I listen to several sermons a week. I listen to a lot of Christian music. I listen to many faith-filled messages aimed at the world that don't often settle in the heart of me as if they were spoken just for me.
Messages that have plenty of meaning, yet at the same time don't often change my life. At least not the kind of change that happens when I hear God speak directly to me. Today, I understand better than ever what those sermons and songs do best, at least the really good ones; they make sure I'm hearing the right messages when I sit and listen to God. And that's a really important step. Sitting and listening to God. It's hard to hear what God only wants to tell you when you don't ever ask God to tell you what he only wants to tell you. Too often our conversations with God are restricted to us telling God what we think he needs to hear from us. Have you ever thought about this. God will always know what you want to tell him even if you never say a word. But we will never have any earthly idea what God wants to tell us if we don't stop and ask him, what do you want to tell me? If we never stop to ask God what he wants to tell us, we will never hear: You need to stop beating yourself up, because I have. In fact I never did. I like you, I like you so much more than you like you. I love to read what you write. Or hear what you sing. I just love your voice. I am grateful you enjoy the mountains, I created them just for you. Yes, I know, I am God, but I can feel gratitude too. You know, good leaders can make the whole team feel important in a leadership team meeting. They deliver a message that inspires and unites the whole team. But the best leaders spend time with the individuals on the team, making sure they know they are valued. And why they are valued. God is inviting us into that individual meeting every second of every day. God is sitting there, heart wide open, anxious to make sure we know just what he sees in us and just how much he treasures it all. Too often our prayers start with an effort to get God's attention, to draw God into a space of hearing what we long to say. And there's a time for that. For sure. But sometimes what we really need most is to enter the space God is inviting us into. The space where we just sit and hear his voice. A voice that will always say, I really like you. I like you and I'm thankful you gave me just a few moments of quiet to tell you that. God's voice is always powerful. It's most powerful when we hear him say what he only wants to say to us.
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Ten years ago, country music singer Luke Combs auditioned for a spot on the television show The Voice. The show rejected him; they told him he wasn't interesting enough for television.
A few weeks ago, not even a decade later, country music singer Luke Combs was center stage at the Grammy Awards. He was singing a duet with music icon Tracy Chapman. Together they sung the song Fast Car, a song Chapman had written and made famous 35 years ago. Ten years ago Combs was rejected. A few weeks ago he was a co-star in one of the most culturally relevant music moments we've experienced in some time. I find it interesting that one of the main themes of Chapman's song is simply making the decision to go. Making the decision to leave behind haunting memories and circumstances and go make something of life. Chapman originally wrote the song to narrate the story of a working class woman trying to break free from the cycle of poverty. When Combs brought the song back to life last year, I have to believe he also was reflecting on a journey of breaking free. As I watched them sing this song together again this morning, it occurred to me that even the fastest cars start out slow. For any car to reach its top speed, we have to stay committed to pressing that car's gas pedal. Getting where we long to go. Getting where we were created to go. That road isn't always easy. The trick is to know that, to know the challenges are coming. Know the rejections are coming. Know it and stay committed to the gas pedal anyway. The whole world may believe you're not interesting enough to be on television. But when you believe you're headed to one of the most interesting television moments in music award history, who the hell cares what the world thinks. You have a fast car in you. We all do. The key is to keep pressing that gas pedal long enough to find out just how fast you can go. 2/16/2024 0 Comments Love is not a prize"Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect." ~Brene' Brown
One of the most dangerous elements of this belief system is it comes to shape our relationship with God. When we spend a life making choices driven by efforts to please humans, it's easy to start living life obsessed with trying to please God. When we live life defeated by the reality we can never please humans, we can begin to live life believing there's no way to please God. This stands in the way of one of God's most beautiful gifts to us. The gift of us forever knowing what God thinks about our imperfections. In Ephesians 2:8-9, we read, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." In these verses, God is reminding us that his loving-kindness for us is not a reward for our behavior. It's just the way God feels about us. Love in its purest most perfect form. God is reminding us that no matter where our efforts fall on the perfection scale today, whether it's a 0 or a perfect 10, his love for us never fluctuates. His love has no scale, love is simply who God is. Maybe that's what is so challenging about human relationships. Love fluctuates so much. Even in the closest of relationships. And it often fluctuates in response to choices. I guess that's why God wants us to know how insignificant boasting about our works is to him. He knows how debilitating and exhausting feeling the need to boast is in so many of our human relationships. God knows it's debilitating to spend so much time trying to be noticed for who we are or what we're doing or what we've accomplished instead of simply being noticed because we are loved. It's really hard to imagine having already received God's love when we're so busy trying to earn love from everyone outside of him. I want us to be reminded that one of God's greatest gifts to us is giving us the chance to show up to him every minute of every day perfectly loved. Perfectly and unchanged from the last time we showed up to him. Maybe we can help others come to better know this gift, better feel it, by being a little more perfect with our love for one another. That's a tall order for us. God's nature is only love, ours has a fair amount of evil mixed in. But we can work on it, we can challenge ourselves to be more accepting and less fluctuating with our love. We can take imperfect steps toward loving each other because we love each other, and not because each other has earned the grand prize of love. God's greatest gift to us is his unmerited love. God's greatest gift is to constantly reassure us that love is not a prize, it is simply love. What a beautiful gift. One well worth giving to others. 2/15/2024 0 Comments Who Am I?We are all walking conversations. All day long conversations chatter away in our heads. And Steven Furtick is right, for much of my life my conversations have either been me agreeing with my limitations, or me arguing with my past.
