Australia. Because it was a southern hemisphere location, the games started later than normal, and I was able to watch it with friends at school rather than at home during the summer break.

You can only watch so many Olympic events in a row before it gets old, but I kept tabs on what was going on all throughout the games. For the big stuff, I’d be watching with other people in a lounge somewhere.

A buddy of mine, Jeremy, was also keeping up with the games that year. One time as we were watching we got to talking, and I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but one of us said to the other something like “You know, the next Winter Olympics are gonna be in Utah when we’re seniors.”

That’s pretty much all it took. We were in. Somehow, we were going to figure out how to go to Utah to see some of the 2002 Winter Olympics in person.

We were students at a college in western New York state. Utah wasn’t close, but at least it was in our country. We didn’t know how we’d get there, how we’d get back, where we’d sleep, or how close the venues were to each other. All we knew was that we had a big and bold idea, and we were willing to make some sacrifices in order to make it happen. We had about 17 months to figure it out.

One thing that’s neat about this life is that God has given us free will. We can choose to follow Him or not. Beyond that, He gives us the ability to choose how we would like to glorify Him. If you’re a Christian, you may notice that some causes tug at your heart strings a little more than others. It may be a heart for helping the homeless, orphans, alcoholics, those in prison, someone that doesn’t have clean water or someone you personally know that can’t afford enough food or medicine. Your combination of talents, interests, and spiritual gifts does not often match up with other people’s, and that’s by design. You are uniquely equipped and motivated to tackle challenges that are tailor-made for you. If you feel as though you’re compelled to plug into a certain area, most likely it’s because you are.

At some point in your Christian walk, you probably had an idea about some challenge you were supposed to take on. Maybe it was big and bold, maybe it was something a little easier to sink your teeth into. Like our Olympic idea, sometimes you just need to let the idea bake for awhile before moving out. Don’t let it die in the “still baking” phase, though.

Jeremy and I did go to the Olympics as spectators. I’ll give plenty more information in later posts, but I’ll tell you this much: it’s been almost 17 years since we took that trip…there are things I was willing to do in 2002 that I’m probably not willing to do now. That’s not necessarily good or bad, it’s just different. That helps illustrate another point: no matter how old you are, you’ve got an advantage when presented with a big and bold challenge. When you’re young, you probably have limited financial means, but your enthusiasm can carry you through many discomforts that you may not be willing to endure when you get older. A couple of decades later, you likely have a more solid financial footing and the benefit of some life experience, but there are many priorities competing for your time and you have to be dedicated to a prayer life and devotional life or they’re simply not going to happen. Further along, in the early years of your retirement you may or may not be as busy as during your working years, but you probably have the benefit of having less structure in the way you spend your time. Later in life you may not be able to get out and perform physical tasks as easily, but your prayer life and mentorship roles have the potential to be the best they’ve ever been.

The point I’m making is that when God plants an idea in your head that seems like it might be a little too big for you to handle, focus on the ways He’s equipped you to succeed. Instead of turning it down, let it stew for a little bit. It’s supposed to be intimidating. If He gave you an easy assignment, how would He get any glory out of it? On the other hand, if someone is woefully unprepared to take on a mammoth undertaking, and a million things have to line up in order for it to happen, it becomes obvious that the project’s eventual success didn’t come because of the person; God gets the glory in those cases. If it’s God handing you the next assignment, be willing to bite off more than you can chew.

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A New Chapter Begins

Congratulations! You have officially made it through Christmas, New Year’s, and if you haven’t already, you’ll probably be getting back into the normal routine soon.

For some, 2018 was a great year with uplifting stories and good fortune. Others have experienced loss or heartache and are happy to close the book on this past year. Wherever you are, we’re now taking our first tentative steps into 2019. The year that lies ahead holds unforeseen challenges as well as circumstances you can choose to interpret as either sweet or sour.

