Day 14 - Holy Anticipation

We were waiting in line just to get back to where we could get in line for the actual thing. It was building within. There was a feeling in my chest that I couldn’t describe but I knew how much of a rush it would be. I’m not talking about when they moved the gates so we could get in line, I’m talking about the rush of what was actually going to happen when we got there. However, that fifteen minutes waiting for them to open the gates so we could get back there and wait in another line felt like an eternity. When they finally opened the gates we walked as fast as we could without running or looking like “those people” but everyone around us knew exactly what was going on. Of course, no one judged us because they were doing the same thing, so why it wasn’t a mad dash I’m not sure, but we were all trying to save a little face and maintain composure in front of the total strangers that surround us.

Finally we made it. Well, we found where the line actually started. It will be another 20 minutes before we were seated and strapped in. It will just be seconds before we experience twenty seconds of the biggest rush of the year. That’s right we were sitting on the tallest/fastest roller coaster in all of America: “The Top Thrill Dragster”. As the cart moves forward slowly into the launching area we wait in yet more eager anticipation as we watch the cart ahead of us go over the big hill and plummet straight down and come to a screeching halt leaving the riders hair in a mess with a look of “what just happened” on their faces. When will it go? When will the lights signal that we are about to take off and experience the exact same rush? All of a sudden….. it happens. 3-2-1-green. And just like that we are off.

Was it worth the wait? Absolutely. It was worth every second of waiting for what truly was an incredible rush. Typically the wait for this ride is more than double what we waited. People always ask, “Is it really worth that long of a wait for such a short ride?” Looking back on it, I would say that the wait actually made the ride more than what it was. What I mean was that I don’t know that the rush would have been the same if we had just walked straight on upon arrival and been loaded and launched just as quick as we got there. The anticipation magnified the whole experience to a level I can’t even describe.

We have all experienced this level of anticipation for one thing or another. No one has ever lived without anticipation. Whether it is the anticipation of waiting for a response from that girl that you asked out, or maybe it is waiting to hear the gender of a child, getting the test scores from the last final of the year or the lab results from a different kind of test. Sometimes it is simply anticipation of waiting for a miracle because we are in a dead –end situation.

Anticipation is just a part of our everyday life. And we aren’t alone in that. In fact, we are told that all creation is waiting in eager anticipation for the day that all things are made new. It is interesting that the imagery used when talking about this is like a woman in labor. It is the anticipation that things aren’t quite the way they are supposed to be right now, something is missing, something is about to happen. And then it arrives.

Of course the thing we are really waiting in eager expectation of is something much more grandiose than a 20 second ride or the news of a miracle. It is that day when all things are made new and there is no more hurting or sickness or pain or death. There is no more need for anticipation as all things are made new and we just get to sit back and enjoy the view and worship the King. What a day that will be. But until then we have our eyes locked on the lights waiting for them to count down 3-2-1 and the trumpet to sound. What a day that will be.

Day 10 - Here's to Marcus and Becky

Today a good friend of mine married his best friend. It was a beautiful ceremony and was quite the reception. It was clear that the two of them love and are loved by many.

Now when I say that Marcus is a good friend of mine I mean it. However, I have only known him for about a year now and really have only spent time with him on a few occasions. But I still count him as a good friend. It is funny how quick you can get to know someone and feel deeply connected when one or both parties are willing to be vulnerable and ask the right questions and go out on the right limbs. That is how I would describe Marcus. He came to work at CrossView last summer for 2 months, but in that time it was incredible how quick he developed some really deep relationships. Marcus would never ask you to go out on a limb he wasn’t willing to walk first though and I think that is what makes people so comfortable around him. It is as if his motto is, “well, I trusted you this much, now trust me.” I’m not sure if you have ever been around anyone like that but they have you sharing your deepest thoughts and feelings within minutes and you have no idea why you are sharing them, but it feels so natural. Tonight I watched as the dancing started as he had tons of people around him going crazy on the dance floor because he was willing to do anything to get the party started and once he showed people that it was a safe space people were willing to join him. That is the mark of a great leader.

At one point in the night he grabs a microphone to thank people for their love and support and starts naming off people in the room. There were people ranging from officers in the military to doctors to med students to people he did research with at Yale and at some point I am sitting there thinking to myself, “why am I here?” It was quite overwhelming to see how many people this couple has impacted in one way or another. I cannot describe the amount of times I have walked away from a short conversation with Marcus feeling so refreshed and encouraged whether I needed it or not and to see all these people around me that undoubtedly feel the same way.

I can’t say much about Becky, for my interactions with her are brief, however I do know that she can take a joke. One thing I learned early on (maybe before I met Becky) was her nickname, which I don’t know how many people know what it is or if I should say, so I won’t, but she is clearly a good sport. Basically she too is someone who is full of humility and a love for Jesus and that is very evident in the brief interactions I have had with her.

Whenever I perform a wedding I laugh a little because I always meet with the couple before they get married and encourage them to do some sort of pre-marital counseling. The reason I laugh is because I have had couples ask me to do their counseling and I have never been married (or even close if we are being honest), but I always just give them a picture of what the New Testament describes love as: two people who simply look to the needs of others above their own and is willing to do whatever it takes for the other (even if that means look like a fool to others). And when I look at Marcus and Becky that is what I see: two people who are willing to do anything for one another and together for others no matter what on-lookers might think. So here is to a couple that is full of grace and love for life, Jesus, and one
another. May God continue to bless this journey you are on together for many many years.

Day 8 - "The Home"

Today I was told to write about the word “home.” My first thought was, “well, that is where the heart is.” But clichés aside I want to really think this through a little bit, so if you are reading I am going to give you my unfiltered and unedited thoughts this word evokes in my head.

There are probably as many varieties on what this word means as there are hair styles in the world. For some a home brings vivid thoughts racing through the mind. It is a place of stability and has been in the family for years. For some there is only one place they have ever called home while for others there have been so many variations of where home is and what it looks like that they really have no emotional attachment to any structure or building. There are some cases, like mine, where I have had two “homes” at a time for about as long as I can remember.

What makes a home a home? Is it simply a warm place to stay? Is it defined by the people who welcome you in when you arrive? Is it a place where memories are made?

