Category Archives: Deep Restoration

A New Morning – Cry of the Soul

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I remember the feeling like it was yesterday, though it has only been two years. We just came off the most difficult night in our lives, as a family. My son, Brandon, after many difficulties with his health, went home to Jesus the night before, at the age of 24. It was sudden and very shocking. While we worried about him, we never saw it coming so suddenly. Honestly, how can you ever prepare for the loss of a loved one, especially a child?

The day was such a shock, and I believe for much of that evening at the hospital, I was numb and not sure what to feel. I shed some tears but was there a good bit of the night consoling my wife Amber, Brandon’s fiancé Courtney, our other kids, Shawn and Ashley, and father in-law, Dennis. I had conversations with family and friends that came to sit with us, but then the hanging question of what next, was on my mind. The logistics, if you will.

After about 4 or 5 hours there, we head home. We are still in shock, and I was running on pure adrenaline at this point. I do not know I kept myself going, otherwise. We get home exhausted, try to eat a little, but then settle in, not sure if we will even be able to sleep. I think I did a little bit, but then it came to the new morning.

I remember this so vividly. I wake up that Wednesday morning and swing my legs over the side of the bed to sit up. I am looking out of my bedroom window into the dark and then it came. It started with a few tears and then my body started shaking. Suddenly a wale comes from me that was unlike anything I ever remembered. It was a tidal wave that I could not stop. It was what I would describe as a cry from the soul. Amber sat up suddenly and wrapped her arms around me and we sat there in the dark and cried together.

I have had tearful moments in my life. I remember the funeral home, the night before my dad’s funeral, sitting in the parlor and the emotions of that week overwhelming me. Also, both times my wife was hospitalized and we did not know if she was even going to survive. This was something different. It was a soulful grieving that I feel my heart, soul, and spirit needed to be able to move into the, what next. It was almost like a reset into what was now going to be a new way of life and new perspective on things.

So much of that week in the days following were such a blur, from the visit with the funeral home, making arrangements, and people that visited and even the day of his celebration of life service. It all went so fast. Almost, too fast. 

As I sit here, 2 years later, I look at that moment the morning after as a time for God to just surround me and get me ready for what was to come. That soul cry was a release that needed to happen, if I was going to be able to keep moving. Each day from here on, was going to be different. Knowing my son was no longer in this world. Knowing there are conversations I would have loved to have with him but no longer can. Knowing that this life keeps moving on and somehow, we must find a way to do so, as well, as difficult as it is and was to do.

I know we all have or will have moments of consequence like this. Those mornings where you wake up following a major heartache and must find a way to keep your life moving through the pain and suffering. These are moments with God. Holy moments, if you will, where it may not look like part of the healing, but it can help that begin. That cry of the soul is, sometimes, exactly what is needed in that moment.

I think this may look differently for everyone. This was mine. If it comes, my encouragement to you, is to let it. Let those tears flow. Augustine wrote, “The tears…streamed down, and I let them flow freely as they would, making them a pillow for my heart. On them it rested.” Allow it to come and invite God to love you in that place.                

Many other emotions can and will come, but when this comes, don’t hold it back, let it ride. I firmly believe that this one moment, for me and my life, through all the pain that I have experienced, helped to set the stage and prepare my heart for what was to come.

Distraction or Calculation

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A friend set it best the other day. “2019 has been unique.”  We’re only at the end of March and it feels like a years worth of things have already happened.  When I last wrote in January, I was in a place of excitement for what I knew God was beginning to open up and what we were stepping into.  By February and into March, it seemed that their was so much opposition being thrown our way.  In February, my middle son ends up in the hospital following a diabetic seizure and then two weeks to the day after that, my mother in-law steps into eternity.  Now, I won’t get into all of the other details around those things, because so much more was involved, but my wife Amber was at a breaking point and I was doing all I could do to hold her together and comfort her through this.  It was a chaotic perfect storm.

At the same time, some of my closest friends were being drawn through the wringer with their own battles.  It was this unending, unwavering assault that was designed with one specific purpose.  To take us out and to draw us away from the heart of God.  The events were fierce and the messages behind them were so deep and dark.  They could only be one thing. The enemy at work.

I’m thankful that my wife and I have been able to recognize what it was, and have deepened our prayer through it.  It hasn’t taken away the pain, but it keeps us in a place where still turn everything over to God, no matter what is being thrown our way.

AnvilLast week, in the midst of all this craziness, we held our 5th Anvil Men’s Boot Camp.  In the days leading up, I didn’t know how ready I would be.  The men that facilitate with me were each struggling with their own junk and worried about even leaving their worlds and going.  What was wild was, in the midst of it, I didn’t think I was ready for the teaching load I was about to deliver, but it all flowed so much better than in the past and I carried it, with what one man said, with greater passion than before.

