​Yesterday, I had a zoom meeting with my friends Celia and Meg who are attempting to run the length of the Appalachian Trail. They are doing it by running long weekend segments once every few weeks.

I'm going to give them a hand with their segment next weekend. So yesterday's meeting was to help me get a sense of where they will start and end and stop everywhere in between. And where I'll need to show up to best help them.

Yesterday, I got to be a live and enthusiastic part of the difference between "I intend to" and "get out of my way - nothing is going to stop me."

Intention is sitting around dreaming about a change in life. Direction is making the map and then being bold enough to follow it.

Intention is imagining a finish line. Direction is being bold enough to reach out to a friend and declaring, we will be here Saturday morning - we need you to be there too.

Following Meg and Celia's journey has been a huge influence on my lack of patience with intention. A lack of patience with my intentions AND with yours. They've helped me take notice of all the things in my life I've intended to do but never mapped out the journey to get there.

Because be sure, if you have an intention on your mind or in your heart, but you haven't mapped it out, you're not going there. If you're not bold enough to map out or say out loud the first step of that intention, you are surely not going to be bold enough to take that step.

There's something energizing about talking to two women who are approaching 700 miles into a journey that a very small population of women - especially women who are also working professionals and moms - will ever take. What largely separates them from others?

They are not big fans of intention.

Intention is a nice trigger. It's a nice prelude to imagination and wondering about possibility.

But in time, intention can become something that stands at the foot of the road and stares blankly down it.

Direction on the other hand - it starts walking.

Andy Stanley says, "Everybody ends up somewhere in life. The win is to end up somewhere on purpose."

There's not doubt Meg and Celia will end up at the end of the Appalachian Trail sometime next year. They will because they have no patience with intention.

Today would probably be a great day for me and for you to lose our patience with intention as well.

​I had dinner with a friend last night. She was raised in a very strict 'Christian' environment.

We got into a conversation about fundamentalism. We were googling it and then discussing it.

Some mornings, admittedly, it is nice to have already written what I want to write as a way to process an experience. To make sense of it. Some mornings it's nice to take a break and read what I already thought instead of having to figure out anew what I think.

I wrote this last year:

Bob Goff says in his devotional today: "I'm not trying to be a theologian. I'm trying to be more like Jesus and follow the example of His life."

I think Goff has identified why there is such a sharp decline in Americans who identify as being Christians today. In a country that is full of hurt - I continue to say we have a hurting epidemic - Christians more and more want to offer biblical words as the solution and not the biblical love Jesus spent his whole life spreading.

More and more lately, when people on the outside of our Christian circles are asked to pinpoint what it means to be a Christian, they think of politics or the man on the street corner screaming at them about salvation.

That's because more and more, when those of us on the inside are charged to act like Christians, we want to tell people "what would Jesus do" instead of loving them like Jesus did.

And here's the saddest part of that. In this epidemic of hurting, Christians are well represented. We're as hurting epidemic as the rest of them. I think that's because we're trying to scripture people to death about their own hurting while ignoring all that Jesus showed us about healing our own.

Christianity isn't an educational experience. It's not at it's most powerful when we ask a group of people to pull up some chairs and let me tell you what Jesus said. It's at it's most powerful when we walk into the middle of a hurting epidemic and quietly show people how Jesus loved.

And it's in the middle of that healing, it's in the middle of that joy that overcomes us when we're helping others, it's in the middle of that interaction when someone asks, hey, do you mind if I pull a chair up and ask you to tell me a little more about Jesus?

Don't overlook the joy that comes from living your faith.

Don't overlook the impact that joy has on others.

​The best way to become an impatient person is by becoming a person who is waiting on a perfect world.

Life is always a mix of things that are going as planned, and things that are one hundred percent working against that plan.

Patience comes from our work to hold it all together.

I think about the pandemic. It is beginning to appear we are on the other side of it. We are on the other side of a year of people who have had to work in some challenging ways to hold it all together. Because if life has been nothing else the last fifteen months, it has been a mix!

