Category: God Can Use You More Than You Think He Can

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Never Have I Ever Done This…

Never in my life have I been excited to watch a live boxing match…until last week, when “Iron Mike” Tyson returned to the ring.

Back in his prime, Tyson was known as “the baddest man on the planet.” His punching power and pure tenacity were unrivaled. He’s the dude that bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear! Not only would I not want to meet this guy in a dark alley; I’d be skittish meeting him with a bunch of burly dudes between him and I. When I was a kid, they had video games featuring this guy. If you could beat him in the game, you were the cat’s pajamas!

So when the much-hyped fight between him and a young boxing upstart arrived, I had to tune in. Tyson, a 58-year-old man, was stepping in the ring with an arrogant social media star less than half his age. Everybody I knew wanted Iron Mike to clean this guy’s clock. I hadn’t been this excited about a boxing match since watching a Rocky movie!

Coverage began at 8:00 pm, and there was an undercard to get through before the main event. I watched a movie with one of my kiddos to help pass the time. I checked back in around 10:30. We still had a long time to go before the big fight. People around me started going to bed. Things just kept dragging on and on. I finally threw in the towel and ended up going to bed probably around 12:30-1:00 in the morning, and the fight was still some time away.

The next morning was a Saturday, but I couldn’t sleep. I woke up after just a few hours and tried in vain to go back to sleep. I got out of bed probably at 5 in the morning to go watch the fight. Everybody else in the house was still asleep. I didn’t check online to find out what happened, I wanted to watch it unfold the way it really happened.

After watching the hype videos and the fighters’ entrances, it was finally time to start the bout! In the first round, Tyson stood toe to toe with his opponent and delivered some decent shots. Could he knock the guy out?

As time went on, it became very apparent that time waits for no man, not even the baddest man on the planet. He still had punching power, but had lost his timing and reflexes, and the killer instinct had faded. He looked nervous and tentative as he grew tired. His old legs didn’t allow him to pursue his opponent around the ring, so he was forced to mostly play defense as the younger man circled around him. Tyson just didn’t have the tools he used to possess. By the start of the last round, I was just hoping Tyson could get through it without getting seriously hurt. In the end, nobody scored any knockdowns or knockouts. The younger guy landed more punches, and the judges awarded him the win.

Time doesn’t stop ticking. I’m at an age now where I can no longer do some of the things I could formerly do, but I’m not so old that I let it stop me from trying. Sometimes it works out okay, but other times I end up being sore for days. I think it’s good to take a lesson from Iron Mike and recognize that your combination of abilities, skills, and desire will change as you get older. The Lord has charged you with certain things to accomplish in this life, whether it be something in ministry or some other area in which He created you to pursue excellence. During the course of your life it’s important to be open to being flexible; the ways you honor God as a young adult probably won’t look the same when you hit middle age, and likewise will probably shift again by the time you reach retirement age and then again by the time you reach old age. You’re not going to have the same tools you formerly possessed (not all of them, anyway). Sometimes that could mean staying in the same line of work but teaming with someone who still has the advantages of youth, while other times it means moving into something entirely different.

I urge you to pursue God’s calling for your life, knowing full well your skillset is likely to look very different at various periods in your life. Don’t waste time pining for the victories of yesteryear; press on to face the challenge God’s placed in your path today. There will always be something too big for you to do on your own, but there will never be something He charges you with doing that He doesn’t equip you to accomplish. He hasn’t stopped being faithful to you, and though your physical and/or mental limits have changed from what they used to be, honor Him with your best today.

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You’ve Got Me Seeing Stars

I enjoyed showing various video clips to my kids when they were little. When she was a toddler, I showed my youngest daughter a computer-generated animation accompanied by “Twinkle, twinkle little star.” It was slow-paced, so it easily held the attention of young little eyes. This particular version, about two and a half minutes long, featured an owl who looked up at the night sky and decided to fly up high to get a better look at a star hovering above.

As he flew to a great height, the star came to greet him. The two new friends frolicked along the tops of clouds for a bit, to the owl’s great enjoyment. It was utter happiness for the two, sharing these magical moments. Alas, all things come to an end, and eventually the owl began to fall back to earth as the star watched, waving goodbye, ending this brief friendship.

