Category Archives: Walking with God

What Happened to the Adventure?

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Life is a busy cycle that has so many turns, peaks, and valleys.  When we are kids, it is all an adventure.  I remember when I was growing up in Lilburn, GA, life was an adventure.  My brothers, buddies, and I spent lots of time exploring and finding ways to discover new things, try new things, and even get ourselves into trouble from time to time.  We loved to jump on our bikes and ride around town or down old trails through the woods.  We had creeks flowing through our neighborhoods and we would venture through there looking for craw-fish or just seeing how far we could follow a creek to see where it went.  It was always an adventure for us.

Fast forward to today.  We’re grown men in our 30s.  Most of us are married now with families of our own.  We’ve all been taken on all of our own adventures through life as we’ve grown.  Many struggles and many good times.  Something happens to many people however as we “grow-up” though.  We lose that sense of adventure and lose that connection with who we are and getting out and exploring the world.  We get bogged down into lives and careers that often times we are not happy with.  Our lives become almost routine from day-to-day and in the midst of it all, we often lost something in ourselves.  We think to ourselves, how did this happen?  How did I get here?  For some this sense of missing adventure causes to hit a point where we start looking for new avenues.  We hit what some call, the mid-life crisis.  We are out there looking for something, not realizing it was always there to begin with, but never stopped to pay attention because of the noise and chaos of everyday life.  When we’re kids, there’s not a care in the world.  Now there is our families, bills, careers, and so much more we deal with.

So what happens?  All too often, we’re told we need to take a certain path in life.  College, career, then family, and so on. For me, it came family, then college and career simultaneously as my wife and I married right out of high school.  Lot’s of challenges for certain, but we endured and now going on 18 years strong.  Many of you can relate to this, but over time, it started to feel like something was missing.  Had I made the right career choices or did I go through years of schooling for the right areas of study?  What is that I am missing?  I didn’t know the answer to those questions.  Then as I watched my kids grow I began to see there sense of adventure in them and wanting to get out an explore the world.  It’s dawned on me that this is a great part of it.  That sense of exploring the world around us and drawing into the beauty of God’s creation.  As kids that’s what we do, but many of us lose that when we grow-up into our adult lives surrounded by the world.  Our hearts get jumbled in all the chaos and business that we don’t take time to take care of it.  Spiritual Battles ensue and we get lost in our small stories and forget the larger story that we are all a part of.

Our hearts need a sense of adventure.  A great part of this adventure is our growing closeness with God. We also need that time out in the wilderness to draw in closer to God.  Where did Jesus go often to pray?  Into the wilderness and away from people.  Moses encountered God in the wilderness.  Out there, we can escape the chaos, take in all that is around us and just listen.  Why do so you think so many of are drawn to the beach or mountains when we take vacation?  There is something that restores us in those locations.

When I was in Colorado for Wild At Heart, I had an experience like I could have never imagined with God.  I didn’t touch my Bible, but rather had my journal with me and just listened to God.  Listened to all He wanted to reveal to me and show.  I prayed often that He would open my heart to everything and as I’ve shared many times, He opened my heart like never before.  I came to realize that what I was missing was the Larger Story.  I was focused on the wrong things.  On what I thought I was supposed to do, according to the world and not on what God was leading me to.  He gave me as Solomon prayed for, a hearing heart.  I was able to finally realize that it was not about my small story.  The adventure lies in the God’s larger story; The Story.  As John Eldredge states in his book, Epic, “There is a Story that we just can’t seem to escape. There is a Story written on the human heart.”

This accounts so much to why we get to points in our life where something may be missing.  We feel this, but then we don’t know what to do with it.  This is where an essential part of walking with God can really help.  People that don’t do so, often search themselves for the adventure, and the enemy begins to lead them. They get led to affairs, addiction and idolizing things that don’t matter, they get to that mid-life crisis.

There is no mid-life crisis, however, if you seek God’s intimate counsel and walk with Him. If you follow His lead, and really open your heart to hear Him, you’ll be amazed at what He will reveal to you.  Ask Jesus to come in.  Invite Him into your heart and to search you, as I was taught to do and just listen.  Be still and listen.  He will show you who you are and will show you the adventure that you are meant to go on.  He will lead you to adventure and risk that will often times take you out of what you know, out of your comfort zone.  Let me tell you, God is taking me on an adventure I never thought I would take.  It’s so different from anything I knew, but you know what, He has been prompting my heart on this for years, but I never listened to Him and was never willing to make any risky moves that might take me out of the security this world has me in.

