Tag: christian encouragement

Posted on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

The Right Friends are Important

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never miss a post! Subscribe and have every edition of DareGreatlyNow sent to your inbox!

Posted on

It Starts With an Idea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

A New Chapter Begins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From The Last Arrow:

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

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

Never miss a post! Subscribe and have every edition of DareGreatlyNow sent to your inbox!

Posted on

That Was Almost Me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do you pay someone back after something like that?

You can’t.

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

Hang On Just a Little Bit Longer

College is expensive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on

Why Would God Create People if He Knew They’d Let Him Down?

Photo courtesy of eBaum’s World

Kids are nuts.

If you don’t have kids, having one (or several) changes just about every aspect of your life. When you don’t have kids, you might not even think about it, but life can be amazingly simple. I’m not taking a shot at people without kids; I’m saying that if you don’t have kids and you want to walk out of the house and go somewhere, all you need to do is put on your shoes and leave. Doing the same thing with young kids can turn into a wrestling match, a drawn-out battle of wills, or a frustrating game of hide-and-seek that results in one of you (parents included) wearing mismatched shoes and only one sock as you walk out the door.

Kids can simultaneously be the sweetest and most frustrating people in the world. When my son was 3, he had a bad habit of coming downstairs after we had laid him down. Most of the time it would happen before my wife and I went to bed; we’d hear something that didn’t quite sound right. We’d mute the TV or stop whatever we were doing and say “What is it?” Almost always, our little guy would sheepishly stand up from sitting on the bottom step and come walking toward us, trying to see what was on the TV. It wasn’t always at night though; sometimes it was in the early morning. I usually get up long before everyone else in the house so I can beat a lot of the traffic on my way to work. One morning I heard him coming down the stairs when he was still expected to have a few more hours of sleep to go. Exasperated because I didn’t want my sleep-deprived wife to hear him and wake up, I walked over to the stairs and asked him in a sharp tone “what are you doing?” At that age he had trouble pronouncing his “L” sounds and would have lots of pauses in his sentences. My little guy looked anxiously at me with a furrowed brow and nervously said “Umm, I just…wanted to tew you…to have a good…day…at work.”

Imagine how badly I wanted to melt right into the floor.

You can often tell what kind of environment kids spend their time in by listening to the things they say. We’ve told our kids many times that we love them no matter what. When they’re still a little too young to make total sense of everything, they start to say it back to you in their own little way: “Mom? Dad? Did you know that I love you even when you’re bad?”

Kids bring so many crazy moments to your life. I’ve received bloody noses from little elbows. They break stuff that you really didn’t want broken. They seem to know the difference between when you’re prepared and when you don’t have an extra diaper or outfit for them. They’re sick and have stuff oozing out of every hole in their heads for the first two years of their lives. Their “help” with something you’re doing actually makes it more difficult. I’ve been in a totally dark house after everyone’s bedtime, then went to open my bedroom door only to jump out of my skin when I saw a toddler standing on the other side of the door, holding a stuffed animal and staring up at me with big eyes.

They’re messy, expensive, and suck the energy out of your body. They make your hair gray (or thin). Why in the world would anyone ever CHOOSE to have children?

You can’t explain why, but after you’ve had them, you know you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

It’s the time they spend with you and the love they have for you. It’s the times you get down on the floor and they use you as a jungle gym. It’s the way they shriek “Daddyyyyyyyyy!” and come running to hug you when you come home from work. It’s the way they cling tightly to you when you wade into water that’s deeper than what they’re used to. After you’ve disciplined them and they come and just want you to hold them as they sit crying, broken, and sorry, you want to squeeze them back and wipe their tears away, sometimes blinking back tears of your own in the process.

When I hear people ask “Why would God create humans if He knew they would let Him down?”, these are the things that come to mind. Like children, we are deeply flawed and are prone to do things our Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to do. Again and again, we fail to meet the standards set before us. We are stubborn and take forever to learn the lesson that’s being taught to us, sometimes even intentionally.

At the same time though, we are the source of tremendous joy to Him. When His children want to spend time with Him and seek a deeper relationship with Him, it brings Him colossal happiness. We all mess up again and again, but when we come to Him, broken and sorry, He holds us gladly while blinking back tears of His own. He doesn’t need anything from us, but He’s thrilled when we pursue Him.