The thing about those conversations, even though the days change and the seasons roll along, both of those conversations leave me in the exact same place. Life goes on, me and my conversations stay right where we are. When I spend my time trying to argue some revision of my past into place, or spend any time believing I am not cut out for my vision for the future, I go nowhere. And if you believe what I believe, that we are all created to go somewhere, go somewhere only you and I can uniquely go, these conversations are at best a waste of time. And at their worst, they are destructive to you and to me and to the world that would benefit from receiving our unique creation. Lately I've been working hard to focus on having one conversation. And that conversation isn't with me, it's with God. It's a quite simple conversation, really. It's one question: who am I? I know some won't believe me, and I understand that and am okay with it, but God does answer that question when I ask it. When I ask with deep sincerity, with deep curiosity, with deep commitment to his answer, God answers me. Always. His answer starts with reminding me that I will never find myself in the arguments about my past. No part of me is found there. I have indeed been shaped by my past, but I don't exist anywhere in the re-writing of it. His answer also assures me that I will find no part of me in my conversations about what I can't do. God reminds me limitations don't define what I can be, God does. God reminds me if he created me to be it, limitations have no say in the matter. It's amazing how much of yourself God will reveal to you when you let go of the past. Let go of the conversations about it. Let go of the things you do to try to protect yourself from it. Let go of the things you do to try to hide from it. You quickly discover that in hiding from the past, you've been hiding from you. The you that God is dying for you to know. And it's amazing the places God will start taking you on this journey of discovering you when you hear him say, I am your tour guide, not your limitations. Too often we take this question of who am I to the world. There, we will often hear answers that tell us who we shouldn't have been or who we'd be better off being. But God, the God who created me, the God who knows my design and my purpose, God will always tell me who I am. And God will always remind me that who I am has nothing to do with undoing or becoming. Who I am will always and only be found in being. Being who I was created to be. Too many of us think there is no answer to that question, who am I. Well there is. There is, if we will ask it in the right place. 2/14/2024 0 Comments Tell someone they matter todayHere is a general definition of Valentine's Day: a day when it is traditional to send a card, often anonymously, to a person one is romantically involved with or attracted to.
