To Whom We Are Called- Day 11- June R&R

As I continued reading through The Call, I found myself spending less time thinking about the call itself and more time thinking about the One who is doing the calling. That may seem like a small distinction, but I am becoming increasingly convinced that it is one of the most important lessons in the entire book.

When most people think about calling, they naturally gravitate toward questions of direction. What does God want me to do? Where should I go? What decision should I make? What is His plan for my life? I have certainly spent plenty of time asking those questions myself.

But Guinness keeps pulling the reader back to a deeper reality. Before we ask what God is calling us to do, we should spend some time considering who it is that is calling us.

That thought took me back to a difficult season in my own life.

It was November of 2005. Football season had ended earlier than I had hoped, and while coaching disappointment was certainly part of what I was feeling, there were deeper struggles taking place as well. I remember writing a series of blog posts during that period with titles like "Hurt" and "Laboring in Vain." Looking back at those entries now, I can still feel some of the heaviness that surrounded that season.

One prayer from that time captured where I was emotionally:

"I confess to You O Lord that I am powerless to do even one good thing. I cannot change a heart. I cannot build a family or a program. I desperately need You."

The truth is that I felt fruitless. I was working hard, trying to lead well, trying to do what I believed was right, but I could not see much evidence that any of it was making a difference. Anyone who has spent years in education, coaching, ministry, parenting, or leadership probably understands that feeling. There are seasons when effort and results do not seem to be closely connected.

One morning during that stretch I woke up especially discouraged. It was cold, dark, and foggy. I got dressed, climbed into my old Mercedes station wagon, and began the drive to school. My radio was broken, which left me alone with my thoughts, and unfortunately my thoughts were not particularly encouraging that morning.

As I drove through the fog, I finally asked out loud what had been simmering beneath the surface for weeks.

"Father, what are You doing?"

I remember telling Him that I had moved my family, worked as hard as I knew how, tried to be faithful, and yet everything felt confusing and uncertain. More than answers, I remember wanting reassurance.

I needed to know He was there.

When I arrived at the football field house, I pulled up near the weight room, turned off the engine, and sat there for a moment. As I looked toward the stadium fence, I noticed something I had never seen before.

The chain-link fence was covered with spider webs.

Not a few webs. Hundreds of them!

The fog had condensed on the strands in such a way that every web was suddenly visible. What had been invisible the day before was now outlined by thousands of tiny droplets. As I got out of the car and walked closer, I realized that every web seemed perfectly designed. One after another stretched across the fence in intricate patterns. They had likely been there for days or weeks, but I had never noticed them because the conditions had not allowed me to see them.

Standing there in the cold, looking at those webs, I had one of the most profound moments of my Christian life.

Not because God gave me a detailed answer. What impressed itself upon my heart that morning was a simple truth:

"I am here."

The older I get, the more I realize how often I want explanations when what I really need is God's presence.

He reminded me that He was still there, whether I could see Him clearly or not.

That experience has stayed with me for nearly twenty years now. Looking back, I think it connects directly to what Guinness is emphasizing in this chapter. We become consumed with questions about the call, while God continually directs our attention back to the Caller.

One of the reasons books like Knowing God by J. I. Packer had such an impact on me as a young believer is that they focused less on what God could do for me and more on who He is. The God who calls us is not merely a guide helping us navigate life. He is the Creator of all things. He is holy, sovereign, wise, and good. He knows the end from the beginning and never loses sight of His purposes.

If that is true, then the most important aspect of any calling is not the assignment itself.

It is the One who makes the assignment.

The Psalmist could walk through the valley of the shadow of death because God was with him. Abraham could leave his homeland because God was with him. The disciples could leave their nets because Jesus stood before them. Their confidence was never rooted primarily in circumstances. It was rooted in the character of God.

That is why I think Guinness is right to keep bringing us back to this point. The ultimate blessing of Christianity is not that God gives us purpose, direction, meaning, or even eternal life.

The ultimate blessing is that we get God Himself.

And sometimes, when life is foggy and confusing and we cannot see very far down the road, that truth is enough.