This is a difficult time of year for many people, and maybe that includes you. You’ve almost certainly heard this before, but God loves you. Just in case those words have lost their meaning, I’ll say it another way: God really likes you. You’re loved, and you’re loved hard.

There’s a battle going on out there. You may not think of it in those terms, but that’s what it is. Christ came to offer salvation to everyone. The enemy didn’t like that, so he’s doing everything he can to prevent people from hearing about or accepting that gift. God created you to be a part of that fight, but the enemy’s going to try everything he can to demoralize, distract, discourage, and deceive you.

You have it within you to do amazing things for God’s glory that you dare not even think possible. Let me tell you…it can be done. There’s going to come a time where He calls on you to do something you’re not comfortable doing. He can and will empower you to do things you can’t do on your own, and it will surprise you what He can do through you.

For now, just know that like a child who knows Mom or Dad truly has their best interests at heart, it all starts with being confident and secure in your Heavenly Father’s love for you.

Posted on

Sometimes the Failures Come Before the Successes

Were you ever successful on your first attempt to do something tricky? If you’re fortunate enough to say ‘yes,’ I wouldn’t get used to that being the norm.

After college I worked for a construction company for about a year and a half before leaving for the Air Force. During the summers we started at 6:30 or 7 in the morning so we could escape some of the heat of the late afternoon. Getting off work at 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon meant there was still plenty of time to get to the pool before it closed.

This was the same pool where I had spent a few summers lifeguarding. When I worked at the pools, I got the chance to watch people do some pretty cool things off the diving boards. I never really had the chance to try it out though, because I was either working or hurrying to get something done so I could move on to the next thing.

I’m not really sure what triggered it, but one day after work when I was at the pool, I decided that I wanted to try a “one and a half” off the diving board. I’m not sure if there’s a better name than that for it, but if you do a flip off the diving board and land in the water feet first, that’s “one.” A one and a half is when you do a flip, but keep rotating another half revolution and enter the water hands/headfirst in a dive.

You have to understand that back then I had a higher tolerance for pain. Working in construction means you’re constantly dealing with bruises, knicks, bumps, drops, even a few slams here and there. For whatever reason, on that day, I was willing to accept some pain in order to perform a one and a half.

Failure after failure ensued. I’m on the tall side, so it took me a bit to figure out how to deal with under-rotation. Rotating 360 degrees is good, and rotating the desired 540 degrees is good, but when you’re somewhere in between those two, it’s ugly and painful (especially when you’re spinning fast and your face is the first thing to hit the water). Some of the flops forced my eyes open underwater, some of them wrenched my neck back, and some of them just stung when I hit the water the wrong way.

I was finally able to do it. The secret was twofold: you had to tuck in your legs almost like you’re doing a cannonball, and you had to spin full speed in order to get the full rotation. It was the most bizarre feeling to be spinning so fast that your face starts warping and you had to use your arms to pull your knees close to your chest or they’d fly away from it. Weird as it was, it was the only way to make it work.

I don’t think I’ve ever done another one and a half since that day. I just wanted to figure it out for myself and be able to say that I had done it. Here’s the important takeaway from this little story: in order to reach my goal, I had to be willing to fail. Boy, did I fail. And I didn’t just fail once, I failed MANY times (sometimes in an epic way). In the end, I failed more times than I was successful, but the eventual success somehow made the failures seem less important.

Some of you are afraid of failure. Why? Maybe you’re afraid of someone seeing you miss the mark. Maybe you think that it will result in people labeling you as someone with poor judgment. It might be because you’re afraid of what will happen if you succeed. Whether it’s ego, fear, embarrassment, whatever it is, ask yourself if the reason you don’t try is because of something that’s only in your head.

I think this is a recurring theme in this blog: in your Christian life, God will challenge you to do things that you think you’re going to fail at. That’s fine. It’s okay to fear failure. Don’t miss the next part, though. Fearing the possibility of failure is not a valid excuse for not trying. If God hands you an assignment that takes the wind out of your sails, I can guarantee the little voice that starts whispering to you “there’s just no way” is not a part of God’s team. If someone who’s not on God’s team starts trying to put ideas in your head, do you think you should put any stock in them?

