Tag: Be the Church

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Hanging on by a Thread (Part 3 of 3)

(See Part 1 and Part 2)

Lee with two of his grandkids after returning home from the hospital

When my father-in-law Lee suddenly had a medical emergency right after Christmas a few years ago, it caught us all off guard. For almost a week we didn’t know anything, and all we could do was wait for new developments.

In order to shield the family at the hospital from having to do all the communicating through texting and phone calls, I started emailing out updates to close friends and family. The list of recipients grew quickly though, and soon we had our own Facebook page to help keep people updated and to pass along specific prayer requests both for Lee and for the needs of his family. Lee meant a lot to a whole lot of people, and eventually hundreds of readers received the daily updates I sent out.

There must have been some people hitting their knees hard in prayer on Lee and his family’s behalf, because Lee eventually opened his eyes. After spending a few days in a medically induced coma with a body temperature somewhere in the 80s, his body had some adjusting to do when he regained consciousness. He was extremely disoriented and weak, but, at least for now, he was still with us.

We were all thrilled to see Lee moving in the right direction, but the world didn’t stop turning because he was in the hospital. My young family was far from home; we were able to stay in the area for a few more days, but I had to get back to my job. We had already stayed about a week longer than we had planned, and we couldn’t stay much longer. Lee was still in the hospital when we left to head back home. The day we left the hospital, he was weak from a related surgery he just came through, but was still happy to see us and understood why we had to leave. We had no idea at the time, but that was the last time we would see him in person. We made it back home the next day and we closely stayed in touch to hear the latest news.

Time went on and Lee got discharged from the hospital. Since his scare, the only times that I had spoken with him were in the hospital when he was exhausted or groggy. After he had made it home and had time to recover some of his strength, he called and wanted to speak with me on the phone. After getting a little bit of an update on his progress, he began to thank me. I assumed he was referring to the rescue breathing I did for him when he initially lost consciousness. Just as I was about to brush it off, though, he surprised me.

Of course he appreciated my helping him live long enough to make it to the hospital, but that wasn’t the main reason he wanted to thank me. He was more thankful that throughout all the updates I sent out to the masses, I kept the focus on our family being open to accepting God’s will, rather than forcing God’s will to comply with ours. Lee didn’t have a problem with intercessory prayer, but he appreciated the balance I put on the messaging. It turns out that on multiple occasions during his recovery in the hospital he had read every email I sent out. He was surprised at all he had missed while unconscious; he enjoyed reading the emails to catch up on all of it, and he felt that the updates had taken the right approach.

That was the last time I ever spoke with Lee. A few months after coming home from the hospital, he again caught us off guard and unexpectedly passed from this world into the next. I’m not sure if it was God’s plan all along to have Lee recover enough to come home after his initial scare, or if all of the prayers sufficiently moved God to give us a few more months with Lee, but in the end, God had His way even when it conflicted with ours.

At Lee’s memorial service, as a testament to his character, the church was packed with hundreds of people. Extra chairs had to be brought in to seat everyone. Lee lived his life knowing what was truly important while ignoring what wasn’t, and people recognized that.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up and even be consumed by the things of this life, but it’s important to live in light of eternity. Too often we lose sight of the fact that very few of our daily struggles or any other distractions that preoccupy us will even be a memory once we’ve moved on from this life. The only things that will have eternal significance are the actions you’ve taken to know God and help others know Him too.

How’s your focus? Are you paying attention to the things that are important? As you go through life, are you leaving a positive lasting impact on the people with whom you interact?

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Hanging on by a Thread (Part 2 of 3)

(See Part 1 here and Part 3 here)

The next few days after my father-in-law, Lee, got whisked away to the hospital were a blur. Whatever had gone wrong with his heart was a complicated thing. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma and dropped his body temperature for a few days as a way of “rebooting” him. Since this was right after Christmas, family that had just left turned around and came back. One of Lee and Pam’s daughters flew in from Alaska. People were constantly calling, trying to find out the latest information, even when there was nothing new to report. The adrenaline we all ran on started wearing off, and the exhaustion began setting in.

