Back In the Saddle

There is something big and eternal about our dreams and desires that make them powerful because they come from someone big and eternal and powerful

I don’t always know what God will put on my heart to write about. Sometimes it is something like a lesson or “sermon,” I suppose... to stir me in a new way. Sometimes it is through something I have experienced in my own life that takes form into words where God has shown me something like wisdom to chew on. Other times though I don’t have much to say other than simply opening up what is in my heart. 

To be honest, that is probably the hardest one of all because it is the most personally reflective rather than it seeming to come more from God’s heart than mine. 

This is somewhat of a simple yet profound journal entry because it is what we don’t often talk about yet often takes occurrence in our lives. 

I speak of the going ins and coming outs... the eb and flow of our day-to-day existence. 

What we are all experiencing now, which is the beginning of a new year, a starting point for unknowns and unravellings that are pivotal characteristics in what we would all agree is our journey in this life. 

After finishing teaching a student, I walked to my car not 20 yards away being taken over by a simple and peaceful moment, breathing in the briskly refreshing cold air of our Texas winter evening. 

Some kids were playing a game in the street with a football and cars whisking by probably rushing to finally be home. 

What is the point to all of this?

Honestly, I am not sure, but if I could touch on something, I would say that there is a sense of something new in the air. 

Yes, today (when I wrote this) is just another day, no different than any other day if you look at days like a calendar would if it could see. 

But we are not calendars . . . in fact, crafted by God to be imaged to Him as a wonderful reflection. 

I am not talking physically as if there is something in the air one of our senses can pick out. 

No, I am talking about something inside of our hearts, longing for something new . . . fresh . . . and not yet explored. 

Something intangible, yet seemingly in reach, somehow moving towards us as we move towards it.

It is like the feeling you get trying a food for the first time or picking up a crisp brand new magazine before catching a 3 hour flight.

We all crave and I dare say need things new and things fresh to our senses. More importantly, we need things to sink deeper from the shallows of what we perceive to the depths of our heart through what we experience. 

Although many may disagree, I would say getting back in any kind of “physical shape” is one of the hardest things we could set our minds to do considering our industrial and rather efficient way of living.

There is the soreness and fatigue that seems to last weeks, not to mention the quite gruelingly forceful fitting into our schedules making time for physical exercise demands. 

With such busy lives spreading our emotional and psychological capacities so thin, no wonder we choose binging shows or taking out the trash more doable than grabbing a dumbbell or going for a jog.

With every spare minute we have, it seems to be more necessary to just take a rest from all the business rather than jump on the time for something more exerting. 

What is hard is we are out of “shape,” therefore we must work even harder to attain a more enjoyable work out. 

Obviously when I say “getting back in shape,” I don’t necessarily mean that literally, although it makes also for a great literal example of what I mean. 

It is hard for us to act on what we want to do if we lack the proper desires and reasons to do them. 

So what we need isn’t another “New Year Resolution” or a better work-out plan for our life. 

What we need is much deeper if we want any kind of “new direction” or “fresh vision” to actually stick longer than a few months. 

What we need is to join in what God has already offered to give us when it is time for new things to take form in our life.

The language I have observed He most often chooses to use is the language of dreams and desires.

He cleverly plants them like small seeds in us at the beginning stages of our lives and if we allow them to be, He cultivates them as we live.

Also, often times what we call perhaps a “new direction“ or “fresh vision“ really has been churning inside of us like butter, becoming creamy intangible reasons that drive us to make tangible the dreams and desires which have been inside of us all along.

What we do always starts inside of us . . . and it usually starts small. 

Maybe it is inside of you in the from of an idea . . . but ideas fall from the clouds of dreams like rain, giving water to the seeds which become the very things we dream. 

Here is what makes dreams special . . . they don’t come from us.

There is something big and eternal about our dreams and desires that make them powerful because they come from someone big and eternal and powerful. 

Don’t waste time with ambition. 

When I hear someone talk of ambition, I hear a likeness to a child talking about what they want that they don’t have yet, shallow and without anything anchored beyond selfish success. 

But when I hear someone speaking of dreams that have stirred for too long within the depths of who they are, I hear something God-placed, reflecting fingerprints from the Artist who created them and what is alive within them. 

