Qualifying The Called

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What is your calling?  That is a question posed by so many people at various times and in a variety of contexts.  For the longest time I did not know what this meant or what it was to me.  As I’ve shared many times, over the last couple of years, this answer has began to gain clarity.  In a previous post, I shared that I was on a walk while out west and pondering who I was as a man in the eyes of God.  Then He showed up big time and showed me that He was about to take me down a very different path.

For the last couple of years, I have been in school, learning and studying, praying and pondering, and gaining wise counsel from trusted people around me.  Two months ago, we launched a counseling ministry within my church family, which was to be starting point in this new direction.  Over the time in my Masters program, I’ve learned some very cool concepts, techniques, and more around counseling people and counseling from a Biblical worldview.  Now came the time to put it all to work.

This has been a lot of the reason I have not written much the last many months as I prepared for launch and then began the work.  It has been a mentally and spiritually draining period of time in many aspects.  I’ve tried to figure out how to juggle this new work while still maintaining my current work in these early stages.  It’s not been easy to do.

There have been many days where I would wake-up and just wonder if I have anything to offer the people that have come to me for counsel.  I even wondered why God would choose someone like me to do something like this.  Like I’ve said many times, He completely shifted my paradigm and brought me out of my comfort zone in many ways.  Through much prayer, God has revealed that I don’t have anything to offer…He does!  With that, I just think, Whoa!!!  I have thought about that more and more and as these last couple of months have passed by, and although I know it’s very early, He is definitely right on the money.

I remember a quote I heard a few weeks back that said, “God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called.”  Don’t think I had heard that before, but as I ponder what He has done in my life and where is leading me, I think, Yes!  That’s exactly it. Then I start to think about the ragtag bunch that Jesus surrounded himself with.  None of these men were in any way qualified, but Jesus qualified them.  He taught them and equipped them, and then the Holy Spirit moved.

He qualifies the called.  I start to look at others around me that God has used in many different capacities to do His will.  All of our gifts are different, but the unifying link is that God uses all of it for His glory and we’re all a part of one body in Christ.  Answering the call is a great risk, in many capacities.  As I have seen, it pushes people away, who reject it. That’s not easy to contend with.  The beauty of it comes in pressing into Christ and in doing so, He begins to take the reigns and use the gifting that He has given us and perhaps, as in me, it has been hidden due to the road I had taken in my brokenness.

John Eldredge wrote that “An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience of human existence. To know him as he is, is to come home.”  This is exactly what happened in my life.  Think of anyone you know that, maybe some of you, that have just been set on fire by your faith as Jesus came in and you decided to follow.  Look at his disciples.  You may think you have nothing to give anyone, but wait until that intimate encounter with Jesus.  Wait until he meets you on that road, like he met me.  You may think your not qualified, and you know what, you’re right.  He is and he will qualify and equip you, if you choose to trust in him and follow.

Forging A New Trail

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I remember this walk I was on in January of 2015.  We had just finished a session at the Wild at Heart Boot Camp and the next hour or so was for each man to spend one-on-one with God.  We were given questions to pray about and seek God about. Those questions were how I saw myself as a man, how others see me as a man, and who does God say I am.  I never had taken time to spend in just contemplative prayer and discussion with God.  I remember sitting on a boulder over looking the snow covered grounds of Crooked Creek Ranch trying to listen for an answer, but not sure if I was hearing anything. 10361459_10204677376068595_8769313926448958482_n

After some time, I put my journal into my backpack and decided to take a walk.  I made my way to the main road that led out of the ranch back to Fraser, CO.  I remember waking and feeling the cool air and then watching my steps around some ice patches.  Once I got to more stable ground, I heard something that just blew my mind.  I heard, “This is who you have been.  You’ve spent too much of your life on this safe and wide road. It’s time for you to leave this road and take a new path.”  What do you do with this?  I remember later that day journaling, “I can’t take risks if I just stay on a path and not take the one less traveled.“crossraods_520

I’ve thought a great deal about this walk lately and the new trail that God has been forging ahead of me these past couple of years.  I chose to let go of myself and the work He has done has been tremendous.  Last month, I began work in a counseling ministry and then have been given the chance to lead new men in discipleship and restoration of their hearts.

