To What Haunts

When we constantly rationalize our thoughts away, we are pacifying, for the moment, what God may want us to face

To what haunts you, you must face. 

How much we run from through out this journey is staggeringly uncountable considering all we face anew each day. 

It all adds up.

It stacks upon the other until we are burdened down with too many thoughts gone un-acknowledged. 

We were not meant to carry such burdens, not to mention the mere quantity of them, as small as they may seem . . . for if we allow them to, they will always take away from us more than we can hope to rebuild. 

We have just grown accustomed to, at a specialized level I might add, evading many if not all forms of resolution. 

I also think that is why God allows those unanswered haunts to go loose within our thoughts and depths of our hearts . . . in the hope we may one day reach such resolutions to be rid of them. 

It can’t be all at once, so, it won’t be all at once, although it may appear or feel differently.

God’s Spirit will gently nudge a thought or two and present it to our attention. 

Be careful, for this can seem like a “silly” thought come bouncing in and stumbling out the door of our consciousness if we let it.

Also, it may be too uncomfortable of a thought or too painful if spent too much time on.

We must take our hearts serious enough to give a chance to such things that may have come bouncing in more than a few times. 

Don’t over think this. 

When we constantly rationalize our thoughts away, we are pacifying, for the moment, what God may want us to face.

This would be a defense set up to have you avoid such things as dealing with and resolving hauntings within your heart.

Whether they seem “big” or “small” to you, “silly” or of no real “threat,” are you so arrogant to think you know which is which?

Yes, we are and can be that arrogant to think we know what is worth our time or discomfort to sort out. 

Humility says that we must not fully trust our own interpretations but like a child would, rely solely on our Father to lead us. 

No man likes this at first or ever is inclined naturally to be drawn to this way of living, but this and this alone is where the truest strength lies.

The humility which is only found in reliance on God must occur first before we can ever trust our hearts again, for the heart will only go in the direction of whatever is master over it. 

This wouldn’t have to sound so dramatic if not for our incessant need to run as hard as we can from things that actually matter most to the well-being of our hearts and souls.

We run from the likeness of those hauntings because it is always uncomfortable, usually painful, and feels uncertainty mysterious to face what won’t leave us alone. 

It amazes me just what we live with.

I’m reminded of a close friend who years ago injured his knee while playing soccer. He lived with it for about 4 years before going to a doctor. 

It ended up being a torn ACL. 

The doctor was shocked at how he had not only walked but ran on it to play soccer for that long before coming in. 

The doctor reasoned that what happened was his knee built muscle around the injured knee to provide further support to compensate for the injury. 

We all do that.

That is the point.

To what haunts you, you must face. 

The hope though is because God is the One, your Father, who wants you to face it, He also wants to face it with you. 

We are the ones who push him out, like a teenager who doesn’t need help.

Arrogance will always stand in the way of true strength.

So it is true we must face what haunts us, but alone?

No, we are never alone.

Undistracted

When we sprinkle our time with just bits of God each day enough to survive, our lives will reflect the little we've sown for it

    What will come and become later for our lives will be made up of all that is happening right now.

From the little things to the things we deem bigger in nature, the future is a culmination of each moment now.

That is how we should live, like farmers, constantly sowing now for what can grow later.

We are constantly constructing and building our futures right now.

Yet, how many of us sort of wait until we get to that "hopeful" future until we begin to risk or sacrifice or pour anything of value from ourselves?

Should we wait until things “line up” or make sense before we start taking the small steps we knew all along we should have been taking?

    When Jesus told us that He is the vine in which we draw life from, He wasn’t just trying to sound poetic in describing just how dire our need for Him is.

He was literally meaning that apart from Him, there can be no true life.

We cannot find the person we are meant to become apart from Him . . . and it will always feel as though something is missing when we do.

No wonder we grab for so many other things when really all we were actually needing was Him.

It is meant to be this way, us missing something without Him because we were created for Him . . . not all the other things we reach for . . . So it only makes sense to do what we were originally created for.

So it is no wonder we often live life lacking until finding true fulfillment in who we are meant to be in Him.