God created everything, including adventure.  The adventure of our story lies in His Story.  It depends on our willingness to follow and be risky.  Remember those times as a kid, where you just didn’t care and you were all about getting out and explore all you could.  You can get all of that back again, shedding the old man, and our self-reliant, compromising, and capitulating.  Seek God.  Walk with Him and hear all He wants to reveal to you.  You’ll be so amazed.  It’s not without risk and often times, it won’t be without pain and it will force you to seek healing from your wounds and sin to walk closer to God, but Jesus overcame all, so that we could be free and be made new to seek all God has for us from this life and then into eternity.  There is still an adventure to live.

What To Do With Our Gifts

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We are all gifted with some talents.  Every one of us.  Could be in sports, business acumen, leadership, creativity in arts, writing, speaking, or any of a number of other talents. We all get those talents from one source.  From our God.  He created us as his image bearers and gifted us with something that in some way can be used to glorify him and used to show his work in our lives and this world.  We get such an awesome opportunity to do great things with those talents.  Some gifts may not seem like a big deal, but put it to use for God’s glory and watch him work.

For many people in this life, we lose site of our gifts.  We may show those talents as kids, but through our wounds and brokenness over time, those talents may begin to take a back seat to the world, to sin, to capitulation, compromise, and more.  We either hide our talents and gifts or we just don’t make the right use of it.  We don’t walk with God and don’t seek his counsel and the counsel of others with regards to our spiritual giftedness.   For the longest time, I was guilty of this.  One of the gifts I was blessed with was to write.  I would write stories when I was little, but then stopped.  I was too distracted or too broken to bother with it.  Then in my 20s, I began to get some inspiration to write again.  I would write opinion blogs off and on, but only in short cycles.  Then I started this site and same thing, it came and went in cycles.  Then this year, God opened me up.  He led me to understand the gift he had given me and other gifts.  He used conversations I had with others to really help me to see how I can glorify him through my talents and use what he gave me the way it was intended.  Since then, the inspiration has been like a river.

I write this as I was reminded this morning of the ‘Parable of the Talents’ Jesus used in Matthew 25.  This is where the master is going away and gives talents to servants he trusted according to their ability and then left.  When the master returns, he comes to see what they had done with his talents.  Two of the servants made use of the talents to gain more and the third had buried his talents.  The two that gained were rewarded by being put in charge of many things and invited into the joy of the master.  The third servant who buried his talents was rebuked and called wicked and lazy and was cast into outer darkness where this weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Many of you may know this parable.  You see, Jesus is making a strong point here in his teaching.  We are all gifted with talents by God, the Master.  It is up to us to glorify him by making use of those talents.  If we don’t we are stuck in our sin and in our own small world and story.  By our faith in Christ, we have a tremendous opportunity to do so much for the Kingdom.  Not because we are saved by good works, but because he has given us so much as his image bearers and we come alive and glorify him best when we make the most of our gifts.  As I said, many of us lose site of that as we grow up and get lost in the small story of our own little worlds and don’t hear God or see where he is leading us.

I think of my kids as I write this.  Each of them talented in so many ways.  I can just see the gifts that God has blessed them with and pray that they will realize those gifts and use them for his glory as they grow-up.  It’s my responsibility to lead them to the Father in this way so that he leads them to fully come alive as adults and not lost in this world.  I’ll use my daughter, Ashley, as one example.  She has such a gift for writing and especially story telling.  It’s so cool to see how she writes and the creativity she is blessed with.  She loves God as all my family does, and I just pray for her growth in how she uses these spiritual gifts.  It’s so amazing to see.

For those of you with kids, encourage your kids in their giftedness.  Don’t just worry about yours, but lead them to God’s glory and watch him work in their lives in everything they do.  Seek counsel from God and others and be that counsel for your kids well.  Don’t sit by and let the world and the enemy take you or them out.  Let God lead you.  Walk with him.  He will lead you to where he wants you to be.  He will guide your giftedness to come to its full glory.  This isn’t feel goodism.  This is real.  So many don’t realize their gifts and talents and the world take them out.  So many don’t come alive by seeking God for counsel and healing to wage spiritual warfare and the world takes them out.  Don’t squander what God gave you. He wants to restore all of our hearts through Jesus.  If we we allow him too, there is so much we can do for his Kingdom.  Watch him work!

Diving Deeper – Walking With God

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Over the last couple of years since the first version of this blog, the writing and the overall goal and direction have continually shifted.  What started as a site writing about finding freedom in life and work and looking for overall purpose and direction began to really shift.  I have learned a lot these past couple of years about life and about my God and the restoration that is offered to us through Jesus.  If you look at Isaiah 61, this is the Scripture that Jesus uses to proclaim his purpose.  To comfort and heal the brokenhearted and to set the captives free.  This offer and purpose to restore each and everyone of us.  We were all captives and all have been the brokenhearted in some way.  From this I began to really shift focus in my writing.

