Kevin E. Beasley's Blog

A life full of true adventure is what we long for! A life that can be told like a great story. That desire sits at the core of our heart and reaches to escape the mundane life of the status quo.

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A Heart for Adventure

Any observer of people would agree that one of humanities deepest longings is to be part of a story bigger than themselves.  It’ s a desire to be carried away by an adventure that has an ending where the hero wins and the enemy is defeated and the world lives happily ever after. That desire just sits deep in our hearts and nags at us when everything else is quiet.

Our spouses long for it. Our children create their own stories reaching for it. The people around us look for it. We try to build careers around it. And if we find ourselves at a loss for that story, what we have actually lost is our heart. Our heart that at it’s core, before the cares of life steal it away, is full of adventure. Watch the children around you!

And as I sat hanging off the side of that mountain after three earlier trips to the Alaskan Bush thinking that I had lived out that story and the rest of life was just a retelling of the adventures I had already experienced, I heard a voice speaking deep down inside me that whispered, “It is not over, it has only just begun.”

“People are not like numbers. They are more like letters. And letters want to become stories and stories are to be shared.” – Extremely Close Incredibly Loud the Movie

The Adventure is not over.

I’m here to tell you that  your adventure story is not over. You have not seen your best days. If you will welcome the adventure, count the cost and get out of your seat and take action, you will find the only life worth living, the life of adventure.

Adventure is about what we do; not about what we plan, not about what we strategize or dream about. Adventure begins with your own personal “What ifs and Why nots.”

Helen Keller, who faced more obstacles in her life than any of us reading this article can imagine, said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable…” Strength Undefeatable… Strength Undefeatable!

Adventure: High Risk – Great Reward

A couple years ago, we had a picture hanging in our living room that read: “It costs nothing to dream and everything not to.” I loved that picture. I would sit and stare at it for hours. And it cost me nothing to do so. One night I was sitting in my man-chair thinking about it when I decided that it was a half truth. It’s true it cost nothing to dream, just like me sitting in that La-Z-Boy daydreaming about dreaming. But when it’s time to get my butt off that recliner, it may very well cost me everything! If you pursue what you feel compelled to do with your life, it may cost everything.

And with all honesty, we have to make that choice between the payoff of a comfortable life where all is well and we live the same story everyone around us is living having the same  impact everyone else is having, or we can choose to pay the price of a life of true adventure where the risks are high, but the reward is great.

So it’s time to ask yourself on a deep level, What if….   Why not…. Do it now. Schedule time off and dig deep. Get out of your comfortable brown leather recliner and follow. Once you live a better story and step through the doorways of “what ifs” and “why nots,” you will never go back to the safety of a life void of adventure. I promise!

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Paradigms.

They stick to us like that glue that comes with packaged toys that you pull off one finger just to find it stuck to another. The more you try to discard it, the more it seems to hang on for its life. That’s how paradigms work, they just don’t want to die or be replaced. Paradigms are necessary storage spaces for our beliefs and attitudes, but they can also blind us and take away promise and hope for something better. When I accept my paradigms as the only way of life, not only I suffer, but also those around me.

Paradigm Shifts.

They are uncomfortable, even painful at times. I hang on to my paradigms because they work for me. They are the canvas upon which I paint my life and I like their colors. I may have a clue that they are unhealthy and damaging, but I do not want to move from my comfort zone to the place of the unknown, so I just live in my paradigms. They are not necessarily world-views and they are not even Biblical. I have simply found a way to make them work for me. I get anxious when someone challenges them, but paradigm shifts can be tremendously liberating if I move from unhealthy to life-giving actions and attitudes.

Jesus.

He was the ultimate paradigm shift. He came to change minds!

The Zanders are certainly not Jesus, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not even sure if they follow Him. However, they succeeded in shifting my personal paradigms as I read the book they authored called “The Art of Possibility”.

As I read, I was forced to think. Some of their philosophies I sifted out because they were beyond my beliefs about God and people. But most of them began the deep work of shifting the way I live out and experience my world-view and faith, especially regarding other people.