I lived in a home with a couple of guys my last year of college. We were very intentional about calling it a home and not a house, because a house is just a building where people would come and go as they pleased, but a home was a sacred place; a home is where people could find rest and comfort; a home was where memories were made. As silly as that might sound we really did live by that. It was an odd arrangement. We were three guys who didn’t know each other well, but we all had a drive for hospitality in our own unique ways (and we had 6 bedrooms, so that made our house the place to be to stay the night). But we had the best mix of people come through. We had loud friends who would dance on the tables and we had the most reserved of people come in who would sit on our couches without saying more than necessary for it not to be awkward (which it was hard to make an awkward moment in our home). Our doors were never closed to anyone. Did that drive us crazy at times? Yes. But did we bond through it? You bet we did. There were so many personalities present that there were bound to be some doors slammed and some feelings hurt from time to time, but the mission of the home was so uniting that we didn’t have to get along at every moment in order to know that we were there with the same purpose.

It seems like a fairly good picture of what the church should look like. It is a group of people who welcome in all kinds of strange personalities. It is a place where people can find rest, hope, and love. And best of all it is a place where memories are made. Whenever there are people involved there are going to be hurt feelings and the proverbial or literal door slammed, however the church as described throughout the New Testament should be and will be a place where you would be able to find all the things present in a good home. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of our unifying mission and allow that to restore relationships that have been damaged, because there is something bigger we are living for rather than personal pride.

Day 7

One thing I have enjoyed since I was a little kid is taking pictures. I always loved landscape photography and would constantly be looking for that perfect shot. I think a lot of this desire to capture the perfect picture drove me to love traveling. Whenever I would see a magazine like National Geographic or Time or any sort of traveling magazine with incredible shots I would instantly want to travel to the place just so I could try and capture the same picture or even one-up the picture I saw. Back in the days when you had to load real film in the back of a camera it made it very difficult to hone this skill. In fact, I would often frustrate my mom who would be the one buying the film because I would experiment by trying to get a good angle on something and missing the mark therefore wasting a roll of film.

The digital world did help with this, as it simplified the editing and deleting process wasting no resource outside of a few seconds of time. When I got my own digital camera I went to town. My old computer is loaded with all kinds of pictures that I took, of which I still look at from time to time to get a good laugh. I remember a trip I went on with my friends from high school the summer after we graduated and while everyone was talking and entertaining themselves in the car on the way down I was taking pictures out the window of the beautiful Virginia mountains with the sun peaking between crests. In almost all of my travels I take more pictures of inanimate objects and landscapes than I do of the people I actually travel with.

There are photographers that I am envious of. Those photographers who really know how to capture the emotion of a moment. I think it is absolutely brilliant what some people are able to do with a camera. But what I have found is that it is actually impossible to literally capture a moment. This is a hard reality because there are moments that we share with people where we wish time would just stand still or that we could go back to those times and relive exactly what we felt at those very special moments. Chances are as you are reading this you have some moments flooding to your head without any prompting.

As I was writing this I didn’t know exactly where it was going, but I started to realize how much I can tend to live in the past and dwell on moments that have already happened. I go in waves of doing this, but I think the thing that God is trying to tell me is that I need to trust that there will be more moments. I don’t know what they will look like, but I won’t ever know as long as I am dwelling on the past. Obviously that is way easier said than done and there are still moments that I will hold on to and cherish all my life and that isn’t a bad thing. But I don’t want that to keep me from living in the present and making moments happen in the here and now.

Day 5

Many people may not know, but one thing I enjoy is cooking. I haven’t always been good at it and I haven’t always enjoyed it but I found new comfort in it in the past three years or so. A big reason I didn’t like it for a long time was because there isn’t always a set formula to it. I was also the kind of guy who would not let any of his food touch because I wouldn’t want to commit the cardinal dinner sin. While there are still foods I won’t eat the list is nothing compared to the list I had as a child.

One thing I have learned is that there are (I have no idea where this sentence was going… that’s the problem of writing while watching a movie… no editing).

It turns out that there are always unique pairings of food that seemingly work. There are even foods that, by themselves aren’t that good, but paired with the right partner can make quite a delectable treat. I think there was a time when I genuinely believed that all combinations that work have been experienced already. Maybe this is a common thing, thinking that there isn’t anything new to experience in the world. It’s a sad reality in which to live. Some would completely agree and even use the words of Solomon to back it up when he said “there is nothing new under the sun.” But was he right? And to what extent should that be taken if it is true? Some say that there are no experiences you can possibly have that haven’t been had before.

But I’m not here to get too deep into the questions that surround Solomon. I’m interested in cooking tonight.

The beauty that I have found in cooking is the creativity and the experimenting with different things. Maybe it is true that there is nothing left to experience that hasn’t already been experienced, but if there is don’t tell me that when I get excited about something I just discovered. Because even if it has been discovered before it is brand new to me and I will get just as excited about it as the first person who ever found it. But I would have a hard time believing that all the possibilities in the world have been discovered. Where is the mystery and adventure in that? I don’t want to assume something is true that will suck the adventure and wonder out of life. I want to try new things. I want to experiment and find new ways of doing things that will bring me some joy. I want to go on an adventure. It is interesting that there are times when God invites people on adventures and starts by saying, “I am going to do a new thing through you.” Our God is a God of adventure and new experiences. He is a God who loves to blow our minds and show us things we would have never thought possible.

That is what we are all looking for. We don’t want the same old thing and a life of comfort. After all, we don’t really know what comfort is (see previous post). I’m looking for an adventure. And though I haven’t mentioned much about cooking at all, this is a lesson that I can see very clearly in the kitchen.

Day 4 - The Familiar: Failure

“Certainty is not a natural human experience… but faith; is second only to error.”

Sometimes the thing that holds people back from doing what they know they are supposed to do or what they know they want to do is the fear of failure. I know this fear has been something that has held me back from many things I have really wanted in life. What is interesting is failure is something I am more acquainted with than anything else in the world. Yet so many times I have been gripped by fear of failure to the point of paralysis.