My daughter watched, captivated, until this part. As she saw the look in the owl’s eyes, along with the star’s farewell wave, a profound sadness came over her and she began to cry. This was a completely unexpected reaction. Of course children want to be in the presence of their own mother from a very young age, but it turns out even a child too young to write her name understands the importance of togetherness and the pain of separation in others. Communion and fellowship are hardwired into us; we need others.

After we slip from this life into the next, there are only two possibilities for how we’ll spend eternity. The first is joyful bliss in the everlasting presence of the Lord. The second is the shock and pain of isolation from Him. When we picture Hell, we often think of fire. While eternal smoke from unbelievers is described in the Bible (Revelation 14:11), I think we usually miss the fact that folks in this category have no chance of ever getting right with, and spending time with the Almighty, other than standing before Him in judgment. While Christians can rest in the idea of Christ’s love, those who reject Him will themselves be rejected and cast into an existence of separation from Him (and likely everyone else).

Just a little reminder of what’s at stake here. You might very well be the only person to speak Christ to someone else. Don’t worry about messing it up. They’re already facing the worst-case scenario: eternity separated from the Lord. You can’t make it any worse, but you can help them gain the only thing that matters. Start a conversation today.

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When Pushing too Hard can Push Others Away

I like to take different types of personality tests. It’s fascinating to answer a bunch of questions, then get results accurately describing the way I approach life. I’m one thing on the Meyers-Briggs, I’m something else on the Enneagram, and I’m a variety of other things on other tests. It’s always humbling to receive such accurate descriptions of myself from complete strangers, and then realize no matter how detailed those descriptions get, my creator knows me at an even deeper level. He knows not only my strengths and weaknesses and how I deal with conflict, but the failures and victories still ahead of me, how I’ll respond to challenges He knows are coming, and to what degree I’ll rely on Him through it all.

One of the tests I’ve recently taken focuses on the way I communicate with others. I’m what’s known as a “Challenger.” A Challenger transmits courage and awakens calling. That means when I see people, I see greatness inside of them, and I want to both convince them and motivate them to unlock it. If you’ve poked around on the DareGreatlyNow website, in the “about us” section or in past posts, this may not be a surprise.

It saddens me to see people with untapped potential. I want to help people, especially Christians, believe they can achieve the improbable things God’s called them to do with their lives. I want Christ-followers to see they don’t need to sweat all the details, or even have a clear view of the big picture; they just need to do their part, whatever it is, and trust not only that God knows what He’s doing, but also that He’s weaving all the lives and efforts of other believers into a masterpiece to fight evil, save souls, strengthen faith, and glorify Him.

A pitfall for me is being susceptible to always pushing for more, always urging higher and higher levels of dedication or performance, at the cost of failing to stop and celebrate wins. “That was yesterday’s victory, we need new sacrifice to win today’s battle!” I’m in danger of pushing the people I communicate with away, making them think “will I ever be enough for this guy?”

So let’s meet in the middle. Right now I’m talking to my Christian brothers and sisters out there. How has God been at work in your life lately, and what wins in your spiritual life can you celebrate? If you’re trying to establish or improve devotional habits, for example, celebrate a win like “I read the entire passage I was supposed to read for my devotions,” or “I’m still extending my longest streak of daily devotions.” Those are wins, and they should be celebrated.

If you’re trying to get established in a habit or spiritual discipline, let me offer a tactic you might find useful. I’ll use the example of going to the gym, but you can use it for building time spent on devotions, prayer, volunteering, giving to the offering, and any other habit you’re trying to improve. If it’s been a long time since you’ve been to the gym and you’re pretty much starting from scratch, follow this simple rule. For the first week, go every day you’ve decided to go (three days a week, five days a week, etc.), but spend no longer than 5 minutes inside the building. You can walk in, get on a treadmill for 3 minutes, then walk out. Finish week one? Do the same thing for week two. Do it again in week three. What this is doing is helping you master the art of showing up. You’ll get tired of spending more time traveling to and from the gym than actually working out. Once you prove to yourself you can make room in your life for the habit, show yourself you can improve on it. Instead of 3 minutes on the treadmill, do 7, or instead of 3 mph, do 3 and a half. Turn a set of curls into a set of curls and a set of flies. Instead of two laps in the pool, do four. Celebrate those wins as you reach new milestones. While you’re reaching those new milestones, you just might realize you have it within yourself to reach for even higher goals.