In a previous post I said that God does not force you to do great and impossible things; He invites you to come along and be a part of them. If you choose to turn down the invitation, don’t be confused when you wonder why you’re not finding more to this life.

To kick off the blog for 2019 I’d like to include an excerpt taken from a book I read this past year. It’s by a man named Erwin McManus, called The Last Arrow. The book takes its name from an Old Testament story where the king of Israel sought out the prophet Elisha to plead with God for protection against approaching enemies.

One of the odd instructions Elisha gave the king was to take some of the arrows he had and strike them on the ground. The king then complied, but stopped after striking three arrows on the ground. This angered Elisha, who said “You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.” The king’s heart wasn’t in the effort, and he gave up too soon.

When an archer has a quiver full of arrows, they are not doing any good until they’re in flight. Regardless of how cool they look, a group of arrows still in a quiver only represents potential. They do not serve their purpose until they come flying off the bow. During a time when they ought to be used, an arrow that remains in a quiver is an arrow that’s been wasted.

Most of us naturally attempt something with less than full commitment, or we naturally maintain a bias for inaction. In other words, we don’t begin something unless we receive “a clear sign” that we’re supposed to embark on a new undertaking. We’re modern-day versions of Gideon, rolling out fleeces on the ground and waiting for improbable signs that will help us avoid acting on opportunities set before us, even if we recognize them.

Instead, what if we maintained a bias for action? What if we alternatively had the attitude of “I’m going to keep going until I get a clear sign to stop?” Another way of thinking about it is to “Go until you get a no.”

Wherever you are in life, don’t give in to the doubts you have. Don’t allow the excuses to pile up and sway you. “I’m too old.” “I’m too young.” “I’m too hurt.” “I’m too busy.” Whatever your “I’m too” is, don’t let that stop you. If you’re breathing, you can employ the gifts God’s given to you.

From The Last Arrow:

“The great tragedy that I have witnessed over and over again is that we keep underestimating how much God wants to do in us and through us. Too many of us have believed the lies we have been told: that we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not talented enough, we’re just not enough. One of the facets of God that makes him extraordinary is his ability to do the impossible through ordinary, everyday, common people like you and me. This book has one intention: that whether you win or lose, succeed or fail, live a life of celebrity or anonymity, that when you take your last breath, you will know without reservation that you have given everything you have, everything you are, to the life you have been entrusted with.”

There’s more out there. You were made for more. As we start 2019 I’m going to continue exhorting you to accept the challenges God has already and will continue to lay before you. Accept His invitation and prepare to be amazed at the power of God working through you.

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That Was Almost Me!

In honor of the real reason behind the upcoming Christmas holiday, I’m going to share a story from my life that illustrates someone else’s sacrifice on my behalf. This particular experience drives home the point of Jesus taking my place like nothing else does.

Before I joined the Air Force I worked in construction, building houses. The Air Force was very particular and thorough about documenting the types of injuries, surgeries, and other aspects of recruits’ medical history. All of a potential recruit’s medical history paperwork needed to be in good order before they could even leave for basic training. I don’t remember how many times I had to fill out specific forms, but I remember that it was a pain to get it all completed.

Everyone at work knew that I was joining the Air Force, but the job I wanted wasn’t scheduled to have room for new Airmen for several months, so while I was waiting, all I had to do was not get hurt. I worked in construction. What could go wrong?

Our crew was framing a house, which was one of my favorite parts of building it, even though it was also one of the most physically strenuous. We had finished the first floor, and we were just about to start work on the second. What we usually did at this point was have a guy start lifting the decking…a beefed-up version of plywood…up to someone on the second floor. Once we got most of the decking installed on the second floor, we could start moving other supplies up there.

This time we did something a little different. I don’t remember exactly why, but we had a backhoe on site. Rather than pass the sheets of decking up one at a time, we threw a chain around a bunch of the sheets and connected it to the backhoe’s arm. We were going to use the machine to lift a bunch of the decking up to the second floor all at once. If this worked out, it was going to save us a lot of work.

