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Lets be honest, there are 2 types of guys in the world. Those who have been honest about the fact they struggle or have struggled with lust and those who lie about it. Sorry playa’s, Im outing you. It is natural. To live in the fullness of life you have to confront whatever your issues are, face them, and then move forward. It really can be that easy. But in being that easy, understand it is going to be extremely hard. This is one of the best weapons that the devil uses to discount and discredit men in life, relationships, and in our own minds.
Back into full blog swing and just finished Chapter 5 of “Going All The Way“. Here are my notes below.
- At times everyone falls victim to being weak, vulnerable, gullible or just the rebellion of lust.
- Sex without consequence does not exist. What is going to be the consequence of your action? And if you are married, usually the consequence is positive.
- Culture has created a world where the dehumanization of people allows for people to feel the ability to have sex without intimacy.
- To succeed in being faithful one must first learn to be faithful in their relationship with GOD. Faithfulness in this relationship builds the foundation for faithfulness in your marriage or dating relationships.
- God forgives, so if you have made a mistake, pick up and start over.
- If you want to have what few people do have in life, that it is going to require you to do what few people are willing to do to succeed. Your measuring stick is not others….
- It is paramount that you protect your wounds while God heals you. However, you can not conform your mind back to God’s standards, only He can.
I believe that over the course of time I have lost the revelation of the true power of prayer. Prayer is one of the most important facets of our relationship with God. He cares so much about us and wants the best for our lives, but he also desires communication with us on a level that I just am not sure how many people really strive to achieve. I have failed in this area so much, and I am now working to get balance in this area. God is a God of order. He REALLY cares about order. He wants order in our lives. Order is really the premise of why we should protect our relationships pre and post marriage.
An amazing thing has happened. In allowing myself to be more real, more transparent, and more vulnerable, I have allowed God to create an atmosphere where people can grow. Understand I take NO credit for this. Vulnerability is a weakness not a strength in my life. Being real is hard for me to do. I am an introvert. I am someone who internalizes everything. In fact, I tend to allow for my issues to be worked out inside usually before I ever even alert someone there is an issue. In the past by the time someone found out I had a problem, it was already fixed. So to say that being vulnerable or authentic or real or whatever you want to call it is comfortable or easy for me would be a big joke. I had a breakthrough in my life about 2 weeks ago, and an experience a week after that that was like taking spiritual human growth hormones. When that happened I realized I had to start being completely real. This revelation has opened up a side of me that was never before accessed. A few things have happened since then:
- I have a new accountability in my life to keep it real. Jackie (who is now blogging) has really started calling me out on being real. Part of this is probably what prevented me from being real in the past. However, I have learned that an uncomfortable real is better than a comfortable plastic.
- Reality has caused me to be uncomfortable and has caused others around me to be uncomfortable. I think this is kind of good though. Growth causes you to be uncomfortable and thus may challenge your “relationships” and the comfort of people around you.
- Reality has caused me to face and confront some things in my life. A few of these things are pride, insecurity, a man pleasing spirit, the desire to be liked at any cost, etc….just to be real.
- Reality has created a buzz in my life. I have had more comments on this blog about the stuff I have written from my heart in the past few weeks than anything that I have ever written before. I get at least 1 email a day where a person is telling me God has used the mess and confusion and broken places of my life to minister to them. I have even had people walk up to me and tell me…man your blog is helping me so much. Is that not what life is about? Life is about helping people get better….right? It is so amazingly funny to me that we continue to all live a life full of masks and mirrors and do not allow for our things to be the medicine that heals a hurting world. I remember years ago talking with my friend, Jason, and he would recite story after story about how brokenness was the doorway to breakthrough in his life. How the best songs he would write would come from a broken place. How the presence of God could show up the strongest in his brokenness because when he was broken he could not be proud. AMAZING.