In some way I find the sense of humor of God in this.  I think of the quiet, reserved, and passive man that I’ve been most of my life.  He has taken that and flipped it all around.  He led me into counseling, where I am completing my Masters now and working with people one-on-one now.  On top of that, I continue to hear the call of God to seek the hearts of men beginning with this discipleship group.  I joked in our larger men’s bible study at church a couple of weeks back and we looked our value drivers.  To me, it related to Morgan’s teaching on Styles of Relating from Become Good Soil.  I shared with the men the parallel to Jesus and how he moves through each style or each value driver all in a manner of doing the Father’s will.  I talked about my predominant style, which we all have, but God will often need us to move.  I said, “I’m becoming a counselor, talk about moving out of your comfort zone.”

I can only imagine where God is going to use me next, but after sharing some ideas with some trusted men and mentors, the image is starting to come clearer.  As I said when I started this journey in early 2015, I have no idea where this is going to lead me, but all I know is that I am trusting in the Father to take the lead.  Proverbs 1:7 in The Message says “Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God.”  That’s where I have start now.  I can’t take this to anyone, but Him first.

Where do you see yourself heading?  Have you ever sat with God and asked Him who you truly are and how does He want to use you?  Not everyone is meant to make radical shifts like this, but that is my story and this is how the Father chose to disrupt my life of complacency.  You never know when the answer may come.

the-road-not-taken-11The Robert Frost words, “Two roads diverge in the wood, and I took the one less traveled” continue to ring to me over and over.  It’s not going to always be pleasant and easy journey.  This road less traveled is full of potholes, rocks, and thorns.  I have days, where I venture back near the safer road and think, maybe I should merge there again.  I can’t though.  Once you have truly experienced God and His goodness and begin to follow, nothing can ever be the same.  You will be opposed, believe me, you will be opposed

It’s a journey folks.  To be able to step off the road of performance and the road of safety and comfort and to venture down a path where you can’t see around any turn only comes through faith.  Most of us never choose to take this journey.  Look at the traffic camera images every morning.  That’s most of us.  Trucking along day-to-day down the road we are all to familiar with.  Choose to risk and choose to forge a new trail where God moves ahead of you into the unknown.  The unscripted life is the only life worth living.

 

 

Don’t Stretch Yourself Thin – Self and Soul Care

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It feels like it’s been forever since my last post.  I looked and realized that it had been almost a month and now a I look and we’ve entered fall (although it hasn’t yet felt like it in Georgia), and we’re just a few days from October.  The month of September has just flow by and so much has happened in such a short period of time.  I was on the road for two weeks, first to Liberty University for my final on campus intensive, and then over the pond to London for a week of work.  First trip over and it was a worthwhile trip.

In the midst of all if this, I begin to enter my Practicum/Internship phase of my Masters program.  With that we officially rolled out our new counseling ministry where I will base my work as a counselor, especially in the early phases.  A lot going on and then this week I begin co-leading a new men’s discipleship group.  I share all of this activity with one key point that continues to ring through my head and heart.  “Don’t forget to take care of your self.”As Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart…”

I know I’ve written about soul/self-care before, but I can’t reiterate just how important it is.  I went to my bride, Amber, this morning and said to her, “With all of the counseling and new ministry work that is coming along, please tell me if I begin to let it take over too much and if it is taking away from my time with you and the kids.”  One of the key things I’ve heard in my studies is that counselors and many in ministry as well, are horrible at self-care.  Burnout begins to set in, and then we have nothing else to offer.

selfcare-01bI’m in a season of transition right now, so there is a lot going on, but I don’t think it’s any mistake that God led me back to the mountains this year with Become Good Soil, where self-care was one of the key topics.  I feel that God is definitely teaching me to remember Him and to guard my heart through all of this work.  I’m fixing to take on the weight of so many people’s wounds and sufferings.  It’s not my weight to bear, though.