The book is built upon 12 practices. I will briefly review them here and then encourage you to dig deeper by reading the book.

1.) It’s All Invented

How we view life and opportunity is determined by our attitude toward circumstances. Therefore, every opportunity is either stifled or embraced. Therefore, we have the responsibility to “invent” our opportunities.

How to Practice “it’s all invented” (page 15)

Ask

What assumption am I making,

That I’m not aware I’m making,

That gives me what I see?

After you have an answer, Ask

What might I now invent,

That I haven’t yet invented,

That would give me other choices?

2.) Stepping Into a Universe of Possibility

Possibility is a universe we step into when we step out of the universe of the world of measurement.

“Let us suppose, now, that a universe of possibility stretches beyond the world of measurement to include all worlds: infinite, generative, and abundant. Unimpeded on a daily basis by the concern for survival, free from the generalized assumption of scarcity, a person stands in the great space of possibility in a posture of openness, with an unfettered imagination for what can be.” (page 19)

3.) Giving an A

How would people react, respond and perform if we gave them an A up front and allowed them to either live up to the A or reject our early assumption? In a world of measurement, we try to make people earn their grade, but in a world of possibility, we allow them to live into an A+.

4.) Being a Contribution

In a world of possibility… “absent are the familiar measurements of progress. Instead, life is revealed as a place to contribute and we as contributors. Not because we have done a measurable amount of good, but because that is the story we tell.” (page 56)

5.) Leading from Any Chair

Not only are we responsible to lead wherever we find ourselves, but as leaders we are responsible to give others the opportunity to contribute as “silent conductors”. A team is not simply as good as it’s leader, although that is important. A team is as good as it’s silent leaders… those who lead from wherever they find themselves in an organization.

Every leaders should ask himself when most frustrated with the performance of his team, “Who am I being that they are not shining?”

6.) Rule Number 6

Lighten up! We are only here for a short time and why should we spend it refusing to laugh at ourselves? In the midst of tight tension, one of the most powerful things you can do is laugh and make others laugh.

7.) The Way Things Are

“…be present to the way things are. Being present to the way things are is not the same as accepting things as they are in (a) resigned way. It doesn’t mean you should drown out your negative feelings or pretend you like what you really can’t stand. It doesn’t mean you should work to achieve some ‘higher plane of existence’ so you can ‘transcend negativity.’ It simply means, being present without resistance: being present to what is happening and present to your reactions, no matter how intense.” (Page 100)

Why fight with ourselves with what is? It’s OK to hurt and be confused. Rest in it. Do what you have to do to change things, but it is not helpful to live in resigned defeat.

8.) Giving Way to Passion

“If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?” Soren Kierkegaard quote (page 113)

2 Steps to Giving Way to Passion:

a. Notice where you are holding back, and let go. Release those barriers of self that keep you separate and in control, and let the vital energy of passion surge through you connecting you to all beyond.

b. Participate wholly. Allow yourself to be a channel to shape the stream of passion into a new expression for the world. (page 114)

Zander encourages us to live long lines. Do not be distracted by the cares of the world that lure us from the overall purpose and passion of our lives. As a musician misses the beauty of the long lines of music by trying to perfect every note and harmony, so we miss the purpose of our lives by begin distracted by the little things that nag at us day to day.

9.) Lighting a Spark

Communicating creatively and going out of our way to get our message across is the key to the full involvement of others in our vision.

“Enrollment is the practice of this chapter. Enrolling is not about cajoling, tricking, bargaining, pressuring, or guilt-tripping someone into doing something your way. Enrollment is the art and practice of generating a spark of possibility for others to share.” (page 125)

10.) Being the Board

Emotional involvement blinds. Objectivity illuminates.

Zander encourages us to “rename yourself as the board on which the whole game is being played.” (page 141)

In other words, you are where you are and experiencing what you experience because of what you’ve done. When we use the tactic of blame we close the door to possibility. When I proclaim that situations are the way they are because someone else reacted, responded, or acted the way they did, I lose my power to “steer the situation in another direction, to learn from it, or to put us in good relationship with each other.” Do not close the door by proclaiming blame, but live in the world of possibility by taking responsibility to find a way in which things change for the good.

