Turning Out

A young eagle was learning to fly and in doing so leaped from the edge of a perfectly safe cliff. As he glided out over the valley, he felt the warm air rising and pushing him up into the sky. He was exhilarated, strong, confident. 

But a moment later a gust came from the south that turned him back toward the cliff from which he had jumped. In that moment, he saw a tree with a long, strong limb reaching out toward him.

The young eagle thought to himself, "If I turn back now I can easily land on that long, strong limb. I'll be safe and that tree will provide protection for me while I rest. Once rested, I'll be better able to continue flying."

Then another thought occurred to him. He could imagine what his father would say, "Son, remember the story of Jonathon! He was just a seagull and he didn't turn back, and neither will you."

So the eagle carefully folded the tips of his wings and turned away from the cliff and further out into the big unknown. There will be a time for rest, but this was not it.

What if You Gave Anonymously

What if you gave $10 to that guy that smiles outside the Starbucks? 

What if you gave $100 tip to the waitress at the diner?  

What if you gave $1000 to your church in cash in an envelope?  

What if you gave all of your giving in cash with no acknowledgement, with no recognition, with no tax benefit, with no appreciation?  

What if you gave more than you can afford?  

What if you did all of your shopping at locally owned and operated stores instead of big boxes knowing that it would cost more?  What if you considered that to be part of your giving campaign?  

What if you donated brand new clothing to the kids in Haiti instead of used clothing?    

What if you hugged that smelly person at church every Sunday?  

What if the next time that homeless person on the street asked you for money you gave him a hug?  And a $20 bill?  

What if you got 20 $5 bills and committed to giving every one of them away this week?  

What if you doubled your tips for the next month?  

What would happen?  I'm going to try some of these and I'll let you know how it goes.  Let me know what happens if you try any of these and share some of your own "what ifs".  

Why I Try to Read the Bible Everyday.

What if the guy who invented atoms pulled you aside and said, "Hey, I want to tell you a secret."  Would you listen?  I'm not talking about the person who DISCOVERED atoms, but the one who CREATED them.  All of them.  What if he said, "I want to explain how things work, why people do what they do."  I don't know about you, but I would be all ears.  

The way I see it, that's just what the Bible is.  It's the mysterious book that explains how things like peace and justice and mercy work, and why people lie and love and sacrifice.  The more I read it, the more questions I have, but the more I learn.  It is a VERY curious work with many crevices that I missed on my first couple readings.  And I'm sure I'll have more questions every time I read it again.  I try to read it every day because it grounds me in the most important reality:  God is the author of my life and the world I live in.  If I can start there, I'm already ahead for the day.  

So, if it's that good, why would I ever miss it?  'Cause I'm human.  I am a mess like everyone else and I get sick and I think I'm too busy and I make mistakes.  When I get away from reading the Word of God on a regular basis, I become acclimatized to living without it, which is dangerous.  But thankfully, He brings something across my path that brings me back and I get in the flow again.  I read, I learn, I live, and I fail. 

Curious about reading the bible?  Try this recipe: 

1. Get a Bible at any book store or from your grandma or from your local church.  Don't worry about what translation it is, just get one that you can read.  
2. Get a bookmark.  
3. Ask God to teach you through his Word.  
4. Start reading.  
5. When you are done reading, insert the bookmark there.  
6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 until you complete the book.  

It's kind of like reading any other book.  

Have you read any of the Bible?  What did you learn?  What did you like about it?  What did you not like?  Do you have questions?  What would you tell someone that is intimidated by the prospect of reading it?  

Mountaineering and Marriage

The other day my friend told me he was going to climb Mount Rainier.  I took one look at him and said, "Are you serious?"  He is easily 100 pounds overweight, I never see him exercise, and he struggles with climbing the stairs, much less the tallest mountain in the Washington.  What should I say?  "Hey that's great!  Congratulations!  I'm so excited for you."  Or should I tell him the truth?  "Hey man, I think you should think about that.  Climbing Mount Rainier is serious business and you don't want to just rush into it."  

Actually, the other day my friend told me he was going to get married, not climb Mt. Rainier.  And he's not overweight at all.  In fact, he's totally fit, but I'm not sure he's fit for marriage.  Now what do I say?  "Hey, that's great!  Congratulations!  I'm so excited for you."  Or should I tell him the truth?  

Interestingly, the likelihood of successfully summitting Mt. Rainier is roughly the same as the likelihood of staying married: 50%.   So why do we always say, "Congratulations!" when someone announces their wedding plans?  When I was in my 20's, everybody was getting married, then in my 30's, everybody was having kids, now in my 40's it seems like I'm surrounded by divorce.  I'm sick of it and I think there's a lot more that I and my church can be doing to address this problem at the divorce end of the equation, but we should start by addressing it at the wedding end.  