There’s a song by Will Reagan and United Pursuit that came on one morning while I was in Virginia early this month.  The song is called, ‘Take a Moment.’  The lyrics go as follows:

Take a moment to remember
Who God is and who I am
There You go lifting my load again

No longer am I held by
The yoke of this world
Come up under the yoke of Jesus
His yoke is easy and His burden is so light

I hear that song that morning and then that morning in class, our professor stopped her lecture to focus solely on self-care for a bit.  She realizes how important it is.  This just blew my mind when I hear this song and then that topic that morning.  The burden of other is not mine.  I have to remember who I am and who God is.  The burden was laid a feet of Jesus, at the Cross.
I write this, this morning as a reminder to myself and to share with all of you as well.  We can’t just take on so much that we lose ourselves.  We will kill our hearts and having nothing to offer anyone around us.
I sit in amazement of God as I think about this and how He continues to remind me of this important category.  Self-care and soul-care.  I was praying about this is morning and writing this post came to mind and then I read the latest blog post from John Eldredge at Ransomed Heart, and God just totally blew me away with this.  John wrote a whole post on soul care in the midst of the loss of Craig McConnell, who went home last month.  John writes:

“Soul care” is not a category for most people. They don’t plan their week around it. Maybe it feels unnecessary; maybe it feels indulgent. It certainly wasn’t a category for me for too many years. But my friends, the harsh reality is this: life is probably going to get worse on this planet before it gets better; all signs indicate it is getting worse at an alarming rate. “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5). In other words, if you think this is hard, wait till the dog squat really hits the fan.

We are going to want our souls strong and ready for the days ahead, not weary and weak. We are going to need our souls strong. So we must practice soul care. I, for one, am trying to make room for it as part of my “routine.” It really is helping.

We are going to want our souls strong and ready.  Reading this I was just like, whoa…I hear you God.  It’s so easy to take on more and more, but I am reminded continually that I can only take on so much before I run the risk of taken out.  Busyness kills intimacy and union with God and with those import to me, especially my family.
The bottom line is this.  Don’t stretch yourself so thin and stuff your time so full that you forget about yourself.  The enemy is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  If we are so caught up in doing more and more and more, we can’t guard hearts from attack and the enemy will find a foothold to setup shop.
This myth of busyness and multitasking is another tool of the enemy to take us out.  It leads us further away from intimacy with God, which leads closer to sin.  Take time to care for yourself.  Open up your calendar.  There is room, I don’t care what anyone else says.  There is time.  As Dallas Willard says, “Time is made, not found.”  You can make the time for yourself and for your time with God.
Don’t forget about your heart in the midst of all the busyness of this world.

Back-to-Back with Swords Drawn

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I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on my marriage.  Actually, I do that a lot.  It blows my mind that Amber and I are now in our 20th year of marriage.  We’ve been through so many ups and downs together over these last many years.  We’ve had our share of disagreements and many, many more moments of just pure joy of being in each others company.  I’ve been blessed over the last couple of years to primarily work from my house.  One thing that never gets old is spending our days together.  I get to talk to my wife while I’m working and spend day after day in her company, which I cherish.

I look all around us, and I see just how lucky we are.  We’ve seen marriage after marriage around us crumble or those that have already in the past.  It saddens us to see.  I was remembering words from the character, Nathan, in the movie ‘Courageous.’  He said something to the effect that divorce is so rampant because people “make it option.”  I have never understood why this is such a widespread epidemic.  It’s so easy to just call it quits now.

I realize that this is such a problem, obviously because of our fallenness, but also that when we hit road blocks in marriage we feel like there’s no way through.  Amber and I are beginning to read through the book ‘Love and War’ by John and Stasi Eldredge.  Early in the book there is something that is so widespread true where they share…

51ws2bvvfc5l-_sx331_bo1204203200_“Everybody who has been married knows this. Though years into marriage it still catches us off guard, all of us. And newly married couples, when they discover how hard it is, then seem genuinely surprised. Shocked and disheartened, by the fact. Are we doing something wrong? Did I marry right person? The sirens that lure us into marriage — romance, love, passion, sex, longing, companionship — seem so far from the actual reality of married life we fear we have made a colossal mistake, caught the wrong, bus, missed our flight…Maybe it’s just us…Nope. THIS IS EVERYONE (emphasis added).”

Marriage is full of its ups and downs and I think the picture of so many marriages failing and couples falling away from each other is the very image of man falling away from God when things don’t go our way.  How easy is it for us to turn from God and move further away from Him, when we feel hurt or experience pain and trauma in life.  We make it an option.