Develop the habit of emotionally stepping back and evaluating the game that is being played on the game board of your life… be the board.

11.) Frameworks for Possibility

Paint pictures of hope when you are casting vision. Reflect on Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech on the Mall in Washington. King had a dream and he created the framework for the possibility of a better nation. Within the boundaries of that frame he and others gave their life to create the broad strokes of a vision. Later the details were added and a beautiful painting of a nation offering dignity and hope to all men and women emerged from the canvas.

Build the frame and paint the broad strokes and allow others to be enrolled in the vision, so that together a beautiful work of art is created.

12.) Telling the WE Story

“More often than not history is a record of conflict between an US and a THEM. We see this pattern expressed across a broad spectrum: nation to nation, among political parties, between labor and management, and in the most intimate realms of our lives… We have distinguished a new entity that personifies the “togetherness” of you and me and others. This entity, the WE, can be found among any two people, in any community or organization, and it can be thought of, in poetic terms, as a melody running through the people of the earth. The WE appears when, for the moment, we set aside the story of fear, competition, and struggle, and tell its story.”

In what areas of your life… in what social or organizational context… in which relationships are you telling the WE story?

art of possibility

I hope I’ve given you enough to chew on, but not to much to satisfy your appetite. Read the book! Maybe your paradigm, like mine, will be challenged and tweaked to produce a better you and a better them (or should I say a better us) for those people with which you do life together!

May we live in the realm of possibility and not in the walls of measurement! May God grant us the grace of not judging one another, but of giving each other the early A. When things are tense may we follow Rule #6. May each of us give way to our personal passion and light a spark in the lives of other men. May we choose to be a contribution and not a consumer only.

I invite you to step with me into the universe  of possibility!

ORDER THE BOOK HERE!

The post Book Review: “The Art of Possiblity” by Ben and Rosamund Zander appeared first on Why Not... the Life..

Hope Through Pain

Ahhhhhh!  I was running late again!  I tried to get there in time to watch my oldest girl cartwheel and roundoff at her tumbling class.  My meeting ran late, traffic was bad and I went to the wrong gym to catch the tail end of my boys basketball practice.  So I was a little winded when I climbed the stairs that led up to the room where I found my daughter’s best friend’s mom watching the activities from above.

I sat beside her and asked how she was?  We chit-chatted about the holidays and family in town and work and such.  Then I remembered that she had recently had a bout with Cancer and questions began to distract me from our casual conversation.  What must it be like to return for a third visit to the family doctor with that news?  Imagine yourself sitting across the table from the man who had written your family dozens of prescriptions for colds and flus, allergies and infections.  Such simple fixes.  Such easy answers.  And now he has no answer, only questions, like you.  “I don’t know how to tell you this, but the tests were positive.”

I know how I would have felt.  My heart would have sunk.  A darkness would have fallen that felt cold and frightful.  I would have sat speechless.

I looked over to her and clumsily asked the question without knowing exactly how I wanted it to come across.

“How’s your health, Susan?”

“Everything looks good.  No problems.”

“Wow!  That’s amazing huh… a miracle.  It’s crazy how quickly our perspective can change.  In just a moment our whole life can be different.”

She responded with a simple “yeah.”  Then she spoke the most profound statement I’d heard in some time.

“I’m most thankful for the pain.”

What? This lady with three young girls under her care… with a life full of hope… that faced the news that causes cold sweats when we find an unexpected lump on our body… the lady who struggled through treatments and waded through the mire of the unknown every time she drove to her next doctor’s appointment.. the one who beat a disease that has killed countless… is most thankful for “the PAIN.”

“Some folks don’t have pain when they have Cancer. I did. The doctor said that if this went undetected for another month or so, it might have been incurable.  The pain saved my life.”