Apart from our fellowship and communion with Him . . . without undistracted time spent with Him and a bond of intimacy grown with Him, we will always be less than what we are meant to.

It is truly that simple.

Yet, it is in our human nature to only do what we think we can get away with.

That kind of thinking allows us to survive through each day, but never thrive.

We may be able to survive and make it through each day with only bits and pieces of giving Him our distracted attention, but that will only yield the lesser harvest.

When we sprinkle our time with just bits of God each day enough to survive, our lives will reflect the little we've sown for it.

    I can say with confidence that when I have been neglecting that quality time spent with God, undivided and one-on-one, I am less of the man I know I can be.

Sadly, knowing that isn’t enough sometimes when I do indeed neglect connecting to that Mighty Vine.

But, when I have become so dry and dead inside, lacking passion and all the life I find in Him . . . when I get to the end of myself, I find that He is waiting there for me.

How amazing is that?

Now, I am not talking about listening to a worship song in the morning and/or a sermon and calling it good. Those are outside sources . . . "tools" of cultivating our growth and relationship with Him . . . but just like in school, if all you ever do is read text books, you will only be one-sided in your knowledge.

It is the actual time spent with Him and also learning your own heart and who you are through communicating with Him that makes all the difference. 

I am talking about silence.

I am talking about just you and Him, nothing else.

Just your heart being open and real about what is going on in your life, frustrations, confusions, desires met or unmet, and all that seems to come up to the surface for air when we get alone and in a quiet undistracted place with Him.

This is what brings us life . . . that undistracted quality time with Him.

This should be the first step to sowing into your future, for it is the greatest and most important step you could take. That time spent with God is where we find the person we are meant to be and who we are meant to become.

    I was spending some time with Him one day years ago and I was a little frustrated at something. I think I had been asking Him to move in a certain area and didn’t see much happening.

So naturally I was frustrated and told Him something that sounded a bit like,

“I don’t get it God . . . you want me to spend all this time with you but nothing is happening on the outside. I feel like I am not getting anywhere in life, yet You still want me here with You. What am I really accomplishing?”

Just then as I had my eyes closed, He gave me a moving picture in my mind.

It was of me alone with Him, sitting there talking to each other and spending time together.

Then I saw this huge crane come and pick me up and it took me to this rather large crowd of people. It set me down right in the center of the crowd.

Then He told me,

“Spending time with me will always be the greatest investment to whatever your future will end up looking like.”

All at once in that moment I knew what He was saying to me just with that simple picture and those simple words.

It hit me that I was looking at my life through human eyes . . . through the world’s eyes . . . but He was seeing things as they truly were far beyond any limitations from earthly or fleshly means.

He knew that, although it seemed backwards to me, spending time with Him was going to place me in the opportunities that I so longed for to happen.

It was going to give me favor among men more successfully than if I went around trying to earn their favor through networking or any other earthly means to find it.

He would take care of me if only I spent that time with Him and learning from Him and talking with Him.

    Even now there are parts of me that don’t like this. There are parts of me shouting in disagreement that this is in fact not true . . . and I should go and make it happen and toil for my ambitions.

But because God has shown me truths like I had just shared above, I know that there is no quicker or better or more successful way to invest your time that to first spend it with Him.

Again, I am talking about getting alone somewhere quiet and without distractions. I am talking about no phone, no to-do list, and no people.

Even if it is just 10 minutes . . . it will be the greatest investment you could ever make today and tomorrow and for the rest of your life.

In this case, it is quality over quantity. We must not allow the thoughts that fight against this to keep us from spending that time with Him.

Thoughts like,

“I have too much to do so I can’t just set my phone down and go somewhere to be alone with Him.”

That’s B.S. and we all know it.

So don’t even give those thoughts the time of day.

We live by faith and not by what we see and faith without action is worthless.

So we say,

“Okay God, I am going to give you this time undistracted. It may not be much but I trust You to make it bigger than what it looks like to me.”

And that’s it.

Our part is just connecting to Him like a branch is connected to its vine. 

His part is the supernatural part that doesn’t make sense to us.

    I am going to talk a little about what spending time with Him has looked like for me in next week’s article and hopefully that may help some with fears that may hold them back from something that seems a little daunting like being alone with yourself as well as being alone with your creator.