Lee’s hospital was about an hour away from his house, where my wife and three young kiddos were staying. My wife would go up there every day, but an extra two hours of travel time a day added to the burden. My kids started getting antsy; at the time they were 5, 4, and 14 months, and Mommy had never been away from them this much before. In her place, they got a guy that meant well, but just couldn’t compare to Mommy. Some of the meals I came up with were really just glorified snacks, and sometimes it was the same thing over and over again. The walls started feeling like they were closing in on all of us. We needed to find some kind of better solution as we got closer to the time the doctors were going to try to raise Lee’s body temperature and revive him.

Lee and Pam knew a bunch of people in the area near the hospital, and we decided to make the drive as a family up to that region with the intent to start staying the night up there somewhere. We packed a bunch of our stuff and left Lee and Pam’s house not knowing where we’d be spending the next few nights. We made it to the hospital and went to the waiting room where we saw lots of familiar faces. During the day all kinds of friends and well-wishers came and went, some of them even bringing much-appreciated care packages of food and things to help pass the time. My kids enjoyed the extra time with Mommy, even if it was in a waiting room. Even with all the extra family and friends helping out, though, they didn’t have to stay in the same room long before they started getting antsy again. They needed somewhere to feel settled.

During the day we were still trying to find a place to stay. One family offered us an available room in their home, but five of us is a lot to cram into one room (especially when two of the kids still napped), so we wanted to see if we could find anything else. Someone had two rooms available for us, but they had a dog that my son would’ve been allergic to. Late in the day we got word that there was a family willing to let us stay at their place. They had two rooms for us, no pets, and the house was less than five minutes from the hospital. The offers weren’t going to get much better than that and it was getting late, so we grabbed it. By the time we arrived at the house it was after dark. The house was cheery and still decorated for Christmas, and when the door opened we met some of the sweetest people we could have hoped for. Jay and Esther and their daughter Tracey welcomed us into their home in one of our young family’s hours of greatest need.

Jay and Esther were great-grandparents, and they had a large family. Their house was so warm and welcoming, and someone was always popping in because…that’s just the kind of place it was. They had one of their grandsons staying in their basement at the time, and he and a visiting friend helped us bring in our luggage, pack ‘n plays, and anything we brought with us. By the time we got there, it was time to get the kids to bed. We got our daughters set up in one of the rooms, and we set up our son on the floor in the room where my wife and I stayed. I think my wife and I spent a little time visiting with the family before we collapsed into bed, too. That was our first restful night of sleep since the whole ordeal with Lee began.

The next day my wife headed off to the hospital early again, but my kids and I were able to stay in a place the kids finally felt comfortable and occupied. If memory serves, Jay and Esther had five kids; as grandparents and great-grandparents, many children had come to visit this house, and there were all kinds of fun things for my kids to play with and explore. They also had all kinds of Christmas decorations that sang or danced after it got squeezed (a favorite for kids). In addition to all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, they had a foosball table and a pool table in the basement…something that kept my kids occupied for a very long time.

Our hosts also figured out that Daddy was good at getting his kids riled up and roughhousing, but maybe needed some help in the food preparation department. Oh, man, they were so great. My kids actually started having balanced meals. Those wonderful people made it possible for us to put one foot in front of the other on our march through the trial we faced.

Last story about staying at their place. During naptime one day, I laid down my youngest in a pack ‘n play in a room by herself. I laid my son down in his sleeping bag on the floor in our room, and I set up my oldest daughter to play/color/draw on the bed in our room. My son fell asleep right away, and I told my daughter I was going to read on the floor. Once I laid down, though, I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to stay awake long, so I let her know I’d probably take a nap on the floor. My five-year-old daughter got down off our bed with her little blanket, came and lay down beside me, and all three of us took a nap in a row on the floor. We were finally in a place where we could rest.

I’ll get you caught up on Lee in my next post, but this one’s about how much we were able to benefit from the generosity and hospitality of these wonderful people. That was their gift, they loved helping people, and it was amazing and much appreciated to be ministered to in that way.

This whole site is geared toward encouraging you to use your gifts to live a life of higher impact for Christ’s Kingdom. Not everyone is going to be an international gospel singer or someone that proclaims the truth boldly in stadiums across the globe. I don’t know what your gifts are. You might not accomplish anything earth-shattering by being hospitable to someone who needs help, but let me tell you…it can mean the world to the person receiving the help. Whatever your gift is…please…find a way to use it. God gave you that gift for a reason, and if you let Him, He’ll tie you into His master plan.

