“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”
1) Favorite Most Insane Buzzer Beater: High School Championship Victory
2) Favorite Piano Playing Dog: Tucker (This is HILARIOUS)
3) Favorite (Genius) Rap Video: Golf Boys 2.Oh
4) Favorite Blog Post: Are We on the Brink of a New Reformation?
5) Favorite Youth Group Who is Living Fully: TrueNorth
Most of the time, when I hear people saying “that will never happen to me” it refers to a tragic event. “I’ll never get in a car accident, I don’t need a seat belt” or “A tornado will never hit our home” or “I won’t be the one to get cancer.”
But sadly, those things do happen to people. And for this reason, it is always important to be prepared. You don’t want to end up saying, “I never thought this would happen to me.”
But what if we flipped that saying on its head? We doubt anything horrible will happen to us, but we also don’t believe anything particularly great will happen to us either. We look at professional athletes as kids or successful businessmen as adults and think, “that will never happen to me.”
That phrase, however, holds us all back: If you have a dream, but don’t believe you’ll ever achieve it, then why try? We talk ourselves out of living our dreams because we fear failure. We’re never prepared, and so when opportunities arrive we rarely go for it. Continue Reading…
Deep in our hearts, God reveals desires, goals, and aspirations. Maybe it’s to start a company, to write a book, or lead a church. There are dreams woven into the fabric of who we are, the desires of our hearts.
But there is one big problem with God-given dreams. He asks for them back. Consider Abraham. God calls him away from his home and promises to make him into a great nation, with as many descendants as stars in the sky.
God provides the means for this dream, as he gives Abraham and Sarai a son named Isaac. In their old age, this couple watched God do a miracle. The dream was in motion.
Years passed, and then God does the unspeakable. He calls Abraham to sacrifice his own son. Yes, that means killing his boy, and killing the dream of fathering a nation as well. God had the audacity to ask Abraham for his dream back.
Can you imagine what ran through Abraham’s mind? “God, You are the one that gave me my son in the first place. You can’t take him now! I’ve invested my whole life in this. This is my dream. Are you crazy!”
Maybe God has gifted you to be a great musician, and you sense His calling to go on tour, sharing your music with the world. Perhaps God called you to use your entrepreneurial skills to launch a new business. Maybe you’re a pastor, and God has given you a vision for leading thousands of people into a community of faith, hope, and love.
No matter how certain you are that God inspired your dream, you have to hand it back to him. No matter how good and pure the desire is, there comes a time to surrender it. Just like Abraham had to put his own son back on the altar, so we must release our God-given dream back to the One who gave it.
Why? Without this kind of surrender, our dream will become the thing we hope and long for, while God slips to the background. Our dream can’t become our hope. Only God occupies that role.
For the entrepreneur, this means letting go and saying to God, “I’ll go scrub toilets if that’s what you want.” For the pastor, it might sound like “I’ll lead faithfully with however many you bring, even if it’s less than I envisioned.” For the aspiring artist, it’s relinquishing the need to make it big and famous.
Most of us know the rest of Abraham’s story. At the last moment, God stops him from making the sacrifice. His son was spared, and the dream to father a nation lived on too.
Are you in the middle of living out a God-given dream? Are you frustrated by the slow progress? Overwhelmed by the magnitude of it? Is your hope fading because you haven’t seen it fulfilled?
Remember the words of Psalm 37:4 – “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” It says delight in God, not delight in the dream God gave you.
Stay patient, persevere, and draw near to God –In His timing, dreams are made realities. #LiveFully
Since music’s biggest awards night, The Grammys, is on this Sunday night, I thought we’d look to a song that inspires cultural engagement in the world. The song is “Hall of Fame” by the Script, featuring Will.i.am. I’m sure many of you have heard it, but if not, I’d recommend watching the video below.
My favorite part of the song is the rap…
Be believers
Be leaders
Be astronauts
Be champions
Be truth seekers
Be students
Be teachers
Be politicians
Be preachers
The underlying assumption is that different people are called and gifted to do different things in their lives. Whether an astronaut, a politician, or a preacher, God invites people on a lifelong journey to live out the unique purpose He’s made them to do.
Here at #LiveFully, we believe that the redemption of Jesus impacts every channel of cultural life. We choose to define “cultural life” by the following seven channels:
Religion, Family, Government, Education, Business, Media, Arts & Entertainment
This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of professions, and if you or someone you know works in an area that doesn’t nicely fit into one of these areas that doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.
They are seven general building blocks of culture that we create. We believe that followers of Jesus are called to shine for God in the full spectrum of professions and vocations.
I want to leave you with three questions that are important to consider in discerning your God-given calling in the world. They are pulled directly from an excellent article written by Dr. Tim Keller that you can download here.
