NOTE: These are my thoughts as I go through “Heart of a Warrior” and put down into words its message and theme to help men reclaim their identity – as Kingdom men who stand firm in their faith and are willing and able to serve Christ and the greater good of this world.

Fighting for a Cause: Men (Part 3)

Don’t be naive about this world – we live in world where people are self-absorbed, money hungry, cynical, ruthless, addicted to lust and base desires, and allergic to the notion of God.

Sounds like a pretty good description of the world, right?

That’s from the Gospel of Timothy, and those are the words he wrote over 2,000 years ago that are so true today:

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5 NIV)

You see the world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

-Albert Einstein

We live in a world of faded attempts. To do what’s right. Dreams that failed to materialize. A growing collection of should’ve, would’ve and could’ve in our lives.

Paul the apostle talked about running so as to win, yet men tire and get stuck at various mile markers along life’s marathon course. Make no mistake it is a dangerous course where every decision matters and so much in this world is set against men as they run.

When was the last time you heard someone say something positive about men lately?

As men we feel this crushing opposition, this constant barrage that you are worthless, not needed, broken, etc. There’s no question the course men are on is filled with mine fields, washed out roads, poorly marked signs, hecklers, and downright nasty conditions. To make matters worse there are often other imperfect men running with us, casualties of the blind leading the blind, and the wounded, wounding those around them.

This dangerous road we travel is a man’s life and the critical mile markers men must travel lie along an ancient and long forgotten path. The times that we live in there are no voices of wisdom for men, so we need to look to the voices of the past, the pioneers, the explorers, and teachers who lived the journey and shared about it. Those forerunners, those ancient mentors walked a road of masculinity with God and a deep friendship with each other. They were transformed men whose hope it was to produce more transformed men. In retrospect, we’ve lost so much ground with today’s self-serving world.

Is there even such a thing as a transformed man?

Because there sure is such a thing as a drug addicted man, an abusive man, an unemployed man, a cheating man, a dishonest man, a suicidal man, and so on.

Does anyone really even listen to the wounded cries of men? or are we so used to treating them like trash that their subtle cries for help are met with a door slammed in their face?

The collective outcry is always the same. Sometimes its anger, frustration, sometimes deep sadness from the pain. This is the world of the most men. The disoriented, the lost, the discarded, etc.

Not all men are like this, thank God. There are oriented men, men who are not bulletproof, but get hit in life far less than they used to. Men with struggles to be sure, but men who struggle well. They may not be experiencing good in all their circumstances but as oriented men they know God is at work for a deeper good in their lives. They are taking back lost ground in their own hearts and partnering with God for the hearts of others.

I think we as men live in a delusion that someday things will get better, without really knowing what that is or even what that means in our life. We suffer but we’re not really sure what we’re suffering from. We know the symptoms – anger, frustration, sadness, boredom, guilt, shame, but all these seem unfortunately normal in this world because that’s all we’ve ever known. And it doesn’t come from an unbelieving heart. Almost every man I know is a believer at least at some level.

It comes from a disoriented heart. A lost heart.

What we’ve been taught, however, deep down about God, our heart, and ourselves is far worse than we ever knew. John Eldridge said it best, that most men (and boys) have no real father to guide them through the jungles of the masculine journey. And as such, most of us are unfathered & unfinished men. To a lesser extent, I was one of them. But I am aware in life, and I’m changing that. And I will change that for others too, if I can.

I would point out that doesn’t mean we had bad fathers, but that our fathers themselves were unfinished and unfathered. When my father turned 18 his dad said, “Well son, good luck, you’re a man now. I’m out of here.” Literally. And rode off on a motorcycle and was gone. He also watched his mother leave with another man and abandon him as well.

The concept of the ‘generation curse’ is real, and there are some very strong reasons behind that. I used to hate my father for not equipping me to handle life, but that view has since changed to compassion for him because I knew he did the best he could, given the foundation he was built upon.

One sign of a disoriented man is one who settles – not only in his life, but for being a servant of the Kingdom rather than a warrior for it. I remember being shocked when my class was asked the question. “So if you are confronted with a conflict are you a fight or flight? In other words, do you run from the conflict, or do you stand and fight it? The class separated with the ‘flight’ on one side of the room and the ‘fight’ on the other.

At least half the men in the class went to the ‘flight’ side.

Duty bound serving will take its toll until life is either boring or irrelivant. How much in life do we as men, do out of a sense of duty?

Let me be clear, I am not against being a servant at all, it is essential. However, you can be a servant and not a warrior, but it is impossible to be a warrior in God’s kingdom and not a servant.

My whole life, and most men’s are plagued by the thought that there is far more available to us than what we have become. There has got to be more than the constant low-grade fear, sadness, and frustration that regularly surfaces up in our lives. But like most men I never could pinpoint where it was coming from, other than I obviously wasn’t doing enough, whatever that ‘enough’ was.

No matter what I tried the result was always the same, disappointment, feeling cheated, inadequate, etc. It took my entire life, and then salvation on top of that to realize I was ill equipped, ill prepared, and ill-advised almost from the get-go in life.