In a world where we strive so desperately for certainty the only thing that is certain is failure. I know that you might be thinking this is a very negative statement and possibly a depressing post, but it is actually meant to be a freeing post. When we release the idea that everything has to be perfect and according to plan and accept that we are probably going to fail and sometimes even fail hard then we realize that there is actually a grace that covers us when we do. It is almost as if we were never meant to be perfect and in control. That is the beauty of this exercise I am doing because it takes the fear of failure and being above average out of the picture. There have been many times I have been paralyzed by a blank page, but not anymore. At least not the past few days, because all I do is sit down and start writing about anything that is on my mind. Granted I missed a post only 3 days into the challenge, but the nice thing is the rules say if you miss a day you don’t make up for it you just keep going as if you never missed a beat. It is as if they knew this would be challenging and people would run out of things to write about and the fear of a blank page and the fear of not having anything to say and the fear of failure would paralyze people, so they went ahead and built grace into the whole package.

It seems similar to life in a lot of ways. There are people who concern themselves too much with living the wrong way and they never end up living at all. Jim Carrey recently gave a commencement speech at a university where he talked about our insatiable thirst for security. He told a story about how his dad could have been a great comedian, but there were too many uncertainties that surrounded it so he got a “safe” job as an accountant. He went on to say that when he (Jim) was about 10 years old his dad lost that safe job and his family had to do whatever they could to make ends meet. He wrapped the story up by a simple line that has been sometime I have held onto for a while now and that line is: “You can fail at what you don’t want to do; so you might as well take a chance at doing something you love.”

Sure, you are going to fail. But success isn’t defined by those who don’t fall, but by those who are able to fall and pick themselves up again as if nothing ever happened. Failure is probably the most familiar human experience, so let us embrace it and keep moving forward doing what we were born to do.

Day 2

As I went to bed last night I thought to myself, “This 500 words thing is going to be fun.” By the time I woke up I was laying in my bed thinking, “Why did I do this? I have nothing left say!” And now I wish I didn’t start out by saying that, but the rules of engagement are very clear about no editing, so there is that.

I like to be someone who can simplify things for people in a way they are able to understand. I think it is very frustrating when you look at problem or a situation and see all these complex parts and you aren’t able to make sense of them. It can be quite paralyzing. I learned early in life that if you can break things into more manageable pieces then any task, no matter how complex, is achievable. One of the earliest examples of this I believe came from my grandma, who loves putting together puzzles. Not simple 15-20 piece puzzles, I mean massive 1,000 or more piece puzzles that take days and weeks to complete. The steps are simple and most people know how they would go about putting together that big of a puzzle, they just wouldn’t take the time to do it. But if you wanted to, the next step after dumping out the thousand pieces would be to separate them by edge pieces and middle pieces. Next you would probably sort them into color groupings and then you would find your corner pieces and start building your frame. Some of you might be thinking, “I would never start a puzzle in such a way.” Well, my grandma would so write your own blog about how to put a puzzle together! (Booya)

The point is, it is simple when you know the process. It doesn’t mean that each step of the process won’t take time, but as long as you know what the process is then you are able to complete the task if you give it time.
Sometimes we tend to take something that has a very clearly defined process and we muddy it up and make it way more complex than it needs to be. We start allowing all these other influences that may or may not know what they are talking about get us trying things and we don’t understand how they fit within our process that already works. When we allow that to happen it is extremely easy to get side-tracked and allow things to become complex once again.

This is leadership to me. What was once a very simple process became very muddy for me because I allowed different philosophies and structures to influence me without understanding how they fit into the process I already had established that was working. Lately I have been thinking of a time when I knew much less than I do now, but felt like I might have been a more productive leader. I find that very ironic that the more I knew the less effective I was becoming. What I am not saying is “education is pointless” in fact, I believe the opposite is true. What I am saying is that it is important to find a structure that works and stick with it and allow the new education to work within that structure. That is the piece I missed and so I allowed a lot of things jack with the structure I had in place. Leadership is actually quite simple. My philosophy is: leadership is influence. Relationships allow for trust and trust allows for influence. If you have influence, you are a leader.

I believe it is actually that simple. Let’s no longer complicate something that doesn’t need to be complicated.

500 Word Challenge

I have felt for a long time that I have an undeveloped gift of writing. Many times I have set goals to write a particular number of blogs in a year and have fallen well short each time such a goal has been set. There is something vulnerable about putting your personal thoughts out for the world to see. Every time a blog is posted it is a breeding ground for insecurity and doubts. “Will anyone appreciate what I have to say?” “Is what I have to say a waste of time for readers?” “What will people think about the parts of me that I share here that I haven’t shared with anyone else?”

Vulnerability is a word that gets tossed around a lot when talking about writing and it is true, there is a vulnerability that goes along with putting your thoughts out for the world to see. It was pointed out to me recently that even people you completely trust, if you are vulnerable with them, that just means they know how to hurt you more than anyone else. If you think about how many people actually know you—your fears, your struggles, the things that bring you joy, the areas of success you wish you had, etc.—you might be able to only count those people on one hand. I know I am not in need of a second hand when counting those people.

Because of the vulnerability that comes with writing I have not posted a blog in months. In fact, this is probably the longest I have gone without posting a blog since I created my blog in 2008. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t written anything in the last 7 months, it just means that I haven’t written anything that I had enough confidence in to post it for the world to see. There are a number of labels you can put that under (whether fear, insecurity, laziness, or others), but I realize that I have been a little selfish with my thoughts in general. Until recently I would remain as silent as possible in meetings, only offering my words when requested. But I have realized that I have been selfish. I have realized that maybe thoughts come to me and words pair together in my head in such a way that are meant to be viewed by others.

So here is the remedy: I have accepted a 500 word challenge. The 500 word challenge is that every day for 31 days I must get up and write 500 words and without editing I must post it. So for the next 31 days you will be getting unfiltered thoughts on paper from the mind of Jordan Curtis. By no means do I expect everyone to read all of my thoughts, but any kind of feedback is welcome. I want to know what kinds of things resonate with you and what things you could do without hearing. So here it is: my first 500 words.

24

Another year has come and gone. Here are some reflections on the past year and some things that I have learned.

This last year has been such a profound one in my life. As I look back on it I can see how much I have changed and hopefully matured, as well as areas that I still need to grow and develop.

Year 23 taught me to be bold and make tough decisions. It has taught me that I cannot please everyone, so I don’t need to try. It has taught me that I will only be as close to God as I want to be and whenever I call on His name He hears me.

23 has taught me that if I am actually committed to doing something and I have the right people supporting me in it that I can do anything I want to.

23 has shown me that God answers prayers. He has given me some of the best friends I could possibly ask for. Friends who are full of grace and truth, who love me in spite of my faults, who pick me up when I am down, and who give me a place to rest.