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Fatherhood Fun

I don’t know what it is about Dads, but we love to get our kids riled up. We know we shouldn’t  do it as much as we do, but we can’t help it sometimes. Daddies are the loud ones, the human jungle gyms, and the ones that tend to ratchet things up rather than down. Mommies are the soothers, the comforters, the ones the kids go to when something hurts (probably because of something Daddy did while roughhousing).

Since my kids were little, the basement has been the place where they could be loud. If they had too much sugar or they were just a little extra wound up, we’d banish them to the basement for awhile. When my two oldest kids were pretty young, one time I took them in the basement to work off some energy while Mommy got a little peace and quiet upstairs. My oldest daughter and my son loved when Daddy went a little crazy with them.

Around that time we came up with a game that was kind of like dodgeball. Back then our basement was set up so that as you came down the stairs, you pulled a U-turn and walked down a hallway to another room. Right across from the bottom of the stairs was another room. I’d go to the room at the far end of the hall and throw a ball at the wall near the bottom of the stairs while my kiddos ran back and forth between the two safe zones (the blind spot at the bottom of the stairs and the room across from it). It sounds kind of sadistic, but they loved it and they weren’t going to get hurt. I had a ball that was kind of scary because it was very loud when it hit the wall, so any time it “just missed” them, it was a big thrill for them because they had snuck past Daddy’s throw without getting hit. I pegged them plenty of times too, but it usually ended with lots of giggles. J

My kids weren’t very old at this point, probably about 5 and 3. They loved playing this game though, because this is where they learned to use teamwork to “distract” Daddy. One would feint, act like they were going to dash across the line of fire, but it was really just a trick to get Daddy to throw the ball while they were still safe, and then the other one would make a break for it before the ball bounced back to Daddy.

I’d try bouncing the ball off the hallway’s walls, or putting spin on the ball so that it still bounced after them even if they were in the safe zones. Naturally, the ball would get stuck on their side every now and then, but they’d peek out from behind their cover, pick it up, and throw it to me and dive back for cover before I could pick it up and throw it again.

Little dodgeball champions

One time my little guy picked it up and threw it to me, but then forgot to get back behind some cover. I gave him some warning and made a big show of winding up for a big throw, but he still wasn’t catching on that he was exposed. With all the gravity of a life-and-death situation, big sis dashed across the line of fire, knowing full well that Daddy was about to unleash a fastball. My little medal-of-honor-winner-in-training jumped behind him and grabbed him under his armpits, and then yanked him back to safety. He fell down on top of her in the process, with the ball narrowly missing both of them.

There are some things in the Bible that you just don’t fully appreciate unless you deal with young kids a lot. This story about my kids helps me better grasp one story in the book of Mark (10:17-31). A rich young ruler came up to Jesus and asked “what do I need to do to have eternal life?” This guy was probably a young ruler in the local synagogue, steeped in the legalism of the day. With his line of thinking he was essentially looking for some kind of religious deed he could perform that would guarantee his entry into Heaven. Although he was misguided, that didn’t make him insincere.

Jesus more or less told him “you know the deal…follow all the commandments…don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t defraud, and honor your father and mother.”

While most of us at that point probably would have remembered at least one time in our lives where we told a lie or let Mom or Dad down, this guy had a different reaction.

“Yep, I’m good with all that. What else do I need to do?”

If you’re Jesus, and this guy has the nerve to say that to you, even if he believed it was true, what are you gonna be thinking?

Here’s the part that my kids helped me understand. “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

Some translations might say that Jesus felt great compassion for him. I was truly moved to see my daughter sacrifice her safety for the sake of her little brother. The guy in the story was earnestly seeking the truth from Christ, but he didn’t know he was now playing in a different league. Like seeing my little guy standing in the line of fire without knowing he was in danger, Christ probably looked at this young man and thought to himself “Bless your little heart. You’re so clueless and you don’t even know it.”