I figure on this other side, we are a mix of people who grew patient during the pandemic or people who completely lost theirs.

I think I'm the former. I'm more patient.

I've spent a great deal of my life knowing there is no perfect reality. A big period of my life was spent numbing myself against that reality. But then there's been a new period in my life when I've gratefullly accepted it.

Going into the pandemic I knew it was just another part of the mix of holding it together.

There's a joy that comes in holding together a mixed reality that you will never find waiting on a perfect reality that never comes. Because the only way you can actually hold together a mixed reality is by being grateful for everything you're holding.

Everything.

Alexi Pappas says, "We are where we are thanks to everything that happened, and where we are is good."

Where we all are is not a perfect reality. But where we are is proof of our ability to hold our mix together. We've done it. Which means we can do it again today.

The key, I think, is growing more patient in the holding. The key is holding on with more gratitude than expectations. The key is to always be willing to rewrite the story - the page we are on - and not lose faith when it starts to look like we can't write the ending we'd hoped for.

Maybe we can't write the ending we'd hoped for.

But maybe, maybe in the willingness to hold it all together, we'll write an ending better than we'd ever imagined.

And we will be all the more patient because of it.

​In an interview with Rangan Chaterjee, Steven Kotler talks about research that shows that if humans could self-stimulate their brains, they'd choose the part of the brain that leads to frustration. That's because frustration happens just in front of something just challenging enough to require courage. And courage, he says, may be be our favorite emotion.

He also says that we often read our emotions wrong. He says that because frustration doesn't feel good, it often makes us quit, when in reality frustration is a sign we're on the right track.

It's actually a sign to keep going.

I thought about that through the lens of a couple of things that are important to me.

With my writing, frustration is always there if I'm writing anything meaningful. I'll get frustrated that I can't find the right word or sentence. I'll get frustrated that I can't find the right way to end the article. I'll get frustrated that when the piece is done it doesn't sound like I wanted it to; it doesn't make the point I'd hoped it would.

It's that frustration that ultimately pushes me to keep going and searching and improving until I get it to a place where it sounds and feels right. Where it feels fulfilling.

I also thought about frustration through the lens of my running. Late in any race - often times BEFORE late - I feel myself start to get frustrated. Frustrated with myself or with the environment or even the people around me.

It's that frustration that comes before the challenge to keep going - the challenge that requires courage. And it's courage that ultimately results in me finishing the race and feeling fulfilled.

There have been many times frustration has not worked well for me. I've interpreted it as a sign things weren't going well, that I was going the wrong way. Surely the right path wouldn't feel so frustrating?

Turns out it often does. Frustration is often a sign of progress.

So let's remember that this week. As we head down the path to whatever it is we want to pull of this week, remember that frustration is a sign of progress, it's a sign you're moving in the right direction.

So don't quit in frustration, use it as motivation to keep going.

​I've had this conversation with many friends lately: "you're doing better than you think you are."

I could have that conversation with almost anyone. Because for the most part, we are ALL doing better than we think we are.

I had a conversation with a dear friend a couple of weeks ago. She tragically lost her daughter 7 years ago. She told me she hopes that 25 years from now she's handling that a lot better than she does today.

That caught me off guard. Because the way she's handled it the last 7 years has been instrumental in rebuilding the pillars of my faith. They've helped me see a goodness in God in the midst of my own struggles I don't think I'd be seeing without her friendship.

I think she's doing a lot better than she thinks. And I told her that.

These days, I go to God often to hear those exact words. You're doing better than you think. Oh, I come through his back door to hear those words. Seeking them usually starts with telling God I know you're disappointed I've done this, or angry I've done that, or I know you really wish I'd quit doing most of the things I'm doing.

And I always hear him say, not really. I hear him say, I was just sitting here thinking I need to tell you you're doing a lot better than you think you are.

There's freedom in that.