23 has taught me that when I am being who I was created to be I am the most effective for the Kingdom. I am not the typical personality for someone in my position, but as long as I try to be the typical I am robbing the kingdom of someone God placed in it. I believe now that God has uniquely equipped me to meet needs in His Kingdom that others may or may not be equipped to meet and I should acknowledge that and be comfortable in that.

23 has taught me that love has many faces and many forms.

23 has taught me to laugh in new ways. To laugh at myself. To laugh with others. To laugh when I am alone. And to laugh for no reason at all. It is quite enjoyable to see how many different ways you can laugh and even more enjoyable to see how many people you can freak out when you laugh in unexpected times.

23 has challenged nearly everything I believe and has made what I believe my own.

23 has been a hard year.

23 has been a wonderful year.

23 has come and gone. Now on to 24: a new year with fresh adventures and new challenges. A year with joys I can’t yet fathom and moments that might bring me to tears. My goals for the next year are to simply: keep moving forward; don’t dwell on what I don’t have but look forward to what is coming; stretch myself; be proactive; and remember that The Lord is my shepherd and I lack nothing.

Here’s to 24, may it be a very good year.

Why I No Longer Want to be a Leader

For the majority of the last 5 years my desire has been to become a great leader. I have read numerous books, been to leadership conferences, read blogs, sat under and learned from some great leaders, prayed and have spent countless hours in a classroom learning what it means to lead. The problem is, who gets to decide who is a great leader and who is not? What is the measuring stick? Is it based on how many followers you have? Is it based on what your followers know? Or what they do? Is the thing that determines if you are a great leader how many leaders you are able to reproduce? Or is it the rate at which you reproduce them? And how do you know when you start out in a leadership position, like I am, whether or not you are doing it right? If results don’t always come in the first 5 years then is it possible that I will have to wait 5 years only to find out that I have failed continuously at what I thought was the right thing? Or is it possible that I misread my calling and wasted the last years of my life?

What I neglected to see is that I was not called to lead. I am called to follow. Every invitation Jesus extended was a call to follow him. He said that he would make his followers fishers of men, but he didn’t say that they would be leaders. He certainly didn’t promise that anyone would like them. When he would ask if someone would like to follow him and they would always respond by leaving whatever they were doing, which was usually what they did for a living, and went with him. There was something about the person of Jesus that created such a sense of life. People wanted to know him and be near him. They wanted to learn from him and hear what he had to say. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that Jesus is so much more than I make him out to be. There is a wonder about him. Something mysterious that always had people asking questions, yet something refreshing that drew weary people to sit with him and soak up his love. Near Jesus the proud had no place to accuse others and the weak had no place to accuse themselves, and often you would find a little child in his arms. And our call was not to go ahead of him, but simply to sit with him and be in his presence. It was a call to follow.

I know what you might be thinking… What about the great commission? Even the great commission wasn’t a calling to go out and lead. It was a call to bear witness to what we have seen and heard. The disciples could only bear witness to what they saw and they heard. They never tried to go beyond that. All they would say over and over is we cannot stop talking about what we have seen and heard. And I wonder how much different my life would be if all I did was testify to what I have seen and heard? All the pressure of comparison is off at that point. All the pressures of leadership vanish. I’m not looking for approval… I’m just trying to tell you what I have seen and heard and what I believe I am supposed to do with that. My responsibility is to follow Jesus and if you would like to follow him with me I would love to be there to encourage you on that journey, wherever it might go.

I am a follower.

A Mossy Creek - Part II

So what is the most important thing if it isn’t serving others and it isn’t learning more and more? These things are really important things, don’t get me wrong, but they are not ultimate things. When you look at the way Jesus interacted with the world you don’t actually get the picture that these things were the most important. He would often leave and find a secluded place when the crowds were pressuring him to do something. Did he have this tendency because he was introverted by nature or was it because he knew that there was something more important than being around crowds of people 24 hours per day?

I’m going to opt for the latter.

Mark starts out his Gospel by telling of how Jesus would get up early before the sun was up and he would find a spot where he could be with the Father. Jesus held on tightly to his relationship with his Father; so much to the point that when there were crowds of people who wanted to talk with him he would wake up before the light and find a place where he could be alone with the Father. There were times when others would ask him why he would do something and his response was simply, “I only do what I see my Father doing.” His identity in who he was as a son of the Father was so grounded that it drove everything he did. While he healed many people from illnesses and ailments that wasn’t the most important thing to him or else he would have just sat still and allowed people to bring the ill to him for 3 years. Jesus spent some time learning as well. Luke tells us that he grew in wisdom and in favor with the people. But being a learner was not what drove Jesus forward, nor was being a servant of people.

It appears that the most important thing to Jesus was to be a faithful son. And that was exactly what he was. He was faithful to the end, completing all the work the Father had set out for him to do while never losing his identity as a son of the most high King.

Imagine if the primary person you and I operated out of was that of the son or daughter of the King? What I mean by that is: instead of the thing that defines us being our job, a parent, a child, a student, an athlete, a computer guy, or “that girl” or “that guy”, rather the thing that defines us is the fact that we know and are known by the King and that we call Him ‘daddy’. This would greatly change the way we go about our business. Our prayers would sound less like rambling chants or spells and more like a conversation between a child and a concerned Father. When you tell someone that you will pray for them it would be more like the privileged son of a CEO telling a distressed employee of the company that he will talk to his father on their behalf, because he can go straight to the one person who can fix the problem in seconds. When we show up to a widow’s house to do some work it is not just a “charitable act” rather we are there on behalf of the Father because He wants them to know that they are just as valuable to him as anyone else in His family, so if they have needs then the needs will be met.

Imagine what all would change. There are many implications of thinking in such a way, and I’m sure that you have thought of some that I haven’t. But Paul makes it clear multiple times that we have been given a Spirit that calls out to Him “Daddy, Father”. So let us talk to God, not as if He is a distant concept to believe in, but a Father who loves you and wants to know you and what your fears are, what your joys are, and what you are looking forward to in the next week, month, or year.