What started as 4 Pillars has now evolved into 4 Streams.  The streams that Jesus walked in to offer our restoration.  Discipleship, Counseling, Healing, and Warfare.  I adapted to this teaching after reading the book Waking the Dead by John Eldredge.  I believe this teaching is a central part of restoring our hearts and in drawing closer to God in our lives.  It enables us to come alive.  Since coming into the 4 Streams, I have learned a great deal.  The issue now is putting that all into practice in my life.  I believe this is critical teaching and as I walk in the 4 Streams, I want to share that with you to help you apply it further in your own lives.  So what I am going to share now is deeper dive into each of the streams.  This first post will be on Discipleship, or more specifically, Walking with God.  I want to provide teaching that I’ve learned from John and others, confirmed in Scripture, and from my own experiences walking with God and building that intimate relationship.

So, what do you think of when you think of discipleship?  Many things that come to mind are around our christian growth.  Learning to be more responsible, connecting with people in fellowship, connecting with our church families, and much more.  There’s one key aspect that is often overlooked in discipleship and that is walking with God.  Conversing with him and seeking him in our lives for counsel.  Making him an intimate part of your life.  Not just knowing about him, but allowing him into  your heart on a deeper level and really hearing him and getting to know more about him.  This goes beyond just reading Scripture too, as I’ve come to find out, and includes our prayer time and learning to hear him in our hearts and discerning what is really God, the enemy, or our own selves.

John points to Mark chapter 1 and when Jesus encounters the first disciples.  His invitation to this rag tag bunch is to hang and to walk with him.  “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people” (vs 17 ).  Follow me, walk with me.  That’s quite an invitation.  ‘I will show you how to fish for people.’  That tells me that if we follow Jesus, he will lead.  Walk with God and he will lead us in our lives and on a deep and intimate level.

Again, what does Jesus offer.  He offers restoration and life.  Our hearts our made new through Jesus.  The path to life can be a rocky path, however.  We encounter so much warfare and attempts by the enemy to take us out.  Happens all the time.  Has happened to me.  Walking with God in discipleship can be key in traversing this path.  “You will make known to me the path of life” (Psalm 16:11).  If we walk with God he will reveal the path he wants to lead us on.  “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).  So we have a path to life and restoration in Jesus.  It is narrow path, but God offers to show us the way.  He knows each and everyone and desires for us to lean and trust in him to lead us.  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

So in walking with God a key aspect is being able to hear him.  Being able to decipher his voice when he speaks to you in your heart.  Not around you, but down deep.  You need to be able to decipher his voice from the clutter of the world and the enemy and your thoughts.  Learn to figure out what’s really from God.  This is something that definitely takes practice and I am working at it everyday.  Still don’t have it down and God still continues to amaze me in they way he speaks and leads me.  We need to be able to turn to him for counsel and ask him into everything in life.  John Eldredge used many examples in his audio session talking about seeking God with even the smallest things and the big things.  It’s important and we need to be more reliant on him and not ourselves.

In seeking his counsel though, we have to be able to accept it even when he tells us, NO.  If we don’t listen we he says no, then we are still trying to be self-reliant.  We are still trying to trust ourselves, “lean on our own understanding.”  You can’t be self-reliant and walk intimately with God.

God will definitely start to stir us in the way he encounters us in trying to restore our hearts.   What does God do to begin restoring us?  He reawakens desire.  He disrupts and stirs our lives and hearts and he intrigues, all to stir us to walk with him.  God has worked this heavily in my own life.  This started over two years ago when I began to write on the first version of this site.  Something stirred in my heart.  Didn’t know what it was at the time.  I just knew I was being called to something more than what I had been in.  I began to write, but still spent much of my time very self reliant and not opening my heart to hear God in any of it.

What happens this year? As you all know, God sent me to Colorado to the Wild at Heart Bootcamp.  He intrigued me in what would be there and disrupted my world completely unplugging me from my regular life and allowing me to completely plug into him.  Allowed him to dive deep into my heart and to hear God speak to me like I have never heard before.  He began to Father me and he was inviting me to walk with him.  Since then, he has lead me on a whole knew adventure these last few months.  I believe God is leading me to take the stories and experiences of my brokenness and restoration to counsel and help others through my own testimony and through this teaching.  It all begins with being able and willing to let go and walk with God.  Hearing God and talking with Jesus is a fundamental right of every christian.  Something that no other religion or cult in this world can ever offer you.  They just can’t.

I hope this was helpful.  I will also be dive deeper into the other streams next.  To help give you all a deeper understanding of where I am going with my writing and teaching.  I have links on the front page of this site and my About me page to will lead to some resources at Ransomed Heart that dive deeper.  I will be diving in and learning more myself as we go along.  I hope you join me on this journey.

“The dullness that overshadows a passive person is increased by the mounting number of times one doesn’t respond to the promptings of God.” –Greg Manalli

 

I Want To Be The Real Deal

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Being the real deal…Being Authentic.  What do those words say to you?