The Enemy is well aware of what we as men are not, and will whisper in our ears the most damaging, worst things possible, that “I am alone”, “I am worthless”. But how do we escape this and step into the life God created us for and role we are meant to play?

We know the usual answer that’s given… Serve more. Do more. Give more. Sin less. That encapsulates pretty much 99% of the religious programs for men – and it doesn’t work.

See my first post on that for why.

Probably the biggest factor is a naivety and lack of self-awareness that keeps a man from moving forward into the role that is his and his alone to play in the larger story. Men are simply lost in a modern world that seeks to give men their identity when it has always been the other way around – a man should bring his own identity to this world.

This leads to men settling, year after year, retreating into less & less and because of their naivety this feels normal. Until they finally realize all the damage they’ve caused, all the opportunities they’ve let slip away. And by that point they feel it’s too late, and men simply give up in life, because they don’t know what they don’t know, and the only thing they do know, is that life just didn’t work out for them.

Every man hears voices telling him who he is, what he is, and why he is the way he is. And I can promise you if you look at the source of those voices and their origins, they are poisonous and meant to humiliate, and to shame and break down and take away the fundamental essence of who you are as a man.

Perilous compromises are always at the door with these voices, inviting a man to fear, or prove or hide himself. If a man never awakens to his own inner voices telling him his abilities are not tainted, then he’ll fall victim to the Enemy that has a vested interest in building a man based on false and incorrect assumptions about himself

You are what you believe.

Forces are at work both for us and against us. That’s life. Its time to wake up, to see, hear, and engage in training to enter this larger story men are called to and reclaim our hearts and true voice. and re-enter life as noble yet uncompromising men.

In order to be uncompromising men, i.e.. who can reject the perilous compromises of the Enemy, we must journey and explore with God what is noble within us and what is not.

There is something very good God is after in men.

A restored and free life – its the one that men were meant to have. And meant to share. Maybe I’m putting too much faith in the everyday man, but every single man should want to undertake the journey to become whole and make his heart whole, yet few are willing to take this journey because compromise has taken its toll.

I believe that at that moment of salvation a man is not only a new creation, but given a new heart, and it is up to him to train up and learn how to live, and love from his new heart. There is nothing greater in a man’s life than when the deepest part of him, his heart, becomes whole.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.” (Ezekial 36:26-28 NIV)

God will arrange the moments in your life to invite, grow, and develop the true man – if we will give Him first place in our lives.

But how many men are willing to do that?

Almost none, unfortunately. I look at it this way, we have approximately 12 men who made a commitment to our church to give up a Tuesday night and serve on Sunday’s and to participate in a program that puts God first and will grow their faith. For easter service our church had approximately twenty thousand in attendance.

Twelve of those men showed up for our Church’s bible program.

The wounds taken early in a man’s journey and the mistakes made will later stunt our growth as men. When something is stunted, its normal growth is hindered and/or its progress ceases – this is especially true of the heart. It can get stuck & pinned down in so many different ways. A significant loss, an attack on one’s innocence, shame & embarrassment at the hands of critics.

Simply not knowing how to do something can turn into a major assault on one’s heart. After all, society expects men to know how to do everything, and you are a failure as a man if you do not.

We have an epidemic of boys who shave, wear men’s suits, and drive. It’s because they are often forced to defend themselves too early, to learn to hide in order to protect themselves. Forced to take on responsibilities beyond their years that they’re not anywhere ready for. I know this by my own experience, and it is 100% accurate. These things have kept many a man – a boy.

Few can boast of provision & protection as a boy and fewer still can boast of being trained up in love at the hands of a good man and in the company of good men. Without these things, the results later in life are catastrophic. Some men become violent men, fighting to benefit themselves and not others. Boardrooms, living rooms its all the same, they have become their ‘ok corrals’.

Their strategy? Do unto others… before they do unto you.

Passive men are the other extreme. These men learned early to not even try, rather they hide behind the mediocre and under a message of ‘you’re just good enough’. Their strategy is, ‘just freeze and let the moment pass you by.’

If unfinished, stunted men look at the world through a disoriented lens it stands to reason that the conclusions that they draw about themselves and their world will be disoriented. Their views and attitudes will in turn lead to behaviors that are harmful rather than helpful. On a daily basis such men live as consumers of others, using and taking life – rather than offering it.

Or they are simply checked out and disengaged. Avoiding life and both obsessing over and controlling their own surroundings. I know plenty of them.

Both the violent and the passive, the consumers and the hiders all do the same – make life about themselves.

Just as boys will tend to do.

Almost all men practice life in one, or a combination of these ways.

But men can change – if they want to. What they need is a new interpretation of their lives and what needs to happen.

And that is exactly what Jesus calls us to as men.

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39 NIV)

A man who seeks to provide for and protect others knows the difference. Finding “Life” is a dangerous and difficult pursuit, but we don’t make it alone – Jesus promises, “I am with you.” (Matthew 28:20 NIV)

For men, the masculine journey is the journey. A journey worth taking and exploration worth taking and a fight worth entering. It will absolutely alter your life course – but if you are unwilling to fight, to stand up to the great Enemy, the bully of this world, then don’t waste my time – or yours.