A Mossy Creek - Part I

What if there was one thing that you were supposed to understand above all else and if you got that one thing right then all other aspects of life would simply fall into place? For several years now I have been trying to figure out what that one thing is and I have a feeling I am not the only one. My thought was, if there is one thing I am supposed to do then I will do it and that will be all I need. But what I found was that I did not need another thing to do, rather I needed to understand who I was supposed to be. This was a hard transition and one that is still in the works, but I would like to share a little bit of that journey with you. If you understand who you are supposed to be then your life will radically change, of that I am quite certain.

I was challenged with this idea several years ago by a pastor in Atlanta. He was preaching around New Years and talking about how everyone always sets out to make New Year’s Resolutions on what they want to do for that year, but rarely do people just sit down and think about who they want to be. The point he was making was that when people become really successful at doing something without being someone they end up sacrificing their character in the name of success.

So I set out to figure out who I am supposed to be and I did what I felt like I should do as a responsible Bible College student: I searched through Scripture. There were two sections of scripture that really shaped who I became over that next year or so: Philippians 2 and John 13. Philippians talks about how in our relationships with others we must have the same attitude as Christ who humbled himself and became a servant to all. Then John 13 is a picture of just that. It is where Jesus understands that he has all this authority given to him by the Father and his response to knowing this is that sheds his outer clothing and gets on his knees and washes the feet of everyone in the room, including the guy who he knew was going to betray him. So, I decided that the person I was going to be was a servant, because we are called to imitate Jesus and Jesus was a servant.

Something about this was difficult for me, but I continued to do it, not entirely sure what I was doing other than showing love to people in the way Jesus showed love to people. But I felt like something was missing or that there was more to it. So I began to study more and learn about different learning styles, study approaches, and the importance of growing in knowledge. The thinking there was that God created the world and everything in it, so if I learn more about the world then I will in turn learn more about the one who created the world. So I set out on a quest (of sorts) for knowledge. And I greatly enjoyed this. I told my friends on multiple occasions that I have such a great job, because I get to sit in an office and learn constantly. One of the most exciting days in my first summer at CrossView was when my friend Kevan taught me about the “memory palace,” this was a concept that allowed me to be able to remember large lists of things and blow the minds of many. It was a very fun time and I learned a lot in this stage… But this only carried me so far. There is more to life than being a good student.

Just to be clear, I am not saying in that being a servant is not something I am willing to be and I am not saying that being a student is not something I am willing to be. Nor am I saying that it is something that we should all give up. All I am saying is that it is so vitally important to get the main thing correct and despite what I have been taught in various settings I have come to a place where I don’t believe that the most important thing is to serve nor is it to study hard, though these things are typically elevated to such a status. I am saying that there is something more important than both of these things along with others that have been elevated to such a place of radical importance. But for the sake of time, because I believe the most important thing deserves a little more than a paragraph, I will save that for another post. So please hear me out in my next post before you pick up your stones or deem me a heretic.

Do Something

Sometimes we set too low of expectations for ourselves and the people around us. If we want something to be great then it is going to take a little effort. If being great was easy and could happen with minimal effort then I would venture to say that most people would be great, as it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience to them at all. However, that is not the way greatness happens. Think of all the greats there ever were.

I think it is fitting to at least mention "The Great One" here,no, I'm not talking about Kevan Duke, but Wayne Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky didn't become great by watching TV and hoping he could be like the hockey heroes of his day, he actually got out and work on his skills. He practiced and did a little more than put forth an effort to become one of the greatest hockey players of his time.

Michael Jordan was another example of someone who desired to be great and did what it takes. But there are other people besides athletes who want to be great. Steve Jobs was one of the three guys who made Pixar animation the success that it is today, but it came at a price. The ladies that would clean the office of Jobs would often report that they would come in and wake him up in the morning because he was working so late into the night that it didn't make sense to go home to go to bed when he could just sleep in the office and wake up the next day ready to work. Pixar became a great movie producing company, but it came at a price.

Those who are willing to pay the price will eventually rise to the top.

The problem is that we have created a culture where it is acceptable to expect certain things to be given to you. That you have certain "rights" if you want to create something great. Whether it is resources, advertisement, production, education, etc. there is a thinking that we are entitled to be given something to start with. What we need is a vision or a dream of what we want and the drive to push through any closed doors to get to what we want.

When I was in high school I was a part of starting up a worship band at our church. There were two guys, who at the time didn't know a ton about what it would take to start a band, but they had the drive to make it happen. They were given no resources and were offered no classes on how to get a band going. They didn't have any equipment and had minimal personnel (Just for clarity, I was not one of the two). They had little to no support from the leadership of the church (in fact, I don't actually know if the leadership knew they were creating a band). We practiced in the basement of one of their houses and we weren't allowed to practice past a certain time because the drums would keep the neighbors up. When we were finally good enough to play for an evening youth service we weren't given much more help. We had no stage, minimal cables, and little space to move around... it was awkward, but we made it work. We didn't have fancy lights, smoke machines, or cool graphics. We simply worked with what we had which wasn't very much. But we continued to expand our resources and we appreciated everything we were given.

I have come to believe that if you want something to get done then you must do something. I know that is probably one of the top 1 million most insightful things you have ever heard, however, it is a truth that we so often overlook. Great things don't happen by accident. Overnight success is just not truly a reality. One person said in reference to this: "my overnight success was 15 years in the making." It takes time, it takes effort, and it takes consistency. If you want something to be great then work at it. It is no longer okay to sit back and whine about something if you do not want to be a part of the solution. Do something.

Mayan Thoughts

I am not an expert on Mayan thought, and I have never met a true Mayan, however, I think I can say with a little bit of confidence that if the Mayans were alive today they would be pretty annoyed with Americans the past few weeks...

Let's get one thing straight off the bat: the Mayans did not predict the world ending. The Mayans had seasons of calendars and December 21, 2012 was not the day the thought things would come to a screeching halt, it was just the latest date they had marked on a calendar. While it might have marked the end of something, the world was not the something they had in mind. This is not to mention that the Mayans did not account for leap year, so the December 21 date they predicted has actually happened several months ago.

Since this calendar has been discovered there have been many predictions of what would take place on December 21 have come out. They range from the poles reversing, therefor putting an end to all electronic devices in the world (much like the television show Revolution), which would probably ruin most people's Christmas'. Some even have theories about how other governments planted these thoughts in our mind so they could have an opportunity to invade the United States of America.