There's freedom because the one thing that holds so many of us up from doing better today are the conversations we have with ourselves about how bad we did yesterday.

I'm here to tell you, you did better yesterday than you think.

You did.

And I'm here to tell you someone needs to hear that from you today. Almost anyone you reach out to today and tell them they're doing better than they think - they'll need to hear it.

Because almost none of us believes we're doing as well as we really are. Almost all of us need to be set free from that. 

​Yesterday, I reflected a bit on my work with at-risk kids. I want to do that a little more this morning. I want to dive a little deeper into the power of meeting kids - and people in general - where they are at.

In doing so, I want to point out that sometimes we complicate that process by trying to control how people express themselves once we meet them there.

Many of the kids I worked with were angry kids. If you don't get that, I can tell you some of their stories. Then you'll get their anger. You might even get a bit angry yourself.

I'm going to skip a lot of my mistakes and what I didn't understand about working with kids and jump right to an important discovery.

Sometimes people need a venue to be pissed off. Sometimes people yelling and screaming and expressing the torment of their lives isn't someone angry at you. Sometimes it's not them angry at anyone at all. Sometimes it's just the way they need to express themselves in that moment.

Sometimes it's just a kid being who they are.

When we tell an angry kid they can't be mad, we're telling a human they can't be themselves. And when we tell an angry kid they can't be mad, we teach them to hide their anger, not resolve it. It's a foolish mistake to believe a kid we've taught - or demanded - to suppress their anger is no longer an angry kid.

We may never come to realize that, because we've also taught that kid to avoid relationships. Relationships are a venue for expression. If someone can't express themselves in that venue, they won't show up to it.

Too often, as humans, we are only comfortable with expressions that don't make us uncomfortable. We're big on laughter - happiness - bring on the smiles - we can sit in that venue all day long.

What we aren't as comfortable with is anger or sadness or frustration. And the consequence of that is we send people into hiding from the venue of relationships altogether.

You know, I witnessed some beautiful things working with kids who cussed me out, called me names I'd never been called before, kids who balled up their fists and stomped their feet so deep into the ground I thought they might bury themselves right where they stomped - but something beautiful happens on the other side of that anger when we choose not to beat a kid up for expressing it - no matter how ugly - but instead choose to ask them what they are so angry about.

It's amazing the stories they'll tell you. It's amazing how much more eager they will be the next time to skip the anger and go right to the answering. It's amazing how deep the venue of that relationship can get. How deeply beautiful a venue that isn't all smiles can feel.

We do each other no good when we try to dictate the terms of expression. That's especially true of our kids. Because when we do, it's all the more likely they'll avoid the venue of relationships forever.

They'll miss out on the chance to express who they truly are.

​I've reflected many times here on my years as a counselor working with at-risk kids. I've said, when I began that work, I was awful at it. Awful in the sense that many kids' challenges became more challenging after spending a little time with me.

Can you say escalation?

Looking back on it, I know I wasn't good at what I was doing early on because I thought my mission was to change those kids. If I'm being honest, the definition of change was 'make them a lot more like me.'

Over time, I came to realize what those kids wanted and needed most in life, was someone to first accept them for who they were before ever trying to imagine who they should be. And what I ultimately discovered in that realization, most of those kids were already a lot closer to who they should be than anyone had ever imagined.

It was a valuable lesson. One I picked up on much quicker working with kids than I did relating it to everyone else. 'Meet them where they are at' is relatively simple to embrace when it's a strategy for helping kids. It's much more difficult when you ask it to serve as the foundation for all of your relationships.

Have you ever stopped to imagine just how complicated this human puzzle is we are trying to put together? This endless and futile work of trying to mold each other into the images we expect of one another. Images based on our own belief systems, systems that don't come pre-defined but largely made up as we go.

Is it no wonder so many people are exhausted and overwhelmed and depressed?