Sure, we can take our dreams the wrong direction or they can become warped and twisted within us . . . but they are always a reflection of something God originally placed inside of us. 

Joining what newness already awaits us in the plans God already has for us means aligning first with what He has already placed in us.

It all starts basically with taking ourselves and the dreams and desires there seriously.

Taking them just as serious as if God himself placed them there . . . which turns out, is true.

There is a hope here to be taken hold of to get us out of any “ruts” or lacking of courage from lost hope that may have or may still be hindering us. 

God gives us a reborn perspective when we align with the newness knowing His will brings. 

Something as simple as a stroll to my car reminds me something new is in the air . . . is in reach . . . very true and utterly real. 

In the driveway of our friend’s house on New Years Eve, God gave my wife and I a new vision for the direction He wants us to begin taking steps toward. 

It was a stirring to trail-blaze regions of our dreams and desires we have not yet stepped foot to discover, of which ultimately are His plans for our lives.

We were still in the midst of what started as a simple conversation when the deeper dreams that were seemingly dormant underneath past the practical and reasonable were exposed for both of us. 

As the car was still running parked at the house and the conversation ever more exciting, what was no longer waiting but had been uncovered left us utterly baffled at how clear the direction we were suppose to head was. 

In that moment, God wasn’t placing new dreams and desires in us but rather the desire to act upon already existing ones we maybe hadn’t quite taken as seriously as we were now meant to.

This was a hope given to us . . . a start towards something tangible. 

I can’t put into words the simple sense of mere hope it has given us in ways we didn’t even know we were desperate for. 

To those who have felt the feeling that the quote depicts, to be “back in the saddle again,” is a very fulfilling part of something new. 

Whether it is doing what has already been done or starting something that you’ve never done before, they both posses a uniqueness and a newness that warrants the feeling only new beginnings can bring. 

Take a moment to breathe in the refreshingly cold crisp evening air of what God has for you at maybe a new beginning towards dreams and desires in you that aren’t so new . . . which have perhaps been cultivated since you entered this world by the One who created you.

(Maybe it won’t be so hard like “getting back in shape” and will without a doubt feel more like getting “back in the saddle again.“)

Lone Wolfing

It doesn’t have to be an Oprah Special every time we allow someone to come along side of us . . . but we should know that it is foolishness to keep ones' heart to themselves

    How great does it feel . . . how unbelievably and reassuringly receiving to know that we are not alone.

I am not saying we aren’t alone in the universe or anything like that!

I am not even going on to the topic we have God with us always . . . although we do, because we are human, He has given us each other here on earth.

The great lie we face today among many others is this:

You are alone in what you are going through and you alone are just going to have to tough it out.

How sad and completely against everything God created us for to believe such a ridiculous concept.

It is the farthest thing from the truth.

Now lets talk for a second though about the time old tail of our feelings versus what is actually true.

Sure, it may feel like we are alone and granted, that is completely and absolutely a normal tendency to feel that way.

But I think we can all agree that when we feel a certain way, it is rarely the closest and clearest reflection of what is true, for our lives and the ones around us.

Another interesting part of feeling alone is where it leads us to going.

It almost says to us, “It’s okay to be alone . . . just learn how to manage and deal with life on your own.”

Sadly in our culture today, popular concepts like “You do you and I’ll do me” basically say that it’s okay to not work together in life and basically . . . “You go your way and I’ll go my way.”

Last time I checked, that isn’t God’s heart for any of His children.

In fact, you see the complete opposite in testimonies after testimonies of how God brings His children . . . together to live life in ways we could never hope to on our own.

Although we don’t have to look outside of our own walk with Him because He lives in us now, the Bible clearly gives a confirmation through story after story of it’s own accoutnings that God loves unity and coming together.

Jesus Himself didn’t “lone wolf” anything He did.

In fact, He brought together and led a group of young men who would be the beginning of something much bigger than themselves.

    Joshua and Caleb led the Israelites together, fishing battle after battle and facing faithlessness amongst their people.

David had his Mighty Men in whom they had their greatest loyalties to and would fight along side David as if he was their king.