With so much mystery surrounding a date, much emotion has been elevated. For those who have nothing to hope for, this evoked a feeling of fear. For some thinking America would be invaded, a level of suspicion. And some just sat back and laughed as people flooded facebook with entertaining statuses.

And we all know what ended up happening today... people woke up, went to work, there were children who missed the bus on the last day of school before Christmas break, some lost their job, some were delivered news of being hired. There were babies born, anniverseries celebrated, and movies watched. Yet for some today was the end of the world, whether it was cancer, war, accident, or murder. For someone everyday the world ends and you don't know when that will be and neither do I.

However, I do believe that there will be a day when everything will be made right again. I believe that there is a new heaven and a new earth being prepared for us. I believe that one day everything will be the way it ought to be once again. One day, there will be a world where people don't live in fear, where oppression doesn't exist and divorce is not a reality. There will be a world where no child is left or abandoned by their parents and the word orphan will not exist. There will be a day when all the confusion about who we are will be wiped away and we will walk with the one who created us. I believe that this world will be filled with sons and daughters of the most high King and we will be known as His children. He will wipe every tear out of our eye and we will be made whole again.

Just in case there is any doubt, this is what I believe. I don't need a date for this, but I will continue to pray that this day comes soon.

Birthday Thoughts

Another year has come and gone and I would classify this past year as a growing one. I have learned a lot and been loved by many people over the last year. The amount of support I have felt has been escalated and I believe now more than ever that God is working in me and through me.

I spent the weekend with some of my friends who now live in Illinois, one of whom has a birthday close to mine. The weekend was filled with lots of food and laughter, good life conversations, disc golf, a few games of around the world and some good times. I even had a dream the night of my birthday that America was invaded by another country and I was the one who saved the day for a small number of people in Waynesville! It was pretty exciting times.

Something interesting that I found I do when I go out of town is stay with a family that I enjoy being around and just mold into their life and the things they do for a few days. It is fun for me to do that for some reason. I'm not much of a go off a do your own thing kind of person, so I enjoy being with other people and attempting to make their lives easier while I am there. I enjoy learning from the real lives of people in actually situations, not just in theoretical kind of conversations. Through one of the conversations I had while playing disc golf I found that I have helped other people more than I knew over time... someone whom I thought I was just learning from. This is evidence that you really can learn something from anyone... even me! It was just a short lesson on humility and it made me wonder how many lessons I miss out on because I think that I am the one who is supposed to teach them something?

I'm not sure if most people resonate with quotes, but one that has stuck with me for a while now is Albert Einstein's when he said: "Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life thinking it is stupid." This Christmas my goal is to be attentive to the things I am to learn, no matter where the lesson comes from.

Ballets and Squirrels: What Happens When Things Don't Make Sense

In a way it seems fitting, the kind of day it is today. Rain, wind, and utter drear. Outside in many ways mirrors what a lot of people are feeling on the inside and have been feeling for the past week or more. There has been national disaster that has affected many, half the nation did not get the president for which they voted, there has been an untimely death of a few young girls in our community, and to top it all off, for some people, the home is not somewhere they can find encouragement or sometimes even love. It all seems so heavy and so difficult to bear. For someone who likes to help, I feel like I am running around with a box of band aides in a field of people who have lost limbs.

When disaster hits it is a bit confusing because there is something that doesn’t quite fit in our picture of how things are supposed to be. We all have a general framework, though faulty at times, of how things should work in our day to day lives and when something disrupts that there are questions. Imagine that you were to go to a ballet or a high end musical where everyone brings out their best dress wear. The venue where the event is being held is top notch; high ceilings, fancy concession, and ushers with white gloves and 3 piece suits. Now imagine that you are walking to get a beverage from the concession before the show begins and when you look over you notice that one usher has one arm with the elbow bent out ready to escort someone to their seat, but the other is straight down with the hand bent out at a 90 degree angle next to the waist as a perch. On the perch hand there is a squirrel sitting there. This would raise all kinds of questions and would probably stop you in your tracks because it just doesn’t fit in the framework of what is supposed to happen at an event of such class.

The same is true of life. The reason that a squirrel at a ballet would raise questions for you is not because you don’t know what a squirrel is, you just don’t understand what it is doing at a ballet, because it doesn’t fit in the context of what is supposed to be at a ballet. The same is true with tragedy; no one has asked me what a hurricane is and no one has asked me what death is, but there have been lots of questions that surround these topics.

Through all of this I have been reminded of two things that were big encouragements to me when I have dealt with loss:

• “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Most of the time we want hope and we want to know that everything is going to be alright, but we discount this process that has been laid out for us of perseverance, character and hope. The way we get to a deeper sense of hope is if we persevere through our sufferings and allow that to build character within us. So you have to stand and be willing to persevere. Don’t look for the easy out.

• The other thing is quite simple and it comes out of the book of Ecclesiastes and it says:
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”

I hope this is helpful to someone. And I ask that you will join me in prayer for those who have had their world rocked recently and for those who are still dealing with the ramifications of something that happened years ago. Pray that we all can know and live as if there really is a hope that all things will be made new, because it is real and it is true.

Lifeboat Theory

I am currently reading a book by Donald Miller (who has quickly become one of my favorite authors), called Searching for God Knows What. In the book Miller describes a very interesting theory/metaphor that describes the world in which we live. He says to imagine that you were on a cruise liner (or insert your own desired catastrophe) and the ship went down and you ended up in a lifeboat with 10 other people. However, you realize after a couple hours of being in the lifeboat that the boat you are in can only safely support 10 people, so someone has to go or the boat is going to sink. You would have to spend the next amount of time trying to convince everyone in the boat that you deserve to stay in the boat. You would do whatever it takes to make others sure that you are so important that if you were to get kicked out of the boat everyone else would be so lost without you.

Now, it isn’t too difficult to see the parallels here between this hypothetical lifeboat and the world we live in each and every day. We spend so much of our lives trying to impress other people and make others think we are way more important than we really are. Some ways in which we do this is: we pack our schedules full of activities, we buy lots of things we cannot afford, we go on vacations somewhere a little more exotic than our neighbors, we work two jobs, and whenever someone asks how we have been we love to respond with a deflating sigh “busy.” It is so interesting thinking that we are doing something right be making ourselves so busy and filling our lives with so many things we don’t really want only to prove to some people that we don’t really care about that we are just a little more important than we actually might be. Most people try to align themselves with people who are really important so as to give more credibility and value to themselves. And since we are living on a hypothetical lifeboat we have to impress the people who are on the lifeboat with us because we are only as valuable to the lifeboat as the other people on it decide that we are; and if there is a unanimous vote that we are the weakest link, then we are forced to exit the boat, falling to our demise.