There’s a chapter in ‘Love and War,’ that while we haven’t read it yet, the title says a lot about who we are to be in marriage.  Back-to-Back with Swords Drawn.  It’s a given that there is going to be so much in our lives that is going to try to eat into our marriage and tear us apart.  Just as the evil one wants to pull you further from God, he wants to do the same to your marriage will use all kinds of tactics to do so.  This could be boredom and complacency, temptation of looking for that golden man or woman, financial problems, toxic soul ties with people around you both, and a host of other problems.  In marriage, you have to stand back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder ready to battle together against anything that will try to tear your marriage apart.

John and Stasi share something else on the same page regarding the struggles we face in marriage…

“For heaven’s sake, bring together a man and a woman – two creatures who think; act, and feel so differently you would think they’d come from separate solar systems – and ask them to get along for the rest of their lives under the same roof. That is like taking Cinderella and Huck Finn, tossing them in a submarine, and closing the hatch. What did you think would happen?

I love this, because it’s so true.  There are many that have the expectation that they should always get along when they marry, but as we all know, who have been there, it just won’t be the case.

In my home, I have all kinds of books and things I am reading or I use for my counseling studies and research.  We have a sitting area in our master bedroom and there is a chair and ottoman.  I have a habit of leaving my books stacked there where I can easily get to them when I need them.  Amber can’t stand it, to put it bluntly.  For our sake, I agreed to move them the other day.  The point is this, we just see it differently, but that’s okay.  It’s a matter of how we deal with it.marriage

Amber and I, just as with any marriage out there, are in this together.  Back-to-back with swords drawn.  The thing with the books stacked may seem so petty, but trust me, it can blow up in bigger things if you let it. One thing that can never NOT happen in marriage is communication.  Amber and I talk about everything.  She knows my heart and I know hers.  That’s what has helped us collaborate through our marriage and make it through the storms that have come along.  We fight through everything together.  So many times we’ve seen marriages fall apart, this key thing, communication is the one thing that was non-existent.

If you allow the enemy to setup shop in any part of your marriage, he will pry at you to tear you apart.  Don’t give him that foothold.

You are in two covenants in this life.  One is with God, through death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.  The only other one is your marriage.  A covenant is not a contract.  A contract is all about what is in it for you.  A covenant all about what you can bring to the relationship.  God desires to surrender your full self in relationship with Him and surrender yourself to your marriage to serve one another.

Don’t make divorce an option.  If you are finding trouble that seems so hard to get through, know that you’re not the first and there is a way through.  Work through it together and if need be, seek out a counselor to help you both walk through it together.  Back-to-back and should-to-shoulder with swords drawn, you can fend off the all that is thrown your way.

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.

Back Porch Thoughts

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One of my favorite things to do each morning is to go sit on my back patio, especially in the early morning.  I’ll go back there for prayer and time in the word, or just to sit and think.  In the early morning, there are some awesome sounds around.  There are crickets chirping, an owl hooting nearby, squirrels running around, and birds singing, particularly two cardinals that have made our back yard their home.  In our small half acre, I have grown to love the surroundings of  my back yard under the tree canopy.  When I can’t get away this has become my getaway.

It’s funny the thoughts that race through the mind in those moments.  So many holy and silent moments where I just get to converse and listen to the Father.  In those times, the breeze is blowing through the trees and the birds are amplified.  Something about listening to creation that enables me to draw nearer and hear the Father more.

There are other times, when hearing the Father and really getting locked in becomes difficult.  It’s always the same sounds that distract me.  The sounds of the highway not far off. When those sounds sometimes get amplified in the morning air, it can become a big distraction for many reason.  For one, it constantly reminds me of the busyness of this world and the fact that we always have things to do and places to go.  Very little time to rest.

I was reminded of Mark 6:31, where Jesus tells his disciples, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.”  Rest and quiet was so essential to Jesus.  Many times throughout the Gospels, we see Jesus going off to be alone to rest and pray with the Father.  I have come to realize that this is such an essential part of life and why I like to take time on my back porch to rest and sit and ponder life, pray, and read.

Jesus valued this time to get away and we should too.  Dallas Willard reminds me of something else in relation to this.  He said, “Daily ‘Quiet Time’ as the method for spiritual growth is like trying to take a shower one drop at a time! It’s inefficient.  For many people their inconsistencies plague them with guilt. It’s much more helpful to have extended times of being immersed in God.” Reading this, really gets me thinking.  Jesus did just go off for a minute or even 5, 10, or 30 minutes.  Went off for extended time periods.  At one point, 40 days.