Moses and Aaron led the Israelites out of the biggest nation known to man at the time and faced challenges they would have never imagined along the way.

I could go on and on, story after story, account after account of God’s heart on this matter.

What is the point?

Not one of these great men was Lone Wolfing.

There were no lone wolves among them . . . and they took great strength in knowing they were not alone in every endeavor they faced as God led them.

Moses and Aaron depended on each other.

David depended on his Mighty Men.

Joshua needed Caleb by his side, someone who would stick it out through and through.

Jesus, the one in whom had no sin . . . here on earth depended on the young men He was given and form heaven was a Father in whom He greatly depended on for life itself.

    So now why would we ever think that it would be better to not call a friend when we need to talk about something weighing heavily on our hearts?

Do we think that little of ourselves we would consider that burdensome to someone who we consider a friend who would most likely offer their shoulder to help carry those burdens we do?

It’s always in the little ways we compromise our strength of heart that leaves us weak and vulnerable to believing lies about our life and those lives around us. 

It isn’t just the hard things we go through either though.

    For me lately, God is teaching me to let others into the exciting and celebratory experiences as well as the hard challenges.

That can be both just as vulnerable and hard as it would be to share with a buddy a struggling marriage or dreams that don’t seem to be developing at all.

Not Lone Wolfing means doing the opposite.

It means running with the pack that God has given you.

Open your eyes to all He has provided you with . . . for He never leaves you lacking.

    Remember, having friends isn’t enough now and days, not with Facebook and Instagram and Twitter watering down the essence of true relationship with each other.

Saying we have friends can be about as meaningful as flowers on Valentines day.

We must be careful what that means.

I wrote a song the other day and recorded it and was really excited about it. A part of me just wanted to enjoy that excitement alone.

But there was a part of me that wanted to share it.

So I did.

And let me tell you, that was more fulfilling than keeping it to myself. It made it more exciting.

I was struggling with loneliness and pain from a past relationship . . . and I was tempted to keep it to myself because I felt like a broken record repeating the same old thing.

Instead I just opened up to a buddy one night over beers and cigars and when I did I realized that a necessary part of the healing process was to just talk about it!

We tend to overcomplicate things.

But this is simple even though from moment to moment it can seem complex.

Lone Wolfing isn’t what God intended, for there is great strength in sharing and opening our lives and hearts to all that is going on within.

It doesn’t have to be an Oprah series special every time we allow someone to come along side of us . . . but we should know that it is foolishness to keep ones' heart to themself.

Desire That Burns

Desire is a powerful force within that can cause us to be driven passed what our wills are strong enough to manage

Wait, serve, and learn.

There is purpose in the waiting and in the process.

There is a bigger picture to be had later in the journey, to be recognized not until its proper timing.

In John Maxwell’s book, Learning From the Giants, he puts it like this:

“God’s purpose works only with God’s timing. We usually want what God has for us right now. But our desire to lead for God is really only as great as our willingness to wait on Him. Be patient.”  (pg. 28)

What does that mean exactly?

Is there truly a correlation between the two . . . being willing to wait and our desires?

There is, and for the first time I think I am starting to see it clearly.

So many times I either prayed out loud or desperately thought it in my head for God to take my unmet desires away that were so strong as they would ache within me.

I knew it wasn’t His will for those to be taken away from me, for they were given to me by Him. I knew that, yet my heart was so longing for those desires to be fulfilled that it was leaving me sick with disappointment to have so many opportunities seem to pass me by. Those desires were left unmet.

But through this journey walking life out with the Father, He reveals more and more that the desires which burn must grow and become the driving force to help us wait for or fight for or take hold of all He has, even through the time while they are unmet.

    It has to be more than just me choosing to be strong or choosing to have hope. It sadly doesn’t work that way. People commit suicide every day all around the world because our wills alone cannot push us on or may at least fail us. We eventually fail in some capacity left to our own strength and most assuredly never reaching the potential we could if we waited for God's perfect timing in our lives.

It has to be more . . . something deeper within us . . . within our hearts.

It has to come from desire.

Desire is a powerful force within that can cause us to be driven passed what our wills are strong enough to manage.