The journey will demand much.

It typically takes 3-5 years to reset a man’s heart and the journey will be filled along the way with plenty to make a man not so much want to quit, but to stop taking risks and to settle for where he is.

All the times that I have put myself out there and gotten burned, gone right back to square one and had to figure out why, I could simply just quit and go live an easier less risky life and be happy. But I am not willing to do that.

Even under the best circumstances I recognize that I’ve got years to go, and that’s fine with me. I know what I have to look forward to…

It is worth it.

Breaking free from the lower life to the higher life comes with promises, but also warning about the pitfalls, but what you lose can’t possibly be compared with what you’ll gain.

I know this is what men deeply want. I know this is what men need. I know this because I am a man. And I say this because as men these words call up something deep in our hearts.

Every man wants to matter.

He wants to contribute. To be called up and make a difference.

Every man has a deep desire to be a man.

Jesus, just after telling them to be brave, and just before leaving, made a similar life altering declaration to a bunch of men on the brink of entering battle.

“I am no longer calling you servants, because servants don’t know what their master is thinking and planning, no I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father. You didn’t choose me, I chose YOU […].” (John 15:15-16 NIV Paraphrased)

They are a long way from their fishing nets and ledger tables, they have seen things and done things that have altered them as men.

You see, most men have never been called up. And therefore, have never been told – you can do this. You can become more. You ARE more. You have it in you, and I’ll help you. Come with me, follow me, I’ll show you the way…Let’s go.

All men have suffered loss, and we will again. But we can recover from life’s worst losses, including the loss of heart. I can’t emphasize how important this is – the loss of heart. All men have a fighting spirit and a fighting heart within them.

But when you break a man’s spirit, when you break a man’s heart (i.e., his passion for something) then he is done. Finished. He’ll simply give up. It’s how men work.

The good news is we can reclaim our hearts from bondage. Jesus has made the way for us, and we must gather up our courage and strength and step through it. We can become whole again, not just for our sake but for the sake of others. In order to love others well, to truly love them in a way that alters their lives, we have to first receive and have known love for ourselves.

I’ll say that part again because it is critical – we have to first receive and have known love for ourselves.

For men, care for our hearts first is not selfish, it is both noble and necessary. What help can we be to those around us when our own wounds continue to cripple us?

For a long time, I never understood the concept of ‘guard your own heart above all else’ In fact the bible specifically states, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23 NIV) but I now realize how critical it is that the heart be protected at all costs, for it is the loss of ‘heart’ that wounds a man the most and will steal his passion and his fire that allows him to accomplish greatness in life.

Personal experience has taught me that – I’m very fortunate to be at a point to bounce back and recover myself (and my heart) and continue pressing forward.

Jesus says that it is in receiving from Him, that we are redeemed, reborn, and refashioned into beloved sons. Those sons can then be made into warriors, taking up the Kingdom cause through an intimate relationship with the King.

If a man is not oriented, is not aware that he is a beloved son, then he will get run over in life through discouragement, despair, anger, resentment, and depression. But when a man can come to Christ and drink deeply from His well of ‘living water’ (John 4:10) everything changes.

Everything.

I know this for a fact, when I was saved everything changed. Its why I’m writing this, and why I do what I do. For His glory. For His will.

Not my own will be done Lord, but yours…

The point I would emphasize is we don’t have to try and matter (and thus fall short) – we matter more than we will ever be able to comprehend – because Jesus died for us. We are loved both extravagantly & excessively. Use whatever adjectives you will, they all apply.

We were literally made to experience & encounter God’s love. Until we can experience this love firsthand, all we have is an idea or a theory. Reading and hearing about God’s love is helpful, to be sure. But its not the same as tasting and seeing that He is good.

Love is what matters. Love is the point. Love is the first step in becoming a man.

Saying something like that is completely at odds with what society tells us a man is and should be, and that is one of the main reasons we’re at where we are today.

Throughout a man’s life he is, at times, invited or asked to step up and take a step forward. Doing so isn’t ever convenient, and it never seems easy. These are times where he’ll have to fix his gaze forward, brace himself and take a step. The results aren’t guaranteed yet step he must. And in the right direction.

That step is personal, and original for each man, each image bearer, and a two-hour men’s seminar, or bible study program can’t script that for you. I can’t even script that for myself…

But God is the one authoring our stories. And He is at work customizing our recovery. Designing each man into what He truly wants him to be. I am living proof of this.

Fierce, yet tender. Filled with strength & compassion. “A man’s heart plans the way, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9 NKJV) A man will need to take many steps, because the pull of this world will always be towards a smaller story.

In that narrative, life revolves around him, and He is the center of the story. That’s a good summary of most people’s lives in this world, and men are especially prone to this false narrative. Pushing against this pull takes an awareness, and a courage that most men aren’t aware they have within them. But it is precisely in the struggle that a man finds out what he is made of, and what still needs training.