While you ponder that, I would like to take you on a journey to look down deep inside yourself.  There is something that every single one of us has had as a part of our sin nature. That is our fig-leaf.  We have all been posers in some way.  I don’t care who you are.  It’s been an inherent part of our nature since the fall of man.  Genesis 3, what do Adam and Eve do after their sin and they now realize they’re naked.  They sew fig leaves together to cover them selves.  They hide.  Ever since then, this has been such a huge and inherent part of us has humans.  We are posers!

God’s revealed so much of this to me in my life over these past years and especially the past few weeks.  Through Wild at Heart, I was able to allow God into my heart deeper to further expose the poser inside of me.  The false-self.  The Ransomed Heart guys shared the analogy of an iceberg.  10% of the iceberg is above water, while the other 90% hides below.  This correlates to our motives and behaviors.  Our behaviors are the 10% on the surface, while the motives are all hidden. I wrote last week about motives and what drives them.  We have to examine those to really get at the heart of how we act and how we portray our lives.  Do we portray a false front or are we authentic?

There’s many ways that we pose or put on the false front to hide.  For me, God pointed right to my reserved passivity.  For many years I have hid behind my quietness and not willing to take a stand and be a voice.  I would speak-up off from time to time, but often would stay back.  I hid behind that as a strength.  Of being to be observant and only speak when needed.  Someone once told me I was tough to read.  Never really let that sink in until this time when I really looked at my heart.  That really told me that I was hiding.  I was putting on a false front and not living authentic as a man.  I was always the nice guy that just got along.  Easy to capitulate and not put up a fight.  God had another way for me though and he has been working on my heart to show me all of this.

People hide in a number of other ways too.  Either way you cut it, the surface behaviors you present to the world are driven by motives that are hidden.  We have to be able to get to the heart of those motives and know what they are before we can address them and really begin to grow and shed that fig leaf.  One thing they shared with us is that deconstructing the poser in us is huge in realizing our brokenness and where we need restoration.   When we shed that poser a cool thing happens.  We lose our ability to bullshit our way through life anymore.

As for me, I want to be the real deal.  To be the authentic man.  God wants all of us to be the real deal.  To shed our false-self.  To put off the old man, our sinful nature and come alive.  To be authentic.  It can be a very difficult journey to do so.  To really get at the heart of your brokenness and seek God for the restoration that you need.  I recommend you get away from your regular life for a day or two.  Escape into solitude and just commune with God.  Go in the wilderness or somewhere and let him get at your heart.

“Christ has truly set us free” (Galatians 5:1).  Because of this freedom we have in Christ, we can shed the poser.  We can put off our old sinful nature and come alive in Christ.  Ephesians 1:4, “Even before he made the wold, God loved us and chose us Christ to be hold and without fault in his eyes.” God made us and knew us before creation.  He made our hearts to be real and to authentic and to be good.  Jesus is the picture of full authentic masculinity.  He is what each us could have been if we always put God first through everything in our lives.  And I mean everything.  “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God – truly righteous and holy”  (Ephesians :23-24).

My call to everyone today is to let go.  Let go of the poser and the fig leaf that we all hold on too.  Search for your authentic self.  Let Jesus into your heart and he will restore you through all of your brokenness.  Trust me, he will restore you.  I would pray that if you have not taken a look down this path, that you try to.  Have faith the journey and where they Lord takes you.  Let him lead you.  For men, I would highly recommend you pick up the book, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge as a starting point.  For Women, I would highly recommend you pick up Captivating written by John and his wife Stasi.  My wife read this book and loved it.  Transformed her life.  Great starting points to really get down into your heart to restore it and come alive shedding the fig leaf we all hide behind.

This is not an easy journey or a quick journey by any means.  It’s been a long 1 1/2 year journey for me and now that God has really take hold of heart since the Wild at Heart Boot Camp, he has me on fast forward.  It’s a journey of restoration that Jesus has for each of us.  He came to save us from our sins yes, but he also came to restore our hearts.  To be made new and to be the people God intended us and created us to be all along.  I challenge you to take this journey if you have not.  Come alive and become the real deal.

SetFree

What Are Your Motives?

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There are motives behind everything we do in life.  Every decision and action we take.  We have motives for why we do them.  Have you ever really put much thought into what those motives were?  Were they fear of rejection, need of acceptance, to look important, anger and retaliation, or any of a number of other things?  Or were you even motivated by faith.  Whatever it is, we all have motives behind our actions.  Often times, those motives are meant to hide ourselves in someway for fear of exposure.  For me fear and insecurities in myself often result in me being more reserved and quite.  For the longest time, particularly in settings that were just not me, I would stay on the quite end.  Motives can make a significant impact on how you act in situations or interact with others.