“Some folks don’t have pain when they have Cancer. I did. The doctor said that if this went undetected for another month or so, it might have been incurable.  The pain saved my life.”

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Facing the Unknown

Then there was my high school friend who shares my first name. Kevin contacted me late into the night on Facebook when neither of us could sleep. We spent most of the earliest morning hours messaging back and forth. Kevin’s biopsy was already en-route to the lab. And this is not to mention the lump he had found in another part of his body.

We talked about past mistakes and how proud he was of how he has fathered his kids. We discussed childhood and adulthood and just about everything in between. The looming concern was how the boys would make it without him if his greatest fears were true. We talked about guilt and freedom and failure and victory. Perspectives change so fast when the unknown is hovering over your head like a swarm of flies on the compost pile.

Kevin messaged me yesterday to let me know there is no cancer. We praised the Maker together!

I know you probably are familiar with the line in the Compass that says “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Maybe that’s what Susan meant when she spoke so highly of pain. And I suspect Kevin sees things a bit differently after such a scare… I would.

My Own Story of Redemption

I was a boy scout as a kiddo. We were on day 3 of a 5-day canoe trip down the Buffalo River in southwest Tennessee. I was wading through the water and looked down to find a cigarette lighter. Boy scouts leave no trace. I reached underwater to grab that butane lighter and stuck it in the trash bag in my canoe. It was my daily “good turn.” 

That night sitting around the campfire, one of my scout leaders tossed  that trash bag on the fire. A few minutes later an chunk of metal and plastic thrust out of that fire like a jet rocket. The liquid “rocket fuel” covered my shin and my leg caught fire. I ran to the river and waded waste deep in that 50 degree water. “Whew, close call,” I remember thinking, but as I stepped out of that frigid water I felt like someone swung a baseball bat as hard as they could and hit me right on the shin. I was burned badly.

Maybe my scout troop wasn’t as prepared as the boy scout motto instructs, but all we had to dress the wound was some iodine, a white t-shirt and some duck tape. The pain of that night burned deep into my memory vivid details of voices and raccoons and fear and pain, I can relive it like it happened an hour ago. 

But what I remember most is the guy that paddled me to the waiting emergency vehicle 12 hours later. We had to canoe about a mile to reach an exit point where I could be picked up and taken to a doctor. I don’t know his name. I can’t remember his face. But I feel his compassion, care and rescue every time I find myself in a situation bigger than I. Somehow, that chilly morning riding in the front of that canoe on the Buffalo River in southwest Tennessee, I learned how to trust God to get me to safety. That short ride taught me how to just let God rescue me when I can’t rescue myself. It’s a feeling in my bones that I can’t explain, but I know that He will paddle the boat when I can’t even put one foot in front of the other.

Yes. Bad things happen to good people. Life sometimes hurts. But if we can somehow broaden our perspective, redefine our understanding, and embrace the value of life’s challenges, the other side doesn’t seem so far away. Because there’s almost always the other side of trial. 

And when we’re standing on the shore gazing back at the other side, we gain a deeper understanding of the teachings of James, the earthly half-brother of Jesus, who says, “ Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4)

PURE JOY?

Susan was right when she said, “I’m most thankful for the pain.”

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I found this in my journal, written on September 12, 2007. This was just less than 2 months before my life fell apart. In hindsight, is was God preparing me for what was to come. He is Faithful…

AND, I needed this journal entry today!

The soulish are second to none in the matter of works. They are most active, zealous and willing. But they do not labor because they have received God’s order, they labor instead because they have zeal and capacity so to do. They believe doing God’s work is good enough, unaware that only the labor of God’s appointment is truly commendable.

– Watchman Nee (The Spiritual Man, Vol. 1)

And so goes my struggles! The idolatry of “doing”.

Julie is driving and we’re being transported from hospitality to productivity (south to north) in a hunk of metal on wheels propelled by liquid that is extracted from below the surface of the Earth and injected into a plethora of parts designed to interdependently function as a vehicle to speed up time and allow us to pack more stuff into a life that is too short anyway. If you add up all the time that has been spent on building highways, designing engines, molding parts, and making money to fund all of this, has humanity really saved any time?

