Food

Eight weeks ago I started experiencing a significant measure of pain in my left chest/shoulder area.  It turns out after seeing the doctor, that the broken collar bone and separated AC joint (football injuries from back in the day when we wore leather helmets) had severely compromised my sterno-clavicular joint.  Bottom line: the joint where my collarbone joins my sternum is messed up and I’m now pretty limited as to what I can do without irritating it.

I typically do some kind of intense “crossfit” type of workout at least four times a week – mostly to help slow down the aging process on my almost 50 year old body so I can keep up with my 9 and 11 year old boys.  Additionally, it helps me keep from dieing when I hike with my buddies in the Chugach.

What’s surprised me these past two months is how the more I get out of shape, the worse I’m eating.  As much I like to work out and stay in shape, I’m also normally a very healthy eater.  I don’t eat fast food or junk food and I eat in moderation.

This past weekend I realized I was out of control . . . eating myself into oblivion.  Compulsive.  Beyond full.  Sugar. Salt. Carbs.  Any time of day.

At first the correlation didn’t make sense to me.  What would cause me to eat healthier when I’m feeling good and getting lots of exercise and eat worse when I'm feeling so lousy?

I was using food to medicate myself . . . to feel better.  But like any addictive behavior, the crash always left me in greater need of “medicine.”  So today I’m at the end of day two of a fast, exposing how I can use food and how I can use ANYTHING (my phone, TV, exercise, food, sex, computer) to keep me from facing life on life’s terms.


If I see my life I will feel my life.  If I feel my life, I will find myself in need.  And if I find myself in need, I'll end up in surrender.  Otherwise, I am an addict looking for an addiction, an idolator looking for idols.


This was a new one for me . . . or at least the realization of it is new.

Sad.  Lonely.  Hurt.  Fear.  Angry.  Shame.  Guilt.  Glad.

A Pre-Easter Prayer

Shame. Guilt.  Glad. Lonely. Sad.


I tend to want resurrection without death.
I want growth without pain.
I want to live without dying.


Dear Lord Jesus,


You, "the image of the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for whom all things are created, everything visible and everything invisible," You, Christ Jesus, hung upon a cross and died for us.


Today we look squarely at the cross. The soldiers, who have broken the legs of the two men crucified with you, do not break your legs. But we see your heart is broken; the heart that did not know any hatred, revenge, resentment, pride, greed, bitterness, or envy but only love.  Your broken heart is the source of our salvation, the foundation of our hope, the cause of our love.


There on that cross all suffering has been suffered,
     all our anguish lived,
     all our loneliness endured,
     all our abandonment felt,
     and all our agony cried out.


There, human and divine love embraced.


There, God and all humanity reconciled.


There, all the tears of the human race have been cried.


There, all pain understood and all despair touched.


There, your body was broken and your blood shed, so that we might be forgiven and made whole.


As we look upon the cross, let our eyes recognize the anguish and agony of all the people for whom you gave yourself.  Save us from hardness of heart. We confess our sin, our own pride, our own disobedience to you, and we pray to receive your overflowing love.  May we never forget that you were pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  And only by your wounds we are healed.


We pray in the compassionate name of Jesus.
Amen.

Re-Calling

My friend Brandon Thomas (dude has been a huge encouragement to me since our lives providentially intersected) asked me to blog about "calling."  I shared this with him for his blog last week.

Glad Sad Fear Anger

I’d sensed for several months I was in some kind of “transition.”  I prayed.  I wrote in my journal.  I listened for the voice of God.  I sought the prayers and counsel of godly men and women who have known me for a long time.  I waited.

The following is from a letter I wrote to a handful of close friends:

“I need your help.  As I consider what the Lord has done in my life and I try to be objective as to where he might be leading me to invest the next years of my life, I keep coming back to this track record with “men” and the fruit that God seems to bring forth when I step into these arenas of ministry.  And while doors are open to me to serve in the church through broader leadership roles like I have in the past, I’m asking God to confirm in me that this narrowing of focus is what He is calling me to -- and if it is, what this needs to look like in the short term with an eye towards the longer term.

Will you take some time over the next couple of weeks to pray for me? Ask God to affirm or confirm some of this in my life? I don’t know what to expect and don’t have anything specific in my mind.  I’m just open and I am asking.

God has been clear to me in the past and I am expecting to hear from him now.  I also know that He can speak to me through the support and counsel of friends like you who have known me for a long time and watched God at work in me and through me not in spite of my limp but even through it.

Will you pray for me?  Will you ask God for insight you could give me?  Will you respond back to me with any promptings He might give you in the days ahead?”

When I wrote to these friends I really was “open” and their feedback affirmed what God was showing me privately.

The last time I was in a transition like this, I prayed and waited for God to show me what He wanted me to do.  Once I knew the PLAN, my PURPOSE (or mission) became accomplishing that plan and I became PASSIONATE about the purpose of accomplishing it. 