This is what the noise of traffic that distracts me also reminds me of.  This is not enough.  To really grow with God, I need to take more prolonged periods where I can be with the Father for a few days.  This world is so busy that it feels like it’s impossible to do.  But I tell you, having been able to do this a few times the last couple of years has energized me more than I could have ever imagined and allowed me to really hear God’s calling on my life.

This is the way my brain operates.  It may seem like I’m looking very deep into something as simple as sitting on my back porch, but think about it.  We were created for intimacy and dependence with God.  We were created to have a deep and fruitful relationship as Father/son or Father/daughter.  It is now the first priority of my life, to cultivate a build on that relationship and getting time with just myself and the Father is of utmost importance as it is for you.  Daily quiet time, helps to keep us engaged and that’s what I use my back porch time for.  Real growth is found when we can take longer times to be with the Father.  Best done unplugged in at those places where we feel the closest to Him, often in the wilderness in some way.

These are my musings for today.  Just sitting out here made me really ponder the value that is placed in these moments outside being in the midst of the beauty of creation.  As C.S. Lewis said, “We do not want to merely see beauty, we want to become a part of it.“

The Glory of Sonship

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The title of this post says it all.  The idea of sonship has been something that has big in my life for the last couple of years and a significant part of my own restoration and walk with the Father.  Since my walk really began, a significant passion that has burned in my heart is in men’s ministry.  Like myself, I have known and still know so many many men that do not understand who they truly are and who they have been created to be.  Many, if not most, are still very much rooted in their false-self, whether they know it or not.  I was deeply rooted in my false-self and did not know at all who I truly was and who I was created to be and what I have already been called because of the finished works of Jesus Christ, should I accept.  That is my identity as a son.

The definition of sonship as provided by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “The relationship of son to father.”  I have learned a great deal in this recently, especially with my walk in the teachings of John Eldredge, Morgan Snyder, and others through the ministry of Ransomed Heart.  Sonship. So what does this truly mean.  For one thing, we know the doctrinal teaching of Jesus as the Son of God and that in Sonship, Jesus always was the Son of God as a part of the God’s triune nature, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In Peterson’s translation, The Message in John 16:28, Jesus says, “I left the Father and arrived in the world; now I leave the world and travel to the Father.”  Jesus was always the Son.  The secret makes Jesus unstoppable is the abiding place of a son to a father.

So there, you have that Jesus is the Son.  What about us?  Paul writes in Ephesians 1:5 that from the very beginning the Father “…predestined us to adoption as sons though Jesus Christ to Himself”.  Romans 8:15 says that “…the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.'”  That’s just the surface, but that tells a lot about who we are, but a lot about who we all to often to claim to be.  We are sons of the Father in Christ.  Our identity is rooted in that.  As Morgan Snyder stated, “Our greatest identity is son.”  That’s who we are and that’s who we were created to be.  Sons and children of the God the Father.

Talking especially to men here.  We have serious problem that has developed.  We have lost this identity.  We don’t know God as Father and don’t know ourselves as sons.  All too often this condition is rooted in a form of fatherlessness and wounds we’ve suffered.  I have learned that this identity is the primary place that we’re assaulted by the enemy, by the world, and by our false-self.   The primary place where we establish our view of our Heavenly Father is based on our experiences with our earthly father, good or bad.  We have all been wounded in some way.  In that, we don’t truly get to know the Father as Abba or Pappa.  George McDonald wrote that it’s better to not know the Father than to know Him wrong.

What is the answer to this loss of our identity?  There is only one answer and always been one answer.  Jesus Christ.  “The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).  This is part of what was lost.  Our identity as sons.  Our true heart and true nature as we were originally created to be. That’s what has been lost in so many and you can see it all over the place.  That’s why fatherlessness is so high across our society.  A prime reason why so many marriages fail has a lot to do with men who have just lost who they are are and don’t know how lead their marriage and family from the abiding place as a son to the Father.  They have lost their identity.

God has invited us to leave that fatherless place in us to be Fathered by Him.  He has called us into sonship through Jesus Christ.  We need men to understand this and learn to live from this.  When you find this place and find this identity and begin to live from sonship, WOW!!!  The changes that begin to unfold are amazing.  It’s not without challenges and it takes time to truly learn to live in this, but you have to start somewhere.  And when you fall, you rise again.  As the saying goes from Robin Hood, “Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions.”