For now though, let’s destroy the excuses and reasons that hold us back and set some time aside today to spend with Him undistracted, even if it is a small amount . . . He will meet you there, He really will.

---

Let’s pray together . . .

Father, replace the fear and doubt with hope that when we invest in spending time with You, we are doing so much more than we could when we don’t. We admit that we need You and need to be connected to Your heart because our lives depend on it. Grow us into the men You desire us to be, in Jesus’ name.

---

(Photo: hiking around some glaciers when I was in Iceland earlier this year)

Open Mat

Something happens inside of a man when pushed to places in his head that go beyond what he believes he can do and accomplish

---

"During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. 

This left Jacob all alone in the camp . . ."

---

    I trained at a Mixed Martial Art gym during college through my early twenties for about 4 years off and on. People are usually shocked when they hear that. 

At least on the surface it may appear I like to fight if I did something like that and there is a part of me who loves to fight for a worthy cause, but I never liked fighting for the sake of fighting. I would usually be the guy breaking up a fight or getting between two guys who wanted to. I did MMA because I fell in love with martial arts as a young boy. I would hear stories of my Dad who trained in the art of Karate most of his youth into high school. I even recently had the chance to watch an old-school video recording of him fighting in a tournament. I watched TV shows like Power Rangers and Jackie Chan movies growing up and Bruce Lee was of course another huge influencer as well as seeing Chuck Norris in the TV show Walker Texas Ranger taking out a hundred guys with his bare fists. 

Needless to say, I grew up pretty much obsessing over fighting within the bounds of honor and discipline but I sadly never trained until I was a young man. 

While I trained in that little hole-in-the-wall gym, I learned a combination of martial arts such as Muy Tai, Judo, and some self-defense disciplines. I also studied Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do philosophy on my own during that time and applied it to my style as well. There was of course American Boxing influences sprinkled through out, but probably the most popular of them all that is affiliated with anyone talking about MMA is of course, Jui Jitsu. 

Jiu Jitsu is basically submission wrestling but very different than American or Greko Roman style wrestling. 

I enjoyed it not so much because it was my favorite, but mainly because I had become decently good at it. I could take just about any guy down I wanted to and could defend just about any guy trying to take me down. 

I had learned enough body positioning and technique to submit guys that it made it more fun and challenging as a sport should be. For me it was never about dominance but it was about learning. 

I would try to fight with guys better or bigger or stronger than me so I could grow in my own strength . . . and take from each what they were good at so Icould become my own best version. 

There was a part of each Jiu Jitsu class that was called "Open Mat" which was basically free-time for us to pair up and practice all we had learned.

It is called "rolling," basically sparring Jiu Jitsu style.

---

"After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him . . ."

---

    I learned a different kind of humility, letting myself be at the mercy of the guy I was rolling with because there was a chance I could be submitted and would need to tap out. You had to have a certain amount of trust towards your partner because if you both weren't careful, someone could get severely hurt.

It wasn't fun to have a guy's four-arm cutting off the artery in your neck that supplies blood to your brain. It wasn't particularly exciting to have your foot twisted in such a way that your ankle somehow felt it would be displaced from its socket. Your elbow being bent in the way it was never meant to would always feel terrible. 

So why would I want to roll with anybody at all?

I could have just left after the teaching part of the class was over. 

What was it about finding a partner preferably stronger or better than me and want to possibly be submitted in a rather hurtful way?

Well, that's not at all why I did it in the first place. 

    Something happens inside of a man when pushed to places in his head that go beyond what he believes he can do and accomplish. 

Something snaps inside and what comes rushing in can only be described by a term we know very well . . . and that is courage. Sometimes I will admit I was nervous when we started rolling. I was nervous because I didn't think I had any chance submitting the guy I paired up with and knew me getting submitted was inevitable. I was nervous because I knew what I was getting myself into choosing to "roll" with someone more advanced than me or just stronger than me. 

Courage is what stayed my course. 

Even after being submitted I still felt a sense of victory because I had courage, as it turns out, I actually wasn't fighting against my rolling partner at all. 

I was really wrestling with myself.

---

"This left Jacob alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, 'Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!'"