That said, the fight will always be to convince a man that God can offer a greater role for him than he can. And this is no easy task because it WILL take a courage that is greater than what a man can muster on his own, and a faith that is larger than what he can see.

God is in charge of his healing, his restoration, and his training. And the fist courageous step a man must take is backwards – he must head back to what first shaped him in his youth. I spoke a lot about the need to identify & connect with his past in the previous two posts.

In a fallen world with fallen men all around you, what are the chances of getting to adulthood unscathed? Nil. Zero.

There are a million different ways that a boy’s heart falls victim in life – to wounded parents, family members, coaches, teachers, and others. Many are the shaping forces of a man’s disoriented heart. But there is good news – you can become healed, oriented, and rise above their effects.

No matter how old you are, how experienced or inexperienced, there is One who wants to take you on this quest. One who wants the significant role of teaching, loving, initiating, validating and turning you free into the world – it is a life available to you, and one that is far better than you could possibly imagine.

A life in Christ and a home the Kingdom. And the good news is it is a life that is available to all who seek it.

Trusting God in the Storm

Pretty much everyone has been or is going through a storm of some sort.

Maybe its a storm in your job. A storm in your marriage. A storm with your kids. A storm with your parents. A storm with your health, or storm with your finances.

Storms that we don’t invite.

Storms that come from people who love us.

Storms that seemingly come out of nowhere, but there they are…

So, what do you do when everything you trusted in collapses in a storm? How do you prepare for a sudden change in your life? And how do you recover when life hits you on the blind side?

I know what that feels like, most of us do.

What do you do after all the hard work and dedication and commitment and loyalty – and it all comes crashing down?

The storm has many origins, but the answer is only one…

You can’t bring anything to God that’s too BIG for Him.

Anything…

You can’t bring anything to God that’s too hard, or too heavy, or too impossible.

He can handle it.

You can’t bring anything to God for which he does not have a perfect answer every single time. He will make your way clear.

He will give you a sense of confidence and boldness and assurance that you can stand anything that comes your way.

And sometimes God allows very difficult situations into our life to grow us. I think that if God allows a storm in your life, that its ultimate purpose is to bring you out stronger.

So, what is a storm?

A storm is a kind of trial, is an unexpected circumstance that invades your life – Where you don’t know if you’re going to make it or not.

That said, let me tell you something else about a storm – A storm is always designed to increase your faith and give you a deeper experience with God. Storms aren’t pleasant. They aren’t comfortable and sometimes they can even be life-threatening…

But they always come with a purpose.

A storm in your life can destroy you or it can develop you.

It can build your strength, your wisdom, your knowledge, your understanding, your commitment, your devotion, your faith, your peace, and your joy.

The thing about storms is when God gets through working them into our life, we’re so much better off. We’re cleaner. We are purer. There’s more peace. There’s more joy.

Why? Because you’re in the center of God’s will.

And if you can take your attention off the storm, you’ll see Him there with you. God doesn’t want a storm to destroy you and the truth is that only when we allow Satan to get a grip on us in those times of difficulty do we think that.

God created seasons, and we live in those seasons.

There’ll be seed time and harvest time, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and there’ll be day and night. And these will never cease. There will be some dark nights, but there will always be sunny days coming afterwards. There will be winter, and it’ll be cold. But I promise you there will be a summer coming.

I admit I’ve been envious of people in a season of plenty, I can’t help that I am human, especially over the time when I was in a season of brokenness.

But let me tell you something about seasons of brokenness,

I guarantee you cannot be broken forever.

Seasons are controlled by God, and hopefully that can bring you some peace. Because whether it is raining, or sunshine – God is in control.

Solomon writes, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NIV)

He says to everything there is a season. Unto every purpose there is only a time under heaven. In other words, everything is seasonal. That means that no matter what you go through, it cannot last…

Seasons are important because seasons guarantee change.

Seasons give hope. Nothing remains the same in a season. Seasons are always temporary and the key to life is outlasting the season.

In other words, seasons are always moving, and never respond permanently to a temporary problem.

This is very important because when you are in a dark moment, sometimes you think that that’s a permanent situation.

But never make a permanent decision to try and solve a temporary problem.

Its what happens in divorce, in relationships, when you go through a very tough moment.

You’ve got a choice.

Am I going to make a permanent decision at this point? Or am I going to outlast this season and make it through this dark moment?

It happens with friendships. With jobs. With relationships. It happens in business. Sometimes you want to quit because life is so tough…

But everything is seasonal and that’s the encouragement of our life. God never wants your circumstances to destroy you. A storm is a reality, but He never wants your circumstance to trump His word. And he doesn’t want your circumstance to trump his presence.

Remember, He’s on the boat too.

You can see this in the Gospel of Matthew:

“The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” 

Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.”

(Matthew 8: 25-26 NIV)

Jesus speaks to the problem, and when He speaks to the problem there is a change in the circumstances.

Trials, as inconvenient and as painful as they are, are a journey of discovery. I know this to be true. And no matter what you’re going through, there is a promise in the word of God that will match with the storm.