Today I heard someone say “People don’t want to be preached to; they want to be summoned.” They want to be called, invited, to be a part of something. God will summon you to do something big, and He will pick YOU for a specific reason. You may not know why, but it’s part of His master plan. Nobody else on the entire planet has the exact combination of experiences, gifts, talents, and resources that you do. If God’s calling you to be a part of something, don’t let the possibility of failure stop you from getting started. Your obedience can unleash something you never saw coming, and open the door for others to be a part of something bigger than you could have expected.

Posted on

Punch Above Your Weight

After I started going to Paddle Sports pool sessions in college, I got hooked. (See this post for a refresher.) It’s a little tricky to learn how to kayak in college, though. Unless you’re in summer school, you miss out on some of the year’s best kayaking weather. You start a new academic year at the end of summer, so even if you start playing around with kayaks in the pool right at the beginning of the school year, you’re going to have to work very hard at it to get out in the whitewater before winter.

Fortunately there was a happy medium near where I went to school in western New York state. There was a canal that flowed along (I think it was the city of) Rochester; parallel to the canal some group had built a kayak course. A kayak course is a series of 25 gates that paddlers are supposed to go through in sequence without touching any of the poles with any part of your boat, paddle, or you. You’re supposed to go through green gates while moving downstream, and red ones while coming back upstream. The water wasn’t flowing fast, but it was moving enough to make a difference between paddling in a pool and paddling in real water. It was a good way to work on technique, control, and gain a better understanding of how kayaks handle in moving water.

Since this was my first time in a kayak outside of a pool, I wasn’t very fast. On my first run I moved through the course slowly, trying to figure out how a kayak behaves in a current, seeing where I was going to need to make turns, cut across areas of hardest flow, and spot the more difficult places in the course. In a rookie moment, I even flipped over and couldn’t right myself. Embarrassingly, I had to slip out of my capsized kayak in a shallow little pool of water as these much better paddlers zoomed through the course. Even that was important though, as it was my first bailout in moving water (I’ll have a future post about a much more dramatic bailout later).

It’s kind of a strange tie-in, but in your service to Christ even your perceived failures are important. If you find yourself needing to bail out of a kayak, it’s probably because you’ve failed at righting yourself. Once you get used to bailing out of a kayak in a swimming pool, it becomes very easy, because there’s no current, there’s no major danger, and there’s probably someone standing by, ready to jump in and help you if you really need it. Bailing out in moving water, even on a little course like this, is different. The water’s cold, you’re wearing a life jacket, helmet, and other gear you don’t normally wear in the pool, and if you open your eyes underwater, you’re not going to see much. Whether it’s kayaking or some other aspect of life, failing during difficult circumstances increases your confidence and abilities during easier circumstances. Failures can make you better.

There’s an expression for attempting something that you’re probably not qualified or equipped to try. It’s called “punching above your weight.” In boxing, the two fighters in a given bout are generally very close in weight. That’s to make sure that the fight is fair. If two boxers are both in great shape, with little or no fat on either one of them, yet one is 60 pounds heavier than the other, it’s probably not going to be a fair fight. When fighters are very close to being the same weight, they might have different body types, but they’re close to being evenly matched. If you’re punching above your weight, it means you’re taking on someone that has an advantage in defeating you. In the Bible story of David and Goliath, David was definitely punching above his weight according to men’s standards. By taking on an obstacle or challenge that’s “beyond your weight class,” it makes the challenges that are in your weight class seem easy. Over time it also brings once-feared challenges within your class, and prepares you to take on something bigger and more formidable.

To continue with the kayaking course…as I spent time trying to figure out the best way to approach certain portions of the course, I started paying attention to how other kayakers were doing it. It was fun to see them shoot through the course and try different approaches to the various gates. “That was a cool move…oh, okay, and that set him up for the next gate.” I learned by watching others, and by listening to conversations that more experienced paddlers were having.

You might see where I’m going with this. The people you surround yourself with are the people whose attitudes, habits, and characteristics you adopt. You become more like them. Hanging out with people that are better or more experienced at something than you are will make you better at it. It’s tough to maintain a strong drive to improve if you’re already the most capable one in a group. Similarly, if you hang out with people with negative attitudes, poor character, or bad habits, it’s a fair bet that you’ll soon find yourself with the same outlook as them or doing the same things they are.