Song Link: Little Things

A Time to Stand- Day 10- June R&R

As I finished Chapter 7 of The Call, entitled "A Time to Stand," I found myself thinking about a quote that Guinness includes from the “Hot Gates” and the Spartan 300. Their statement was dramatic- 

I adjusted it a little (LOL)  to apply to us:

"Friend, tell my Jesus that we have lived as He would have wished, and we are buried here in peace."

What struck me this time was not the courage of the original statement, although there is certainly courage there. It was the simplicity of it.

Years ago, when I first read The Call, I think I was much more interested in the larger questions of calling. What does God want me to do? What impact am I supposed to have? How do I find my purpose? Those are still important questions, but at this time in my life,  they don't seem quite as important as they once did.

The longer I live, the more I find myself thinking about quiet faithfulness. Sure, who wouldn’t want to be Leonidas summoning his 300 to fight like hell…. or Rocky standing and swinging ... .or John Wayne at the Alamo? Our hearts get inspired by those stories.

I wonder if in heaven we will shed tears and thunder applause at other stories?  The widow who quietly prayed for decades, or the poor man who gave up his soup to a child… the small things that we never noticed but God never missed?

I Corinthians 15:58 has been one of my favorite verses for many years now:

"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain."

I've returned to that verse repeatedly because it speaks to something most of us struggle with. We want to know whether our efforts matter.

Much of the work we do involves planting seeds that we may never see grow. We invest in students who move away. We help people who eventually forget our names. We labor in places where the fruit appears slowly, if it appears at all.

Yet Paul says that labor done for the Lord is never wasted.

As I thought about that this week, I also realized that part of the reason I continue writing these reflections and writing lyrics/ publishing music is because I want to leave something behind. Not a legacy in the grand sense of the word. Most of us will be forgotten sooner than we imagine.

But perhaps someday a grandson or granddaughter will stumble across one of these writings and wonder what their grandfather believed.

If that happens, I hope they don't come away impressed with me. I hope they come away convinced that God is good.

I hope they see evidence of a man who stumbled plenty of times, got things wrong more than he would like to admit, but ultimately found that Christ was faithful.

The older I get, the more I think that is what it means to stand.

That may not sound very dramatic, but it increasingly sounds like the kind of life I want to live.

To how I am called……

Blessed to Be a Blessing- Day 9- June R&R

As I continue working through The Call, I have arrived at roughly Chapter 6, where Os Guinness begins asking an important question.

Once we begin to understand that God calls people to Himself and that our lives are not accidental, what do we do with the gifts, abilities, experiences, and opportunities we have been given?

That question feels particularly relevant as part of this June Tune-Up.

Back on Day 1, we spent some time discussing the idea of S.H.A.P.E.—the unique combination of gifts, experiences, personality, abilities, and passions that God uses in our lives. Most of us have spent at least some time trying to figure out what we are good at. We think about strengths and weaknesses. We wonder where we fit. We look for areas where our abilities and opportunities intersect.

But I am not sure that is the hardest question.

The harder question may be: "Why were those gifts given to us in the first place?"

Guinness argues that God normally calls us along the lines of our giftedness, but he is careful to remind us that giftedness exists for stewardship and service rather than self-interest. That distinction may be one of the most counter-cultural ideas in the entire book.

For most of my life, I have been fascinated by people who seemed exceptionally gifted. Great coaches. Great teachers. Great leaders. I often found myself wondering what separated them from everyone else.

The older I get, however, the more I think the better question is not "What gifts do they possess?" but "What did they do with those gifts?"

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote:

"I drifted into literature unthinkingly, and I hate to think what sort of writer I would have become."

That quote has stayed with me for years.

When I first encountered it, I thought it was a statement about career choice. Now I think it is a statement about providence.

Solzhenitsyn understood that gifts by themselves are not enough. Had his life been easier, had he avoided suffering, had he never experienced imprisonment, oppression, hardship, and reflection, he may have become an entirely different writer. The gift was there, but the shaping of that gift mattered just as much.

I think something similar is true for all of us.