The idolatry of “doing” more is an ugly monster indeed.

This issue is especially sensitive to me this year as we are taking a new direction in life: selling our house and buying another, almost completely rebuilding our relational community, having a new baby and finishing a master’s degree. I have felt a little bit like the very vehicle in which I sit, being used up to get from one place to another. Poured out to speed up time and reach a goal. That was the life of Christ, you know. His was one of tremendous stress and activity. That’s why so many times in scripture He would intentionally separate Himself. He was somehow able to live in the truth that it didn’t matter if His disciples thought he was lazy or if the religious tribes felt that He was neglecting the idol of a “do more” spirituality. He simply knew that, for whatever reason, His Father built into the DNA of creation a shabot (Sabbath).

Sabbath does not mean we do less. I don’t think anyone reading this could honestly say that they are more productive than Christ, in His brief three-year career of serving the Kingdom of God. No, indeed, it does not mean doing less. Instead, it means doing less of the wrong things, which inherently means doing more of the right things. The greatest challenge is knowing the difference.

Sabbath does not mean doing less. It means doing more of the RIGHT things. The greatest challenge is knowing the difference.

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Whether I’m praying and studying scripture or watching “WEST WING” and eating chips, I’m doing the same number of things. It is up to me to do the “right” things. God wants me to be a productive member of the Kingdom of God or else I would have passed into the afterlife long ago. So what is it that He wants me to do… today? The scriptures say it like this, “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do.”

So off we blast in our hunk of metal to visit family that we may never see again and do a few fun things that will look like laziness to an idolatrous member of the religious tribe of which I subscribe. And all this in the middle of a year in which Julie and I strategically decided against vacationing (the first of these in at least 5 years by the way). We chose to ride the rocket of the “busy” god, but someone had a different plan. A week to get away and not have to worry about the pursuit of education or ministry or bills or house sales and purchases. An assigned break from the “work of God”… imagine that.

I think I’ll just enjoy it.

So, today I’m going to go peer in on the lives of a few Amish pilgrims, Sunday I’m going to go visit one of my favorite communicators and in beween I think I’ll take a nap under the willow tree and eat raspberries from my kids great-grandparents’ garden. If that’s ok with you (there I go again)…

An assigned vacation indeed.

“only the labor of God’s appointment is truly commendable.”

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The anticipation of the free-fall was almost more than I could bear.

I never was a huge fan of roller coasters.  As a child I was deathly afraid.  My friends would stand in line for hours, strap in for two and a half minutes, then chase each other to the end of the line wobbling back and forth like a candidate for an early morning DUI and then wait again.  My first experience on a roller coaster was not of my own free will.  I was tricked! 

It was an indoor roller coaster at Dollywood and I had no idea that near the end of the ride the bottom would drop out and we would be thrust into a death-defying descent into a bottomless pit (so it seemed). You know what I did,  I unstrapped myself and began a mad dash, chasing my friends to the end of the line just to wait again.    From that point forward, anytime I heard the “rachety-rachety-rachety” of the train climbing to the sky, my stomach tied itself in knots as it awaited the pending dive into breathlessness.  I hated being out of control.  But the thrill of the hill was worth the fear of not knowing.

And now I am riding another roller coaster.  One without wheels and track.  One that is somewhat self-imposed by my decision to live life to the fullest.  When we lean into our dreams, the price is steep.  Maybe more steep than the hill at Dollywood.  Most dreams cost far more than dollars and cents.  We are charged security, stability, and peace.  We trade the tangible for the elusive and control for occasional chaos.  We step into an unknown destiny and a fragile future.  When we chase after a new dream, the anticipation of the climb ties our stomach in knots.  At some point along the journey we realize that there is no turning back and we brace ourselves for what lies just over the top of the next hill.

Most dreams cost far more than dollars and cents. We are charged security, stability, and peace.