Granted, it would be easy to say that, “well, it’s your 5th go at it, Richard, of course, it’s going to get smoother each time.”  Yes, there is truth in that, but I really felt that God’s hand was in that weekend and a space was made available for the Holy Spirit to work in mighty ways.  You know why?  I believe, it’s because I didn’t have time to think and think and think on this weekend and what I was going to deliver and how the men would respond.

So it gives me pause to all of that has been going on.  We know, hands down, that the warfare we’ve been through, in the spiritual and physical, was not caused by God.  What has been readily apparent, however, is that through it all, God’s hand has been at work.  This really started to become clear over the course of our weekend.  There was a smoothness with the flow and teaching that was very different.  I realized that God used all that had happened in a way that gave me and the team no choice in it, but to just surrender it all to Him.  I mean really surrender.

I’ve had days when counseling with people where I’ve felt I have had nothing to offer.  Where stresses and other things were overwhelming my thoughts and I didn’t think I could really do much to help anyone.  It was in those moments that God would remind me that “you don’t have anything, but I do.”  The same held true here.  There was nothing we really had to offer here, so all we could do is cry out to God and give it all to Him in a way that I don’t think we really had before.  It made for a beautiful weekend with these men and led to some huge breakthroughs in the hearts of men that were there.  Because we got out of the way.

I was at one point using the word distraction to describe all that had happened.  Yes, the enemy was trying to distract us.  But what I really saw was the calculation of God through it all to use what was going on.  The good and bad to bring greater glory to Him.  What Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 was and is absolutely true, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”  This is the absolute truth and we’ve seen it play out.

So this is my challenge to you.  Are you in the way of allowing God to work?  Despite the craziness that this world may throw in your way, what can you do to better surrender your will, fully, to Him, and do as we did, get out of the way.

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The Men of the Spring 2019 Anvil Men’s Boot Camp

The Numbers Don’t Lie – Manhood Crisis

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It should be no mystery to any of us that there are many in this world that have lost their way and are checked out of what’s going in their families. There are many men that have simply abandoned their families.  Think of the sheer number of households with single mom’s is staggering.  According to statistics in 2017, nearly 10 million households in US are single-mother homes.  Now lets couple that with the number of homes that have both mom and dad in the home, but all too often, dad is checked-out in one way or another.

What do we attribute this problem to?  Simply, we have a manhood crisis.  Men don’t know how to be men.  We have become so disoriented in so many ways because of agreements and lies have believed over the course of our lives.  Even largely within the church, men are present but by and large are not engaged in what is going on.  Maybe they serve in different capacities, but what are they doing to continue their growth with God and what are they doing to reach the lost and build up disciples?  For most, this is not a part of the picture.

51s-i80mvslI read a staggering statistic recently while studying The Heart of a Warrior by Michael Thompson.  Maybe this doesn’t surprise you, but it should get your attention.  Thompson shares that the typical US church is 61% male and 39% female.  On any given Sunday, 13 million more women than men attend church.  8% of churches have a men’s ministry.  In those that do, less than 10% of the men attend the men’s ministry.  I will add to this by suggesting that of that 10%, on average, less than 10% of those men are actually engaged in any real capacity.  This is from my own experience. What does this tell you?  Simply put, we have missed the mark big time when it comes to being men, and within the church, training up real men of are sold out followers of Christ, who step up to truly lead their home, has been missed big time.

I started writing something around Father’s Day regarding a fatherhood crisis.  But I never posted it.  What I feel like God has revealed to me since then, is that we have actually missed the hearts of most men.  Most men are lost in their own small stories, disoriented and posing their way through life.  They hide in their careers, put on the image of the good guy, or maybe they are checked out hiding in addictions or seeking out things that allow them to make life work on their own terms.  There’s so much that could be said here.  It’s amazing what passes for masculinity now.  Often times it’s a bad caricature of what the real thing should be.

41ebvat8gvl-_sy344_bo1204203200_So what do we do? As I’ve began counseling over the last couple of years, the Lord began to lay it on my hear to begin going after the hearts of men.  In early 2017, we hosted our first men’s weekend called The Anvil.  While a small encounter, it became apparent the need to continue going after men, not just in our local community, but beyond.  It’s a weekend that is modeled from the teachings of John Eldredge and largely from his book, Wild at Heart.  Next week, we hold our 4th weekend and the more we hold these, the more apparent God makes it, that we need to continue.