The problem with this backwards approach of. . .

 PLAN   PURPOSE   PASSION

. . . was that over time, so much became about accomplishing the plan.  My worth was tied up in the plan.  Other people became a subtle means of accomplishing the plan.  And the virtue of the plan blinded me to how my drivenness was hurting me and hurting others (even those I loved).  Regretfully, my passion was as much about the plan as it was the God who had led me to give my life to it.

Exhausting and misguided. 

This time I wanted to do it differently.

PASSION   PURPOSE    PLAN

I started with PASSION.  What did I really care about?  Where did I gain energy?  Where did I see the most significant fruit? As I looked into the rear view mirror of the previous twenty-five years of my life and ministry, regardless of the setting (whether on staff with Athletes in Action, FamilyLife, as a student in seminary, a church planter and church leader in Tennessee and more recently Alaska), engaging with men had been the common theme – and the place where I’d experienced God producing the most significant and lasting fruit in others and the greatest satisfaction internally for me. 

The past is not always an indicator of the future, but like points on a map that trend a particular direction, sometimes looking over your shoulder can give you insight into your future.  Additionally, it’s often the wounds from our past that open the door to our deepest passions (another blog for another time).

Clear in heart regarding my PASSION, I would look for my PURPOSE in a willing surrender to that passion.  And move forward trusting God with what that PLAN would or could become.

Lots of fear.  I didn’t know what I was going to do.  Lots of trust.  God, you have a plan.  Little control.  I didn’t know what tomorrow was going to look like . . . including how I would support my family through it all.

I’ve taken steps of faith like this before, but this time it felt and still feels different.  I have little need to prove myself and lots of freedom to be who God made me to be and share what God is showing me and allowing me to experience with Him.  I’m more passionate than I’ve ever been but more passionate about people and living with an open hand re: the plan.

Two years ago, even before I knew this transition was coming, I penned the following personal mission statement:  To motivate, encourage, and equip leaders . . . specifically focused on unleashing men who see the greatness of their need and the greater sufficiency of the Gospel. 

For the past two years, that’s what I’ve been doing . . .  helping leaders become who they were made to be so they can do what they were made to do.

Love is Love

Sad Lonely Glad

My 16 year old daughter Jessica came home with a school assignment for her parents to write about a memory of her when she was younger. Brenda wrote the following and I cried when I read it.  Sad and lonely about years we cannot have back.  Glad about the woman my daughter Jessica is becoming.   Brenda gave me permission to share it here.  

When Jessica was real young, I found a cute little stuffed animal at a garage sale.  It was a little white kitty with a pink nose, a pink ribbon, and some pink thread that formed a little mouth. I had never seen anything like it before. She was not new, but still had plenty of life in her.  The most special thing about her was that when you moved her slightly or hugged her close, you could hear a little purr.  I bought it for a dime and gave it to Jessica. 

Jessica LOVED this little kitty and they were never far apart.  Some 2 year olds suck their thumbs or drag around a blankie, but Jessica had her little white kitty that she affectionately named, Tickles.  You always knew when Jessica was coming, because you could hear the little purring that was coming with her.

My early mornings were met not with the sounds of a pitter-patter of small feet, for Jessica would approach so very quietly, but the sound of a soft purring as together, Jessica and Tickles, would climb up into bed to cuddle before the day began.

It was not long before Tickles began to show the ware of being loved well, similar to the Velveteen Rabbit.  So I was elated when, while I was shopping at Target, I spotted a "new Tickles".  I couldn't believe my eyes . . . it was her, but with a full, clean body of fur and a loud, strong purr when she was tousled.  Jessica's 3rd birthday was fast approaching so I bought the brand new kitty.

Her birthday arrived and I gave my gift last.  Jessica was very surprised with the gift and in her sensitive and sweet way thanked me with a hug.  As a few days passed, it became very clear that Jessica was not enamored or impressed with the full, clean body of fur and the loud, strong purr of the new white kitty.  She loved Tickles and no new kitty was going to replace her.  

Love is love.

Many years have passed since that time.  Tickles is so fragile now, looking so thin and frail and spends her time in a safe place. Jessica enters a room alone now, but really not alone.  Her heart is tender and has great capacity for loving and being loved.  She is still not enamored or impressed by the outside trappings of others, but accepts and loves people the way they are.

Love is love. 

Death on a Mountain

Sad.  Lonely.


Dr. Mills was quiet but friendly.  On Thursday nights he was always the one who brought his 11 year old son Isaiah to flag football practice.  Most parents drop off their kids and come back an hour later to pick them up when practice is over.  Standing over in the corner of the gym wearing a baseball cap, Dr. Mills would always stay to watch the whole practice.