The backhoe operator drove around to the part of the house that was closest to being able to reach the second floor. He moved into place and began positioning the arm so that two of us up top could pull the sheets out of the stack. I was one of the guys, and I had gone to high school with the other guy, Jared. Jared was the kind of guy that had been working on job sites and picking up extra cash since he was a kid. He had worked on more roofs, houses, and barns than he could remember. He just had a sixth sense about how building supplies needed to fit together and how the process needed to go.

The two of us stood on top of the second floor, waiting to receive the first sheets. We had no floor to stand on yet; we had to balance on the rafters that were 16 inches apart. We watched as the backhoe operator extended the backhoe’s arm as high as it would go, only to come up a few inches short. We talked it over for a bit, and decided we’d try tipping the bundle just enough that we could pull a sheet up toward us. We didn’t like the idea of dealing with a tipped bundle, but it was better than lifting the sheets up one by one.

This idea might have worked if we used a magical chain that tightened around the bundle a little bit as each sheet came out. Think of a deck of cards that’s held in place not with a rubber band, but with a string that’s tied tightly around the outside. As we tried tipping the bundle just enough to pull a sheet up onto where we stood, the sheets in the middle of the bundle started sliding toward the cab of the backhoe. Out of self-preservation, the operator jerked the arm to stop the decking from smashing into him, but in the process it made the bucket smash into the wall holding up the rafters Jared and I stood on. It broke the wall loose and in about three seconds there would be nothing holding us up anymore.

Jared was quicker to understand everything that was happening, and he started tearing across the rafters with a quickness. He slowed down long enough to grab me and get me moving in the right direction, because I had to spin 180 degrees to be pointed toward safety. He pulled me onto my feet and gave me a big shove, providing the momentum I needed to reach a different section of the building that wasn’t in danger of collapsing. The big shove he gave me killed his momentum toward safety though. It all happened so fast that I don’t remember everything that occurred, but the wall gave way, and so did the rafters holding us up. As I was falling, I was just barely able to reach out and grab a beam that wasn’t affected by the wall’s collapse. I was running across rafters that were on their way down as I reached it. It was just in the nick of time, too; it was a last-ditch leap to grab something sturdy enough to save me from disaster.

Jared, however, did NOT make it to safety. He ended up tumbling from the second floor to the first in the middle of a mass of collapsing lumber. He suffered a fall he could have escaped because he stopped long enough to give me a chance I wouldn’t have had without him. He could have made it without a problem if he only looked after himself, but without even thinking he helped keep me from getting hurt. If I could go back in time and grab a picture of the scene, it would have been a powerful one to see Jared getting buried in an avalanche of two-by-sixes and two-by-eights as I safely swung from a cross beam just feet away, thanks to him.

This event made me understand the word “sacrifice” in a different light. I always knew the Bible stories about God sacrificing His son. After awhile, you forget to appreciate what an awesomely painful thing that was for Him to do. Then something like this happens and you see it in a whole new light.

How do you pay someone back after something like that?

You can’t.

If you haven’t invited Jesus Christ to be the Lord of your life, that doesn’t change the fact that He paid a heavy price to offer you a tremendous gift. To be honest, He knew that many people wouldn’t take Him up on it, and He knew that some people would knowingly reject it. I can’t imagine not being thankful to Jared after what he did. It also helped remind me of how much more thankful I need to be for an even bigger act of selflessness.