There are lots of other fatherhood experiences where those words came to mind: “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Christ had compassion both for people that were His followers and for people that were not. We’re called to do the same.

Who can you show compassion for today?

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You Probably Can’t Even Get Through the Front Doors of That Church

Photo courtesy of GOD TV.

In this blog I like to talk about coming up with new ways to employ the gifts God’s given you for the purpose of reaching people in ways that aren’t already been done. Here’s an example.

These days it’s becoming more common to open satellite churches. Usually what that means is that there’s a main campus where the preacher physically delivers a sermon, and it’s broadcast live (or on a delay) to other satellite churches in the network. Those remote churches normally have an on-site staff, including a pastor (who is not delivering a sermon, but is there to support the members of the congregation), worship leaders, and all the volunteers that are needed to pull off a functioning church service.

Gateway Church in Texas recently announced that it was opening a new satellite campus. On the surface, this isn’t anything unusual, but this particular venue is more difficult for average folks to get to.

Gateway Church’s new remote site is in the state’s largest maximum security prison.

They’ve hired someone to be the campus pastor for this particular location, and there are others who help every week, but just about everyone else who works to ensure the services function is an inmate. Ushers, greeters, guys setting up, guys tearing down, worship leaders, audio/video staff…all inmates.

Here’s a video for more info.

The ways people are currently reaching the lost are not the only ways to do it. There are tons of other ways to do it that haven’t been started, but either nobody’s thought of it yet, or nobody’s willing to do it. When it comes to reaching people for Christ, you might be the only person on this entire planet that has the ideas you do. Don’t let those ideas die on the vine.

You have talent; you have ideas; you have value. For the sake of Christ’s kingdom and the people who aren’t yet in it, please share those things with others.

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Where One Person Sees the Worst Super Bowl Ever…

Photo courtesy of The Independent

I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve heard complain about this past week’s Super Bowl. The lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever…boring to watch…least exciting game in the history of the championship.

Let’s say all of that’s true. Let’s say it was a drag to watch. Does any of that change the outcome for even one second? Tom Brady has now won over 10% of all the Super Bowls that have ever been played. Coach Bill Belichick, with eight rings and 12 Super Bowl appearances (even though they were with two different teams and they weren’t all as head coach), has been to over 22% of the Super Bowls to date. (This past Monday I heard one Patriots fan say that Sunday’s Super Bowl was the sixth best game ever!)

People who complain about how dull the game was fail to appreciate what actually happened. Let’s pretend you’re on one of the two teams who played in the big game, and let’s go back in time two weeks. You’ve won your conference championship game and you know who your opponent is going to be. You can now study up on their strengths/weaknesses and start assembling a strategy to overcome them by playing to your strengths.

Both teams have high-powered offenses. In order to have a chance to win, you need to figure out a way to shut down your opponent’s scoring ability while exploiting the weaknesses in their defenses to maximize your own scoring opportunities.

The fact that this was the lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever (where both teams combined only scored a single touchdown and three field goals) is a testament to the preparation, planning, and skill of both teams’ defenses. The casual observer doesn’t really appreciate that fact though; all they see is a low-scoring game that drags on. Neither team’s defensive efforts get much attention or recognition in the replays.

The cameras didn’t show it very much, but it’s important to realize that the whole time a team’s offense was on the field, the coaches, coordinators, and other staff were helping the defense prepare for the next time they took the field. Not exciting stuff for a spectator, but crucial if you want to win the game. I’m sure the last thing those personnel were concerned about was whether the game was exciting to watch on TV.

The Christian life is often like that. The glamorous jobs are the ones that get the attention, but things wouldn’t succeed without all the behind-the-scenes work. Every Christ-follower has been given spiritual gifts. Each person has a different combination of them. Some of them are high-profile. It’s the pastor, teacher, or leader that you see in positions of authority or taking charge. You might be surprised at the difference made by the ones you don’t see. Not only are there people that serve in places like church services or the kids’ program (do you have any idea how aggravating it can be to teach a Sunday School class to a bunch of 4th-grade boys?), but there are people that use their gifts outside of the church building as well. These people might arrange meals for someone in need, drive an elderly neighbor somewhere they need to go, anonymously deliver some cash when it’s needed most, or any good deed that goes unnoticed or unrewarded.