The whole point of holding these weekends is to give men a chance to step back from their world for a small period of time, just far enough to give them the chance to begin doing some introspective into their own lives.  It gives them a chance to pause and to reorient, and prayerfully gain enough insight from the Father of where they still need growth.  Every man needs more growth.

Our mission is not to compete with the church in any way, but to build of their men so they are equipped to go back and build up others in their community.  It’s all training.  Michael Thompson shared something else that is very convicting. He wrote that…

“Until the healing and training of men becomes the central mission of the church and not just one of many ministries it offers, men aren’t going to find what they need within its walls. Programs and service often land on a man like chores: he’s glad to do them (and needs to do them), but he won’t get Life from them. When sin plays on a man’s heart with guilt and shame, he will serve in the church out of a sense of obligation rather than freedom.”

There’s a reason that ministries like Ransomed Heart, Zoweh, The Noble Heart, and others exist.  Sad to say that the church, by and large has missed the mark, resulting in men that are present, but not present.  Men that are disoriented and lost.  We started launching Anvil, because it’s going to take more and more of us.  This isn’t about any one person, but about men learning to rise us and understand and recognize their real identity as sons of the Father and as men bearing God’s image.

So something is desperately needed.  There is a desperate need for men every where to realize who they truly are, get passed themselves, and learn lead as men should.  It begins with us men.  IT BEGINS WITH US.  We have to choose to risk changing.  We have to choose to stand up.

I don’t just pay lip service to this.  I have lived this out.  If you have followed this site over the passed few years, you will know that a significant transformation took place.  I used to be a man that stuck in my small story.  I hid in my work and behind my family.  I didn’t let people into my life.  When God transformed me, everything changed and it wasn’t just with me.  The change carried to my wife and continues to carry into our children as they are come alive in bigger ways. The impact God has allowed to happen simply because I was willing to trust Him and give Him my “Yes,” has been staggering.  It’s possible and it works.  I’ve seen it in other men as well, since then.

We have a choice to make, men.  Stay disoriented and in our small stories trying to figure out life on our own terms or give God your “Yes” and allow the real work to begin.  The choice is yours.  The road to life is difficult and narrow and only a few find and follow it, as Jesus said.  Will you choose follow it?

Joy as a Dad

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I have been a dad for 20 years now.  Over half my life.  I became a dad when I was 19 years old, when Amber and I welcomed our first born, Shawn, into the world.  We were on the early parenthood plan.  By the grace of God, we’ve made it over 20 years as parents and nearly 21 as husband and wife now with 3 children.  I had someone ask me recently about want to take parenting classes.  It was serious, but I couldn’t help but laugh a little.  Not at them, but at the idea.  I’m sure there are good classes out there, but bottom line is, you learn this thing as a you go.

So these last many days and weeks, I’ve been reflecting a lot on our years as parents and on the role I’ve played as dad, or as my daughter calls me, padre.  There’s been a lot of cool and fun things that have happened over the years.  Watching these kids grow up has had me filled with so much joy.  Have there been struggles, ummmm, yeah there have, but we’ve made it through all of them.

Now some of the coolest things are really starting to come out.  Maybe it has a lot to do with them growing older and really beginning to find their own identities, but I can honestly say that I could not have fully imagined what they would have been like once they began to really allow God to work in them and through them.

Okay, by way of background, if you don’t know us personally, we have been a very closed off and introverted family.  Amber and I marrying so young and starting a family, drifted into a life of solitude.  It was us against the world, proving we could make it starting so young.  So that led to habits of being reserved and quiet when outside of our element, our home.  This was a lot of how I operated in the work place as well, even having a colleague years back tell me that I was difficult to read because of how quiet and reserved I was.  I lived as a lone ranger and I was raising a family of lone rangers, so to speak.  Of course, the kids picked up our habits along the way.  Our sons seemed to a great deal more.

After coming to faith in Christ 3 years ago, I knew something had to change.  Amber followed over the next year as did the the kids.  I began to make new connections and grow from being apathetic, to becoming curious, to finally confessing Christ in January 2015, to becoming a disciple and apprentice of Jesus, and now to equipping others.  Amber has since followed that and seeing this beautiful woman freed up as well and seeing her come alive has been so wonderful.

With that, one of our biggest prayers and concerns was now, what about our kids?  We continued to pray for them to open up and and urging them to do so.  It was not a habit easily broken.  I’ll admit, we got fairly frustrated at times.  We wondered at times, will they ever get out of their shells.  In looking back though, I realize, we were in ours for way longer.

I don’t know what that actual pivotal moment was, or even it was just a series of circumstances, but something has clicked this year.  To seem them building real, Christ centered relationships, to see them doing life, to see them getting involved in ministry and even a desire for some missions opportunities, has been phenomenal.  All 3 of our kids, in their own unique way, are starting to get freed up and see some real God style things happening in their lives.  It fills me with so much joy as it does Amber.