Isaiah is the best player on our team.  He's also the most fun to coach; not even so much because he's such a gifted athlete, but because he has such a great attitude.  Honestly, I love this kid and I've loved coaching him.  I love encouraging him.  I love teaching him.  I love looking him in the eye and seeing him smile.


Last night we got crushed.  I was physically at the game but I was not there.  Isaiah was not there either.  


Last week Isaiah and his father were skiing when Dr. Mills flew off the backside of an icy slope, suffered severe multiple injuries, and bled to death on the mountain.  The ski patrol resuscitated him but brain function was gone.  On Tuesday, Dr. Mills (Isaiah's dad) passed away.


http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/03/18/1590902/local-orthopedic-surgeon-physician.html

Isaiah's life is forever changed.  His dad is gone and won't be coming back.  Isaiah will come to practice next week and there won't be a man standing in the corner of the gym delighting in him, driving home with him, sitting next to him in the car, and later tucking him into bed.


Isaiah is about to walk into the most life defining yet emotionally and physically turbulent years of his young life without his dad to walk the journey with him.  


The sadness and loneliness of this truth is overwhelming to me today as I write this. There will be teachers who take an interest in Isaiah. There will be coaches like me who take the initiative in his life.  There will be relatives who will seek to fill the vacuum that was created on that mountainside last week.  But no one will fill it.  Not like a dad can.


I'm sad today. And lonely . . . remembering back to what it was like growing up without my dad.  Praying for Isaiah and wondering how his life will be different now.

Called to Nashville

Sad Lonely Hurt Shame Glad

Lots of reflecting today.  Fourteen years ago I loaded up my wife (who had just given birth ten days earlier to our fourth child) and  drove a U-Haul truck  to a community where I knew one other couple . . . to start a church.

I was deathly afraid, but I knew God had called me to this. A year prior, God had spoken as clearly to me about this as He had anything else in my life.  I asked my best friend at the time if he would come with me to do it.  It took him a month to decide, but he said yes.

Over the next couple of years, I mostly remember long drives by myself in my 1986 Jeep Cherokee.  Sometimes I would drive for hours through Brentwood, Franklin, and surrounding areas praying, dreaming, and seeing.  “God show me what you want to do here and how and where You want to do it.”  I remember being so alone with so many of my thoughts and dreams about this church God had called me to plant.  I knew I was writing blank checks only God Himself could cash.

It was a WILD adventure with some unbelievable highs and unbelievable gut wrenching lows.  Some of my greatest joys in life and some of my deepest hurts. 

I look back now with much gratefulness for what God showed me through that season in my life. I am grateful for what He did in me and what I saw Him do in the lives of others.  But I am mostly grateful for friendships tested by fire that survived, deepened, flowered, and still enrich me today.

Fourteen years was a lifetime ago.  But I remember the beginning of the journey in that U-Haul truck like it was yesterday.

Sitting the Bench

Fear Sad Lonely Shame

I don’t know what made that so hard?

Last week I had to institute the death penalty equivalent for one of my boys.  He could attend his flag football practice but could not practice.  He could attend his game on Friday night but could not play.

Getting through the practice was not as big a deal to me although it was to him.  The game on Friday was a different story.  I was surprised by the battle that waged inside of me as I had to remind myself at least 100 times, “Follow through Dad.”  “Follow through!”

My little guy is good. Fun to watch.  A natural athlete.  I’ve been around athletics all my life at all levels and I know I’m seeing.  Some kids are good because they play hard.  Some kids are good because they’ve mastered some skills.  Some kids are good because God made them that way. 

God made him this way.

My son also loves to play . . . almost to a cellular level it seems . . . which is part of what makes him such a delight to watch.  I get a smile on my face just watching him run.  Watching him be who he was made to be.

It wasn’t easy for me to see him standing on the sidelines last night.  I wanted to see him enjoying himself. I wanted to see him smile that smile that makes the rest of his face disappear.  But I kept him on the sidelines for a game because I love him. 

I’ve got a Father who loves me too.  I imagine to Him, I must be fun to watch.  I’m good at some things because I work hard and some things because I’ve mastered some skills.  I’m good at some things because He made me that way.

I “get” what my Father is likely feeling when He sees me play.  Last night, I was thinking more about how He might be feeling when He has to sit me on the sidelines because He loves me.

Dog Sled Racing

Glad Angry Lonely and more Glad


Four years ago when what took me to Tennessee was no longer keeping me in Tennessee, I remember thinking, "If we're going to move, let's take our kids on an adventure."  Part of what attracted me to Alaska was a longing to give my kids an experience I knew they would carry with them for the rest of their lives.   


I could write 100 blogs about this (and likely will) and how grateful I am for the gift this place has been to me personally and to my whole family.


I was thinking about this Saturday afternoon when on the spur of the moment, I grabbed my two youngest and we headed downtown to take in the dog sled races.