---

    It's curious to me how God allowed Jacob to be alone in that camp. He waited until Jacob was all alone . . . and in being alone, he was of course with . . . well, himself. 

Before God showed himself to Jacob and before they began wrestling and "rolling", Jacob was left with himself alone in that camp. He was left with his probably awful image of the man he had become. He was left alone with all of his fears and concerns. He was left alone with the parts of himself he knew were weak.

We learn so much of who God is when we wrestle with Him, but how about when we are alone? 

I think that He wrestles with us so we can face ourselves, but first He must get us alone.

God obviously has nothing to prove, just like those guys I would go against who were ranked higher than me didn't, both of us knowing who was better than the other. 

That's not why I went up against them, at least most of the time. I wasn't trying to prove anything, at least to them.

In fact I usually went in knowing they would surely submit me. I just wanted to know how long it would take for them to and they usually gave me great respect for that. There was a part of myself I wanted to learn through it . . . gain more of an understanding towards the truth of what I had in me.

I wanted to know where I was in terms of skill, where the fear in me was hiding, and where my own beliefs about myself limited me in what I could do and what I was capable of.

Every time I would face myself and "submit" those false-perceptions that limited me, I would become better.

I became more fearless.

I became smarter in how I used my strengths while learning where my weaknesses were actually limiting me. 

Basically, I wanted to face all that was making me weak, and I became pretty good because of it. 

I learned to do that because that was the only way I could become stronger and become who I knew I could be.

Eventually, the guys that were once much more advanced than me became more of an equal opponent as I began to submit them and at the very least, defend and keep up with them. 

    That is what Jacob had to do in order to overcome the identity he carried for so long, his name being "Jacob" which in Hebrew meant "One who wrongfully or illegally seizes and holds the place of another."

In order to become who God wanted Him to, Jacob had to face what was holding him back from it. He had to face himself.

So, God wrestled with him. 

In a fight, you know longer have anything to lose except the fight itself, so usually you give it your all. In a fight you get to see all you're made of and all you're not. It becomes crystal clear and it sort of frees you to seeing the truth of who you are giving you nothing to hide behind. It's all out there for you and your opponent to see. I think that's why there is so much respect after a fight between the fighters to a degree, even if they still don't like each other.  

Regardless of whether you lose or win (depending on the cause), learning the truths of and facing yourself through the process of the fight can almost be the most fulfilling part, regardless of the outcome. 

Notice how Jacob had the courage after the fight to face his brother. Notice the change in Him as a man after. Notice how he saw the world around him and how it changed. His perspective had shifted among with learning the truth of who God made him to be, and it changed starting with him facing himself first. 

How he saw God changed.

How he saw himself had changed.

God gave him a new name, Israel. 

The Hebrew word for Israel is pronounced  "Sarah" meaning "to prevail" and "to have power as a prince" which in the context of this story, God specifically told Jacob he had prevailed with Him and man, having power as a prince with Him and man.

Wrestling with God is so necessary for finding who we are as men because when we wrestle with God, we are really facing ourselves. It is not different than the important lesson He taught me through the years I spent training, getting my butt whooped over and over again. He showed me that it wasn't them I was ever fighting at all . . . but it was myself in whom was the true opponent. When we go up against God, we are bound to get whooped. If it was about winning, it would be pointless every time.

What's amazing is with our Father, it's about us facing the truths about ourselves that He desires . . . wanting us to wrestle and strive and fight until we have nothing left to hide behind except the reality of who we are.

---

"'What is your name,' the man asked. He replied, 'Jacob.'

'Your name will no longer be Jacob,' the man told him. 

'From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.'"

---

Do you think an open mat session between you and God might possibly be overdue?

(Scripture is from Genesis 32)

One More Small Step

It is here where we find all along we were holding ourselves back from a life that we could have only dreamt of before giving ourselves over to trusting Him with it

    That’s all God ever asks of us.

Just one more small step.

He handles the heavy lifting. He handles the bigger picture and all the small pieces coming and fitting together masterfully and wonderfully in His timing. He takes care of us as a gardener would tend to and take after their beautiful garden. He does not delay, nor does He reluctantly become bored and neglect us. From the surface, it seems too good to be true, that we would only have to take a small step at a time.