It is what people mean when they talk about someone who people might call the "under-dog" not having as much skill or talent than the others yet they have "heart" and that ends up being enough.

There is a quote from the movie Lone Survivor when Mark Walburg’s character says:

“There’s a storm inside of us. I’ve heard many team guys speak of this. A burning.. a river.. a drive… an unrelenting desire to push yourself harder and farther than anyone can think possible . . .”

    When everything else seems to fail you, it is desire that pushes past the physical and mental capacities to get us through what we normally would’t be able to get through without that burning fire inside of us.

God speaks to our hearts . . . He stirs these deep things within us as a seal over our lives and over our final decisions if we let Him. 

Of course He won’t take these huge dreams away from me, the things that burn desire in me . . . He won’t let them die, not if they were placed there by Him in the first place! He doesn’t let me give up and stay there. He lets the desires for more, the aching, and longings He lets burn inside of me burn for the call on my life.

He lets the desire in me fuel my focus to take one more step, one step at a time, eventually venturing to the places He has for me to go . . . to the people He plans for me to love and bring Him to.

He fans the desires like a docile flame needing to be set ablaze.

No, He won’t let them die. That would be too easy.

The pain is simply a part of the process we must go through in order for our desires to be aligned with our Father's purposes.

    I found myself sometime ago doing something I don’t think I have ever done before, truly.

I began to pray for Him to grow my desires and to feed them like a fire within me. Instead of asking Him to take them away, I submitted them to Him in the purposes He wanted for them. 

The very thing I know the enemy of my soul wants to be my discouragement and destruction would end up being what God used to help direct me through this journey.

What belonged to Him would grow and the passion would act as a compass leading me towards the direction He desired for my life.

It changed everything, that I would no longer neglect them, my desires, because of the pain and ignore them in my attempts to create my own life for myself. 

Our desires when surrendered to Him can be trusted because it is no longer us at the helm of our life's ship . . . no longer our hands on the steering its wheel. 

We must remember, it is Him that gives us desire that burns. It is up to us to  choose what to do with it, and it is only our loving Creator who knows what it is for.

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“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” 

        -James 1:2-4  (MSG)

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(Photo: taken one night during a backpacking trip through Arkansas)

Becoming

I think if we were all honest in our own assessment of ourselves, we could say there is more time spent "surviving" than there is time spent truly living

    I have found myself lately being more and more serious about things.

Everything from the moment I wake up seems as though the world depends on every decision I make. That's the pressure at least and what it feels like. My thoughts typically follow suit.

I would have to say I actually need to spend hours sometimes “un-serious-ing” myself. Sometimes it is through hobbies and things that bring me life . . . or something as simple as going to a movie or spending time with a close friend where I can just loosen up.

What is driving that?

I wouldn’t dare put the blame on something as noble and taken-out-of context these days as what we would call maturity.

Seriousness isn’t maturity, for I have seen both sides being both neither mature or not.

I wouldn’t call it caring more because what does caring have to do with lacking light-heartedness?

The words burden and weight come to mind when thinking of how serious I have become. I am not even saying it is neither wrong nor right to be one way or another, for it is not my place to say for myself or you, the reader.

But I am realizing more and more my current progression rather than how I used to be years ago.

Is it a bent?

You can’t say it has to do with age because I have noticed both old and young having contrasting characteristics in this matter. I have seen older men as jolly and care-free as a wee lad. I have also seen a younger man seeming to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders without even having high school under there belt yet.

I believe a lot of it has to do with how we are wired, yes I will agree with that. It also has to do with how we are raised, another contributing factor as well.

Let’s go deeper though than just our circumstantial predicaments . . . deeper into why it is, say I, have become more one way than the other.

I felt like God showed me part of it is time.

    Over time we change. That change comes from the journey we are each of us on. What we go through does in fact have an effect and carries with it a mold which changes who we are. The journey can be long. It can be hard and trying. It can leave us in pieces and without hope of anything more. It can wrench loose our hearts from our minds so we live less with heart and more from places of logic, stoically facing the days emotionless and tactful. Not that it is wrong to do so, but simply put it should only be tools in which are applied and not how God intended His creation to live, for He created us with passion and full of boundless fervor for the adventure before us that is life.