God’s going to give you challenges in life. Some you’ll feel confident about handling and some you’ll be more doubtful about. You might even fail at some of them, but it will be for a reason/purpose that you might not see right away. Some people get discouraged by failure and stop attempting the grand things, opting instead to take on things they believe they have a more reasonable chance of accomplishing.

It’s good to share your wisdom and experience with people less skilled than you, but also understand that this practice won’t help you grow your skills, it will only slow their atrophy. By all means mentor or teach those folks, but remember to spend time punching above your weight, too. It will make your current weight class seem easy, and that overwhelming challenge seem a bit less scary.

Time to open the floor for discussion. Has God ever placed a seemingly impossible obstacle in your path, only for Him to walk you through it successfully?

Posted on

You Have Influence

Think you don’t have the power to influence others? Think again.

I entered the Air Force at a time when the nation was trying to strengthen its military capabilities. At SEREIIC (see the previous post for context) in San Antonio, we stayed in a dorm that had been condemned, and then re-opened because they needed extra space for trainees during the Iraq/Afghanistan military campaigns (at least, that was the rumor). Part of our responsibilities included keeping our barracks in sparkling condition. You can imagine how successful that was.

I don’t remember what we did wrong, but one time we collectively screwed up big time. I mean, our instructors were MAD. These were our SERE instructors, but they didn’t just get mad at the SERE trainees, they were upset at pretty much everyone on the whole floor, including trainees from other career fields. Part of the reason for their wrath was because it was a Saturday morning. Nobody wants to come in to work on a day they would ordinarily have off, especially because someone else screwed up. Everyone had to head outside in their sweats and an instructor told them to “beat your boots” while waiting for the other instructors to finish inspecting every room inside the building. Beating your boots was a type of exercise that burned out your legs. From a standing position, you bend at the knees low enough so you can slap the side of your shoes, and then you stand straight up again. You continue this over and over until told to stop. It gets old fast…

The dorm’s courtyard began filling up with young Airmen dressed in identical “Air Force” sweatpants and sweatshirts. It was noisy chaos as everyone beat their boots at their own pace and cadence. More and more people came out of the building and found a spot to start exercising, until there was almost no room to hold any more. None of us were allowed to talk. By the time everyone was outside, we probably had between 100 and 150 men outside, and all you could hear was the sound of squatting, slapping, and standing up again all at a different pace.

Then the most extraordinary thing happened. Our head instructor was pacing back and forth in front of us, chewing us out for whatever our egregious infraction was, but to tell the truth, I don’t even remember what we were in trouble for. The memorable thing was what happened next.

There was a guy right in front of me, Jon, who had someone on either side of him. Without speaking, Jon looked at the guy on his right, and stared him in the eyes. The guy on the right got the message, and slowly they began squatting and standing in rhythm with Jon. Once they were synchronized, Jon turned and looked to the guy on his left and did the same thing, until all three in a row were in synch.

I was right behind them, so I started doing it too. Over time the size of the group beating their boots in unison grew. We squatted and then stood up again hundreds of times that morning, and our quads burned like crazy…but we started to draw strength from our unity and the mood began to change from one of despair to one of hope.

It didn’t take long before everyone in the courtyard moved in unison. The sound of the chaos changed; instead of a constant drizzle of individual slaps, it was a rhythmic thunder of over a hundred pairs of slaps.

Our instructor stopped pacing, and he stopped yelling. He looked around and thought about what he had witnessed take place right in front of him. Those in the SERE occupation are taught to adapt and overcome adversity. They’re taught that if you are a military prisoner of another nation, you draw strength from your fellow prisoners and from whatever other means is necessary. Although he didn’t anticipate providing that type of lesson that day, he couldn’t help but be pleased with what he just saw.

“I like it.”

He mellowed out and quickly wrapped up what he was talking about, cautioning us to straighten up. We were dismissed and allowed to return to our rooms and have the rest of the day off.

Even though it was bad, our situation could have been much worse, and it all started with one guy that influenced others without even saying a word.

Who do you have the power to influence?