Maybe puzzle is the worst possible analogy. A puzzle suggests all the pieces are somehow supposed to fit together like the picture on the outside of the box. A puzzle suggests there is only one fit. It suggests that if a piece is missing or a piece doesn't nicely take it's place in the pre-cut order of things, the puzzle can never come together.

What if life is a puzzle that always fits? What if every piece fits together with every piece and the hurdle is we've simply refused to imagine that as the picture on the box?

What if our interactions with one another were driven not by trying to walk someone - or drag someone - to their place in the puzzle, but by trying to understand better where they already see themselves in that puzzle?

What if we started our interactions with the assumption you're exactly where the puzzle needs you today; maybe the puzzle will call you to be someplace else tomorrow?

I've had a lot of kids turned adults over the years say - thank you for being there.

Not thank you for helping me figure out who and where I needed to be, but simply - thank you for being there.

There's magic that happens when we show up and meet people where they are. There's a beauty in showing up in a life without an agenda - without the lid of the puzzle box in your hand to help you figure out where that life actually belongs.

Transformation happens.

And quite often, that transformation happens to the one trying to put the puzzle together, and not the piece they once thought was out of place.

​After my run yesterday, I can say "I have run ten thousand miles."

My friend Solomon texted me the other day and said, I see you're closing in on ten thousand miles. He'd been looking at my Garmin statistics - statistics I didn't know existed before that text - and he saw the milestone approaching.

So yesterday, before I took off on my run, my running odometer said 9,999.9.

To be clear, this milestone is very unofficial. It factors in some walking. For the first couple of years I ran, I didn't track my miles at all. But to also be clear, the milestone was significant to me.

Those ten thousand miles represent a lot. I have to tell you, though, what they represent least to me is mileage.

During my run yesterday, I thought a lot about where those miles have taken me.

They've taken me to Honduras to distribute shoes for Soles4Souls. They've taken me to the Richmond Soles4Souls operations center more times than I can count to drop off thousands of pairs of donated shoes.

They've taken me to Pontiac, Illinois to Run for Respect - to help some of the most special students I know. Kids I've grown to love.

They've taken me to places to raise money for and awareness around way too many cancers and illnesses.

They've taken me to Houston, Texas to raise money for hurricane Harvey Victims.

They've taken me to Cincinnati, Ohio to run for one of the 22 too many veterans who take their lives each day by suicide.

These miles have taken me to the Georgia Jewel, where I've had to face my greatest failures and hurts in life, and where I've also crossed the finish line of one of my proudest moments.

Sanjay Rawal says, "I would suggest to people who look at running as painful - who look at running as something that causes injury - to approach running in a totally different way. Instead of looking at running for performance, running for miles, running for body shape, running for calories - instead of looking at running for those reasons, look at running as a pathway to transformation. If you want any of those things above you'll be able to get them, but if you want to get closer to God, running will do that for you."

Yesterday, in those earliest steps of my run, when the numbers rolled over to 10,000 - nothing about me felt physically accomplished - even though I feel better and stronger than I've felt since being a high school athlete.

No, far more than that, what I felt yesterday was closer to God than I've ever felt in my life.

What started as a simple run to honor a mom who'd been hit and killed by a motorist while running, put me on a pathway to transformation. I didn't have a particular form of transformation in mind, I just kept taking one step. Then one more.

A friend told me yesterday, "the millimeters are progress."

She's right. Sometimes transformation isn't a plan, it's just progress. We keep tackling the millimeters, and one day we look down and we're at 10,000 miles. And if we look back on those miles as a pathway to transformation, the miles themselves will feel insignificant, but each of those millimeters will represent a fire in our hearts.

And it's that fire that will keep us chasing more.

Maybe even 10,000 more....

​There's a story in the bible about Jesus recruiting followers. In the book of Matthew, one of Jesus' followers tells Jesus he needs a couple of days off to tend to his father's funeral.

Jesus refused the request. He told the man, “First things first. Your business is life, not death. Follow me. Pursue life.” (Message version).