The not so anonymous conclusion many will walk away with on this holiday: no one wants to be involved with me. Or, maybe - I don't matter. I'm a big fan of Valentine's Day. I'm a big fan of any occasion that reminds us to show affection. I celebrate any day that celebrates love. But I am also mindful in this world of social media, where those celebrations will be celebrated less anonymously than ever, that many onlookers are going to conclude that since they aren't included in the celebrations, they aren't included in love. I spent time talking to a group yesterday about the reality that more people than ever feel left out. More people than ever feel alone. More people than ever are left wondering if they matter. Most of them quickly concluding that they don't. Which for many will make this a challenging day. I listened to someone talking about mindfulness yesterday. And she said one way to practice mindful living with the person in your life is to try to notice three things about that person each day that you had never noticed before. Today would be a great day to make it a point to notice just one thing about someone. Notice it and point it out. Point it out to them as a reason they matter. Because the reality is, most people will appreciate the flowers they get today. Most people will love the chocolates (who wouldn't love chocolate ?!?!). But many people, if not every person, would gladly skip it all for the chance to know they matter. Let someone know that they matter today. Someone you suspect may not so anonymously be left wondering if they do. The really big bright side to that request, it will be a whole lot cheaper than flowers and chocolates. If you are reading this, Happy Valentine's Day. You were created by a God who decided you mattered long before you were born. Nothing will ever say you matter more than that. But it never hurts to hear it, so I will say it: you matter. There is nothing anonymous about it. Humanity has two very important common denominators:
Struggle and strength. Our stories are almost always centered on brokenness or breakthrough. The problem is, too many stories miss the breakthrough because they are overwhelmed by the brokenness. But every broken story is an invitation. It's an invitation to see the opportunity to break through with a strength we never would have found if left unbroken. I always think of Jesus and how he sought out broken stories. He sought them out to remind the broken that they are being invited into healing and breakthrough. How do you ever help someone find greater strength if they believe they have all the strength they need. Greater strength is almost always reserved for the broken. Brokenness has been by far the greatest teacher in my life. Nothing has reminded me that I am stronger than I ever imagined than coming out on the other side of every single broken story I've ever had. Coming out stronger. Coming out with scars that scream stories of strength. That strength hasn't always come overnight. Some of it has taken decades. But it ultimately comes when I see my broken stories as invitations. Invitations to live stories of strength and not struggle. Maybe you're struggling today? In the midst of the struggle, and I know some of those struggles are hard, but in the midst of them try to hear the invitation. Try to hear the invitation to write the testimonies your scars are begging to tell. Testimonies of strength. Because I promise you, you are stronger than you know. I had a conversation with a dear friend yesterday who told me she was struggling to find peace in her new normal. I told her what I've come to learn, learn quite the hard way, really, and that is that there is no such thing as normal.
So many of our personal challenges come when we don't live up to some vision of normal and constantly beat ourselves up for it. Additionally, there are times we convince ourselves life is going well because what we're doing looks like some vision of normal, when in reality that normal is quite destructive. Normal is deceptive, mainly because normal is a myth. We all have these very individual lives with very different variables, who one earth has the capacity to form a vision for normal. Who could possibly define it? A lot of my struggles in the aftermath of divorce came when I tried to settle into a new normal. I did that - not always knowingly - by first establishing what my new normal should be. Then I went to work trying to squeeze myself into it. The problem is that vision was most formed by how others did divorce and not by the things I needed to do to best take care of me and my boys within the framework of my circumstances. And if I'm being truthful, that divorce largely came about because I spent years trying to figure out and live up to the standards of a normal marriage instead of trying to figure out the healthiest way for two people to grow together. What two people growing together looks like is different between every two-person relationship. So, today it makes perfect sense that one would wake up one day and realize that a couple of decades of normal wasn't normal at all. In fact, it couldn't have been more abnormal and unhealthy for the two people involved. So, I want to encourage you today, if you're feeling abnormal, if you're having a hard time settling into a new normal, the lesson to take from that is get rid of any vision you have of normal and adopt a vision of your best self. Your best self in whatever circumstances you are facing. In fact, I wish that would be EVERYONE'S new normal. This idea of looking at the moment we are in, and doing the healthiest thing possible for me and the people around me. There is no normal to help us know exactly what that looks like, so don't judge yourself by one. The reality is we are all quite abnormal, and if embraced properly, there is something really beautiful about that. Go embrace your new abnormal this week, you might find it healing. Hey all, happy Super Bowl Sunday.