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I watched a short sketch at church yesterday about Martin Luther King, Jr.  As he was awakened from a doze, two characters were conversing with him.  One was trying to convince that a black man should not try to attend college, while the other was giving him glimpses of the future that would await him if he took the road less travelled.  The latter told him stories of a man who would face jail time, the bombing of his home and an eventual bullet in his right cheek that would take his life at the age of 39.  The decision was his… would he take the path leading to security and “peace” or would he dive headlong into a ride laden with free-falls that would bring the peace of a nation. 

Can you imagine the anticipation of waking each day to threats on your life.  Can you imagine a daily stare contest into the bloody eyes of hatred.  Of course, Dr. King could not have known exactly what lay ahead when he made that decision to step through the doors of higher education, but I think we can safely assume that he would have said “yes” to his destiny.

What about me?  What about you?  We all have a seed planted deeply in our hearts.  It requires nurture and resources.  Whether it will thrive is determined by our daily decision to give it room to flourish.

We all have a seed planted deeply in our hearts. It requires nurture and resources.

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What will it take for you to strap in?  Seriously, what would it take?  Let’s talk about it.  I’ll be waiting for your comments.

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Thanks to Project 615 and Drake White!

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I came across this 9-year-old article this morning and was reminded how much God cares for me. Maybe it will be a reminder to you as well! Understanding his fatherly affection for us is key to overcoming spiritual insecurity and self-abuse.

Daniel is 10 now and he walks JUST FINE!

Thirteen months is a magical age!

I’m sure you parents remember it well. Our thirteen month old is babbling! Ironically, in his mind it is a conversation deep as the Mariana. It has meaning and emotion and everything else that constitutes communication. The only thing lacking is the listeners comprehension!

And then there’s the feeble attempt at walking. Our little boy is taking a different approach. I’m not really sure how to explain it, but he walks backwards. Not that he is moving in the wrong direction, but that he is very intentional about picking his feet up as opposed to placing them back on the floor. If you could put an accent mark on his gait, it would be on the upward ascent and not the downward thrust. Maybe our child is immune to gravity, but chances are he’s just experimenting and learning the hard way. As his feet thrust upward they also spread apart. This translates into quite a display of toddling.

There are so many things I’ve learned the hard way. I remember my first few years as a believer. The rhetoric of a heretic and the arrogant advice to others that was an abundant stream flowing from the fountain of ignorance. I’ll look back years from now and see the same slop in this article. We walk a little at a time, not all at once.

Realizing my awkward spiritual gait has often led me straight to the oasis of spiritual insecurity. Insecurity almost always improves our self-righteous performance. Humiliation breeds champions. It is a function of self-preservation. The character that I portray in the public show has often won the approval of my audiences. Practice makes perfect! As long as I can keep it on the stage, life is grand. There is Another, however, Who sees me in the dressing room and out of costume. I mistakenly perceive Him to be my greatest critic reveling in casting judgement on my failures and teetering on the brink of casting me out in his disapproval.

What if God is less like a critic and more like a father? What if the awkwardness of my spiritual gait is to him as Daniel’s toddling is to his mommy and me? I wonder what he thinks of me. I think He believes in me. I trust he hopes for me. I hope he teaches me.

Julie and I clap when Daniel walks…

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Dewitt Jones has been one of my favorite photographers for many years. I have to disagree with one point – in the big scheme of things, there is one answer – Jesus. However, let this talk challenge you to see more than you’ve ever seen! Enjoy and thank you Dewitt!

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Spoiler Alert: This is the last chapter of the book! (Wink and Smile)

True Adventure is in Reckless Abandon

What if… Why not? (the book) is filled with stories of how I deeply found God over 7 trips to Alaska. But the book is not about Alaska, and although the stories are mine, it is not about me. The book is about reckless abandon to all that God has for you! This is the last chapter. I share it because most will never read the book, but the message is paramount! Dive headlong into your “What ifs…”.

Enjoy!