How many storms does His word cover?

All of them.

Storms are natural & storms are temporary.

There’s no permanent hurricane.
There’s no permanent earthquake.
There’s no permanent tsunami.
There’s no permanent cyclone.

They’re all temporary.

Storms confirm how strong you are. No matter how much faith you claim you’ve got – storms will test whether you’ve really got it or not.

Think of the Word of God as our anchor. Our anchor is immovable. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t change. It anchors us to the solid rock of Christ.

He’s with me wherever I am in the storm. And He has the power to bring me through the storm.

Jesus is the anchor.

Everybody will face storms.

You’re not going to be remembered in life for what you avoided. You are remembered for you what you survived.

How do we know David? Goliath.
How do we know Jacob? Wrestling with God.
How do we know Moses? 40 years in the desert.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (JOHN 16:33 NIV)

Again, you’re not known by the valleys and rivers you avoided, its the valleys and rivers you’ve crossed.

How would you like to go on the seas with a sailor who had never been on troubled waters?

“A calm sea never produced a good sailor.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

If you’re going to have a good life, it means you’re going to go through some stuff. But the purpose of that stuff isn’t to harm you – God either allows it or causes it – all for a purpose. And that purpose is to grow you.

At some point you’ve got to know the testing of your faith. The Apostle James says it best,

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

(James 1:2-4 NIV)

That right there.

And James says have pure joy when those storms come! Because you know that the storm is going to leave you a better person, a stronger person, and with more stable perseverance.
In other words, don’t run from the storm. Stay in the storm until perseverance completes its work.

A storm can wash you up on the shore or it can equip you to be a true servant of God, it’s all about how you respond.

And our response is determined by a number of things, one of which is our view of God & how we see Him.

Do you see Him as a vengeful God exacting punishment on his creations for their sins? or do you see Him as a God of love? And compassion. And kindness. And forgiveness. And purpose?

Big difference.

How do you see him? How do you picture God?

That is when you think about God and know that you are His and you’ve been saved.

Is He on your side or is He on the side of something else?

Do you see Him behind these storms with anger or punishment? Or do you see him as an awesome loving God sending into your life something that you don’t like, something even terrible but that He knows is best for you?

How do you see Him?

Paul writes to the church at Corinth,

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Cor 10:13 – ESV)

When the storm comes, He will not allow you to be tested beyond what you can bear. So, if He allows it – He trusts you.

To put it plainly, a storm is a message from God about what He thinks about you. And if you lost your home, God says you can handle a lost home.

Why?

Because He’s got another one coming that’s bigger than that.
A lost relationship? He’s got one coming that’s better than that.

A lost job? Same answer.

in other words, every storm that comes is God saying to you:

Go my child. You can handle this.

I wouldn’t allow it if you couldn’t handle it.

That means if that storm comes, you’ve already got what it takes to overcome it. So sometimes what appears to be storms in our life – may in fact be a storm. But the question is, what’s God doing in the storm?

Whatever your storm is, God is there. He is at work. He’s at work in the storm, and He is up to something good in every single storm –

Trust in Him.

Headlines

I think this is pretty relevant to anyone who has been through something in the past that happened to them or that they wished they could have changed or done differently. There’s a saying, ‘You can’t escape the past’ and to that I would say, ‘With God, all things are possible.’

I think the Devil’s job is to try to figure out in your life, “What can I put in big, bold letters across the top of their story that will mislead them away from their calling and away from their purpose and away from God in their life?”

I believe that if you let him, the Enemy will sit at the editor’s desk of your life, and he’ll take the facts of what happened to you and the facts of what you’ve been through, and what he’ll do is suggest ‘Maybe God doesn’t care…‘ Here’s the thing, you’re not looking for a guy with a pitchfork…

You’re looking for a guy who looks an awful lot and sounds an awful lot like you.

That’s how he does it.

If you let him, the Enemy will take everything that happened to you, and he’ll arrange it in such a way to get you to click through it. He’ll hit you with such a thought that seems so conclusive. It’s like the devil is saying, “What’s the thing I can say at the top that will keep them from reading on to find out the real story.

What can I tell them?

Maybe I can tell them that because they were abused, they’re worthless.

Maybe I can tell them that because they struggle in this one subject, that they’re learning disabled.

Maybe I can tell them because they’ve failed at relationships, they’re damaged goods.

What the devil does, is he’ll put a headline over your life. It will say, ‘I was emotionally neglected.’
So when I think of myself, I’ll think in terms of that limitation – in that one area, and I won’t be able to see that it’s just one area – and I really have gifts in other areas that can shine if I can stick with it and if I can focus on what I’m good at.

The devil doesn’t want us to see that.

It works like this, the devil just wants you to read the rest of his story instead of knowing the real story.

Maybe if he can convince you that nobody loves you, even if there are in fact many people in your life who love you, but if he can put loneliness as the headline over your life, he can keep you from ever experiencing the love that others are willing to give you.