Over time though cynicism may creep in, demanding we only listen to its voice more often so as to limit pain from disappointments recurring. 

Basically parts of us begin to survive rather than live.

That is indeed what it comes down to.

I think if we were all honest in our own assessment of ourselves, we could say there is more time spent “surviving” than there is time spent truly “living.”

When I am truly living from my heart, I feel alive inside even though there may not be much going on around me that would warrant excitement. Regardless of what the journey brings, God helps me to live from a deeper place, taking on each moment as if they were waves swelling underneath me as I crash upon the surface of them. Those moments are small yet grand to the soul, for with them carries the perspective of God's redeeming supply of life flowing into us. It is waiting for us to take it . . . to humbly seek Him for it.

    Whether it is a warming conversation about something I am passionate for or simply a good cup of coffee’s aroma floating up into my senses, when I am alive inside in the moments in which I have been given, I can say with utter confidence, I am truly living.

But there are other times where that weightiness of things I cannot help worry about distract me from the moment and I become lost in the thought rapturing my focus into the cynical world against me. There is no life there, only survival. There can't be fullness of life, for when one is trying to survive from moment to moment, there is "no time" for anything aesthetic and grand. The only thing we do have time for is what is of an obligatory nature and what can be tossed to the side. The problem of, as the saying goes, expecting the worst and hoping for the best will only get you first in line at a Starbucks and that's about it. 

    I was just reading an article that mentioned how we can see God in His creation.

Oh how much He loves that which He created.

“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?”

-Mathew 6:26-27

I think we get that part, that God loves His creation. I think sometimes, no, many times we forget that we are His absolute treasured creation.

How much more would He do for us?

Yet we worry, we strive, and we manipulate our lives to the point where we abandon living from our hearts to take on more “practical” approaches to facing each day as we learn to survive rather than to truly live.

You want to talk about practical?

Reinhold Messner made the first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental Oxygen. He described some of his experience as being so extremely exhausted he no longer had feelings or emotions. He no longer had anxiety or fear or even despair. He said he felt as though he was sort of floating in the fog around him at the mountain's top with nothing but his will and self-awareness as his being. 

It kind of sounds like how most of us live, honestly.

We push and push and push until we have nothing left in our souls but numbness towards ourselves and the daily-grind before us.

Here is the only difference . . . Reinhold Messner was living from his heart, and that made all the difference for answering the question of “Why?” he did it. That wasn't practical what he did. He volunteered himself to allow his body to go through more physical and psychological agony than most of us would ever be willing to go through, yet he did it not as a stance to be "practical" or to survive. If he wanted to survive, he could have stayed in the comforts of his home town enjoying being first in line at a local cafe. No, he chose to live and frankly in my opinion, he truly lived.

I look back now on the younger man I once was to now, still a young man, and I am left with a question that haunts me almost daily.

Who am I becoming?

Am I going to wait until I get to an old age to realize like so many men do what life is actually about?

Are you?

Have we compartmentalized how we view ourselves because of things we have deemed too impossible to even take on one small step towards?

Have we set aside passions in our hearts because they don’t make us money?

    Need I reiterate the starkly clear message God so desperately wants to convey to our sometimes stubborn thick heads . . . that which Jesus Himself said . . . 

“You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life . . .”

What is in your heart that you have played the role of God in by dismissing it as something that won’t get you to where you think you want to be?

Dismissing those things in your heart is surviving. It is not living.

    You dismiss things when surviving like a kitchen table and wooden chairs because you don’t have the space for them if you get stranded in the Mohave desert and can only afford to carry a few wisely chosen items.

But Jesus wasn’t talking about our lives here with Him as surviving. In fact, He is communicating the opposite, that if He takes care of the birds every day who don't manage to do enough for themselves, how much more would He take care of us?

That is quite literally the opposite of survival. It sounds more like sitting down to eat at a dinner table fully lavished in succulent delicacies provided by a Father who loves us more than we could ever imagine or comprehend.

So, who are you becoming?

After summiting and having finally come back off the mighty mountain half-dead, he was asked the question of why he did it. This was his response . . .

“I didn’t go up there to die . . . I went up there to live.”

-Reinhold Messner