These are the people that make life work for those with a need. Everyone can make a difference, but these silent servants almost never get recognized.

If you’re one of these people…thank you. A lot of what you do goes unnoticed, so thank you.

You received spiritual gifts when you became a believer. I don’t know which ones they are, but I know you have them. You might wish you had a different set of them. Don’t think of it that way. The ones you have are there for a reason. I encourage you…get out there and use them. The world is waiting for you to use them in your own unique way.

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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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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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When Whiplash is a Good Thing

This post is a follow-on to my previous one, which had to do with people that are barely hanging in there, just trying to survive. (https://daregreatlynow.com/2018/11/05/helps-coming/)

Disclaimer: I have to warn you that I like military movies. Sometimes when I’m watching them, I get pretty excited about them and go back and watch the action-packed scenes a few times because I want to get a good handle on what I’m seeing. By their nature, though, they’re violent and often come with some salty language. I’m including a couple of clips below to go along with the post; if you’re not up for all the craziness right now, you’ll probably want the first clip. If my narrative below is too confusing and you just want to see for yourself (and can live with the cursing and shooting), go with clip number two.

One of my all-time favorite “spiritual metaphor” movie scenes comes from a movie called “Act of Valor.” It didn’t set any box office records or anything, but one of the distinguishing characteristics of the film was that the main characters in the movie were portrayed by active duty Navy SEALs. The plot was fictional, but it was based on real-world missions SEALs have conducted.

I know it wasn’t a real mission, but it was still fun to see SEALs doing some of the stuff they do. During the movie a team of SEALs had been sent into some foreign country to rescue an abducted CIA operative. The SEALs got solid information about her location, and they were tasked with recovering her. Her captors were torturing and interrogating her to find out how much the CIA knew about them. Heavily injured, her body wasn’t able to endure much more, and her health was failing quickly.

We’ve all seen movies or heard stories about Navy SEALs, and sometimes the line between what they can and can’t do gets a little blurred. They’re phenomenal at short-duration engagements, but since they usually work in smaller teams, a sizable enemy force will have a good chance of overwhelming them over time. In the movie, the SEALs rescued the CIA operative from immediate danger, but a sizable enemy force was bearing down on them. The rescue team stole a pickup truck and loaded everyone in, taking off just as a number of pursuit vehicles arrived to chase them during a high-speed shootout.

The SEALs’ planned method of extraction was to link up with a SWCC team…essentially a heavily-armed armored speedboat…whose callsign was Whiplash. But they began the assault earlier than planned (before the boats were in position), they hadn’t counted on this level of opposition on the way out, and there was too much happening for the original plan to function as intended.

The SEALs’ driver took off down the road without having an exact idea where he was going. The guy in the passenger seat was trying to navigate and establish radio contact with the team leader, who, along with another SEAL, was running to meet up with the rest. In addition to the barely conscious CIA operative, a member of the team had been shot in the head during the raid and was alive, but unconscious. Another team member was trying to keep him alive and revive him. All the while there’s a guy or two in the bed of the pickup trying to shield the CIA operative and return enough fire to keep the bad guys from getting too close.

The situation just kept getting worse. First they blew through their primary rendezvous point, and the enemy was too close for them to safely pull over at the backup rendezvous point, so they sped past it, too. They even pulled out a surprise or two to give themselves a better chance, but it just wasn’t enough. With no choice, they sped toward their last option, but by this time they had still created almost no separation from an aggressive enemy.

They ran out of road and at high speed splashed the truck directly into a river. They had gone as far as they could and had held the enemy at bay as long as possible, but despite keeping cool heads and performing at a high level, they could not be expected to do any more without some outside intervention. They had accomplished bold, even extraordinary things, but now it looked hopeless; the team had no reasonable hope of making a coordinated last stand against such devastating odds.

Just as the enemy trucks slid to a stop and armed men took aim, Whiplash came roaring around the river bend with guns blazing. Enemy shooters had no choice but to dive for cover as their vehicles got shot full of holes. After pinning down the enemy, sailors plucked the Americans out of the water and into the safety of the boats. As the scene closed, the vessel carrying the rescued team and CIA operative sped off down the river, having accomplished their objective.