But do we?

Do we always?

    Personally I battle every day with the idea of taking a small step and leaving the outcome to Him. I want so badly to take what I see around me and make assumptions and speculations to anticipate where each “point A” will lead to find exactly where each “point B” will end up being. 

Often times I wrestle with a small step being so seemingly insignificant that I can’t manage to pull myself to take it at all. 

I fight and grapple and find God standing strong, not budging in what He wants . . . and He does this because He loves me more than I love myself. I do have the choice I have found to not take the step at all. But all my begging for Him to somehow change His mind fails miserably as I sink into wanting things to go the way I am imagining them going in my head.

How sneaky the enemy of our hearts is, taking something that should be organic and tailored exactly to fit us, that is allowing God to lead, and turning our hearts to doubt Him rather than trust Him like a child would their loving parent.

How awful and tragic it is that we would war with God’s heart as we second guess Him constantly to know where we would be best going in our life’s journey.

I respond, maybe not out loud but in the quietness of my restless thoughts I struggle with, “I just don’t know what possible good thing could come of me doing what You want me to do, Father. How is this even going to get me anywhere?”

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the rock and strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  

“But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God; I have made the Lord God my refuge and placed my trust in Him, that I may tell of all Your works.” 

-Psalms 73:25-26, 28

    I have been shocked at where each small step of obedience to His leadership has taken me in life . . . yet I still wrestle. I still fight. This is to be human, yes that is true. We fight and storm inside because there is no peace without our Creator’s touch to calm our fear and raging appetite for self-preservation.

This is to be human. 

Yet, something in our hearts longs desperately for a connection with the One whom has given Himself to have us. That is why it is indeed good to draw near to Him. To trust Him with even the smallest of steps that may seem as though they will lead and are leading us absolutely nowhere.

Have you felt stagnant or even stuck where you are?

Draw near to Him who wants you to be led onward.

    I have found over and over again without surprise that it is typically me and not my circumstances that have held me back from so much. It hit me the other day the weightiness of how much that is true in my life. Whether it is me thinking I am inadequate to do something specific or if it is just me doubting anything would come of me taking a small step towards a dream I have had for so long, I get caught in my head. My thoughts become the leader of my life rather than God’s voice. 

My own understanding of the embarrassingly small perspective I have sadly becomes the captain of my vessel, leading me to fall short of the decisions that were meant to be opportunities to take me somewhere I never thought possible. It is almost like God allows our lives to not make much sense sometimes and even keeps our eyes from seeing what He alone wants to show us. The thing is, we have to seek Him for it all.

He longingly desires for us to pursue a relationship with Him in the utter closeness that is the very definition of true intimacy with someone.

It is here where we find all along we were holding ourselves back from a life that we could have only dreamt of before giving ourselves over to trusting Him with it.

“It is God’s privilege (and glory) to conceal things and the king’s privilege (and glory) to discover them.”

- Proverbs 25:2

He has never let me down.

I can say He has not given in to when I wanted things and how I wanted them to be . . . but He has never even left me alone to deal with my own self-inflicted disappointment in my expectations not being met.

He is God and will not play our petty games, but He is also full of un-conditional love and will not leave us un-disciplined and taught to see what He sees if we allow Him to. And if we do, our hearts and souls are washed over to be made into something new.

    We are led to becoming someone we never would have thought we could be, perhaps even the man we had always wanted to be. Through His fathering we end up doing things we never would have thought we were able to do, and to be frank, we weren’t able to without Him. As a close friend mentioned to me recently, this is where the natural part of our abilities meets the supernatural of His. That is not the reason we love Him, for that is not the reason He first loved us. 

It was all for relationship.

We ought to carefully enforce that our eyes don’t become distracted by the mere things we can do with Him to lose what the whole point of it all is, that we would live to be with Him every day.

    It takes patience . . . not because God is slow moving but because we are so naturally inclined to wonder off-track from His will.

His will is perfect for our lives, yet ours for our own is not.

Therefore we must have patience, not with Him, but with our own hearts that are sometimes farther from His than we want to admit or acknowledge. He is so patient with us though, so we should be with ourselves just as well.