In a complete left turn, here’s another way of looking at this. Sometimes artwork speaks to me in a way nothing else does. I came across this picture while looking for music to listen to while writing. More than any other picture of friends embracing, wildlife beside peaceful waters, or a single set of footprints on the beach, this picture challenges me to move toward what I want to be spiritually. We see a soldier, having fulfilled the task he’s been assigned, taking a moment in his exhaustion before rising to his feet. It’s been a long fight, and his strength is practically gone. He’s been fighting so hard for so long he’s got to mentally push himself to even summon the strength to stand. He’s come under fire, he’s probably lost companions, but the equipping he’s received enabled him to perform the feat to which he’s been called. He can’t see the bigger picture, but he doesn’t need to, because he trusts his commander to use him the best way possible. Yes, he’s been intimidated, overwhelmed with fear, and knows there’s no guarantee he’ll see tomorrow, but he knows those are only excuses for not putting forth everything he’s got. By focusing on the things he can control and not worrying about the things he can’t, he can channel all his energy into what he’s been charged with doing.

Though it’s not part of the picture, I imagine a scene taking place later, when this same soldier kneels before his ruler, having brought honor to him through his obedience, faithfulness, and tenacity. Receiving a hand on his shoulder and a joyful “well done” from the figure he wants most in his life to honor would bring him to tears.

It’s a metaphor of the way I want my life to look when it reaches its end, and it’s what I want to urge you toward in your own life. What strength are you holding back and not committing to your calling? Is there a tough choice you’ve been avoiding, because you know it will cost you something you’ve so far been unwilling to give? Celebrate the wins in your spiritual life, but don’t ever think “this is it. This is as high as I can go. God can’t use me any more than He already has.” The path to your greatest potential might just lie through your greatest fear.

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I Thought I had More Sand in the Hourglass!

I recently received a powerful reminder about the importance of using the spiritual gifts you’ve been entrusted with.

Coming home from work within the past couple of weeks, I drove right into a traffic jam. It was a road I’d driven a thousand times before, but this time the traffic stopped and barely moved. Sirens behind me drew my attention to my side-view mirrors, and I could see cars pulling off to the side to let emergency vehicles through.

Things weren’t totally shut down yet, so there was enough movement for us all to slowly merge into a single lane of traffic. Between the light at the next intersection and something going on up ahead, progress was slow. As I finally came around a bend in the road, I saw fire trucks with lights flashing, blocking most of the intersection. Lots of firefighters were out of the trucks, walking around, and one of them knelt next to a guy lying on the ground. A motorcycle lay on the ground a little further up the road.

As I neared the front of the line, a vehicle blocked most of my view of the guy who had been involved in the accident, but I could still see his feet. All I could see were his jeans and his work boots. I sat there wondering about the details of what had happened, when another firefighter, not in a hurry, came out and stood at the fellow’s feet, opened up a sheet, and spread it over the man lying on the ground.

Talk about a wake-up call!

I’d like to share two things with you today. The first is that life is precious; it’s fleeting, it’s fragile, and it’s over quickly. I’m sure that guy didn’t wake up thinking it would be his last day on Earth.

The second is more important. As Christians, we’re equipped with spiritual gifts, and the world is dying for us to use them. You don’t know how much time you’ve got left to put them to use. Don’t take your gifts to Heaven; Heaven doesn’t need them.

Between the time I write this and the time the post goes live, there will be countless additional tragedies around the world. I don’t know what the Lord has planned for your life if you accept His invitation to be used in His kingdom, but maybe you can prevent, mitigate, or bring comfort in the midst of some of those tragedies. I’m sure that sometime in the past few days, you’ve either personally been involved with, or you’ve heard about some unfortunate or terrible event in the news. Wherever you are, please take a moment to pray for comfort for the loved ones of those involved, and for the Holy Spirit to show you how you should put your spiritual gifts into action. The world shouldn’t have to wait for us any longer.