So what about faith?  If we act from faith, are the outcomes different?  Do we find ourselves more alive and free?  I would have to say without a doubt, yes.  As my life has changed and I’ve allowed God fully into my heart, it has fully changed my motives and the lasting impacts from my decisions, how I interact with others, and how I lead my family and my life.  It’s been quite remarkable to see when I step back and just look at my life.  Acting on faith has enabled me to interact with more people in my church family and share more about my journey.  Acting on faith led me out to Colorado to the Wild At Heart Boot Camp where God just completely changed my world and my heart.  Faith has led to me being more intentional in how I father my kids and the type of husband I am.  Faith has led me to make some big life changing decisions in how I will serve my God and those around me.  You get the picture.  Motivated by faith, so many things begin to shift in a good way and a way that is after God’s heart.

I don’t have this all figured out yet and I know I have plenty more work to do.  I tell you what, though; the work God has done on my heart and my life and the people he has led me to has been just completely amazing.  He’s Fathered me through this and allowed me to see that if I just put my full faith and trust in him, he will lead me through.  I will be able to better recognize and take the spiritual warfare I  and my family faces.  I will be able to better act on where he’s leading me and accept his counsel directly and through those he puts in my life.

In “Free To Live,” John Eldredge points to the motives we have in life and why we have certain tendencies.  He explains that we need to look at our motives and begin to make our choices according to the motives we have.  Examine the motives and determine if it comes out confidence and faith in God or some other fear of insecurities we may have.  Romans 14:23 says that “everything that does not come from faith is sin.” We really need to examine why we do things and then choose based on what the motives really are.  As John states, “This is where genuine goodness is lived out. This is the real deal. The sense of personal integrity that it will give you will be profound. 

Think about Jesus when it comes to choice and motive.  Jesus was able to lead a sinless life.  Why?  It’s simple, because he chose based on faith.  Everything he did in his life here on earth was on pure faith in the Father and the purpose he was here to fulfill.  He was given plenty of chances to choose differently as are recounted in his time in the wilderness with Satan, in his time with the woman at the well, and so much more.  He chose to live on faith.  His motives were driven by faith.

God creating us was a pure act of faith and risk.  His pursuit of us and the war he has waged for our hearts even since our fall is all on faith in us and on love.  Sending Christ behind enemy lines was done on faith and love.  Now we have a deep hope in because of the faith and love that he has had for us.

I know none of us will get this right 100% of the time.  But it certainly gives something to think about when we look at the decisions we make and really examine our motives.  If your motives are based on faith, then have the faith in where God will lead you in.  It’s not always an easy road, but I promise that God will take hold of your heart and lead you.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

What Kind Of Man Do I Want To Be?

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Ephesians 5:16 tells us that we should make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.  The problem that many of us have is that we let opportunities that come our way just pass right by and we do not do anything about it.  We spend our days in our own small story and hide from opportunity.  It could be right in front of our face, yet we do nothing.  I can speak all about this, because I have certainly been guilty of this in my life.  Truth is truth and it’s not worth hiding from.

In John Eldredge’s book, “Free To Live – The Utter Relief Holiness,” he shares something we all struggle with in our life’s.  It has to do with how we hide in our lives.  We are all guilty of this in someway.  We have that fig leaf that protects us in our small story.  Here is what John shares:

One of the strangest quirks of life here on this planet is the fact that the one face we hardly ever see is the one closest to us: our own. As we move about in the world every day, our face is always right before us and always just beyond us. Somebody could write a fairy tale about that. It would be an allegory for how rarely we see ourselves, who we truly are, the good and the bad. But in unexpected moments we get a sideways glance, as when passing by a plate glass window downtown, and most of the time we don’t like much what we see.

Notice how we are in elevators: No one makes eye contact. No one wants to acknowledge that we are seeing and being seen. In a moment of forced intimacy, almost claustrophobic intimacy, we pretend we aren’t even there. The reason? Most times we just don’t know what to do with what we see. About ourselves, I mean. It doesn’t take a Nobel Prize winner to see that something dreadful has happened to the human race. So we look at the ceiling or our shoes; we watch the numbers report the passing floors; we hide. This is how most of us approach our entire lives—we hide what we can, work on what we feel is redeemable, and despise the rest.

There is a better way.

There is most certainly a better a way.  I can totally relate to this.  I ride an elevator to a 21st floor office and it has often been an awkward time.  I find myself staring up, staring at the floor counter, or my phone.  I know I’m not the only one either.  If you think about we are hiding.  We hide from opportunities to fellowship, know others, and from exposing anything about ourselves.  I’ve been coming to great terms about the false story I’ve lived in and hid behind.  I have a great deal of work to do, but the Lord has been revealing so much about who I am and who He is calling me to be.