This past weekend was Fur Rondy, a three day festival in Anchorage that dates back to the 1930's when the population of Anchorage was less than 3000 people . . . and made up mostly of trappers and gold miners.  


"Where else," I said to my boys, "can you go to see dog sled races in the middle of downtown?"

http://www.furrondy.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=205&Itemid=28

4th Avenue Downtown Anchorage

Drew and David got as close to the action as they could before a cop asked them to step back.

If you look closely, the lead dog on this team gets a little distracted by my boys.

Ice sculpture contest at Ship Creek.

Climbing mountains of snow . . . second best part of the day.

Free Hot Chocolate at the Solstice Cafe . . . best part of the day.

A Horse Tale

Glad Sad Fear Lonely  Hurt  Anger

What is it about the longshot?  I just finished watching “Secretariat.” 

I knew Secretariat was going to win.  I did.  I was eleven years old when he did it for real, so I knew how the movie was going to end before I even pressed play to start watching it.

But when that beautiful big auburn horse broke away from the rest of the pack at the Belmont Stakes, I lost it.  I lost it and I didn’t hold back.  I hit rewind three times and my tears didn't stop.

What is it about the story of an underdog?  What is it about a story like this that grabs me so deeply, squeezes my heart, and wrings it out?

It’s not about a horse. 

When my dad walked out on my family to find greener pastures (not once but twice) when I was three years old and then again for good when I was five, in the hidden places of my heart I started asking a question that contradicted everything I was born to believe about myself and everything I would later learn was true of me because God said it was true. 

And for the next 40 years I doubted that when God made me, He made me of the right stuff.  Fallen . . . but still valuable, beautiful, delightful, wanted, and loved.  So much so that if my life was a movie about a horse, I’d be one who SOMEONE would bet the farm to keep!  Six million? No.  Seven million? No. Eight million?  NO!

My wife told me.  A few friends told me. But I didn’t believe them, evidenced by the internal motor that was always running to make sure I could do enough and be enough to prove I was a deserving object of their affection.  Instead I believed my dad and the few who joined his chorus in the "greener" pastures.

In the movie, Eddie Sweat (the man who spent more time with Secretariat than any other human being) said, “This is the only horse I’ve even known who seems to care who his owner is.” 

Until I knew who my owner was and was convinced that He would (and did) bet the farm for me, I did not have the ears to hear or the heart to believe anyone else.  Ironically, this truth found it’s deepest root in me at a time in my life when I felt the least deserving, the least valuable, the least beautiful, the least delightful, the least wanted, the least loved.

It’s not about a horse at all.

Get in Gear

Glad Fear Shame

Last week I flew in to a small town in XXXXXXX and was picked up to be driven to an even smaller town in a province near the XXXXXX border.

Two lane roads (1 1/2 really).  Dirty.  Potholes.  Garbage and stagnant water in roadside ditches. Hot compared to Alaska but not unpleasant.  When we started to pull out of the airport parking lot, the truck would not go into gear.  Our driver said, “I’ve had this truck for six years and never had a problem like this!”  I could see he was feeling some pressure since a breakdown afforded us few good options.  It was late enough in the day that we’d not be able to get help and we were scheduled for some meetings later that evening.

We put the standard shift pickup into neutral, managed to get it rolling forward, and jammed it into gear.  First gear, but at least we were in gear.  We just couldn’t shift or stop again for the remainder of the 90 minute drive (now sure to be twice that long) because the clutch was worthless or something was terribly wrong with the transmission.

Fifteen minutes later the truck slipped out of gear and once again our driver was apologizing to us all the while carrying on a tense conversation with the truck.  Frustrated.  There was nothing we could do except slowly coast to the side of the road.  Quietly, I heard Al from the back seat, “Lord, please put this truck in gear” and before he could get the word "gear" out of his mouth, the truck popped into gear and I finished his sentence without a pause,   “ . . . like you just did.”

Thirty minutes later we were passing through a small town and had to take the truck out of gear for a traffic light.  When the light turned green, we were stranded again as the car would not move. We sat for several long minutes in the middle of traffic as our driver pushed, pumped, and tried to jam the truck into gear.  Again from the back seat I heard Al pray just loud enough for us to hear him, “Lord please put this truck in gear” and before he finished saying "gear," the truck popped into gear and I finished Al’s sentence prayer without a pause, “ . . . just like that!”

Al’s next words to us were, ”You have not because you ask not.” 

I know God does not always work that way. But he did work that way . . . on that particular day.  Those first moments of our trip set the stage for prayers prayed later in the week that were of much greater significance and consequence.

Where am I? Glad to be reminded that God hears me and cares about my life, even the little things. Sometimes I pray because I think I’m supposed to pray and not because I think God will REALLY do anything.  Fear (I am afraid most of the time which is why I need God all the time).  Shame that I live with such an illusion of self-sufficiency.