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When a Chance Encounter Doesn’t Happen by Chance

As a teenager, I worked as a lifeguard four summers. Thankfully I can count on one hand the number of times I had to take action to save anyone. There were a couple of times kids jumped into water a little deeper than they expected, and I was able to extend a rescue tube to them, but those were easy. I only had to go in after someone one time.

At the place I worked, we had two outdoor pools. One of them had both a shallow end and a deep end (three to nine feet deep), and the other one was deep all around, where the shallowest part was nine feet deep and it went to 12 and a half feet deep. It was my turn to keep an eye on the deep pool, where we had two diving boards. This pool was easier to watch because there were usually only a few people in the water at a time.

This one kid, probably somewhere in the 10-13 age range, got on a diving board and walked to the edge, then unceremoniously jumped in. It took him a bit to come back up, but he broke the surface eventually. It’s a difficult thing to watch someone who’s drowning. If they’re still fighting to keep their head above water, kicking is the first thing to stop. It’s a reflex; you kind of get tunnel vision and if you can’t see your feet, you don’t think about them. The person just stays vertical in the water and kinda slaps the water with their hands without kicking. This is what the kid was doing when I jumped in.

I totally blew off procedure. I forgot to blow my whistle to alert the guard at the other pool and I didn’t tell others near the diving boards not to jump into the pool; I just jumped in and started swimming toward the kid. Since I had a pretty good size advantage on him, I also totally skipped the technique I’d practiced countless times in training. Instead of swimming around behind him to scoop him up by his armpits onto the rescue tube, I made a beeline for the ladder nearest him and on my way past I grabbed him around the waist with one arm, holding his head above water even though it meant keeping mine under. The emphasis was on speed, trying to prevent an active drowning victim from turning into a passive drowning victim.

The whole thing was over in a few seconds. I got him to the ladder, where he was able to catch his breath. I asked if he was okay, and he gave a panting “yeah.” He climbed out of the pool and walked away, and at that point I just got severely irritated with him. I didn’t ream him out or anything, but I got instantly enraged. I didn’t say anything else, but how could he jump into such deep water if he didn’t know how to swim? If nobody was around, you would have died, dude!

For less than a minute more than 25 years ago, our two lives intersected. If I saw him today, I’d have no idea it was him. I’m clueless about what he went on to do with his life and whether he’s closer to the “dirtbag” or the “saint” side of the spectrum. He may not even remember that day so long ago, but whatever else was going on in his life at the time, it’s pretty obvious to me God wasn’t done with him yet. I’m confident anyone on our lifeguarding staff would have been able to bail him out of the trouble he got himself into, but I was the one sitting in the chair that day. The Lord allowed me to be the one to play a role in a small, but decisive part of his life.

Every now and then I think about that kid and wonder what he went on to do in his life. Think about the people you come in contact with on a daily basis. There are people you know and see on a recurring basis, but there are also plenty of people you’ll probably never see again in your life. For brief periods of time, your life will intersect with theirs. It could have been someone else, but it ended up being you. Not all those occasions will be so definitive or dramatic as pulling someone out of danger, but some of them might very well be (literally or figuratively).

Embrace those little encounters, whatever they end up looking like. You may have been put there to make a much-needed difference. Don’t squander the opportunity. Maybe one day you’ll look back and find yourself wondering whatever happened to that person. Better yet, that other person may look back and be thankful for the time they ran into you.

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A Little Taste of That Next Level

It’s probably been almost 20 years since I last jumped out of an airplane, but there are still some fun memories of those days. Most of the skydiving you see in pictures or videos is called “belly flying,” where the skydiver is laying down horizontally. It’s a lot of fun, I did a lot of neat stuff that way. You fall about 120 mph, and you can flip, roll, do formations, all kinds of neat stuff.

But there was a brief time in this chapter of my life I wanted to try something a little more edgy. Rather than belly flying, it’s possible to do something called “sit flying” or “head-down flying,” where you position yourself vertically instead of horizontally. It’s trickier to do and takes some additional practice. You can do it right-side up (so you look like you’re standing in the air) or upside-down. Since you’re positioned vertically rather than horizontally, there’s less drag and you have a faster terminal velocity. Instead of 120 mph, you’re falling closer to 150 or 180 mph. Unfortunately it means the freefall is over sooner, but the tradeoff is faster speeds allow you to have more precise control once you become proficient at it.