So here is the deal. I am doing my best to be real and to be the best I can be. I can not promise I am going to always live up to the standard that I am trying to set in my life. I am human not divine. I need grace and mercy. I know God is doing a lot in my life right now. He is moving. It is probably going to help some people, hurt others, confuse some, including me, and ultimately force me into my purpose. As I stated a few days ago, I am addicted to God’s presence. I fall out of it sometimes and fight like heck to say in it as much as possible. I am human. I need grace and mercy. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have a new rhythm…its an unforced rhythm of Grace.
So it has been a week since a very defining moment (conversation) in my life. A week later I am stronger, better, freer (is that a word) than I have been in a long time. At the same time, I can feel my heart reach out for people like never before. Reach out does not even describe what I feel, HURT, is a better word. This redefined me has caused some confusion for people. But the fact of the matter is that God is doing something amazing and I can not allow anything to get in the way of what He is doing. I have been praying for God to allow me to love people the way he does, and to break my heart for the things that break His heart. I received 2 revelations of that today that are opposite ends of the spectrum. First, if you dare to pray this prayer, you will be stretched. I am a sarcastic person. Sometimes when I see people my first instinct is to say something funny. This prayer will remove a lot of jokes out of your life. OKAY so for the ones I love who do not know I love them:
- A very successful person. This person would never think that they where not loved. The love I feel for this person is a love that goes out to them in their place of lack. There is not much lack, but the things this person lacks are not material. I want the best for this person and want this person to achieve all God has for their life. I have been consumed with a love for this person that they feel real love and real relationship. My love will extend to them through prayer.
- Otis “Artist” Crum. Otis has to be in his 50’s or 60’s. I fell in love with Otis today when he walked up to me outside a church in Jacksonville. Otis had a JC hat on that covered his head full of dreams. Otis told me he “made the music”. Otis believes he is going on tour next month with Michael Jackson AND Stevie Wonder. Otis has a lear jet for sale for $800,000.00 but was asking me for $.87. I fell in love with Otis. I do not know what will happen to him but I do know God created him and has a plan for his life. I prayed for Otis on the way home tonight. I don’t know if my interaction with Otis the Artist will impact his life, but I know Otis impacted mine. He is equally as important to God as person number 1. God cares about people and could care less about position.
I could tell you about the other people God gave me a glimpse of today, but I wont. We all really want to be loved. So often we do all we can to polish who we are so that others will love us. We think if we like what this person likes, or sound like that person, or do this thing, we can earn the love of others. Love is a gift. In it purest form it is given freely without obligation or condition. Love is a moment by moment decision to commit. Love is far from a feeling, it is often a burden, and usually is not very convenient. Love will make you do things that will stretch who you are. Love will cause you to feel for people you normally would never even notice. Love is so important to God that he said we are to “Love our neighbors as ourselves.” And as we all know, in America today, it is EASY to love yourself. I am so happy that my view of the world is changing. I have always been a “relationship guy” but God is moving me even farther in this direction. I care about my relationships. They mean the world to me. Relationships, when done properly, can be the best part of your life. So this week tell someone you love them…even if it hurts, and if it does hurt, it is probably really love.
I am reading a great book, Velvet Elvis. My friend, Trent, got me hooked on it the other day. I am early in this book but I got wrecked today by this concept: God is so infinite. He has no beginning and no end. We are finite creatures. We can not even comprehend his name, let alone his true nature. Our problem is we try to figure out the plans of God in our finite way. How crazy is that? How in the world would we figure out an infinite God when we can not even figure out our finite self. Thus the need for faith. Faith, hope, love…God cares about you. He loves you. He loves you where you are. So after learning this today, I started to pray that God would give me an infinite love for people like he has. I want to love people different. Not even 4 hours later I was talking with a GREAT young man who is going through some stuff. A lot of the stuff he is going through is not his fault and should have never happened to him. He is hurting and I hurt for him. As he sat talking to me telling me about all that is going on my heart broke for him. Not just because he was hurting but because I believe God has a huge plan for his life and all that God is allowing him to go through is preparation for his next level. love infinitely….
p.s. Mat Kearney is on Leno tonight.