I know this is truth, because I have lived with that headline over my own life and despite having so many wonderful people in my life who love & respect me, I’ve got a flashing neon sign overshadowing all the love that is available to me.

The devil’s semblance can keep you from God’s substance.

Maybe he can convince someone they’re an addict. Then maybe they’ll think they have no control. Then maybe they’ll think they’re not accountable for their actions because it’s just who they are, or because it’s who their dad was.

Maybe then he can convince someone that he’ll never be a good dad. Because he never had a good dad. Maybe he can take the fact that his dad walked out on him when he was 7, and if he can print that big enough and say it often enough and drop it off at his doorstep every day as a reminder, “maybe I…”

The Devil is a liar.

You don’t get to control your story, but you do get to choose your headlines. You just don’t get to select the script.

Let’s look at the story of Joseph. He wouldn’t have chosen to be thrown into a pit by his brothers when he was 17 years old. He wouldn’t have chosen to be falsely accused of rape and thrown into a prison as a reward for his service. Yet all these things happened, and all of these things were traumatic, but they were not defining.

Just because it happened doesn’t mean it has to make the headlines. The one who writes the story is not the one who chooses the headlines, and life is going to put some stuff in your story you wish you could change and things you didn’t choose.

Yet Joseph, with the rape charge, false imprisonment, and near death at the hands of his brothers,
at the end of it all, as he is publishing the proclamation of what his life has been about,
he says,

“If you were writing my story, you would have had me as a slave, but I’m not a slave.”

“If you were writing my story, you would have had me as a naive boy who didn’t know any better than to keep his dreams to himself, but I’ve changed from that.”

“If you were writing my story, and if life were writing my story, I would be a victim.“

But I refuse to let what happened to me be the headline of my life.

I refuse to let the divorce I went through define me.

I refuse to let my failed engagement define me.

I refuse to let my past struggles with depression & anxiety define me.

In other words, I’m not going to allow life to write my headlines.

Things can happen to me, but there’s a big difference between what happens to me and what I headline.

You are not the author, but you *are* the editor.

The editor doesn’t determine what the book is about.

In the same way, I don’t believe God has really called us to determine what our life is about. I think he has already given us that. I think Joseph illustrates it clearly. He says, “I was put here…” He uses a word. He says, “I was sent here to save lives.”

You need a dream to drive your decisions. You need a dream to drive you toward your destiny. What you don’t necessarily need is the details of that dream. If you trust God, you know that He will supply you with the details – not early, not late, but at exactly the time they’re needed.

Every time. God simply is that good.

The more I travel down this road I’m on (the road to Salvation) the more I realize I don’t need to completely understand the vision God gave me. I just need to trust him.

I’ve written about this before, last year He gave me a vision – of what my role would be in His kingdom, and what my finances would be, and who would be with me on that journey, etc. It was a lot for me to take in while in the middle of a very difficult season.

The story of Joseph fits all this well. Joseph was a young man when he saw a vision from God that he didn’t understand. He saw something that was beyond his ability to comprehend or even handle. He was seeing a picture of how one day, even those brothers who betrayed him, they would one day come and bow down before him.

You don’t really need to know the details. You just need to know that your dream is in development.

In a second dream Joseph sees the stars and the sun and the moon bowing down to him. This time it’s not only his brothers, but his parents who are going to be dependent on him. At the end of his life, where he’s speaking with his brothers who hated him so much that instead of leaving him for dead, they sold him into slavery.

But Joseph refused to let the Enemy be his editor.

There’s so much you can dig out of in the story of Joseph.

Why in the world would you let your Enemy be your editor?

Why would you let your doubt and your cynicism, and your negativity and your past tell you where you’re going?

You see, Joseph in the story is explaining to his brothers basically his point of view. That’s one of the things you have to decide when you write a story,

“What’s my point of view?”

Joseph is explaining to his brothers a point of view that allowed him to come to this place where he could say, “I know the story should be that they sold Joseph out, but that’s not what I’m going to call these chapters of my life.”

I know in my story what the enemy wants to call this chapter of my life, but I’m not going to let him.

That’s not my point of view.

And let me tell you, I have found since my Salvation that perspective is everything.

When Joseph is speaking to his brothers, he speaks with compassion and mercy, because he understands that he is only responsible for his response. You are not responsible for all of the events that occur in your life, only your response to those events. How will you respond?

Many people have come from broken households. Your parents’ divorce is not your fault.

The Devil is a liar.

If he has been telling you that, kick him off the editor’s desk and tell him, “I refuse to see it that way. That’s the wrong lens. That can’t be true. That’s not God.”

Ask yourself that question too, when you are unsure, when you are conflicted, and if the answer is “That’s not God” then you’ve got your answer. Its amazing how many problems in life can be solved with that simple statement.

“That’s not God.“

In Genesis 45:4, Joseph says, “You sold me.” In Genesis 45:5, He says, “God sent me.”

Same event, different headline.

The headline you choose about your life’s experiences determines whether you stay stuck in what happened, or if you move forward to where you’re headed. I no longer write my headlines about what happened; I write my headlines based on where I’m headed.