You have been called son.  God has predestined that to each us.  We have to make the choice to fight for that identity and live as sons.

He Loved Us First

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I do a great deal of time reflecting on my faith journey and the heart of God and who He is to me and to all of us.  A verse stuck out at me yesterday morning from 1 John 4:19, where John wrote, “We, though, are going to love – love and be loved.  First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first” (MSG).  He loved us first.  This statement is so profound and it’s something I knew, but not something I ever really thought deeply about.  We have the chance to love because we were loved first.

Now there are all different ways that love is portrayed in this world.  Here is the way Dallas Willard defines love.  “Love is not desire – it is the will good on others. We say, ‘I love chocolate cake!’ But really we want to eat it.  We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own sake.”

Now think about that for a minute.  We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own stake.  That describes exactly the way God loved us first.  God has been promoting our good for our own sake since the beginning.  Going all the way back to creation, God created us out of love with a desire to see us live fully as His image bearers.  Ever since the Fall, as is chronicled throughout the Bible, God has been showing us love first, but seeking to have us restored to Him.  Even when we’d fallen so far, He still sought to bring us back from death.

I just think about this verse and think about the love that God has had for me and throughout my life and I am in complete awe.  It’s nothing I’ve done to deserve, and yet He still displays that love and I can see it all through my life and see the same love reflected in my loved ones, especially my Bride and our children.  I understand the love of the Father for us as I am able to reflect that love to my family for their own sake, for their own growth, and for their own life and restoration.

I think about my oldest son, Shawn.  Amber and I moved him into his college dorm last weekend as he begins his freshman year of college.  While the dynamic in the home is now different, with only four here daily, the love that we have for Shawn, never changes.  We love him by encouraging him to live out his life fully seeking the grand adventure that God has for Him.  Notice that.  God already had that love before we did and was after Shawn’s heart and showing him the great adventure.  Now we get to reflect that, because God did first.

I love when God puts something on my heart like this to just ponder and meditate on throughout my day.  It’s such an awesome reminder.  Love begins with God, because He loved us first.  For our own sake, He showed loved by sending Son so that we may be set free to seek the love of God and reflect that to those around us.  He loved us first.

As the late John Moorhead, who was a mentor with Become Good Soil and Ransomed Heart, shared…Love wants to be known.  He references Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy in sharing that we live in a  God bathed world.  God is here with us, not far away, but right here.  God is love and love wants to be known.

God loved us first and continues to love us first.  Because of that, we can love, so love well through the heart of God that is bestowed on all of us.  He seeks that intimacy with each one of us.

Takes Time To Master

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I often find myself trying rush into things.  I come into something new, a new job, a new task, something, and I feel like I have to hit the ground running.  When I’ve been on job interviews in the past, one of the things always asked for is needing someone to hit the ground running.  When I make the decision to move into counseling and ministry, I felt like I had to consume as much as possible and get rolling as quickly as possible.  Then I realized something this year, while out west, mastery of anything takes time.  It’s going to take time to learn the best way to counsel and minister to people.  I can’t just go right into it and know it all.  When I started my current job 10 years ago, it’s taken time and trial and error to figure out what works best and the learning continues.

Morgan Snyder reminded me of this in his teachings when he quoted author Malcolm Gladwell.  Gladwell stated that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.  10,000 hours, that’s 416 days.  Divided to 2.5 hours a day brings us to about 10 years.  It’s a lot of time, but I’ve come to realize that anything we devote to will always take time to learn and master.

I’m not just talking about work skills.  What I really wanted to focus on here is spiritual disciplines and practices in the faith.  There are many that think, “I’m good…I was saved, baptized…I pray (occasionally)…I go to church on Sunday, etc.”  The list can go on.  But let’s think about real practice of a real and deep intimate relationship with the Father. It takes time.  As I’ve come to learn, there is a way things work and the only way to grow is through learning to develop a life that gives time to Father.  A.W. Tozer said, “The man who would know God, must give time to Him.”

Through Jesus, the Father desires to restore us to a life in Him.  The way to life in Jesus is a vigorous journey and it’s one, if we truly want to come alive, requires our total attention.  It’s never instantaneous, though.  There are not any shortcuts through this journey.

