Upon graduation from
college and unsure of a career path to pursue, I moved back in with Mom and
Dad. I worked construction during that time, and since I had low overhead, I
was able to make tons of progress paying off my college loans. Free of any
major responsibilities and feeling adventurous at this point, I decided to
start making headway on my lofty goal of visiting every continent.
My folks had taken me
to Europe previously, so I could cross that one off the list. I knew that at
some point in the future I was more likely to have additional responsibilities
(and might have to pay for additional tickets if I were to go traveling), so I determined
it would be good to look at the continents that were the most difficult to get
to. I really wanted to visit Antarctica, but I figured it would probably be
best to get some general travel experience before venturing anywhere near the
South Pole. Deciding that it would be nice to go to an English-speaking
country, I settled on Australia.
I found an adventure
company that did tours all over the world, and they had a few Australian trips coming
up. On the agenda for this particular trip was whitewater rafting, hiking and
mountain biking in a rainforest, a few days on the Great Barrier Reef, and
ocean kayaking out to, then spending a few nights camping on, an island off the
Australian coast. I got signed up for a November trip.
While trees are losing
leaves and the weather’s getting chilly in North America in November, it’s
springtime in the southern hemisphere. Add to that the fact that the area where
most of this trip took place was closer to the equator than Jamaica is, and it
looked like I was going to have a tan at Thanksgiving.
That figure is for a direct flight; it doesn’t count connecting flights!
The trip ended up being
a lot of fun, and I had some neat experiences. I’ll cover a few of them in the
next couple of posts, but for now it’s important to remember that even if you
ride in a plane to the other side of the world almost 10,000 miles away, God’s
still the same God He was before you left.
Whether you’re having a
“Jonah” moment and are trying to run away, or are homesick, afraid, and want to
see something familiar, God’s
still God no matter where you go.
7Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
9If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
10Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
11If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,”
12Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
Last week I posted about how we’re in a war. It can be difficult to see the best way to gird up and fight back, though. How can we be part of God’s plan to overcome the world? Well, I’ll tell you.
When it first came out, I really enjoyed the movie
“The Bourne Identity.” For those of you that haven’t seen it, it’s about an
American that gets recovered while floating unconscious off the coast of France;
he has no memory of who he is, how he ended up in the water, or why he has a pair
of gunshot wounds in his back.
As the story unfolds we try to solve the mystery
alongside him, but what’s very interesting is that even though he can’t
remember who he is, certain skills come very naturally to him. He speaks at
least three different languages, he ties complicated knots without knowing why
he knows how to do it. He excels at hand-to-hand fighting, combat driving, and
use of various weapons. He’s got serious skills, but doesn’t have a clue about
the purpose behind applying them.
Obviously he fits into a larger story, but when we
meet him, he’s just a guy with skills trying to figure out his place in the
world. He’s a highly skilled, but uncertain fellow without a purpose.
Does that sound like you?
We all come pre-loaded with different talents,
skills, and gifts. Some have obvious application (leadership or teaching, for
example), while others seem like little more than amusing party tricks. We can
use them for our own benefit in some cases, but it’s important to remember that
we were given specific skills for a specific reason.
What’s the definition of a gift? An excerpt from the
video below says that it’s “the thing you do the absolute best with the least
amount of effort.” It’s something that comes naturally to you; something you
can do without even trying. It doesn’t have to be something spiritual or
church-y. Running focus groups; skateboarding; comforting hurting people;
competing in triathlons; interior decorating; creating various forms of art;
plumbing. It doesn’t have to make sense to you, but by pursuing your gift or
using your talent right now, God will position you in a place He wants you to
be at just the right time in the future. Many people turn or run from their
gift because it’s something they don’t want to be gifted in, and they pursue
something that “makes more sense” but doesn’t fit who they are. If that’s you, I
urge you to stop chasing something you’re not meant to be and embrace the tools
you already possess. You have them for a reason.
Our mystery American from the movie eventually
discovers what he is, and having that context makes him more comfortable in his
own skin; learning more about the background of his skills gives him purpose
and structure to help him apply his skills. Christians have the same thing. After you’ve accepted Christ as
your Savior, your purpose is no longer to find God, it is to glorify Him. You want
to know how to be a part of that? Do what you were made to do: use your
God-given talents to live your life in honor of Him.
Think of a tool that goes unused: a hammer that
doesn’t strike; scissors that don’t cut. These are tools with unmet potential.
It’s not up to the tools to be used in the right way or envision the details of
what they’re used for; that’s the craftsman’s job. As “Christian tools,” we don’t
need to be overwhelmed by trying to discover what the plan is; we only need to
place ourselves in the hands of the Master and be used the way He sees best.
I’m including a link to a motivational YouTube video. It’s a little lengthy (about half an hour), but since it’s audio only, you don’t need to watch it as it plays. It’s a good listen while folding laundry, working in the garage, cooking dinner, working out, or driving. It can give you a better idea about how to honor God by employing your gift(s).