See that’s why it’s called a headline, because I’m headed somewhere.

I have a dream, and I’m going towards it.

Preface:

Jacob Wrestles with God

²² That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³ After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. ²⁴ So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. ²⁵ When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. ²⁶ Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷ The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

²⁸ Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

²⁹ Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

³⁰ So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

³¹ The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. ³² Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

(GENESIS 32:22-32 NIV)

Messy Discipleship

There are several men in the Bible that I identify with – Job being the first, for having lived a life of tremendous loss & suffering, yet through all of it he never gave up on his faith in God.

I have JOB 13:15 tattooed on my shoulder, along with the image of a phoenix and two crossed olive branches below it.

Job’s life feels like my life. I long for the day I have someone to build a future and a family with – where we share in the joy of worshiping God & building a life that has meaning & purpose.

The second would be Jonah – Like him, I’ve tried to run from God’s pronouncement in my life so many times at this point, and it always ends the same – I come back from the consequences of trying to abandon God’s will in my life. I have the outline of a whale tattooed on my left ankle. Let me say this from personal experience – When God has called you, it is not optional for you to answer Him. It is a command.

If you have been called, then God’s will in your life and His purpose for you are non-negotiable and it will absolutely happen whether you are on board with it or not. I have learned this the hard way, unfortunately. When He calls you, you better listen. Or possibly end up like Jonah.

That brings me to Jacob.

Its his story I am exploring in the book “Limping with God” by Chad Bird. Jacob is a fascinating, complicated, and broken individual – He was a liar, a trickster, a selfishly ambitious man who fathered children with four women and led a dysfunctional family life. And in that amazing passage above, Jacob even fought with God…

Jacob also happened to be the one called by God to be the forefather of the God’s nation – Israel.

Why would God choose such a reprehensible person such as Jacob to found His nation? On a personal level why would God choose me? I certainly haven’t been called to found a nation. But we all have a place in God’s kingdom. We are, afterall, His children.

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I suspect it has to do with the fact God loves to demonstrate His power and His glory (and His grace) through those who are the most broken and who are the weakest.

I wasn’t aware of Jacob’s story until a few days ago – I have only been studying the bible for about a year. I’m very fortunate (and blessed) but I certainly don’t know the Bible well, so Jacob’s story is a bit of a surprise for me.

So much of Jacob’s character is my own, pre-salvation & even post-salvation. I’ve indeed fought with God many times. I used to shout at God, “Why did you make me this way?” and even worse in my lowest moments.

I am human. But He is divine.

What I have found though, is that only when I have been absolutely broken by God, like Jacob, do I relent and accept his will.

All things are possible though Him.

If there’s any comfort for me to be found, it’s knowing that I’m not the only one to have acted in such a stubborn manner.

God often calls the most sinful, reprehensible, scoundrels of men – to do His greatest work. Moses was a murderer. Jacob wrestled with God. Jonah ran from God. David commits adultery with Bathsheba. And so on.

Even after Jonah delivered God’s message of mercy to the Ninevites, afterwards he called God’s decision “ra’ah” which translates to evil in Hebrew.

Considering the incredible pain & hardship I’ve been through, at least I can say that my faith & my belief in God is real. I may not like the present circumstances, but I refuse to believe even for a second that He will not eventually one day say to me, ‘The time has come my son.’

Here’s a pretty interesting fact for me – I have for at least the last 9 months (of the 13 since my salvation) walked with a limp. My number one way of dealing with stress and anxiety in my life is running – And for reasons only known to God, I have had that taken away from me for almost the entire period of my salvation due to multiple injuries to my left leg. A torn Achilles, a high ankle sprain, then a fractured tibia.

All of my coping mechanisms have been taken from me during the toughest time of my life – and I have walked with a limp since. Maybe what God is really saying is, ‘rely on me’. ‘I AM all you need.’

I can identify with this guy Jacob.

“Put God first in everything you do. Everything that you think you see in me. Everything that I’ve accomplished, everything that you think I have – and I have a few things. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. Understand that. It’s a gift.” 

-Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington’s Commencement Speech, Dillard University, 2015

Let me take this moment to wholeheartedly congratulate each and every one of you, today. You graduated. You did it. You made it. Congratulation to you. And you did it all by yourself, nobody helped you.

No…that’s not – that’s what you know – that’s what I thought when I was young, I started to really make it as an actor. I came in, I talked to my mother, I said ‘Ma, did you think that this was going to happen, I’d be so big and I’ll be able to take care of everybody and I can do this and I can do that.’

And she said, ‘Boy, stop it right there. Stop it right there. Stop it right there’.

She said, “If you only knew, how many people they have been praying for you. How many prayer groups she put together, how many prayer clothes she gave me, how many times she splashed me with holy water to save my sorry behind,” as she said it.

She said, Oh, you did it all by yourself, I’ll tell you what you can do by yourself: You can go outside and get a mop and bucket and wash them windows – you can do that by yourself, superstar.

So, I’m saying that to say ‘I want to congratulate all the parents and friends and family and aunties and uncles and grandmother and grandfathers, and teachers and, friends and enemies — all the people that helped you to get where you are today, congratulations to you all.’