I got a new drug. I have been broken and I am addicted to the hurt of brokenness. I hate how it feels but I love what it reveals. Im addicted to hurt. I am addicted to tears. I am addicted to that sick feeling. I never want to lose it. In that place you feel God. you feel what He feels. You see things different. God opens your eyes to what he sees. I am addicted to hurt because I can not be “me” anymore. I am addicted to hurt to be grounded in what I need. See here is the deal to really uproot things and see change you have to go through stuff. If you go through stuff, you will see you are small and HE is big. So when you embrace that fact you stay grounded in the fact that when you are not hurting, you may be rebuilding your pride.
in closing i feel i need to clear the air a little bit. if you are a regular to this little blog you understand that I have been growing over the past few weeks. I have been embracing some stuff. I am not sinning. I am not dealing with a bunch of crazy crap…I am just a regular cat who is walking it out. I appreciate the concern, the prayers, or whatever. If you know me you probably know whats up. if you dont know me, stay tuned…we are in for the ride of our lives. I am not jacked up by a bunch of things. Im not doing stuff I should not be doing. My battles lie within. They are mine and you can just watch them unfold. If you have an issue with me…come ask me. I am learning to be VERY real and because of that I will tell you what you should know about me. Im here. Holla!
The bible says ask and you shall receive. I am living proof. Over the course of the past week I have been being stretched on relationships and authenticity. I have posted some things that I have learned and said repeatedly I want to know more, learn more, be stretched. Yesterday these two subjects collided like never before in my life. Imagine what happens when you are driving down the interstate and you hit a love bug. That is what happened to me yesterday.
The relationship portion was the lead in to the authenticity aspect. I friend of mine called me on the phone and said he needed to speak with me. I met him and he sat me down and said some amazing hard things to me. He called me out on so many levels. He challenged me on so many issues in my life. He even went as far as to tell me about issues I have dealt with for YEARS that most people have NO clue about. God had to tell him about the stuff he spoke to me about because there is no other way he could have had a clue about some of the things we talked about. In addition to being amazingly hard on me, he was also very encouraging. He told me what God had told him about my future. About what God has planned for my life and about where my “Destiny Road” leads. Destiny Road will be another post for sure (thanks KiKi).
The authenticity portion of this post comes in my response. I had to choose sitting there getting kicked in the teeth if I was going to allow myself to be real and deal with these issues or if I was going to embrace the mask that would have been a MUCH easier way out. I do not write this to boast of my authentic ways. I am striving to find authenticity every day. The truth is I am a skeptical, cynical, prideful, hypocritical person who is just trying to figure it all out. I write this to encourage you to be real even when it hurts. I explained to my friend where in our conversation he was nailing me. I accepted his wisdom and guidance on some issues. I incorporated change in my life. In addition allowed myself to start confronting some things in my life that are holding me back from achieving all God has for me. Now in the oxymoron of all oxymoron’s I don’t feel it is appropriate to lay out all these issues on the freaking internet. Im just not ready to be THAT real. Thats just not how I roll. I have spoke with some people and have started the process of recovery for myself. I am blessed with some great relationship and some great people who are willing to work to help me achieve all God has for my life.
Be real. Be honest. Don’t buy into the norm. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated. Sometimes life is going to hurt. Sometimes you will encounter emotions you have never felt, and it will suck, but it is for your betterment. Be brave. There is a road that will take you to places you could never travel on your own. The toll to travel this road is not cheap but the ride will change your life.
Life is short. The more and more I live the more I realize that life is a vapor. I love life. The best part of life is relationships. Relationships are the heartbeat of life. I am blessed to have great relationships.