The good news is that we are not living on a lifeboat and we were never intended to have to prove our value to anyone else. We simply have value because of who created us. We have been given a value so much higher than we could ever convince anyone that we have since the time we were constructed in the womb. All humanity has value because of the one who created them. The same reason a symphony written by Mozart has more ears perk up than any sort of music I were to produce (aside from the fact people cringe when I produce music) is because the person who created the music gives it its value. The same is true with you and me: people should be turning their heads when they see us living our lives because the one who created us instills in us so much value that we don’t have to play the game the rest of the world is playing. We don’t have to live life as if we were sitting in a lifeboat trying to decide who was going to have to swim.

Jesus came to destroy that kind of thinking. The kind of thinking that says, “I have to get ahead, even if that means making the people around me look bad, or at least a little bit worse than I look.” He was so interesting because the people of high positions that thought Jesus should spend his time with them were only frustrated by him because he spent all of his time telling them they needed to care more about the people who weren’t going to get them any further in life. Jesus said those who make themselves last are the ones who will be first in the Kingdom of God. That takes the whole Lifeboat Theory and flips it upside down. Apparently Jesus didn’t think life should ever consist of trying to prove yourself inside of a lifeboat.

This next paragraph is an excerpt from the book and it raises some interesting questions about what we believe about Jesus. If it offends you, I am a little sorry, but not too much, because I hope that it inspires who to get to know Jesus for who He really is. You don’t have to, but ignoring the real Jesus doesn’t make Him any less real or His words any less true.

“Is Jesus sitting in the lifeboat with us, stroking our backs and telling us we are the ones who are right and one day these other infidels are going to pay, that we are the ones who are going to survive and the others are going to be thrown over because we are Calvinists, Armenians, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics; because we are Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals; because we attend a big church, a small church, an ethnically diverse church, a house church, ; or is Jesus acting in our hearts to reach out to the person who isn’t like us—the oppressed, the poor, the unchurched—and to humble ourselves, give of our money, build our communities in love, give our time and our creativity, get on our knees before our enemies in humility, treating them as Scripture says as people who are more important that we are? The latter is the Jesus of Scripture; the former, which is infinitely more popular in evangelical culture, is a myth sharing a genre with unicorns.”

This all is a tough bit to swallow and hits you a bit like cold water hitting your face early in the morning. However, I am convinced that the only way to experience this “life more abundant” that Jesus talks about is to live life outside of the lifeboat and realize that our value comes from our Creator and our Creator’s heart beats for humanity.

No Reserves. No Retreats. No Regrets.

In 1904 William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. As heir to the Borden family fortune, he was already wealthy. For his high school graduation present, his parents gave 16-year-old Borden a trip around the world. As the young man traveled through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, he felt a growing burden for the world's hurting people. Finally, Bill Borden wrote home about his "desire to be a missionary."

One friend expressed disbelief that Bill was "throwing himself away as a missionary."

In response, Borden wrote two words in the back of his Bible: "No reserves."

Even though young Borden was wealthy, he arrived on the campus of Yale University in 1905 trying to look like just one more freshman. Very quickly, however, Borden's classmates noticed something unusual about him and it wasn't that he had lots of money. One of them wrote: "He came to college far ahead, spiritually, of any of us. He had already given his heart in full surrender to Christ and had really done it. We who were his classmates learned to lean on him and find in him a strength that was solid as a rock, just because of this settled purpose and consecration."

During his college years, Bill Borden made an entry in his personal journal that defined what his classmates were seeing in him. That entry said simply: "Say 'no' to self and 'yes' to Jesus every time."

Borden's first disappointment at Yale came when the university president spoke in a convocation about the students' need of "having a fixed purpose." After that speech, Borden wrote: "He neglected to say what our purpose should be, and where we should get the ability to persevere and the strength to resist temptations." Surveying the Yale faculty and much of the student body, Borden lamented what he saw as the end result of an empty, humanistic philosophy: moral weakness and sin-ruined lives.

During his first semester at Yale, Borden started something that would transform campus life. One of his friends described how it began: "It was well on in the first term when Bill and I began to pray together in the morning before breakfast. I cannot say positively whose suggestion it was, but I feel sure it must have originated with Bill. We had been meeting only a short time when a third student joined us and soon after a fourth. The time was spent in prayer after a brief reading of Scripture. Bill's handling of Scripture was helpful. . . . He would read to us from the Bible, show us something that God had promised and then proceed to claim the promise with assurance."

Borden's small morning prayer group gave birth to a movement that soon spread across the campus. By the end of his first year, 150 freshman were meeting weekly for Bible study and prayer. By the time Bill Borden was a senior, one thousand of Yale's 1,300 students were meeting in such groups.

Borden made it his habit to seek out the most "incorrigible" students and try to bring them to salvation. "In his sophomore year we organized Bible study groups and divided up the class of 300 or more, each man interested taking a certain number, so that all might, if possible, be reached. The names were gone over one by one, and the question asked, 'Who will take this person?' When it came to someone thought to be a hard proposition, there would be an ominous pause. Nobody wanted the responsibility. Then Bill's voice would be heard, 'Put him down to me.'"

Borden's outreach ministry was not confined to the Yale campus. He cared about widows and orphans and the disabled. He rescued drunks from the streets of New Haven. To try to rehabilitate them, he founded the Yale Hope Mission. One of Bill Borden's friends wrote that he "might often be found in the lower parts of the city at night, on the street, in a cheap lodging house or some restaurant to which he had taken a poor hungry fellow to feed him, seeking to lead men to Christ."

Borden's missionary call narrowed to the Muslim Kansu people in China. Once he fixed his eyes on that goal, Borden never wavered. He also challenged his classmates to consider missionary service. One of them said of him: "He certainly was one of the strongest characters I have ever known, and he put backbone into the rest of us at college. There was real iron in him, and I always felt he was of the stuff martyrs were made of, and heroic missionaries of more modern times."