One of the things I love hearing most from the players in the week leading up to the Super Bowl is, “I have always dreamed of playing on the biggest stage.” Because this year one of the world's biggest events is being played on one of the world’s biggest entertainment stages, Las Vegas, it’s easier than ever to get stuck focusing on the stage. It’s easier than ever to get mesmerized by the stage and not become curious about the path it took to get there. We all have a stage. At least I hope so. The stages we dream of in life are often the reasons we get out of bed in the morning. But that IS the key. Getting out of bed each morning and taking the steps we need to take to get to our stage. Get out of bed and keep marching when it’s hard, keep marching when critics suggest we aren’t worthy of the stage, keep marching when even the brightest lights on the stage are getting harder and harder to see. Because it turns out that quitting dreams is easier than imagining them. It turns out that bright lights never get turned on at all if we aren’t willing to get out of bed in the morning to turn them on. We are going to see plenty of stars roll onto the big stage today. We’ll see the Kelce family and Brock Purdy and Usher and Jake from State Farm and, dare I say it, Taylor 😊. We are going to see them all and it will be easy to be star struck by their stage and not their path. Talent is big. Some people never make it to their stage because they just don’t have the talent that particular stage demands. But there are a whole lotta people who never make it to their stage because they got scared off by the path. It’s easier for us to believe at times that the stars on the stage are there because they are stars. It’s easy to lose sight that stardom is almost always a journey and not an anointing. Maybe you want to play in the Super Bowl one day. Maybe you want to be a deacon at your church or be a teacher your student wants to trust with their biggest dreams or biggest struggles. Maybe you want to write a book or be a parent your kid longs to talk to when life gets tough. Maybe you want to be the one who let’s someone know Jesus loves them. I don’t know what your stage is, I just hope you have one. It’s often the difference between wanting to get out of bed and wanting that bed to be your forever stage. I just hope you have one and when you watch the stars today you imagine their path to their stage. I hope you imagine it and are inspired to get out of bed tomorrow and blow the dust off the stage of your dreams. I hope you are inspired to embrace that path it will take to get there. Because the difference between dreaming of the big stage and standing on it is almost always the path. Knowing the path. Staying on the path. Turning the lights back on when others insist on turning them off. Standing on the big stage starts with a dream. That dream ends when our willingness to keep marching toward it ends. When you watch the biggest stars stand on the biggest stage today, be reminded far more of their willingness to get there than stardom. Then get up tomorrow morning and double down on willingness. Your stage is waiting on you!! Your past has you perfectly prepared for this moment.
You have to believe that. How can it not be so? You are the only one living this moment of yours. You are the only one who has lived the moments of your life leading up to this moment of yours. Who in the world is better prepared for this next moment of you than you? No one. Stuck is the place we stay when we see our past as a hindrance. What if we start looking at our past as total preparation? School. There is something you've been prepared to do with this moment not another living human on the planet is prepared to do with it. You'll never do it, though, if you keep seeing where you've been as a curse and not material to use to write your next verse. I've come to see wisdom as the ability to find gratitude in everything I've experienced. The best and the worst. And the only way to find gratitude in the worst is to see in it the lessons that have readied me for right now. I have needed every single second of my life to prepare me for right now. Without it all I am ill-equipped for all of this moment. I am wise enough to know that. I am wise enough to know this is my moment. I am wise enough to know no one is better prepared for it. How about you, are you wise? Who is better prepared for this moment of yours than you? No one is. How could they be? Yesterday, I stopped in St. Paul, Virginia on the way home from a work meeting. I stood on a gravel path that wraps around Oxbow Lake and I remembered.
I just stood there. Remembering. Back in November of 2018, I stood at that same spot getting ready to run the Oxbow Ultra. Just a few months prior, at a different race, I had failed at my first attempt at completing an ultra. (A distance greater than 26.2 miles). I came to run in St. Paul that day to prove to myself I could do something I'd become convinced I could not do. Standing there yesterday was important. Maybe in ways I didn't see coming. As I stood staring across Oxbow Lake and up the mountain that I climbed 6 times that day to get thirty miles in, I recognized there are still plenty of days in my life when I'm convinced there are things I can't do. Things I can't be. Things I'll never overcome. Reseach tell us that we all have about 60,000 thoughts a day. Roughly 95% of them are repeat thoughts, and 75% of them are negative. In summary, the Rocky soundtrack may make us feel like taking on Appolo Creed, but OUR soundtrack, the one we hear most, it frequently wants us to believe we have no fight in us at all. Standing on the edge of Oxbow Lake yesterday was one way for me to lift the needle off the album of my soundtrack. It was one way to tell the automated patterns of my brain to shut up. Too many of us give the negative thought patterns of our minds free rein. We let them take over our perception of the world and our perception of others and our perception of OURSELVES without a fight. No wonder they become so repetitive. Thoughts, like us, often follow the path of least resistance. It felt good standing on the edge of that lake yesterday, looking up that mountain, and asking my mind, what do you have to say about me now? We all need to go to that place today. To our Oxbow Lake. To the place where we've overcome, the place where we've exhibited kindness, the place where we've shown generosity, the places where we've been a loving parent or partner or friend. The beautiful places our negative thought patterns often like to leave out as it plays the soundtrack of our lives. Our thoughts are repetitive. They are almost always negative. If. If we allow them to play on without a fight. Fight them today. Go visit a place of beauty in your life. Because that place DOES exist. Don't let your negative thought patterns convince you otherwise. Start producing a new soundtrack. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
May 2024
CategoriesAll Faith Fatherhood Life Mental Health Perserverance Running |