I have learned previously that one of the most beautiful things that God does is take time.  Nothing is instant. I just was not patient enough for that to be the case for my own kids.  So now, and I see God, with a smile on his face, saying, “You want to see something? Watch this,” and then suddenly a fire is lit under each of them in way I never fully expected.  I think if Bruce Almighty when he says, “Now you’re just showing off.”

I share this to tell all of you and I know many who worry about their own kids futures.  Yes, our kids have to step into life and figure things out through trial and error just as we all did.  But know that God is not holding out on you.  Be faithful in prayer over them and in encouragement that God can take a hold of their heart.  The outcome is not up to us and we have no control over that.  Trust in the God that made them each uniquely and wonderfully and had each of them in mind since before the foundations of the earth.  It’s never too late.

Letting God Forge the Way – The Anvil

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I have been very quiet on this site this year as this will be my first post since the new year.  This year started off with a bang as I began my counseling internship in the final phase of my Masters program with Liberty University.  It has been a huge experience so far.  Needless to say, I’ve been a little busy with that.

AnvilThe big thing that has been going on however, is about take place tomorrow.  What began as a conversation over breakfast many months ago has led to the development and now launch of our first Wild at Heart modeled Boot Camp, called The Anvil Men’s Boot Camp.  God put it on my heart well over a year ago, that it was my turn to begin seeking and rescuing the hearts of men.  As time has gone by and as I began to counsel with people, I realized that so many of the problems within families stem from the father in some way, whether he is abusive, completely absent, or present but not present. This pattern is destroying marriages left and right and wounding children by the score.

The need was there, but what would I do about it.  In counseling, many of my clients are women, so getting men to come sit down one-on-one is going to be a challenge.  I realized how huge it was for me to step out of my element and go the Wild at Heart Boot Camp in Colorado a couple of years ago.  We were encouraged to take this message back home.  In the last year, I got to know a few other men who had a similar desire.  2 sages and a peer.

The conversations began.  My peer, friend, and brother, Matt and I started small with a men’s small group where we began to lead men through the Wild at Heart message.  It became evident that something bigger was needed.  I met a man named Butch just by happenstance, and we decided to have breakfast and the conversation began. He is a sage who has a huge passion for men’s ministry as well.  The idea was born.

I pulled in another brother and sage, Steve, who also attended Wild at Heart and is immersed in their ministry as well.  Conversations began to happen and we decided that it was something we had to do, sooner, rather than later.  Only way to learn how was to dive in and give it try.

So that’s where we stood. We knew what we wanted to do, we found the site, and now we needed the men.  Conversations with my friend and pastor, Tim, brought me to begin leading some of our men’s Wednesday night Bible studies.  Again, all of this is out of my element, but I jumped in.

I have to admit, we were skeptics at first.  We knew we would start small and opened it to just 12 attendees. There was skepticism as to whether we would get 6 or 8.  A few weeks later, I’m calling Butch and saying telling him we need a 2nd cabin.  Now with a day to go, we have a 19 men heading to Upstate South Carolina for 4 days with God.  Unreal the response we’ve had and we have more waiting in the wings for next time.

So these last few months in 2017 have been all about planning this event out.  Writing content and coordinating everything.  To see it all come together has been so huge.  I can tell God has been at work in this and we’ve made it a point to surrender it all over to Him and not let this become about any of one us.  We know that if a group a men get together like this, God is certain to show up and He already is.

I knew there would be opposition, but the Enemy has been relentless in his attacks, which tell us even more that we are moving in the right direction.  My family has been attacked relentlessly in the recent weeks.  Stating with physical problems from a baseball to my face, a concussion one week and then a diabetic seizure for one my sons, a large allergic reaction for my daughter, and a stomach bug that hit my oldest son.  All of this has put a huge strain on my bride’s heart and mine as well.  We spent a lot of time holding each other and just letting the tears flow.  We knew what it was though.  Satan was trying to use all of this take us out…to stop this weekend from happening.

We have flipped it on him and surrendered it all to God.  The suffering is hard, but nothing in comparison to Christ and we know this.  We just turned to prayer and have had an army of prayer around us, which has pulled us through all of that in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

southeastern-expeditionsSo now we’re ready.  All the content is written.  Final details are being nailed down and tomorrow we head to the mountains.  We’ll have some great times of learning and fellowship and times of one-on-one with God, and some adventure on the Wild and Scenic Chattooga River, yes where they filmed Deliverance.  Hopefully no banjos on the shoreline.  Just kidding.