1. What people needs do I vibrate to?
2. What am I good at doing?
3. What do the leaders/my friends believe is the most strategic kingdom need?
Take some time to pray and reflect on these questions, jotting down your thoughts. We must not be too busy or ambitious to meaningfully consider the calling of God for our lives. #LiveFully
“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do“ (Eph. 2:10).
1) Favorite piece of insanity: Tempest FreeRunning Academy
2) Favorite Inspirational video: A Pep talk from Kid President (this is an awesome kid)
3) Favorite Attempts to get a date: Biblical pick-up lines
4) Favorite Friendship: Shane Windmeyer (Nationally recognized LGBT leader in higher education) and Dan Cathy (Chick-Fil-A President and COO) If you haven’t read this, you need to.
5) Favorite Twins: 11 Month olds twins dance to dad’s guitar
Today our nation remembers a man that changed its history forever. Martin Luther King, Jr., an Atlanta native, challenged the racial injustice of his time like no other. Among many accomplishments, Dr. King is remembered for his key leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the non-violent protests he assembled.
Dr. King is also known as one of the greatest American orators of all time. His mastery was demonstrated in the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech delivered in Washington D.C. in 1963.
Near the end of the speech, we see his raw imagination unleashed, as he dreams of a different America. He declares eight straight lines beginning with that famous phrase “I have a dream.” The last of those eight lines is as follows…
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
This is a direct quote from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament of the Bible (Isaiah 40:4-5).
The most fundamental source for King’s vision was the Bible itself. What captured his heart and mind more than anything was the God of the Bible who stood for justice and love to all. It was King’s relationship with this God that inspired the dream, and empowered him to act with boldness and clarity. Continue Reading…
The film “Up
My wife and I recently moved to New Zealand on a quest for adventure. I had lived my entire life in Atlanta, Georgia. While it was a lovely place to live, we wanted to do something different and out of the ordinary. Heading to a new country on the complete opposite side of the world may have been a bit drastic, but New Zealand is full of beaches, mountains, glaciers, fiordes, rivers, sounds, volcanoes, and more.
Our epic adventure was practically guaranteed.
After being here for a few weeks, however, I felt disappointed. We had made some great friends and the job hunt was going well, but adventure seemed to elude us. I expected every day in this country to feel like something out of The Hobbit, and yet our biggest thrill had been a simple bike ride through the park.
And then something life changing dawned on me:
No matter how exotic the location of your home, you still need to walk out the front door if you hope to find adventure. Continue Reading…
1) Favorite Lamp/Cause: The GravityLight
2) Favorite Year in Review Video: Google Zeitgeist
3) Favorite online store: The Billionaire Shop
4) Favorite Video: Deaf 8 month old boy hears for the first time
5) Favorite Quote: Teddy Roosevelt – Man in the Arena
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
What was your favorite thing on the web this week?
Isn’t there something hopeful about the start of a new year? After the dust of the holidays settles, there’s a level of anticipation, with all sorts of goals, dreams, and resolutions that follow. January seems to carry fresh opportunity, and many people step into proactive choices where before they felt stuck.
Although unsure why we view the transition from December to January with such optimism, I like it. There is tremendous opportunity to make decisions toward living the most full life in Jesus.
I want to share a process of goal-setting that I myself went through last year. It was life-changing (seriously), which is why I share it with you. Before giving you the specifics, it’s important to see the definition for “living fully” that it’s rooted in.
“Following Jesus in a way that transforms every area of personal life and impacts every channel of cultural life.”
This goal-setting process is focused on the seven areas of personal life, as visualized in this dresser. (If this is a new to you, I’d recommend reading Fragmented Life vs. Full Life, which explains in greater detail).
This process is two fold. The first step is imaginative, and the second step is practical. Continue Reading…
You’ve found yourself in a mini-series on Rebranding the church. If you missed it, then I recommend reading the introduction. Essentially, we believe that followers of Jesus should be most recognized for what they contribute to the world instead of what they are against in the world. Each week we tackle something the church must demonstrate they support.
Although we have lost a drive to gain knowledge, many Christians today seem to think they’re smarter and better than everyone else. Spend a few minutes reading comments in controversial blogs or religious discussions, and you will undoubtedly see someone claiming to be a Christian and then telling everyone they’re idiots because they believe in evolution or something.
I have to admit, in my younger years I was often guilty of this. I thought my logic was irrefutable, and I said many unloving things to people when they didn’t agree. Not surprisingly, those unloving things only pushed them further from the faith.
It really does not matter how smart you are, God is crystal clear in the Bible that we must be humble. Continue Reading…