I only tried this for a handful of jumps. I jumped with a coach, who stayed belly-flying until I managed to get into a vertical orientation. It was tough to do, I had a lot of stutter-starts, and it was a totally different animal than the skydiving I was used to. For a bit, I got the balance right and I started accelerating toward the ground, away from my coach. She was very experienced, so she caught up to me once I got away from her. The thing that felt really weird was when I managed to hold the right position for awhile, I started going so fast my goggles began wobbling from the wind. I was on the cusp of starting to get this totally new thing figured out when I, for whatever reason, couldn’t hold the position any longer, and I tumbled out of the vertical orientation and my body acted like an air brake and slowed me down by 30+ mph (can you imagine?). I got a little taste of that “next level” feeling, and I couldn’t hang on.

We’ll come back to this in a minute, but first I’d like to talk for just a bit about the different aspects of various ministries that excite us.

God created all of us with various interests. Even unbelievers have different hobbies they enjoy. Why? Why does someone get into stamp collecting while someone else crochets or enjoys woodworking, gardening, or painting? (Or skydiving?) None of it’s right or wrong; it’s just how God wired us as individuals. For those of us who become Christians, there’s a similar phenomenon at play. Upon being saved, many develop a desire to serve the body of Christ in some capacity, but there’s no cookie-cutter approach to how to go about doing it. We’re drawn to one or more of myriad possibilities.

Think about the different volunteer opportunities available in church. A few which come to mind are greeters, playing instruments, being an usher, singing, being a Sunday school teacher or working on the audio/visual team. That’s just in your local body of believers; beyond those walls you can volunteer in soup kitchens, hospitals, meal delivery organizations, do things like yard work for folks who can’t do that sort of thing anymore, etc. In broader terms, there are those attracted to ministry roles which care for the hurting, which help give rest to the weary, or which train Christians for something grander. There are others, limited only by God’s imagination. What type of ministry sparks your interest? If you had to donate personal time and effort to helping others in some capacity, what would you choose to allocate it toward?

For me, my particular ministry area of interest is seeing the sparks fly when people step out of their status quo lives and into the unknown, knowing only that they’ve been called to move out in faith in a particular direction. I love seeing when people recognize and then step into the role they were made for, when they start down the road of becoming who they were meant to be. It’s that moment when faith overflows into action, like Noah gathering his family around and saying “we’re building a boat.” It’s a shepherd boy saying “I’ll fight him.” It’s those “goosebump” moments in the Christian walk.

Sadly, many readers of the Bible seem to think the God of the Old Testament no longer empowers His followers today. This world is full of Christians living lives far below their potential, and I want to be a part of a ministry that encourages them to step into the role God has waiting for them. That’s why I write. If they just took that next step into whatever it is they know they’re called toward, they just might have a sit-flying experience, where their goggles start shimmying, their eyes go wide, and it takes their breath away to get a taste of the world that awaits them.

At some time or another, at least one person from all but a handful of the world’s nations has stopped in to visit this blog. Some had to circumvent firewalls to do it, others stumbled across it despite it being one blog among thousands. Of the believers among all those visitors, imagine all the backgrounds, cultures, and scenarios that exist. All of them are called to live lives honoring the Lord, and the way they do that is different for each person. What would the world look like if they all pursued God’s calling for their lives, even if they didn’t fully understand what it looked like?

Is there something tugging at your mind or heart, something God’s burdened you with, that you can’t shake? It might just be Him saying “come on, I’ve got a job for you.” Take a deep breath, pray for clarity, strength, courage, and commitment, and move out on what you know to be God’s will for your life.

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Warning: Audacity in Progress

In the past I’ve shared about how God laid on my heart the task of writing a series of fictional Christian books.