(This is the shorter, less crazy version, but might still have a choice word or two.)

(The clip below includes the full pursuit, and is a little rougher on the eyes and ears.)

Have you ever had a day that felt like that? Things started out according to plan, but once one thing went wrong, it got bad in a hurry. Through grit and perseverance you might have been able to keep things from completely falling to pieces for awhile, but eventually the situation caught up with you and degraded to the point where it just wasn’t going to get better without some outside help.

Maybe you were on the other side of things. Maybe you were Whiplash, an answer to somebody’s prayer. Because of you and the help you were able to provide, you helped somebody stave off complete disaster.

Even better, maybe you have the opportunity to be Whiplash to someone right now. You might know somebody that’s already crashed into the water and is looking down the river in desperate expectation, but they can’t see anyone yet. They may not even know what they’re looking for, but they’re looking for you.

It’s time to armor up. Don the armor of God and grab that sword of truth. You’ve got allies (or potential allies) pinned down deep behind enemy lines, and only bold action will pull them out. If you’ve got the opportunity and can take a few hits for the sake of pulling the heat off someone else, step into the line of fire. Be Whiplash to someone. They’re desperate for you to arrive in time, and you’re the best chance they’ve got.

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Are You a Carrier?

You might have a message to deliver, and you might not even know it

I lose sight of the sheer number of volunteers it takes to put on a church service. Childcare, Sunday School teachers, greeters, people handing out bulletins, people helping direct traffic in the parking lot, ushers…on and on and on. One time I was talking with a volunteer after church, and he mentioned that he was looking to move on to a different area of volunteering within the church. I asked him what he’d like to move into next, and he named one of our logistical roles, which is obviously a very important role on a busy Sunday morning.

I’m not sure why, but I started talking to him about moving into an area that felt sort of uncomfortable…maybe a little beyond what you feel comfortable doing. It’s like it just happened without any thought. There’s nothing wrong with the role he suggested, and in fact it’s a crucial need at our church. But for some reason, I just blurted this thought out.

He kind of shifted his weight and got a little fidgety. He even said “Oh, maaaaannnnnn.” He went on to explain that someone in church had recently approached him about filling another role; one that was just a bit beyond his comfort level. It turns out that my bringing up this idea was driving home a message that had already been delivered.

The God of the Old Testament is the same God we serve today. Instead of audibly speaking in a booming voice to people like Moses, today He whispers to us…to everyday people. A whisper can be easy to ignore, though, so sometimes He whispers to us a second time, or a third time. It might be a song you hear on the radio; it could be something that jumps out at you in a strange way while reading a book; it might even be a conversation you have with someone at church.

What’s really neat to think about is that, just in passing, you might be a part of God speaking to someone about a divine message that He’s in the middle of sending.

As far as the guy at church I was talking to…I don’t know what he decided. It’s not my job to try to convince him one way or the other. It turns out I’m just one of the messengers. I’m definitely curious, and I’ll probably follow up with him sometime, but I have to remember that there may be cases where I’m a messenger and I don’t even realize it, or that in some situations I won’t be able to learn the final outcome. It’s still exciting to be a part of, though.

I have a clip of a video that can illustrate this concept in a little bit of a different way. You’re gonna have to hang with me on this one, it’s from one of the X-Men movies. If you’re not familiar, some of the people in these movies have fantastic powers. In this scene, a woman named Raven has made up her mind to do something controversial. Her friend Charles, who is not physically with her at the time, desperately wants to stop her. Charles is telepathic, but he’s using a machine that can boost his telepathic abilities to communicate with her. As you watch this, imagine yourself as one of the people in the airport, who has no clue what’s going on. That can be you carrying a message that God is sending to a specific individual.

(Watch the first 60 seconds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3cwAjmbZ5Y

Of course, it’s up to the individual what they do with the message. Sometimes they’ll choose to take it to heart, and other times they’ll do everything they can to ignore it.

If you ever have a moment like this, where you kind of say “I don’t know why I said that,” you may have just been part of sending a message that God wants someone to hear.

On the flip side, if you notice that you’re getting the same message from a few different areas in your life, it’s probably time to take that message to heart.