Know someone that would like to read this? Pass it along to them! New content posted every Thursday.
By the start of senior
year of college, most students are thinking about their last classes and life
beyond their degree. I was thinking about it being my last year to take
advantage of all the institution’s adventure sports programs.
I was into kayaking and
whitewater rafting at the time. Coming back to college at the end of summer
meant that the water in the local creeks and river was still warm. For
kayaking, that was nice, but it was also the time of year where the flow rate
was the lowest, so a lot of creeks and rivers were either too low or too slow
to be enjoyable. Thankfully, we had a solution for that.
Not far from the
college was a man-made lake with a concrete dam. The lake provided summer
boating opportunities for visitors and residents. Every year, about this time
in September, the dam operator dropped the lake’s water level roughly 10-15
feet to kill most of the shallow water algae over the winter. That way the
water in these areas the following spring and summer would stay clear of
excessive plant growth.
The faculty adviser for
the college’s paddle sports club, a guy named Tim, was in touch with the dam
operator. The operator was pretty cool about releasing the water in a time and
manner that Tim would request. If we wanted a longer, sustained flow, this guy
would accommodate us. If we wanted a bigger, shorter burst, he’d make it
happen. The two would agree on a schedule for when the release would begin, and
prior to that date’s arrival, Tim and a few other people would walk down
through the creek bed with chainsaws to clear potential obstacles. It was a custom-ordered
whitewater run!
I had only become
interested in kayaking the previous academic year. I’m not sure why, but I got
it into my head that I wanted to go over a drop in a kayak. A drop is just like
it sounds…it’s a sudden change in the elevation of the creek/river bed. It
could be a shelf that spans the whole width of the body of water you’re going
down, or maybe a formation where one side of the river has a big drop while the
other side has a more gradual slope. As it turns out, this run had a drop of
probably 4-5 feet right at the beginning…great for a first-time drop. When I
got the invite, this is the feature that sold me.
The day arrived and I
met up with a few other guys. One of them, a maintenance guy at the college,
was named Charlie. Charlie’s hobbies included woodworking and generally
“MacGyvering” things. He carved his own wooden kayak paddle. He also
fashioned a wooden bumper for his car when it needed to be replaced. His family
hosted a number of us for dinner once, and his kids showed off a system of pulleys
that allowed them to raise or lower their beds depending on whether they wanted
more floor space or to go to bed. Charlie was going to walk me through my first
drop.
We drove to the lake, geared up, and carried our boats down to the creek. We put in just downstream of the spillway, and the drop wasn’t far beyond. Charlie had walked me through the process a bit, laying out the mechanics of what needed to happen and the order in which they needed to happen. Much like I had learned years before, it was important to not reduce speed as you approach the drop.
Charlie was going to be
the first to do the drop, so I could see where to do it and how to approach it.
He worked out a signal with me before he went over the edge. A drop of 4 or 5
feet isn’t that much, but when you’re sitting in a boat that’s barely on top of
the water, your eyes are only about two feet off the surface, so it looked much
higher. After Charlie went over the edge, I wouldn’t be able to see him. Once
he was safely down and he was ready for me to proceed, he’d stick his paddle up
in the air and wave it back and forth, and that would be my “green light.”
Deciding that we were
both ready, he went for it. He started paddling and kept going, right up until
the bow of his boat dropped, his stern popped up out of the water, and he
disappeared over the edge. A few seconds followed, and then I saw one end of a hand-carved
wooden paddle stick up in the air and start waving around. It was my turn.
I went for it. I
started paddling, and got faster as I neared the shelf. As I slid over the
ledge, my boat’s bow dipped and for a fraction of a second I was in midair. The
bow then sliced deep into the water before the kayak’s buoyancy bounced it back
up to the surface. It was easier than I thought, and it was cool!
The thing that made this
part of the adventure so easy was that I had someone right there to walk me
through it. It was someone who had been through it before, who knew what to
expect, and was physically right there to help me in case I got into a jam. In
this situation, Charlie mentored me through the challenge successfully, and it
was much different than if I had been there by myself and decided to try it and
see what happened.
How about you? Do you
have a mentor that can help guide you through a situation that’s foreign and
scary to you? This life is full of unknowns, but it’s also full of people with
lots of experience that you don’t have. Don’t be afraid of taking a shortcut to
spare yourself some painful lessons by learning from others’ hard-won
experience.
Maybe you’re more like
Charlie. You’ve been around the block a few times. You see someone who’s
enthusiastic but inexperienced, and it looks like they’re in an awfully big
hurry to get themselves hurt or stuck in a bad situation. Why not see if
they’re willing to allow you to help channel that enthusiasm into something
productive? Don’t do it because you think it’ll make you look good; do it
because you can help them.