It begs the question of what kind of man do I want to be.  Do I want to be one that stays in my hidden small story and behind my fig leaf or do I want to put off the old man, the poser I’ve been and come alive for my God and for His kingdom.  It takes a great deal of courage to come out from behind our fig leaf.  It is so easy to be stuck in that world and in that life and be perfectly content with just getting on life.  As for me, I not live in this small and false story any longer.  God has shown me who I am and I know I cannot go back.

Ephesians 4:24 says to “Put on your new nature, created to be like God.” God is calling all of us to a larger story.  He is calling us into his kingdom.  To leave our sinful nature behind and live for him and under his undeserved grace and mercy that we have through Jesus Christ.  When we learn to leave this old nature behind, the opportunities that will unfold through our faith will be enormous.  With our real identities in Christ, we can truly move forward for the kingdom.  We all have gifts and talents we’re blessed with.  It’s a matter of whether we decide to put them to us.

In now living our life through Christ, we can share our faith with others.  As my Pastor shared with us, we can extend the love of God to others.  Jesus extended compassion to everyone.  The lost (Matthew 9;36:37), the sick (Mark 1:41), the adulterous, and the demon possessed (Mark 5:19).  We all have an opportunity, through Christ to share that same compassion and love to others.  We all have a number of different ways that God is calling us to do this.  We are not saved by our good works, but since we are saved, we have the opportunity to do works that God calls us too.

So in returning to the question, what kind of man or for you ladies, what kind of woman do you want to be.  Do you want to hide behind your fig leaf, or do you want to answer the call God has for all of us?  Do you want to be on the sidelines out of the game, or do you want to be in the game?

I know this all sounds easy, but if you turn to the Father in prayer and daily communion with Him, He will Father you through this.  He is wanting to raise the fatherless place in all of us to restore us through Christ Jesus so that we are now alive and equipped for the race.  Armed with the full Armor of God and ready to get your hands dirty and into the battle. Remember, the Father is orchestrating a rescue of all of us.  You have to make the choice of whether you allow Him to rescue your heart and bring you to life.  The free will choice is always ours to make.  Will you choose God first or this world?  I used to choose the world first and hide just as Adam did.  I no longer want to be that man.  My new heart is in Jesus and my desire is come alive in Christ and walk with God in discipleship and love.

It’s Never Too Late For Change

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I’ve written about finding your calling many times.  The search in trying to determine what it is God leading you too and then making the steps and having the courage to make the change.  I started this blog over two years ago as I started feeling like God was calling me to something new.  The only problem was that I never stopped and listened enough to what it is he was calling me to.  I just knew it was a far cry different from where I was.  I have been blogging for many years and keep on doing so just because I love to write.  I love to share different things that are on my mind and hopefully make people think and to form their own conclusions.

In the last few months, that calling has become more and more intense.  The closer I got to attending Wild At Heart, the more intense the battles became.  It’s like the enemy knew that God was truly going to gain another warrior.  Not just someone who sits by and pays lip service and just sounds off with opinion, but someone who is ready to battle for the kingdom.

I learned who I was in Colorado.  I learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was God’s son.  I know I have referred to this experience a lot, but it had more of an impact on me than I had ever thought possible.  I prayed many times in the weeks leading up to that week that God would open my heart to all he had for me and good gracious….he certainly did.  It was and has been like a whole new awakening.  I have come alive like I never thought possible in my heart and now with the resolve to go where God is calling.

For a long time I was afraid of risk.  I was afraid to rock the boat and make bold changes.  I became complacent and was comfortable with where I was.  I thought it was the right thing for my family and for me to just do what seemed to be expected despite the fact that I no longer found any joy in what I did.  The meaning has been lost and I was living in such a small story.  God has called me and he’s called all of us to a larger story.  It’s just a matter of whether we respond to it.

Life is so full of risk, and following our hearts and God’s calling can be quite a risk.  It can be unnerving to not know what is around the corner.  To not know what the outcomes will be.  We have to decide to choose God first, though, and to trust him.  We’ve all heard the phrase, “The Will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.”  I believe in this statement.  God is not going to leave you where you are.  He will go wherever you are to pull you from your old and false self and your life of sin and from the jaws of death.  He will go there but will not leave you there.  He will pull you out.  Likewise, he’s not going to lead you down a path that would not be for his glory.  That’s what it’s about after all.  To glorify God in all that we do and with all that we are as his children…as his beloved and his image bearers.

So the question remains; is it ever too late to make a change.  The answer is that it’s never too late.  I don’t care where you are in life.  It is never too late, especially if God is leading you and you are seeking his counsel through it all.  It’s never too late.