Very few of us arrive at our calling in a straight line. Our gifts are shaped by experiences, disappointments, successes, failures, mentors, closed doors, and unexpected opportunities. Looking backward, it is often easier to see how God was developing both the gift and the person who would eventually use it.

Which brings us back to stewardship.

One of the themes that keeps emerging throughout The Call is that God rarely blesses people merely for their own benefit. The biblical pattern is almost always the same. God blesses people so they can become a blessing to others.

That was true for Abraham - Joseph - Esther - Paul.

And it remains true for us.

Perhaps that is why the most fulfilled people I know are rarely the most self-focused people I know. The teachers who make the greatest impact are usually thinking about students. The best coaches are thinking about players. The best leaders are thinking about those they serve.

At some point, giftedness stops being about self-discovery and starts becoming about stewardship.

And maybe that is where this chapter of The Call is leading us.

The question is no longer simply:

"What am I good at?"

The deeper question becomes:

"How can I use what God has entrusted to me for the good of others and the glory of God?"

As part of your June reflection, it may be worth spending a little time thinking about the gifts, experiences, and opportunities God has placed in your life. Not simply where they came from, but where they are going.

Because perhaps one of the clearest signs that we are understanding our calling correctly is that the blessings God has given us do not stop with us. And that leads us to a true form of humility which also cultivates gratitude!

I am the most happy when I have made someone else very happy.

I am the most satisfied when I have spent time lifting up someone else - it is my favorite part of coaching.

Life Is Lived Forward- Day 8- June R&R

One of my favorite observations in Os Guinness' The Call comes from Søren Kierkegaard:

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

When I first read that quote years ago, I thought it was clever - Now I think it is true.

The older I get, the more I realize how little I understood what God was doing while I was living through it. After six decades-  I can look back and see patterns, connections, providences, and lessons that were completely invisible to me at the time.

That is probably one reason why discussions about calling can become so frustrating.

Most of us want clarity about the future. We want a map. We want certainty.

We want God to show us the next ten steps before we take the first one.

But that is rarely how He seems to work.

Instead, He usually gives enough light for the next step and asks us to trust Him with the rest.

One of the sayings Coach Bear Bryant used frequently was "Expect the unexpected." What made that interesting was that it came from someone who prepared for everything. Nothing happened accidentally in his program. Situations were rehearsed. Contingencies were discussed. Players were trained to think ahead.

And yet even Bryant understood that no amount of preparation could account for every twist and turn of a football game. Life is  the same way.

When I was younger, I thought calling was mostly about discovering the right path and staying on it. Looking back now, I think calling has involved far more surprises than I ever expected.

If you had asked me at age twenty-five where I would be at sixty-two, I would have missed almost every major turn in the road. I would not have predicted Nashville. I certainly would not have predicted leaving Nashville. I would not have predicted returning to Briarwood. I would not have predicted moving from coaching into administration.

And I definitely would not have predicted spending part of my days thinking about maintenance schedules, HVAC systems, construction projects, and the relentless reality of entropy.

Yet here I am. And when I look backward, I can see God's hand in all of it.

Not perfectly. Not exhaustively. There are still chapters I do not fully understand. There are still disappointments I would not have chosen. There are still questions I carry.

But I can see enough to trust Him with the parts I do not understand.

That is one reason I think Christians sometimes become too anxious about discovering "God's will." We want certainty about assignments when God is often more concerned about faithfulness.

Os Guinness repeatedly makes the point that our primary calling is always to Christ Himself. Our secondary callings may change many times over the course of a lifetime.

Here is what I am trying to press so far as we tune up- as we rest and reflect- as we seek restoration and recovery (the R&R can be a lot of things!)

The assignment changes. The calling does not.

The location changes. The calling does not.

The title changes. The calling does not.

When Peter writes in 1 Peter 3 to "always be prepared," we often think immediately about apologetics and defending the faith. That is certainly part of the passage. But the context is larger than that. Peter is writing to people whose lives were being disrupted by suffering, opposition, uncertainty, and circumstances they would not have chosen.

In other words, people whose plans were not unfolding as expected.

His encouragement is not to panic but to honor Christ as Lord and remain faithful.