We’re just so pumped about this.  About the men willing to take the risk to head into the wilderness and we sit in eager anticipation and expectation of God’s goodness.  I know He is up to something big here and can’t wait to see what happens in the lives of these men, who range from 20 to their 60s, and then how their families, our church family, and community is impacted.  It’s all about God and He gets all of the glory here.

As Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

Nothing Is Ever Lost

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“I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” These are the final words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, as translated by Peterson in The Message.  I find myself echoing those words in my head this week and really pondering the Truth around that.  He is always with us, day after day after day.  If we truly live in that and truly understand Truth in that in our hearts, how can we ever feel lost and uncertain?  He is always with us and always present.

When I went to the Become Good Soil Intensive back in May, a knife was bestowed to me and the other men from our mentors.  This became a very special item to receive and a constant reminder of the journey and experience and the journey for the coming decade toward becoming good soil.  This was a good tool for one and something that I kept on me day after day, carving wood, sharpening it, and so forth. It was very special to me as it was to the other men of the Intensive.

Well, barely a month later, I was at the beach with my wife and kids for our annual vacation.  During the course of that week, what happens?  I lose the knife.  While out one evening, it fell from my pocket.  We searched all over, called the location we were at to see if anyone turned it in.  Nothing.  It was gone and I was crushed.  I was actually, more or less, pissed at myself for being able to lose it so easily.

So life, moves on.  We go back home and continue on, although I thought about the knife a good bit.  I know, I know, it’s just a knife, right? Only thing was, there was no replacing it. I could not order another just like it.  So back to business.  I make use of my Gerber knife and keep that on me, as before, but it never felt the same.  Besides, my wife and kids, only one other person knew about it being lost or even what it meant to me.

So, fast-forward to this week.  It’s the middle of the week.  I’m stressed with work and finances as we get closer to Christmas and meeting the requirements for counseling hours for my Masters program.  I was pissed and frustrated and even feeling lost with it all. I break from my work and go to the mailbox and find a package in there.  Inside there is the exact same kind of knife, which I thought was cool, then I turn the box over and see a sticker on the box that says “With God, nothing is truly ever lost.” You can see a picture of it at the top of of this post with the knife.

At this point, I am just floored. My knees nearly gave out under me and tears tried to come through.  If that wasn’t a God thing, I don’t know what is.  It was like God just told me in that very moment.  “Slow down my son.  Quit with the worry and stress.  Cast it all on me.”

I went through this exercise of defining moments of my life before Thanksgiving and shared them all with my family Thanksgiving night.  Through it all, I was reminded of God’s constant presence through all of my my life, through the good and the bad.  He’s always been there.

How easy it is to forget this though.  Get back to life and the various things in our world begin to force us to lose sight of the fact that, yes, God is always there, how can we be lost if we truly have faith in that.  That’s when Jesus’ words a the end of Matthew right through, “I will be with you….right up to the end of the age.”  He has never abandoned us.  It’s not in some far off place.  He is right here with us.

God never ceases to disappoint me.  I think of Bruce Nolan from the movie “Bruce Almighty.”  At the end of the movie, Bruce is in the hospital, finds the beads that he had when his whole adventure with God began as he was crying out at the beginning of movie when his whole world was crumbling.  He looks up toward God and says, “Now you’re just showing off.”  That’s almost what it felt like.  This is why one of the things I pray everyday is break any and all limits I have placed on God.

With God, nothing is truly ever lost

Been Pissed at God?

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This is a subject that has dwelled in my heart for the last couple of months.  I wanted to write about it, but was not fully sure how to really do so.  When I was at the Become Good Soil Intensive in May, one of the things that came about through my mentors was in my own brokenness was whether I was willing to forgive God, knowing that God didn’t need forgiving.  It through me for a loop at first, but in prayer I did just that, to be forgiven and to forgive.  I pondered it for a while and then at the end of June, the subject came up again and this time with a little more fire.

I was on campus for a group counseling class and in the midst of sessions, the idea of being pissed at God.  I stepped in and mentioned my dad’s death nearly seven years ago, and although I never said it out loud at the time, I was exactly that.  I didn’t know how to process it all.  At the same time, everything from my religious marinade in me said this was not something you shared.  You can’t be pissed at God, or at least can’t say it.

angerBut when this was shared, it almost felt like a weight lifted off of the class and group as one-by-one, more people were willing to share their own emotion in this regarding their brokenness and that they too, were also pissed at God at their time.  I shared this last night in our men’s ministry study.  People realized that it’s okay, even though we were at this big Christian university share that emotion.  God is a big enough God to handle our raw emotion.  Last night, we were talking about a young-man at our church whose dad died in his arms when he was 12, and in sharing his story with the whole church Sunday, he let it be known that he was pissed at God too.