For me, God’s leading me in some awesome directions.  He’s put some awesome men in my life that I know I can turn to for counsel, the knights of my round table if you will, and He’s counseling me through it as well.  I also have the full support and love of my wife and children.  What the end results will be, it’s hard to say, but God is calling me to service and I am answering.  It’s going to take some schooling and learning on my part as I move to a world of christian counseling, writing, and ministry work, but I’m so excited.  It’s like a whole new beginning.  All I can do is trust and leave the outcomes up to God.

Where is God calling you to live courageously?  It’s never too late!

Let God Father You

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I have come into a lot of growth over the last couple of years.  Learning more about God and growing in my faith in Jesus Christ.  One of the biggest things I have grown into is learning about God as my Father, my true Father.  My life has gone through a series of twists and turns in the fathering I received.  Events growing up led to a mix of seeing my earthly dad as a great man, while at the same time coming to terms recently that I was never fully initiated as man nor received the full validation I needed and that every boy needs coming into manhood.  I married early and pulled away from the family.  As I neared my 30s, things began to change in how our relationship grew stronger.    We spent some great times just hanging out and talking.  Then all of a sudden, he was gone.  I’ve shared this on many times, but it ripped my heart out losing him the way we did.

So what to do with all of this.  Not having my dad any longer I was lost.  I grew in my faith and it began to have a lasting effect on my life and my family.   I looked to God as my father now and I have wanted to grow in knowing him.  Something changed in me recently though while at Wild At Heart.  Before, I was looking to God as a backup father.  My dad, gone, so who do I turn to.  Ephesians 1 tells us that God is the originator though.  He adopted us into his family as sons, as his sons and daughters.  Verse 4 says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ.”  He is not the backup plan. He was my Father before I was created and has always been, and will always be.  God desires to bring us into Sonship with Him.  To allow him to Father us.

Morgan Snyder from the Ransomed Heart team shared some pretty remarkable things about this and has some awesome audio about Sonship on the Ransomed Heart site.  One thing He mentioned is that God is orchestrating a rescue of us.  Our earthly dad was meant to point us to the father, but never sufficient to take the Father’s place.  This is just a small snippet, but it’s pretty profound.  The invitation of the Father is to be his son.  He wants to Father us.

What does this do for our hearts and our lives when we allow God to father us?  One thing I can say for sure is that you feel alive.  Aside from addressing my wounds, the thing that made me most alive in my journey at Wild At Heart was truly learning that I was God’s son and that he believed in me as a man.  I heard one of the guys say that it allows us to be young again.  I believe this to be true.  In coming alive, I feel like I can do anything again and allowing God to Father me is leading me in a pretty awesome direction.  He’s initiating me into adventures and what feels like a new beginning.  I noticed my overall demeanor has changed.  I think it brings us to a point to where we just enjoy life.

We need to seek Sonship and seek God to Father us each day.  Know that we are our Father’s son and he loves us and believes in us.  Whether or not you had a good relationship with your earthly dad, coming to God as the Father is on a whole new level.  He has a name and identity for us. Spend time in prayer with him and get to know him for who he is and he will tell you who you are.  I’m paraphrasing, but George McDonald said that it’s better to not know the Father than to have learned him wrong.

Being a son was a the center of Jesus’s life.  He sought the Father for everything he did.  He came to do the will of the Father and new he was the apple of his Father’s eye.  He was one with Him In John 14, Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father.  Jesus replied that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father.  They are one.  We are the image bearers of God and God desires us to be drawn into Sonship with him as well.  In John 17, Jesus’s invitation is to know the Father through Christ.  This is the path to eternal life.  In Romans 8 Paul says that all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves.  Instead you received a spirit of sonship.

The invitation is right there.  God desires to Father us.  To bring us close to him as his sons.  God has rigged the world so that it does not work, apart from him.  Without him, things fall apart.  With God, there is life through Jesus.  The enemy has used many tools to draw us away from this.  In our wounds with our earthly dads or other men in our lives. The enemy hates the father son connection and is out to destroy it.  Look to the Father though and he will reveal the Truth to you.  Look in his Word and all he has shared.  He desires for us to be drawn to him as sons.

As you grow in Sonship and I am still growing, you’ll be amazed at the ways God will Father you.  He will come at you directly.  He will also use other people in your lives to Father you.  I have definitely found this to be true in the guys I’ve connected with and the conversations I’ve been able to share with others.  I may not have recognized it all before, it God’s definitely showing it to me now.  It’s pretty amazing to see.  There’s a place for us all in the fellowship of man if we open our hearts to the Father and let him in.

What Are You Chasing?

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We all have heard people talking about finding their calling.  Many people are spending their life trying to search for the calling they have and a lot of times it is their career choices.  I know I have been down this path quite a bit in recent years, myself.  There often comes that point in your life where you find that this is just not me.  I am not where I know I should be.  This is not my calling.  So when those moments of realization happen a number of different things happen.  The individual can leave what they’re doing and jump into something that speaks to them in that moment.  They can just accept the security they are in, whether it’s life sucking or not and just deal with their circumstances.  They can seek God and see where He leads them.  Follow me here.