That sounds simple until life becomes complicated. I was thinking- We all love the “Providence of God” until it punches us in the mouth! We obey God in the “Yes” moments, but act like whinny b****t**es when it doesn’t.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that God often prepares us for assignments long before we realize why He is doing it. Skills learned in one season become useful in another. Relationships formed decades earlier suddenly matter. Hard experiences that seemed pointless at the time become sources of wisdom later.

At the moment, those experiences often feel disconnected. Looking backward, they begin to fit together.

I liken it to working like crazy and as you do it, you are kicking up dust. That dust is everywhere and you can't see anything. Work, work, work... then you fall down exhausted and feel like all is lost. While you lay there... the dust settles and you look back- and what you have built takes your breath away... you didn''t feel progress, but now you SEE it. and now it's time to begin again.

That is the backward look- not like Lot's wife.. it isn't disobeying Jesus when the hand is on the plow- this is just 'getting my bearings'.

That does not mean every event makes sense. It does not mean every tragedy can be neatly explained. It certainly does not mean every disappointment was enjoyable.

It simply means that God is often doing more than we can see.

Oswald Chambers once wrote:

"The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him."

I have thought about that quote often over the years.

Many of us become consumed with trying to discover the assignment. We want to know where we are supposed to go, what we are supposed to do, and how everything is supposed to work out.

Meanwhile, God is inviting us into something deeper than vocational clarity.

He is inviting us into fellowship with Himself.

Perhaps that is why so much of life only makes sense in reverse.

We live, trust, obey forward. - But every once in a while, God allows us to look backward and catch a glimpse of His faithfulness.

And when we do, it becomes a little easier to trust Him with the next unexpected turn in the road.

As part of this June Tune-Up, it may be worth spending a little time looking backward before looking forward.

Most of us spend a great deal of energy trying to predict what comes next. Perhaps a better exercise is to ask where we have already seen God's hand at work.

What are some unexpected turns that ultimately became blessings?

What disappointments redirected you toward something better?

What relationships, opportunities, or hardships seemed confusing at the time but make more sense now?

Where have you seen God's providence most clearly?

And perhaps the hardest question of all:

What part of your future are you struggling to trust Him with today?

Take some time this week to write down a few of those moments. You may discover that the same God who was faithful in the chapters you now understand is also faithful in the chapters you are still living.

Link: Looking Backwards

Verse 1
At twenty-five I had a plan,
A straight-line dream all mapped by hand,
Certain where the road would bend,
Certain how the story'd end.
I thought calling was a destination,
A finish line I had to find,
Never knew that God was working
Through a thousand turns behind.
Verse 2
Coach said, "Expect the unexpected,"
Every bounce and every break,
You can practice every situation,
Still not know what turn it'll take.
Life has felt a lot like that now,
Years of plans and sudden turns,
Some lessons only make sense later,
Some truths are slow to learn.
Chorus
I can see it now looking backwards,
All the roads I never would have drawn,
Every closed door, every hard turn,
Every place I thought that You were wrong
I couldn't read the map while I was walking,
Couldn't see the reason for the rain,
But life makes sense looking backwards,
And faith keeps moving me forward again.
Verse 3
I never saw that loss coming,
Never saw myself in pain,
I left to conquer hills and mountains,
Never thought I'd come back home again.
And some days I laugh about it,
Some days I shake my head,
Thinking how the Lord kept writing
Chapters I would've never read.
Chorus
I can see it now looking backwards,
All the roads I never would have drawn,
Every closed door, every hard turn,
Every place I thought that You were wrong.
I couldn't read the map while I was walking,
Couldn't see the reason for the rain,
But life makes sense looking backwards,
And faith keeps moving me forward again.
Bridge
The title changed,
The town changed,
The work beneath my hands.
The faces changed,
The season changed,
The shape of all my plans.
But the call stayed,
The voice stayed,
The Shepherd stayed the same.
And after all these winding years,
He still calls me by name.
Chorus
Now I can see it looking backwards,
Though there's still some roads I don't understand,
Some prayers unanswered,
Some questions linger,
Still resting in Your hands.
And I may never know the reasons
For every valley, every pain,
But life makes sense looking backwards,
And faith keeps moving me forward again.
Outro
So I'll take the next step You give me,
Leave tomorrow where it belongs,
Trusting all the miles behind me
Prove You've led me all along.
Life is understood backwards,
But it's lived moving forward on.