I’m going to tell about two to three stories. I’m going to keep it really short. I remember my graduation speaker, got up there and went on forever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, I’m going to keep it short.

NUMBER ONE: PUT GOD FIRST.

Put God first in everything you do. Everything that you think you see in me. Everything that I’ve accomplished, everything that you think I have – and I have a few things. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. Understand that. It’s a gift.

Forty years ago, March 27, 1975 – it was 40 years ago just this past March, I was flunking out of college. I had a 1.7 grade point average; I hope none of you can relate.

I had a 1.7 grade point average; I was sitting in my mother’s beauty shop. They still call the beauty shop now, what they call it? Yeah, and I was sitting in a beauty parlor. I was sitting in my mother’s beauty parlor.

And I’m looking in the mirror and I see behind me this woman under the dryer and every time she looked up –every time I looked up she was looking at me. She was looking me in the eye, I don’t know who she was and I said you know, she said somebody give me a pen, give me a pencil, I have a prophecy.

March 27, 1975, she said, “Boy, you are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people.”

Now mind you I flunked out of college. I’m thinking about joining the army. I didn’t know what I was going to go and she is telling me I’m going to travel the world and speak to millions of people.

Well, I have traveled the world. And I have spoken to millions of people, but that’s not the most important thing – the success that I had. The most important thing is that what she taught me, and what she told me that day has stayed with me since.

I’ve been protected, I’ve been directed, I’ve been corrected. I’ve kept God in my life, and it’s kept me humble. I didn’t always stick with Him but he always stuck with me.

So, stick with Him, in everything you do, if you think you want to do, what you think I’ve done, then do what I’ve done.

And stick with God.

NUMBER TWO: FAIL BIG.

That’s right. Fail big. Today is the beginning of the rest of your life and you can be just – it’s going to be very frightening. And it’s a new world out there, it’s a mean world out there. And you only live once, so do what you feel passionate about, passionate about.

Take chances professionally, don’t be afraid to fail, there is an old IQ test that was nine dots and you had to draw five lines with the pencil within these nine dots without lifting the pencil.

The only way to do it was to go outside the box. So don’t be afraid to go outside the box. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to fail big, to dream big. But remember, dreams without goals, are just dreams. And they ultimately fuel disappointment.

So have dreams, but have goals — life goals, yearly goals, monthly goals, daily goals. I try to give myself a goal every day, sometimes just to not curse somebody out. Simple goals but have goals.

And understand that to achieve these goals, you must apply discipline and consistency. In order to achieve your goals, you must apply discipline which you’ve already done, and consistency every day, not just one Tuesday and just a two days, you have to work at it.

Every day you have to plan, every day you heard the saying, we don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan. Hard work works. Working really hard is what successful people do. And in this text tweet, twerk world that you’ve grown up in, remember just because you’re doing a lot more doesn’t mean you’re getting a lot more done.

Remember that. Just because you’re doing a lot more, doesn’t mean you’re getting a lot more done.

Don’t confuse movement with progress.

My mother told me, she said ‘Yeah, because you can run and play all the time and never get anywhere.’ So continue to strive, continue to have goals, continue to progress.

NUMBER THREE: YOU’LL NEVER SEE A U-HAUL BEHIND A HEARSE.

I’ll say it again, you’ll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. I don’t care how much money you make; you can’t take it with you. The Egyptians tried it, they got robbed. That’s all they got.

You can’t take it with you.

And it’s not how much you have – it’s what you do, with what you have. We all have different talents, some of you’ll be doctors, some lawyers, some scientists, some educators, some nurses, some teachers. Yeah, okay. Some preachers.

The most selfish thing you can do in this world is help someone else.

Why is this selfish? Because the gratification, the goodness that comes to you, the good feeling, the good feeling that I get from helping others – nothing’s better than that.

Well one of two things but, nothing’s better than that – not jewelry, not the big house I have, not big cars, but it’s the joy; that’s where the joy is, in helping others.

That’s where the success is, in helping others.

Finally, I pray that you put your slippers way under the bed tonight, so that when you wake up in the morning, you have to get on your knees to reach them.

And while you’re down there, say thank you for grace, thank you for mercy, thank you for understanding, thank you for wisdom, thank you for parents, thank you for love, thank you for kindness, thank you for humility, thank you for peace, thank you for prosperity.

Say ‘thank you’ in advance for what’s already yours.

So that’s how I live my life, that’s why – one of the reasons where I am today.

Say thank you in advance for what is already yours.

True desire in the heart for anything good is God’s proof to you sent beforehand to indicate that it’s yours already.

I’ll say it again.

True desire in the heart, that itch that you have, whatever it is you want to do, that thing that you want to do to help others and to grow and to make money, that desire, that itch, that’s God’s proof to you, sent beforehand, already to indicate that it’s yours.

And anything you want good you can have, so claim it, work hard to get it. When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up, each one, teach one.

Don’t just aspire to make a living. Aspire to make a difference.