Although he was a millionaire, Bill seemed to "realize always that he must be about his Father's business, and not wasting time in the pursuit of amusement." Although Borden refused to join a fraternity, "he did more with his classmates in his senior year than ever before." He presided over the huge student missionary conference held at Yale and served as president of the honor society Phi Beta Kappa.

Upon graduation from Yale, Borden turned down some high-paying job offers. In his Bible, he wrote two more words: "No retreats."

William Borden went on to do graduate work at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. When he finished his studies at Princeton, he sailed for China. Because he was hoping to work with Muslims, he stopped first in Egypt to study Arabic. While there, he contracted spinal meningitis. Within a month, 25-year-old William Borden was dead.

When the news of William Whiting Borden's death was cabled back to the U.S., the story was carried by nearly every American newspaper. "A wave of sorrow went round the world . . . Borden not only gave (away) his wealth, but himself, in a way so joyous and natural that it (seemed) a privilege rather than a sacrifice" wrote Mary Taylor in her introduction to his biography.

Was Borden's untimely death a waste? Not in God's perspective. Prior to his death, Borden had written two more words in his Bible. Underneath the words "No reserves" and "No retreats," he had written: "No regrets."

Why Not Talk Chicken?

I typically don't weigh in too much on topics as such, like the Chic-fil-a stuff, but due to my undying love of the chicken sandwich partnered with the best fast-food customer service there is, I simply feel that I owe it to the world to share my opinion (okay, slight exaggeration).

Personally, I think the discussion has gone a little bit overboard on both sides about whether it is right or wrong to eat at Chic-fil-a after comments that Mr. Cathy said when asked about his view of marriage. A lot of analysis went into the debate of whether Jesus would go be found at a Chic-fil-a or a gay bar yesterday. There were also debates as to whether eating a chicken sandwich did anything to build the Kingdom or not. The best response I saw was that Jesus would be at a gay bar passing out chicken sandwiches.

I would like to respond to the 'building the Kingdom' comment, but I will be brief. While I would not say that eating a chicken sandwich is 'building the Kingdom of God' I would say that it is good to know that when the rest of the world about to walk out, it is good to be in a Kingdom where you can know that when the world walks out you still have those brothers and sisters who will stand and say that we will love you anyway. Of course, it would be great if that was more often when our friends and relatives face crisis, that we stand with them when no one else will. If our response was to stand with and restore someone rather than ignoring an issue or even contributing to the issue at hand.

While I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, I do not think a heterosexual person deserves more grace than a homosexual. I know that there are not a lot of people who would ever say that they deserve grace more than another, but their actions might say otherwise. I do not deserve grace more than the alcoholic, the one who has fallen to the trap and is addicted to pornography, or one who can't beat negative self-thought and struggling with suicide. For anyone who has been burnt because someone got this wrong, I would like to say that I am sorry on behalf of the Kingdom of God, whose plan from the beginning was restoration, healing and wholeness, not more pain, isolation, and oppression.

With that being said, free speech is free speech. I am entitled to my opinion just as you are entitled to yours. However, differing opinions do not have to mean division and they do not mean a lack of love. So let's keep opinions as they are and move on in love. And certainly, eating a chicken sandwich at a restaurant that claims to have a 'Christian view of marriage' does not mean that I hate anyone who has chosen a different lifestyle. My goal is to love others just as Jesus loved the institution He called the church, for which He literally gave up His life. So my proposal is that we all put down our 'hypothetical weapons' and start loving one another in such way and seek wholeness and shalom (the way things ought to be).

When Doing the Right Thing Comes Up Short

Many of you have heard of the controversy surrounding the Olympic Fencing Semi-finals (okay, maybe you haven't because fencing is on the top of everyone's radar), but if you were a citizen of South Korea you would be well-acquainted with what happened with the Fencer, Shin Lam in the semi-finals. I want to make it clear that I do not know how fencing works, however, as I understand it there is a clock and when the clock hits zero the person with the most points wins... sounds simple enough, like most games (with the exception of soccer). She was battling it out with Germany's Britta Heidemann and was tied with one second left on the clock. However, this second was not one that would fall off the clock so fast, as a glitch in the system left one second hanging on the clock for significantly more than a second as Heidemann scored her go-ahead point to win the match, technically after the time ran out, however the clock didn't strike zero until after Heidemann scored, sending her on to compete in the Gold-medal round, every Olympic athlete's dream and sole ambition.

As you can imagine, Shin Lam's coach challenged the happenings, and to make matters worse, because of a by-law Shin had to remain on the mat as the judges made their decision on the review. The deliberation lasted over 30 minutes. Talk about agonizing! As Shin Lam sat there with a towel covering her tear-soaked face waiting on the officials to decide her fate. My speculation is that she had to have been thinking about the past years of her life and how, from the time she was a little girl her dream was to win an Olympic Gold. While I did not see the event live, I merely saw pictures and read the story, my heart went out to Shin Lam and her coach and parents and anyone involved in getting her to the place she was. There is no doubt in my mind that she had spent years training and didn't miss a single day of practice or workout to get to where she was; she had done the right thing all along only to have her fate decided by a malfunction of a clock that should have struck zero a little sooner than it did.

The decision was made that the score would stand and Heidemann would advance to the Gold-medal round leaving Lam just short of her goal that she had set out for from the start. As if it was a consolation she had the opportunity to compete for the bronze, but after being shaken up by the disappointment, she came up short of victory once again leaving her standing on the sidelines as three other athletes stood on a podium and watched as their nation's flag was raised into the air. She was so close she could nearly have heard her national anthem as she could have been watching her flag raised. Thus enters one of the most difficult leadership pills to swallow: sometimes you can do all the right things and it will still leave you short of your expectations.

This must be where Paul was coming from when he tells the Thessalonians to "never get tired of doing what is good." Sometimes you can make every right move and be in the right places and say the right things, but some outside factor that you have no control over can thwart what you have worked so hard for. It leaves you wondering if you really did everything you could, but when it comes down to it there are simply some things that are out of your control and that are out of my control. When those things happen you are left where the only thing you can feel is your heart beating a harder than normal, you can't quite formulate a complete thought, and all you can do is wonder at how things would be different if were in control of it. But the truth is, you cannot control all of the little details and you cannot control how people respond to the things you do. You can hope for the best and pray that it happens, but that is about the extent. Because sometimes you can do all the right things and still come up short. But don't let that discourage you, never, EVER get tired of doing what is good.