This morning I was talking with some friends about some really deep stuff and Keisha (who has an awesome blog of her own) said: “Sometimes I tend to be a little bit vain.” At that moment. I said…wait, stop. That was awesome. Write that down. That is your blog for today. We all stopped. We laughed. We took a sentence out of the air, captured it, framed it, and formed a memory out of it. We will never forget the day we sat at that table and the 4 of us broke out laughing in the middle of really deep thoughts over that sentence.
How important it is to capture the moments in your life. Great things don’t always let you know they are coming, they just appear. When your not looking for your chances in your world to maximize the moments and make memories you are not living life to the fullness it was created to be lived. I have said before I have a bunch of great friends and family. It is in these relationships that I find all the moments that create the scrapbook of life that we will all look back on one day and say…wow, those are the best memories we could have.
What moments have you allowed to slip away and not make into memories? Tomorrow is today…go make some memories, even if you have to make them out of nothing! This thought makes me very emotional. Thanks for reading my blog. Thanks for being my friends. Thanks for the moments. Thanks for the memories. Here is to a lifetime more even if we never are able to see each other again, we still have that time…that morning…that look…that smell…that sound, and I am thankful for all of them…and YOU. Be Great.
I read a lot. A lot of what I read is related to what is cool, what helps people communicate, to relevance in culture, society, life. So today it hit me in mid conversation. Relevance has ZERO to do with cool. So often people associate “cool” with “relevant”. Allow me to explain my theory.Relevant will usually be cool. Cool can be far from relevant. I listen to a lot of music…A LOT! Some of the stuff that is REALLY cool, is not very relevant to the rest of my office, let alone the rest of the world. It is cool but not relevant.
In our churches today we are striving for relevance, and we think that relevance is coolness. Relevance really has nothing to do with cool. Relevance has to do with data, outcome, change. If you are relevant to someone you are able to communicate to them. Speak their language, which may or may not be cool, and help them achieve change, a better life, something new. Billy Graham is FAR from cool, but he sure has been extremely relevant over the years. On top of that, a lot of what we think is cool, the world is laughing at us saying, “thanks guys, welcome to 4 years ago, maybe next time.”
Relevance is fluid. Relevance is unique. Relevance is time sensitive. I am not saying we should not watch culture, trends, life, etc and see what is going on. What I am saying is this: we have to start speaking the native tongue of our culture. Start changing peoples lives in an Emmaus way. Start pouring into relationships. Effect people at their core, not at there feeler. Feelings fade but your core is going wherever you go. The great communicators in life are relevant even if they are not very cool.
Be Relevant!
Yesterday I was watching a clip of Tina Fey moments. Tina is probably the funniest female on the planet. I crush on her big time! So as I am watching the clip, a moment from “Mean Girls” (which I did see cuz I get down like that) came on. Tina is talking to Lindsay Lohan about how she is a pusher. She makes the comment…”I push people. I pushed my husband to law school, then he left me, that was a bad idea. I pushed myself to work 3 jobs to pay for my divorce, and now I am going to push you to reach your potential.” As I was laughing my butt off from all the other stuff I had a moment of realization….we need pushers in our lives! We need to also be pushers. I want people in my life pushing me to be better. I want to be pushed to be a better dad, a better husband, a better person. I want to get better at my job, become better as a friend, just freaking get better in life! At the same time I want to be a person who will push others. I have the chance to push young people from time to time but I want to be better at it. I live a great life and I want to share that with other people. I want to be someone who is a pusher. are you pushing anyone? are you ready to be pushed?
Seth had a great blog today about taking risks. The summary is, good enough is killing us. This past Thursday, I was talking to Troy and telling him I fear at times we become comfortable and rest on our laurels. It takes a lot of work to achieve success. But what do you do when you have achieved success and are trying to go to the NEXT LEVEL? I believe it is harder to push to the next level because comfort sits in, good engulfs us, success is around us…and because of this, we are not as hungry anymore. Just a thought.
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