God is calling all of us into something bigger than ourselves.  He is calling us to a larger story.  The problem is that too many people themselves chasing their calling first.  They see the next new thing to jump at, a lot of times, it is with career choices, and just make the leap.  Only problem is, later on they find it was a mistake and move on to the next or they just don’t have the commitment to stick with their choices and jump around never fully finding their full calling in life.

On the flip side, many people, and I have been in this boat myself, find that they are just unwilling to accept any risk in life and enjoy the benefits of security in working in that stable corporate environment or just meaningless work. They accept the hand that the world’s dealt to them and where the world told them they should be.  This circumstance will often times suck the life right out of someone.  They find themselves isolated.  They are miserable in what they do even though they are good at it.  Even if they are not miserable, they just accept the ride. I know I’m not the only one here.

So what to do instead?  We feel called, but we don’t know what to.  Here’s the plain solution.  Seek God first.  Don’t chase a calling, chase God.  Seek Him everyday in prayer on your own.  Find time to just get by yourself in silence and just talk to Him.  Ask Him where He wants you go.  Ask Him what assignments He has for you.  Give Him all glory and honor no matter where you are in life.  You seek Him first and watch Him work.  He will move you in incredible ways and bring you to what it is that will make your soul just come alive.  Let God guide you first and reveal that calling to you.  I’ve been growing tremendously in my spiritual and prayer life and seeking where God wants me to be and it is absolutely amazing to see Him responding.  He’s transforming my heart and moving me to something new.

Now that does not mean we all just need to quit what we’re doing today.  For many, God may want you right where you are.  For others, He may be wanting you to move.  He may want you to take risks.  He led many people through scripture along through risky situations, but it was all for His glory.  Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and of course Jesus.  All of their situations involved risk, but they sought God through it all and wanted to carry out His will.  We’ve also seen the peril of what will happen when God was not chosen first and being passive sets in.  The fall of creation was due to Adam sitting idle and choosing Eve over God.  He was right their by Eve, and allowed her to sin and then made the choice to follow suit.

We have to be willing to take that risk in our lives.  If you feel that God is ready to move you, don’t sit idle and not act.  Be conscious about what He’s telling you. Continue to seek His council through it and also seek the council of people you trust to be honest with you about it.  When God reveals this calling to you and you act, you will come alive like never before.  Chase and choose God first, not calling and then watch Him work in your life and around you in His larger story.

Unplug…It’s A Must

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Have you ever stopped to just realize how dependent we are on technology now.  Do you even remember what life was like before you had a cell phone?  It’s amazing how our society has changed so much in the last 15-20 years.  We have become a society that is absolutely addicted to technology, particularly our cell phones and tablets.  Yes, they provide a great way to stay in contact with each other, but have you ever just stopped and thought about just how much they run your life.  And with that, it can begin to take you away from things that God wants you to experience with Him or with those around you.   We’ve been guilty of this sometimes in my house, where we just spend too much time in our phones and less time communicating with each other or just spending time.

Hear’s an example of how addicted we are and it did not hit me until the Wild at Heart Boot Camp.  The very first night, we were asked to turn our cell phones off. Now no body said anything, but John pointed to something there.  Inside us, and I know I felt it, our hearts almost gasped.  It’s like our minds are telling us….Noooooo!  That’s how addicted we have become.  Our lives are ran by our technology.  We see it on the road with people constantly on their phones driving…guilty here!  Walking around a store or in the office, people are always in their phones.  We just cannot let go, there is always something to connect to; a meeting or what have you.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love technology.  It has enabled me to share my thoughts with so many people though this blog.  It enables me to stay connected with friends and family all over the world. It can, however get very dangerous though if we let it run our lives.  If we just spend our time obsessed with social media, email, internet, and apps, we miss so much in this world.  We forget how to relate and connect with people on a personal level and not just through text or status updates.

Simple solution y’all….Unplug!  That’s all there is to it.  Take some time and just unplug from the world.  My 4 days unplugged in Colorado was something truly amazing.  Something I desperately needed for my heart and my sanity.  Take some time, whether it’s a day or a weekend.  Turn off the phones, tablets, and computers and get away.  Go somewhere.  May go camping, hiking, fishing, or hunting.  If you don’t care for the outdoors, go stay in a hotel away from everything.  Get in the car and just hit the road.  Do something disconnected from everything.

You will be surprised at the clarity you get when you do.  Take in the world around you.  Spend time with God in complete quite and solitude.  It’s unreal how much you’ll realize that time was needed.  I don’t get enough of these moments, but I will be making more of these moments.  We all need it.  Get away and refuel.  It will do your soul a lot of good.

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