“THE TEMPTATION is always to reduce life to size. A bowl of cherries. A rat race. Amino acids. Even to call it a mystery smacks of reductionism. It is THE mystery.” – Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking

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My first trip to Alaska was not the beginning of the stories; it was simply the gateway into the rest. I cannot even begin to explain how that first journey has affected every aspect of my life since we set out in the ARK02 with the three gypsies. I moved to Florida, finished Bible college, helped plant a church in Colorado, chose my wife, tweaked my life goals, developed a philosophy of child rearing, spent thousands of dollars sharing Alaska with other men and dove deeply into the practice of making disciples who make disciples.

But these stories are not stories of my experiences in Alaska—they are stories of the Maker’s redemption of the brokenness in my life and His faithfulness to lead me to a life worth living. They are stories of me trading a few conveniences and successes that life has to offer for the adventure and richness that Life has to offer.

A few months ago,we had a picture hanging in our living room that read: “It costs nothing to dream and everything not to.” I loved that picture. One night I was sitting in my leather chair thinking about it when I decided that it was a lie. It costs everything to dream. If you pursue what you feel compelled to do with your life, it will cost everything.

In my mind I imagine a hot dog vendor walking through a crowded baseball stadium with a promise of a hot frankfurter in exchange for a sacrifice of a couple dollars. The voice triggers a hunger that compels me to indulge in the greasy dog. Much the same way, the Maker is crying out that there is more; more to life than this. It does, however, come at a price. The price is our life. Will we give our motivation to the fullness He promises? Will we hand over our plans in exchange for His? It is the one indulgence that makes Him happy and sets our hearts free. It is the one addiction that all other addictions impersonate. It is the vice to which we were meant to submit. What more can we expect from life than these experiences that the Maker had planned from the beginning of time? Let go and fall headlong into the future that the Maker has designed specifically and uniquely for YOU. You will not turn back!

As I blindly followed Scott into obedience and journeyed north, I simply heard the beckoning call of the Maker in a particular place, and that place has become a Stone of Remembrance for me.

When the Israelites crossed into the Maker’s Promised Land, Joshua instructed them to construct pillars that would help future generations remember the faithfulness of God. Parents, grandparents and great-grandparents would stand beside those stones and tell about the faithfulness of the Maker and how He delivered them from danger and defeat, even the danger that they were to themselves, for they longed to return to captivity at times instead of facing the challenge before them.

That is my story of Alaska. I will stand by “our place” and sit on the beach where God wrote His name in the sky; I will dance on the glacier and point to a pair of sneakers and proclaim that God is Love as loudly as I can to anyone who will listen.

Trust Him. Follow Him. Be Radically Obedient. He will take you on a journey you will never regret and you will find a better story that you wouldn’t trade for all the treasure on Earth.

Get out of your seat and follow. Once you live a better story and step through the doorways of “what ifs” and “why nots,” you will never go back to the safety of a life void of adventure. I promise!

Once you live a better story and step through the doorways of “what ifs” and “why nots,” you will never go back to the safety of a life void of adventure.

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Every once in a while one person makes a difference.

Steve Dean was my friend. Not just the “see you around town and chat a bit” friend, but the “see you for who you are and care” friend. Steve was a pastor and two of his congregants worked for me at the little consignment shop. I noticed what a huge impact he had on these two guys and how they were living far above where they would have been without Steve. I asked them about their parents and found out that their parents had also been impacted by Steve. None of these folks had a very “churchy” air about them, but they knew God deeply. That made me very curious.

The first time I really got to know Steve was on a three-day spiritual retreat. Both of us had pastoral roles and we served together as spiritual directors at the Walk to Emmaus. I tend to be a much more reserved person in public, so I often observe what’s going on around me. I watched Steve pour himself completely out for the sake of every single man at that retreat. I watched him view each one as equal to all the others. I saw him bring himself down to earth with honesty about his struggles and hope for redemption of failure. Whenever I see someone do that well, I know they have spent some time in the pit. That kind of relating to folks only comes through personal brokenness.