To give you some context about how audacious that is for me, consider this. Far and away, the largest writing endeavor I’ve ever undertaken is this blog. None of its entries are very long. This entry is a little over 1,000 words. The longest document I’ve ever written was for a college course, with a requirement of 10,000 words, I think. What makes me believe, despite having no writing classes other than basic English courses in college, I can write a series of 10 books, each with 50,000-80,000 words, totaling over 600,000? With “Piece of Cake” at one end of the spectrum and “Impossible” at the other end, I’m a lot closer to “Impossible” than “Cake.”

It’s very important to remember: those God calls, He equips.

Well that’s a wonderful little platitude, but how are things going, really? The idea for this project first took root during COVID lockdowns. It’s been four years. Where are we on this?

To be honest with you, it’s tough. I’ve never written a book before, let alone ten of them. I laid out a plan for what the different books would cover, then started at the beginning with the first book in the series. When I got bored with that story I’d jump to a different one, then another. What I found was this method diluted my efforts too much; I made headway, but it didn’t feel like it was getting traction. With my hectic schedule, I don’t have big chunks of time to work on stuff like this, so I only get maybe an hour and a half or two hours to work on it, sometimes once a week. Although I’m trying to surpass a half million words, this method’s not going to allow me to make big leaps forward.

I started focusing my efforts on a group of three specific books, rather than dabbling in ten books. Over time I started adding 1,000 words, 1,250, sometimes even 1,500 words at a shot. I’d mess around with the table of contents, re-sequence parts of the story to make it flow better and make more sense. A new idea would hit at inopportune times, and I’d write it down on my hand or email myself from work. The goal is still to get over 600,000 words, and I still have hundreds of thousands of words to write, but you know what I’ve learned so far?

This insurmountable goal is looking more achievable.

The progress isn’t as fast as I’d like, since I do have other responsibilities (a family, a full time job, a blog, my daily/weekly routines, a house, yard, and vehicles to take care of, etc.). In fact, the majority of my writing happens during my kids’ extracurricular activities. I drive them somewhere, and rather than come home after dropping them off, I stay there and write until it’s time to pick them up. Considering the sporadic chunks of time I have to work on this project, I’m pleased I haven’t given up on it. Persistence in small bites translates into small chunks of progress, but those chunks have begun banding together to result in some solid headway on that group of three books. With a combined target of 200,000 words for the three, I’ve written almost 125,000 words. That’s over 60% of the goal.

I’ve written another 50,000 words across the other seven books in the series. That totals almost 175,000 words. There’s still tons of work to be done, don’t get me wrong, but 175,000 out of a projected goal of 630,000 words is pretty encouraging. Don’t look now, but by remaining determined to follow through, I’ve gone more than a quarter of the way toward this unreachable goal.

Yes, of course, there will be an obscene amount of work to be done besides the writing. Finding plot holes, missing chunks of story, editing for clarity or typos, finding a professional editor and going through all the associated back-and-forth, finding an illustrator, a publisher, maybe being involved in marketing, these are all things demanding lots of attention. At the early stages of this effort, though, everything hinges on having a story to work with. The other steps can’t happen until the stories come together on paper. For someone whose longest writing was 10,000 prior to this, 175,000 is downright phenomenal.

I share this with you not because I want to wow you or try to make you think I’m cool for trying something new, but to show you, as I’m walking through this right now, that when God challenges you with a massive undertaking or insurmountable goal, the sooner you get started, the sooner your efforts will add up to something He can use. The Lord’s commissioning of this project assures its eventual success, provided I actually follow through and complete it. If I don’t, He’ll achieve His aims some other way, but this is the invitation God extended to me, offering to let me play a part in His grander story. Whatever success comes of it should be credited to the Lord, not me.

I don’t know what God’s going to do with these books once they’re done, but I have to maintain the attitude He’s going to use them either in revival or in causing unsaved readers to start asking important questions. Getting where God’s leading sometimes takes small, persistent actions over a long period of time. It’s sometimes frustratingly slow, and sometimes victory means you haven’t yet thrown in the towel, but the following Bible verse helps spur me on:

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

Is there something in your life God’s called you to do, and you need to be reminded not to give up? Hang in there. Don’t quit. If God called you to do it, it’s entirely possible someone down the road will either join or return to God’s Kingdom because of something you had a hand in.

Don’t give up. Someone’s counting on you.

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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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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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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.