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Where We Are In History

Let’s consider for a moment where we are in history.

Christ came and made a new way for us almost 2,000 years ago. The War has been won, but the battle continues raging today. People pass away every day, permanently ending their ability to decide their eternal fate. We find ourselves somewhere between the early Christians figuring out how they should live, and the End Times, where widespread persecution of Christians will be a prelude to the chaos that culminates in Christ returning. We have no idea if we’re closer to the former or the latter, but we’re to live as though our time is short.

We live in interesting times. Our modern-day lives bear little resemblance on the surface to what we read about in Bible times, yet there’s really nothing new in the way of our shortcomings and temptations. Today’s technology is beyond what Bible characters could have dreamed. The speed of life has only increased since the most recently written words in the Bible. We can drive hundreds of miles in a matter of hours, and we can fly thousands of miles so quickly that we can see the sun set twice in the same day.

The amount of information we absorb and forget in a day is dizzying.

Despite all this, the focus of a Christ-follower has not changed at all. After His resurrection and immediately before he disappeared and ascended to Heaven, the last thing Christ said to His followers was “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

Our environment has changed, but our focus has not.

Here’s the really exciting part, and the part that makes me excited for you, and for us. Since Jesus didn’t put restrictions on the methods by which we are to follow that command, our imagination is the limit to the number of ways by which we do it! Can you imagine? Today’s elementary school kids Skype with astronauts in space! GoFundMe sites pop up for any and every reason! We have drones that deliver pizza! That same spirit of innovation and creativity can be used for “making disciples of all nations.”

YOU have been blessed with spiritual gifts! Jesus knew that His disciples were going to be anxious about continuing without Him. To help soothe them, He told them to expect help from the Holy Spirit, who He described as “The Helper” (John 14:26). 1 Corinthians chapter 12 spells out how it’s meant to go. The Holy Spirit brings gifts to each Christian, but they’re not the same combination of gifts for each person.

On top of that, each person has their own personal interests in different causes; it’s something that somehow hits a little closer to home than other causes for you. It might be a heart for the homeless, for orphans, for single moms, for shut-ins, for those in prison, or any number of countless other groups of people.

And then you have talents or skills that you’ve developed with time. Maybe you have a natural knack for languages, or it’s easy for you to do anything musical. Writing, art, academics, working on engines, writing computer code, fixing things, and on and on.

Maybe you’ve never thought about it before, but at the crossroads of these three things (spiritual gifts, interests, and talents) lies your ideal ministry. This is where you’ll be the most excited, the most energized, and the most satisfied to operate. That’s not to say it won’t be exhausting, but it’s where you’ll find the most compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Here’s something to consider. For the rest of your life, the speed of change at this point, right now, is the slowest it’s ever going to be. That means that life is going to change, and that the rate of change will only increase from here on out. New technologies…new customs…new methods of communicating and interacting. What does that translate to? It means that in conjunction with the countless types of ministry mentioned just a moment ago, there is an exponential number of ministry opportunities in this world, and YOU are uniquely and ideally suited to own some of them!

There are things you can do that I can’t, or there are things you’re willing to do that I’m not, and vice versa. That means that somewhere, there’s a ministry role to fill that is waiting expectantly for you to grab hold of it! There’s a place for you to be plugged in…to maximize all of your gifts, talents, and interests! I’m talking about a unique spot in this world that you can slide into and it will be your perfect storm for you to find fulfillment in glorifying Christ, for you to be excited about what you do, to do more than you thought you could, and to reach your God-given potential!

As this world changes, and as the pace of change quickens, recognize that you might be the only person in the world to have the idea you’re having about new ways to reach people for God. Seize that idea! Make it happen as if other souls depend on it, because that just might be the case. The whole reason I’m writing this blog is to give you the push you need to move forward with that idea.

Billy Graham glorified God in amazing ways, and he was the right person at the right time, but the world has changed. His ministry was incredible, but it probably wouldn’t work as well if someone tried it today. Since the old things may not work as well as they used to, it’s time to take new ideas, encourage them, develop them, and dedicate them to God. Believe me, He’ll do the rest, as long as you follow His leading.

It’s time to step out in faith. Dare to do great things!