This emotion is okay.  It goes to our brokenness and flesh nature that when bad things happen in our lives that are out of our control, we are quick to blame someone in our anger and all too often, it gets directed at God.  For the two years after my Dad’s death, I did just that.  I was 31 when he died and I spent the next two years lost and angry and boy did I hide it well, even posing that faith and prayer was getting me through it all.  Total B/S.

God did something though, that I never expected.  He loved me through all of it.  I was not searching for answers from Him, but He continued to pursue me.  2 years after his death, God thwarted me again.  In my own desire to figure out direction my life, I stumbled across an app on my phone that many of us use.  The Bible app from YouVersion.  He had also led me to meet my now friend and pastor, Tim which led us to visit where he was pastoring, and is now our home.  I opened up the Word and begin to read.  Starting with daily devotionals and then I began to just read from Genesis to Revelation, day-after-day.  It was a start.istock_000005343680xsmall-425x270

I was reminded that things like what happened to my dad, or this kid’s dad, or any other tragedy or wound, reminds us that we are not in control.  We don’t like to admit things are out of our control, but it’s a fact.  Everything that occurs in this life is caused or allowed by God.  He knows every little thing that happens and cares about everything that happens to us.  I was led to Matthew 10:29-31, and this is Peterson’s translation in The Message. “What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays greater attention to you, down to the last detail – even number the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.”

We can be angry with God, and yet at some point, we have to accept the fact that there many things out of our control.  1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face.  All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.”

I love that.  God will never let you down.  He’ll be there to love us and pull us through our times of pain, even when we are pissed at Him.  We have to be willing to turn His way and allow Him to Father us through our pain and grow us up a bit too.  We’re going to have pain, we’re going to experience trauma in life and sometimes, although misdirected, will direct our emotion and blame at God.  God will love you through it.  You’re worth more to Him than a million canaries.  He knows and cares about every aspect of our lives.

We have to choose to surrender to His sovereignty. To acknowledge that He is in control and trust what He doing in your life.  I sat in a class room with 40 something other future counselors and God is using each of us through our story and restoration.  I was in the mountains of Colorado with 47 other world-changing men, all of whom had trauma and brokenness of all kinds and yet, God was present with each of us and is using us.  This young-man at church has been on a broken and restorative journey since his dad died and yet God is using Him as well.cry-out-to-god

God will use us in our brokenness, pain, and anger.  It takes time to be restored, but when we reach that full surrender, you see it all, even the brokenness and trauma through a whole new lens.  It is trans-formative.  Romans 12 says, “You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it.  Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of maturity. God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (MSG)”

He will love you through your anger and will mature you out of it.  If you’ve been pissed at God before or even now, it’s okay to be, but how you respond from there and letting Him begin a work in you will make the difference in where things go from here.

I Have Been Called Worthy

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I’ve been pondering something that has been on my mind a great deal since coming home from Colorado a month ago.  Since then I have committed myself to a decade of excavation to begin getting at the core of my soul and to truly begin walking with God day in and day out.  The whole experience with my story group was probably the richest part of all I experienced, getting to glean life from men who had walked the path before me.  A truly holy time in the presence of the Father.  The things I felt and that the Lord showed me was so amazing and it set the stage for the coming decade and beyond.

What I have been pondering is has to do with something that God spoke through one of my mentors.  He said that I am worthy.  This is something I really had to learn to truly embrace.  My relationship with God has grown immensely the last couple of years, but the idea of being called worthy, for some reason was very difficult to receive and own.  I think this came from years of hearing that we were not worthy and only Jesus was.  I’ve heard years of religious speak that had been trying to pound home that I was simply a filthy sinner, unworthy of the Father.

I then think of the prodigal son.  I wrote a post last year, (Prodigal Son – A Reflection) reflecting on the parable of the prodigal son and how the Father met me on that mountain top in Colorado in January 2015, embracing me, calling me son.  My life was transformed that weekend, but still was I worthy.  Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:1 to live a life worthy of our calling, but still the religious guilt and teachings were ringing that my heart is forever bad and I could not be worthy of the Father.

HisFavorite-01In his latest podcast, Morgan Snyder from Become Good Soil and Ransomed Heart shared this:

Scripture says that soon in fact (1 Peter 1) the day is coming when the wine will flow once again (Isaiah 25:6), and thrilling stories will be shared at the great wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9); and your Father will run toward you at your arrival on that day, full of strength and tears to celebrate you (Luke 15: 20-32).  He’ll say, “Welcome home, son. Welcome home.  We’ve been waiting for you. You are my favorite, and you make my heart so very happy.”