Folks not familiar with that story, and maybe even a few who ARE familiar with it, might be thinking Jesus was kind of a control freak. But the truth is, Jesus was a healing freak.

To Jesus, 'follow me' meant that people in world are so badly hurting and so oppressed and so in need of a friendship and love that his followers didn't have an excuse good enough to NOT help him help others.

So no, Jesus wasn't a control freak at all. He was a healing freak. And He was never shy about letting us know He expects us to be healing freaks too.

Andy Stanley says, "becoming a Christian is easy, it won't cost you anything. Following Jesus, though, it will always cost us something."

What Jesus was basically saying to the man in Matthew - you being a Christian does nothing for the people I'm going to go help. You following me, no matter what it costs, now THAT will make a difference.

I've thought about this a lot this week since listening to a sermon last Sunday. I've thought about how easy it is to say "I believe." I can sit in my chair where I'm watching the pastor preach the sermon, in person or online, and say "I believe" and never have to make another move.

Hey, I've professed my faith. I'm a Christian.

But you know what Jesus rarely asked anyone? He rarely asked them what they believed.

Do you know what he was almost always hounding people about? What are you willing to give up in your life so that someone else can have a better life? How willing are you to give up following your pursuits in order to follow my pursuit of bringing life to everyone?

What I've discovered this week, as I casually follow Jesus, I've discovered he's still hounding us. Or at least he's still hounding me. Because all week I've heard him asking me, how willing are you to give up the pursuits in your life to follow my pursuit of bringing life to everyone?

All week I've heard him saying, if you're casually following me, then you're not really following me at all.

And the real victims of that casual approach? It's not Jesus and it's not even me, really. It's the people who desperately need us to give up loving our lives to bring more love to theirs.

​I had a good friend reach out to me yesterday. He said, "Seems like you’ve been having a rough go of it lately. How are you dealing? I’ve often wondered if using your incredible writing skills to open your guts to the world is more curse than blessing."

I don't think he'll mind me answering that question here. Because I think there are probably times others have wondered that as well.

I think I'd answer that by saying I AM dealing. And that's a good thing. I've spent so much of my life NOT dealing, NOT facing, NOT tackling. So the fact that someone asks "how are you dealing" and I can answer that I am - I AM indeed dealing - that's a good thing.

No, that's a miraculously great thing.

The reality is, life is hard. Yours is and mine is. I've spent a lot of my life hiding from that fact. One way to deal with the fact that life is hard is to NOT deal with it.

Don't talk about it. Don't wrestle with it. Pretend.

By not dealing with things we allow ourselves to pretend the hard things in life are going to go away. We wait long enough and they disappear.

Then you wake up a couple of decades later and the hard things are still there. Beating on your door and screaming for you to come out. The waiting game is over. There are no longer enough ways to pretend the challenges in life are simply going to go away.

So I write. And I no longer write about a life I pretend I have. I write about the life I have.

And what I'm discovering - writing 'I'm sad' beats the heck out of pretending I'm not sad.

Writing about loneliness beats the heck out of pretending I'm not lonely.

Writing about frustration and anger and confusion and desperation and a thousand other emotions I've trained myself to pretend aren't there - well, writing beats pretending every single morning.

So, to you, I'll say the time to worry about how I'm dealing is when you see me no longer dealing. That's when I was at my lowest. That's when I most frequently found myself in dark places. When I wasn't dealing.

Life is hard, but every morning when I step away from this keyboard, I feel hope. And the beauty of it is, so many of you have reached out at different times after I've stepped away and said I feel hope too.

So I get where my buddy is coming from. I do. In a way, my writing gift IS a curse.

Writing has taken me on a tour, somewhat forced, of a lot of stuff I've pretended away. Many days it's like my pen takes hold of me and makes me write 'the waiting is over' a thousand times on the chalkboard.

The waiting is over. The waiting is over. The waiting is over....

So maybe writing is a curse. But I know this. I know this more than I've ever known it.

The curse is the cure. The curse is the cure because the waiting is indeed over.