And then we talked. Way into the night. About issues that you only share with a very few. It was one of those talks where he felt as impacted as I and vice-versa. Mutual care, mutual love, mutual hope.

Over the course of the next months, I connected with Steve regularly and we even collaborated on some mutual projects. He even worked in the little consignment shop for a while. We walked through life together. When he came into my life he had already faced the most difficult battles in his life, but he was struggling with the backlash from those battles. After a time, he came to a point when his pastoral role ended at the very church he had started. Because I had already walked through the fire of leaving full-time ministry, I understood what he was struggling with… IDENTITY.

PERSONAL IDENTITY is the greatest struggle any of us face.

I think there are two critical pieces of this puzzle that we have to understand before we can answer that question and live into it. I think Steve worked hard to discover these pieces his entire life. Watching and walking with him has helped me walk the same road. I am not there yet, Steve probably wasn’t either. Now he sees clearly! On the other side we will know the answer to these 2 questions.

Question 1: “Who Am I?”

To answer this question requires us to do the terribly painful work of stripping us of who we’ve become. Yes, I meant that. To discover who we are, we have to overcome who we’ve become, because who we REALLY are was given to us before we entered our mothers womb. Yes, what people see and what we experience is a product of who we’ve become, but at the core of myself is something just waiting to be released. My Original Design. I’ve seen it in a lot of my friends. Before her mother abandoned her, before he got peed on in the bathroom by the class bully, before he was told he was more feminine than masculine, before her boyfriend beat the crap out of her on that Friday night, before she was told by her dad that she was a whore, before all that – was the Original Design. All the other stuff has shaped us, like a chunk of iron on the blacksmiths anvil, into someone else. Someone that misrepresents the Maker’s will for our lives. And to get back to that original design we have to come face-to-face with the brutally ugly truth of what the ruler of this world has beaten us and shaped us into. We must reach out, as if we’re falling off a cliff and reaching for a hanging branch to save ourselves from certain death, for Jesus. And for His absolute best for us and for those around us.

Question 2: “Who Do You Say I Am?” – Jesus

This answer has to be hammered out, not in sequential order to the last, but before, during, and after we answer the first. In order to continue to grow toward Original Design, we have to eat, sleep, work and play with this question pulling at our pants leg, like the little rug rat who wants nothing more than the attention of his busy dad. We have to WRESTLE with it. And we can’t really get to the heart of this question until we have a pretty clear answer to Question #1. Why? Because if we fail to answer #1, we think that we have everything we need to create our own super-human. As long as we don’t understand how poor in spirit we are, we cannot reach out desperately or with enough intensity to answer #2.

Each of us will vary in our answer to #1. That is the beauty of it. We are all created uniquely and with intimate care and design. However, there is only one answer to #2… at least if we’ve found the truth.

I watched Steve intensely wrestle with both of these questions. Sometimes it looked like he found his answers, other times it seemed as if they slid through his fingers like those little water filled rubber tubes at the toy store that you can’t seem to grip no matter what you do.

One thing I know for sure! Steve awoke this morning to the answers… All Of Them!

I will say I’m a little jealous. Not that he’s not on this side anymore. I love my journey here. But, that he sees clearly now.  The identity battle, the questions about himself, the insecurity of feeling different, the struggles with his body, the constant reaching for something more, the continual battle to try to please whoever he was trying to please, the hurt of the accusations on his life, the confusion about what God wanted him to do, the frustration of trying to make ends meet, the danger of reaching out for something besides Jesus to numb the pain, (By the way, I could put myself in every single one of these descriptions), all that is gone! Blown away by the wind.

Steve is at peace now. Peace with himself and peace with “I Am.”

This was my short story when I remembered Steve’s life this morning:

Thank you Steve for teaching me how to fight well. I saw you wrestle with yourself, God, me and others. Your legacy will be that you don’t have to have it all together to know God and you don’t always have to agree with God’s ways as long as you keep trying to find Him and submit. I’m thankful for your life, brother! The fight is over and the REAL LIFE begins!

 

 

 

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