You are my favorite.  Those words really helped to bring it all home.  It is a great reminder that the Father has always been seeking us and our restoration.  We have to be able to receive what He has always believed about us and why He has wanted from the very beginning to bring us back to Him.  We are His favorite, we have been called worthy.  Because of the finished works of Jesus Christ, through is crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to the Father’s right hand, we have been been given the way to return to the Father and to who He created us to be from the beginning and called us in the beginning as the final piece of creation, Very Good (Genesis 1:31).

There’s a reason He has always pursued us.  There’s a reason, He took on a robe of flesh to rescue us through the shed blood of Christ.  There’s reason, Jesus was raised to a new life, conquering death, hell, and the grave.  There’s a reason Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father.  There’s a reason, as Paul says, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.  There’s a reason we have been called sons and daughters of the Father.  We are worthy and we are His favorite.

I am working at letting this sink in every day.  To remember each morning that I have been pursued, you have been pursued, by a Father that has loved us from the very beginning, knows every intricate detail of our being, because He created us.  He desires deeper intimacy with each of us for this very reason.  I am so thankful for this.

This isn’t self-serving writing.  This is writing what the Father revealed to me and is only possible and receivable because of the Father’s unfailing love, the finished works of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit.  Without any of this, I am nothing.  I am not worthy and continue to be sucked into a soul killing world and open myself up to be devoured by the enemy.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here.”  We are made new and we are made worthy in Christ, who was first worthy.

The Father’s Restoration

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In about 4 weeks, I’ll be loading up my truck and making my way across the country back to the mountains of Colorado.  This week, I received final details for that week including things to do as a prepared, including finding more time to just speak to the Father asking Him to open my heart to all that He has ready for me on this trip.  I realized something.  I’ve been on fast forward since last January, after my first trip out there.  The Father grabbed a hold of me transforming every part of my life.  It was real restoration.  I think at this point however, I’ve almost become overwhelmed.

Just as I wrote the other day, walking in real relationship with God requires more of us than we expect.  Since last year, my life has been moving fast.  We’ve experienced more radical transformation in so many areas of our lives, in my home, than we expected.  It’s been something amazing to experience.  I do realize however, that if we are not careful, it can be very easy to be taken out again.  It can be easy to fall back into ways of the false-self.  It can be easy to put back on the fig-leaf.  It can be easy to let the exhaustion of the pace leave you spent and vulnerable to the enemy who is seeking to steal, kill, and destroy.

tumblr_mx7ilvaljr1rii36xo1_500Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it determines the course of your life.”  This is so crucial for all of us no matter where we walk with the Father.  No matter where we stand.  If we are not careful, our hearts can easily be taken out again.  We are constantly battling with our sin nature and the enemy wants to use that against us.  If we are not guarding our hearts, we can be taken out again and again.  So the key, I found, is to pray the Father’s restoration through Christ, every day.

I know this seems simple.  I realized though, this week, as I was beginning my preparation activities, that I allowed a little more distance to build again.  I was trying to do so much, so quickly, that I found it easy to put off walking with God.  I’d have thoughts like “Oh, I have to get work going early, so I’ll do that later” or “I slept later, so I have less time to converse with Him, read the Word, and journal…maybe tomorrow.”  This does not make me any less of a believer, but I realized that I need to make restoration and renewal an intentional thing…everyday!

Restoration is crucial for.  I realized that I need this time unplugged more than I thought I would.  It’s like the Father orchestrating another rescue of the heart.  Allowing me an opportunity to step back from the front lines and bandage my wounds and hit the reset button once more.  I’ve wrote time and again about unplugging from the matrix that this life is.  Do an honest assessment and ask yourself how often do you truly unplug?  It’s crucial.

We need restoration of the heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit every single day.  We also need times where we take days to get away from everything.  Whether we retreat to wilderness, the mountains, or the beach.  You don’t have to go to retreats to unplug.  You can get away on your own.  I realize I need this time each year.  It’s more than just going on a family vacation, which can also be full of distractions.  Find time to yourself to just be with the Father.

be-stillA friend of mine one told me he was counseled to do just that.  He had become cynical in his faith and was told to make preparations and go away into the wilderness.  Don’t even take his Bible.  Just a journal to record what the Father reveals.  He came back fully alive again, just as I did.  This life can run you down, so you need His restoration.  He wants to rescue you from this world.  Just a Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Be still.  Why is this so hard for us to do?  The Father is seeking to restore each of us.  He is seeking to walk with us and guide us.  He wants to speak to us and through us.  We have to be able to shut out the rest of the world, and allow that.  Why do you think Jesus always retreated to wilderness to be alone and to pray?  He had to allow himself to be restored and stay in connection with the Father.  This world can take anyone out.  Jesus faced just as much, if not more, temptation from the world and enemy as the rest of us.  He needed the time to stay connected to the Father and stay focus on His mission and purpose.  We need time to get away and stay connected to the Father to allow Him to Father us, restore us, and keep us focused on our mission and purpose.