The First Call- Day 7- June R&R

One of the things that happens when you revisit old writing from a decade ago is that you begin to see not only how your writing has changed, but how your understanding has changed too.

This summer I will turn 62 years old, and that means I have now been walking with Christ for approximately 47 years. Honestly, the longer I live, the more I understand Kierkegaard’s observation from Chapter 6 of The Call: “Life is lived forward but understood backward.”

That feels more true to me now than it did when I first read it years ago.

There are moments in life that do not seem especially clear while you are living them, but years later you realize they changed everything.

For me, one of those moments happened when I was a junior in high school.

A friend of ours had died tragically, and a group of us had gathered to meet with a pastor who was trying to help a bunch of hurting and confused teenagers process what had happened. I do not remember much about the meeting itself anymore, but I do remember leaving there unsettled.

The truth is, even though I had grown up around church, had walked an aisle, and had even been baptized, I was not really walking with God at all during that period of my life. I lived pretty independently and mostly did what I wanted to do. Looking back, I probably thought of Christianity more as part of my background than the defining reality of my life.

That night something changed.

I remember walking outside afterward and one of my friends came looking for me. We stood out on a dark street talking for a while, and he shared the gospel with me again. I had heard those truths hundreds of times before, but this time it was different. I cannot explain that fully except to say that the Holy Spirit was drawing me.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. [9] But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” [10] And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” [11] He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:8-11 ESV)

When I read Genesis 3 now, I think differently about God’s question to Adam: “Where are you?”

Obviously, God knew where Adam was. The question was not for God’s information. It was for Adam.

Adam was hiding,ashamed,afraid,separated…. For the first time of his life.

And honestly, that was exactly where I was too, even if I could not have explained it clearly at the time.

I drove home that night, sat down beside my bed, and finally stopped pretending everything was fine. I had made plenty of empty promises to God before. I had gone through emotional moments before. I had tried short-lived “reforms” before.

But this felt different.

I do not remember the exact words I prayed that night, but I remember the honesty of it. I remember admitting my sin, my fear, my confusion, and my need for Christ. I remember finally understanding that my problem was deeper than bad habits or bad decisions. I needed forgiveness and grace.

I got up- no fireworks or drama- in fact, I just went to sleep.

But when I woke up the next morning, I knew something had changed.

One of the first things I remember doing was telling my closest friends. We were riding around together the next day and I was nervous about saying anything because I honestly did not know how they would react.

Finally I just said it.

“Last night I gave my life to the Lord.”

One of them looked over and simply said, “Cool.”

And then we kept driving.

That conversation lasted about five seconds, but my life had fundamentally changed.

Now, looking back almost five decades later, I understand that night differently than I did at the time. For years I described that experience as a “re-dedication.” But after a lot more Bible study and life experience, I now believe that bedside prayer was actually my conversion. It was the beginning of God opening my eyes to the gospel and drawing me to Himself.

And honestly, that matters because everything else in this series flows out of that first call.

Before vocation-leadership- coaching- failures- teaching- stumbles- marriage- kids…

There was Christ calling me to Himself. That is the primary call.

And unlike jobs, roles, seasons, or assignments, that call does not change.

There have been plenty of ups and downs over these last 47 years. There have been seasons where I drifted, seasons where I misunderstood things, periods of immaturity, pride, poor decisions, and failures that still embarrass me when I think about them.

But the faithfulness of God has remained steady through all of it.

That is probably another thing you understand better backward than forward.

And maybe that is one reason Genesis 3 still resonates so deeply with me all these years later.

God still calls people hiding in shame, fear, confusion, pride, exhaustion, and brokenness.

“Where are you?”

How we answer that question really does make all the difference.

The Bible asks simple but profound questions- another one like it He kept asking Elijah… “Why are you here?”

Song Links:

By Grace Alone (Where Are You?)

Low Whisper (What Are You Here?)