    Whether the step seems small or even bigger than we can handle, timing is everything. All He asks from us is that we take that step. If we are wise, we will fight to exchange our own heart’s impatience and steadily take to His heart’s perfect rhythms. But as we are not meant to figure out the outcome of a small step, we also are not meant to carry the burden of it. We are meant to enjoy life, finding, every day, new aspects of who God is written in everything around us.

It is incredible to me just how much He is . . . well, everywhere.

He is in the atmosphere even when I am surrounded by those who have not chosen Him.

I am surrounded by His graceful care in the midst of challenges that seem to come completely out of nowhere.

I find His brush strokes in the delicate colors that seemed to have been painted unto the glimmering skin of a rainbow trout.

I have seen His favor time and time again assuredly gone before me as I have taken the small steps He led me to take, one step at a time.

That’s all He ever asks of us. That’s all He wants. That we should enjoy life more with Him truly is His passionate desire towards us.

It was like that in the beginning of time when man walked with his creator in the cool of the day.

    Although there is so much more to explore here in walking every day with our Father, why don't you take some time to now explore less of the knowledge and more of your own experience, for experience is the language of the heart.

What small thing have you thought of doing for sometime now?

Has it almost haunted you in the "back-burner" of your thoughts, constantly resending the same message of something you feel you ought to do?

It might be something you have called a far-fetched dream that you deemed too large to ever reach. Maybe the first step towards it is small enough to assume it won't get anywhere towards it . . . but that is not for us to decide. The measly perspectives we have towards our lives cannot be trusted any more than we can trust a young child to drive us into heavy traffic down town in a busy city for a meeting.

At least for this moment, be free of all your own thoughts on whatever it is and tell Him all the doubts and fears that are holding you hostage. Tell Him right now . . . and be free from them. Allow God to have a say in what to do by releasing all preconceived notions and imaginings of what you have speculated for the end results of your decisions. Let Him tell you to lay it down or to take the small step maybe He has been gently nudging you to take all along.

It actually may have been Him all along . . . whispering to you to take a small step.

    My mom has gotten into something called Dirty Pour painting. It is a form of painting that literally means you mix paint with an oil-based solution and pour it into whichever way you the artist would like. In moments back-to-back it can be both incredibly therapeutic and rather stressful in that the paint sort of goes and does what it wishes, regardless of how hard you may try to control it. Doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound just like life?

My Mom had been wanting me to try it out with her so we did over the weekend.

She also was basically letting me do it myself after teaching me the proper mixes and processes. Honestly I found myself getting frustrated because it just wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to. I really struggled with taking it one step at a time. I couldn't get passed how awful it seemed to look during the process and to be even more honest, I wanted to just quit. I didn't however because I knew it meant the world to my Mom to be doing something she loves to do and doing it together.

Here is why it appeared to look so awful to me.

It was not finished.

In my impatience and unrealistic expectations of something I couldn't wish to control, I took it as it was mid-process and not for what it was going to become after I was finished.

It looked terrible to me and I struggled with it ever looking better than it looked then. I didn't want to take the small steps partly because those small steps were messy . . . literally in the case of painting with my Mom.

How often do we do that with our own lives?

How often do we do that with those closest to us . . . with friends, family . . . our wives, children, and even parents?

Those small steps are rather difficult to take on. It isn't even because they are too difficult in and of themselves, but rather because they sometimes just don't seem to be leading anywhere. They can be messy. But they can also be apart of a bigger picture so beautiful we could not imagine it until we finished the process of where they are meant to lead us to.  

About a week ago I took a long walk with God. I had become frustrated from taking small steps and them seeming to lead me absolutely nowhere. I desperately needed to get it all out from inside of me and into the open. After ranting and venting, He reminded me of something I had forgotten.

He didn't say much . . . but then again, He rarely needs to.

"Son, don't despise the start of something that seems small . . . the days of humble beginnings. Humility now will save you from pride later." 

"Just take one more small step."

(Photos: the trails are from a trip to Montana hiking through the Ousel Falls Park. I did the painting because I was inspired from my time fly fishing in Montana)