This Christmas don’t forget to pause and give thanks to God for the significance of what we’re actually celebrating during this time of year. Christ’s birth marked the start of a plan that would result in a painful and tormenting sacrifice that opened the door for you and for me to gain entry into Heaven. The concept of painful separation from God after death is our default status as humans, but Christ’s sacrifice created the only way for us to avoid that future and instead spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

Just for the sake of closure, Jared was okay, but he was pretty mad and stayed on the floor for awhile. I dropped from the beam and ran toward him, throwing planks every which way to get him uncovered. He scared me when I found him in the fetal position…I kept asking him to say something, but he stayed quiet. I think he was pretty upset at seeing the problem coming and still having to deal with it. We later joked about how tough Jared was. He’s the only guy I know that you can drop a house on and he keeps on going. 🙂

This is my last post of 2018. Enjoy time together with loved ones this season; hold them tighter and don’t take them for granted. Talk about big, impossible ideas of how you can labor for God’s glory. Spur one another on. I’ll resume posting the first or second week of the new year.

In the words of a different, more famous Tim, “God Bless us, every one!”

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Hang On Just a Little Bit Longer

College is expensive.

One way that most students help offset the cost is by getting a job during their studies. The school where I attended was pretty good about having lots of jobs to which students could apply. Since it takes a lot to make a learning institution function, there were all types of positions available: working in the cafeteria, cleaning the common areas in the dorms, being a teacher’s assistant for various professors, etc. If you can think of a position that smooths life for the orderly function of a college, it probably exists in some capacity. You just have to be quick if you want to get something good.

When I first got to college, I needed a job that would give me a good number of hours per week. It’s a bonus if you can find something that you like. Also, when you first get to college, you don’t know many people, and it would be nice to meet at least a few. I figured that since I’m not the outgoing type, it would probably work out a little better if people came to meet me, rather than trying to go out and meet everyone else. I thought “You know, getting a job in the mailroom would probably be kinda cool. You’ll probably meet just about everyone on campus if you stay there long enough.”

I thought it was a good idea. So I went to the mailroom and inquired about hiring. The lady in charge there asked me a few questions, and boom, I was hired.

As it turns out, I wasn’t hired to work in the mailroom. I was hired to deliver packages to the faculty and staff in different buildings around campus. Anything from new books for professors to a special-order replacement part for the maintenance guys…I brought it to them once it arrived at the college mailroom.

It wasn’t quite what I expected, but I still got to travel all over campus and get to know people from the different departments. I got to drive a sweet blue station wagon that I’d load up with packages at the loading dock, then tear all over the place trying to get rid of them.

After someone taught me all the normal places where I needed to go, I was left to do it on my own. The problem was that the lady in charge kept telling me that I needed to do it faster. “Oh, uh…okay.” So I tried to do it faster, but it still wasn’t fast enough. I started trying to see how I could trim time off the process. Was I taking too long to log the packages at the beginning? Should I hit the Art building and the Athletic department at the beginning, or at the end of the route? Should I park at the Finance Office and hit that and then drive over to the Science Building and do that, or should I park in between and hit them both from that same parking spot? What if I just did the first three buildings entirely on foot, without the car?

By the end of the first semester, I was just running ragged, unsure about how I could possibly go any faster. I ultimately decided that I’d find a new job the following semester. I had lots of these different work/study jobs over the course of my time at college, so I don’t remember specifically which one I took next, but I do remember something about this one. Only after quitting this package delivery job did I learn that I was about to be scheduled to work a large number of hours in the mailroom itself.

Well, that would’ve been nice to know a bit earlier. I had to turn down the offer, because I had already worked something out with another employer. If I had known what was coming…if I had known how close I was to getting the job I originally wanted, I probably would’ve hung in there just a little bit longer and not started looking around for something different.

Ever been in a situation like that? “Oh, man, if only I’d known!” There are times when you need a little encouragement to stick it out just a little longer, and there are times when enough is enough. As you take a look at your life, and whether or not you’re doing what God wants you to do, you’re probably going to find yourself wishing at times that you could just get through this rough patch so that you can move on to something else.

Keep the situation in prayer, and seek the counsel of some close, trusted, Godly friends. Answers to this question are usually not that easy to find, and you may have to wrestle with it for awhile. In the end, the choice is yours, but it usually works out best when you choose what you think God would want you to do, as opposed to what you want to do.