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Living Out Your Story

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I’m very excited about seeing a film that comes out for one time showing on May 19th.  This a film called “A Story Worth Living” which follows a motorcycle adventure through the back country of Colorado with John Eldredge and his three sons, Luke, Sam, and Blaine, counselor and author, Dr. Dan Allender, and producer Jon Dale.  These six men gathered together gear and motorcycles to set off on an adventure last summer that they had dreamed about, but had never done before.  I remember seeing their posts about it and the emails looking for sponsors and equipment for the trip.  I was definitely excited to learn about and it’s pretty cool that they are putting it out on film.  You can learn more about it at astoryfilm.com.  The trailer is also at the end of this post.

The anticipation of this film has had me really thinking of my story.  In the trailer, John Eldredge opens by saying, “The human heart is made for an epic story…and when we give up looking for that story, we give up living.”  Those words alone were enough to make me think.  God has created each one of us to live out our own unique story in a way that glorifies Him.  The problem that so many of us face is that this life is so full of demands, so full of chaos that we give up on that story.  We give up seeking what really drives us, seeking what God created us for, give up living out the original assignment He implanted in each and every one of us.

For years, I didn’t think there was anything too special about my own story.  I married young…okay. We had 3 children by the time we were 23…fine.  Otherwise, I was just a working husband and father trying my best to prove doubters wrong and make it by providing for my family and building a successful career, no matter where the career went.  I lived a life of routine and never bothered to really push the envelope any, looking for some new adventure.  I was content and didn’t know any better.  Little did I know, that I was also slowly dying inside.  Love my wife and children always, but I never knew what it meant to truly live out of the story that God placed me it and seek Him through real living.  I had not relationship with God whatsoever. He, however, shook me though and shook me good.

the-sacred-romance“The human heart is made for an epic story…”  What do you think this epic story is?  For each one of us it is different.  God has placed a story in our own lives that all fit into His larger epic story.  That is the real story we live in.  In The Sacred Romance, John Eldredge and Brent Curtis wrote, “We call the final week of our Savior’s life his Passion Week. Look at the depth of his desire, the fire in his soul. Consumed with passion, he clears the temple of the charlatans who have turned his Father’s house into a swap meet (Matt. 21:12).”  Jesus lived from desire.  Desire to seek out and do the Father’s will for his life.  That’s the desire placed in each of us and it takes us on different paths and in different directions.
41jzj2b0yi0l-_sx331_bo1204203200_As Eldredge said, however, “When we give up looking for that story, we give up living.” In his book Desire, Eldredge also writes, “There is a secret set within each of our hearts.  It is the desire for life as it was meant to be.”  For many people, the concept of desire seems dangerous and selfish.  They associate it with many of the false desires that are placed in our heart through our false self and our sin nature.  That’s not the desire and story I am talking about.

Living from real God driven desire and living out the story He placed in us is dangerous.  It’s rebellious and goes against everything that this world says you should do.  It does not follow the script of the latest trends or what the big celebrities are doing.  Real desire and living out our real story involves walking in dangerous and close proximity to Jesus.  It means a life of adventure and real living that spends each day seeking to be restored in Christ and seeking to walk closer with Him.

Living out my story and seeking the real desires that God placed on my heart, caused a complete shift in my entire life.  It took me on a wild and radical trip out west where I truly met the Father and was never the same.  It’s putting me back into the college system to seek out true God style teaching so that I am now equipped to counsel and minister to people in a way that brings out real God style transformation in them through Christ.  It is taking me on a new adventure to drive back west next month for another deep encounter with God.   It has truly become a story worth living that is now unscripted and follows where God leads me.

My life has truly become a story worth living.  It’s not without its pains as there are days when I feel like just shutting down and feel overwhelmed.  But unlike before, I know I am right where the Lord has been leading me all along, I was just running away to Tarshish like Jonah trying to hide from God.  When I gave it all to Him though…completely surrendering every part of my life, I learned what real living was, finally.  It was only about Him from here on out.  That, my friends, is truly a story worth living, when you live with a desire to seek Him and and walk with Him every day.  That’s where the abundant life is to be found; in real relationship with the Lord.

“The glory of God is a man fully alive, and the life of a man consists in beholding God” – Chuck Swindoll