For many years, I’ve lived a life of shortcuts.  Trying to find the quickest way to get to where I needed, whether that was through schooling, in my work, and in my spiritual growth in the last few years.  It’s taken a long time to learn that I have allow for time.  It will truly take a decade of working, of trial and error, to fully build a life of real authentic disciplines that is fully invested in the Father day after day.

Don’t compromise a piece of the journey.  Make the choice to fully invest in time grow into an exercise of real mastery, no matter what you invest into.  Most importantly, choose to invest in a life of real mastery in your walk with God, day after day.  I’m in the early parts of this journey.  Come along.  Think about your life and where your trying to take shortcuts.  Ask the Father to reveal where you’ve taken shortcuts in your growth.

I’m so thankful that I’ve come across a ministry of men that has helped me to learn this and know that I need to begin to inventory my life and begin to develop real habits in the life I live with God, habits of self care, the way I care for and walk with my wife, the way I father my own children in leading them to the real Father, and in the investments I make others around me.  In that order, by the way.

It all takes time.  The journey can’t be rushed, and I’m so excited to see the fruit that comes from this decade.  As Morgan Snyder reminded us at Become Good Soil, “Live in the day…Measure in the decade.”

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Planting Seeds

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I’ve been reminded lately of the teachings of Jesus regarding planting seeds in Matthew 13, from the Parable of the Farmer Scattering Seed to the Parable of the Mustard Seed.  I’ve heard this teaching so many times over the years and as I began to study Scripture myself, I continued to run across it.  It took some time for these teachings to really sink in.  To know what it means to become the good soil and the harvest that is produced as a result of this.  Then having faith like a mustard seed and how faith, even so small can grow to be so big.  Then the Parable of the Yeast and how faith is like that yeast in that it permeates all through the dough.

These have become so significant to my life and how I continue to strive to live out my faith so that I continue digging to become that good soil and to be like the yeast or the mustard seed in how they continue to grow and spread.  What’s interesting is that I’ve never thought of my faith in the context of how it can impact others until recently.  I wrote early this year about the ripple effect that faith has when seen by others.  The impact of Baptizing my wife and our  three teenagers in January was so substantial.  Being able to share my own faith and insights from God  of my life and how that has helped others in different settings, both at home in my community, out west in on my last trip to Colorado, while on campus at Liberty University last month for an Intensive course, and then my writing on this page, and counseling and ministering to people.  All of it, I’ve been able to start to see movement in the lives of others.hand-seed

When I was at the Become Good Soil Intensive in May, one of the things the Father revealed to me through one of my mentors was the the image of Jesus planting seeds in our lives and then in my growth, me standing along side Him to plant seeds.  Then he showed my wife and children joining me to plant seeds as well.  That was such a powerful moment for me and realizing that yes, God is using me to continue to plant seeds in the soil, or the lives of others to help them grow their faith like the mustard see or the yeast.  It helped me to realize the impact that is very real and spreads more than I ever thought.

I write and share all this for a reason.  I firmly believe that God desires to use each of us in this way.  I have thought of some of the short-term effects, but never really gave thought to the long-term.  The seed we plant to day can grow to produce so much more for years and years to come.  I have heard and seen the effects people have had on each other.  I never thought that simply meeting my good friend and pastor, Tim, while our sons played baseball together 5 years ago, would have had such an intricate role in leading me to where I am today.  I never thought that my colleague, KC, handing me Wild at Heart as a gift one day 4 years ago, during some of the most challenging periods of my life, would have led me to walk the life I do now.

The Father is planting seeds in our lives and seeking growth and deeper intimacy with each of us.  The fruit of those seeds may not be seen immediately, even thought we may desire it to.  As the saying goes, God’s timing is perfect.  One of the most beautiful things God does is take time.  When we dedicate our lives to what He has for us, however, the results can be tremendous that we are drawn closer to Him, help lead others to desire deeper relationship with Him, who may then lead others to draw to Him.

You never know the effect simple things may have on the lives of others.  Become that good soil to allow the fruit of God to grow in your life and watch the abundance in the fruit that will be produced all around you.  I’m excited to see where God takes me and how I may be able to help others planting seeds in their lives for greater growth.  He’s using us all.