At the risk of being the party pooper, the next time someone tells you they are getting married or better yet, they are thinking about proposing, take the time to give them some honest insight and feedback.  Marriage is like climbing a mountain:  possibly the most difficult and rewarding thing you'll ever do in your life.  If you are prepared, and go about it in the right way, it will be tremendously rewarding, but if you approach it cavalierly it will go terribly wrong and could very well kill you or at least your soul.   

I think one of the best things we can do to reduce divorce is to help people be more realistic about marriage upfront.  It's going to be tough and you may not be up for the challenge.  Look before you leap!

Photo courtesy of Jason Shipley of Uniquely Northwest Photography. https://www.facebook.com/uniquelynorthwestphotography/

Why does God allow pain?

Probably everyone at some point in time has asked some variation of the question, "Why does God allow pain?"  And even if we accept that He allows some pain, we still want to know how He could allow that One pain that is so awful we don't even want to think about it.  So, let's tackle these two questions in order.  First of all, why pain? 

What is the opposite of pain?  Could it be comfort, ease, peace?  What would they be without pain?  If there was no pain, would we know comfort?  Or would we just be?  A rock knows no pain, nor joy.  The human existence is one of comparisons, pain and peace, suffering and laughter.  We can't really experience one end of the spectrum without experiencing the other.  In fact, I should welcome pain and suffering because that means that I can experience that much joy and elation.  Asking why God allows pain is like asking why God allows blue.  He gives us the full spectrum of color to witness with our eyes and he gives us the full spectrum of feeling to experience with our heart.  I wouldn't want a world without pain, because it would be without the other end of the spectrum too.  

So maybe we can tolerate some pain, but still there are evils in this world that are beyond comprehension.  Some people say, "I can't believe in a God who would allow..." and then they fill in the blank with some awful story in the news about a school shooting or young women kidnapped by al Shabaab.  Surely this pain does not need to exist for us to experience the joy at the other end of the spectrum.  

Let's look at the range of painful events.  Imagine a line from 1 to 100.  At 100 are the worst possible things that ever happen in the world today, things like rape, kidnapping, and torture.  At the other end of the spectrum, at level 1, are the slightest bad things, like someone cutting me off on the freeway.  What if God pushed a button or flicked a switch and suddenly, level 100 evils were no longer allowed.  The most awful thing that could happen would be level 99.  Eventually, we would forget about level 100 evils, we would forget about those atrocities and our gratefulness for their demise, and be totally focused on level 99.  Now imagine that God does it again and removes 99, so that only level 98 evils are allowed in the world.  Over time, the same thing would happen again.  That could continue again and again until you are at level 23.  In a world where the very worst thing that could ever happen would be level 23, that horror would still be the most horrid, dreadful thing you could ever imagine.  You would still wonder how God could allow such a thing to happen.  It is all relative to your experience.  

I don't know where we are on the eternal spectrum of evil, but I know that it could be worse.  I also know that God has put me on this planet to reduce pain and suffering, to be a blessing to more people.  So, I accept pain, and rejoice in the comfort and peace that I experience in this world while trying to be an instrument of joy for others.  

Spoiler Alert

I hate to ruin the surprise, but in the end you die, you go to heaven and live for eternity with Jesus.  Merry Christmas, you won the lottery.  Now, you might say to yourself, "No I won't.  I'm not a Christian, and I don't believe all that stuff."  In which case, you are right, but that's another matter.  I'm talking to the Christians.  

Brothers and sisters we know how the story ends.  But do we appreciate how much power that gives us?  What if I knew I wouldn't break my leg while skiing?  Would I ski differently?  Heck yeah, I would ski off every jump and berm and cliff I saw in the mountains.  And if I knew I wouldn't skid out of control and possibly hurt or kill someone, I'd drive like a maniac too, I would put the pedal down and rip around every corner on my way home from work.  

Seriously.  We know how it ends.  If I quit my job, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  If I get home too late from work, I'll live with Jesus for eternity.  If I offend someone, or shrink in fear of offending someone, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  If I push the envelope or stay in a box.  If I go to church or party all night.  If I vote left or right, or give or keep or go or stay, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  That is the inevitable answer.  It's how it ends.  There's not another ending.  

So, what am I waiting for?  What am I afraid of?  Why don't I do the thing I want to do?  Amazingly, I live in a prison of fear of what might happen, even though, no matter what happens between here and there, I will live with Jesus for eternity.  So, this year, I am going to push the envelope, take the leap, and run off the edge.  

If you don't leap, you can't fly.  

Walking in the Dark

When I first moved to Bainbridge Island, back in 1998, I didn't realize how dark it could get living in the woods.  I had grown up living in the suburbs of Seattle and had never lived anywhere but suburbs or in town, where there are few trees and/or plenty of street lights.  Our first rental house on Bainbridge was at the far northern tip of the island, and to get to the house we had to go down a long rabbit warren of driveways through a thick forest.  Houses were sparse and trees were many and tall.  I should have taken a hint by the flashlights that every other bus rider was holding when they got off the bus at night, but I was young and clueless.  "I don't need a flashlight..."

So, when the bus dropped me off and drove away I was a little surprised to discover just how dark dark can be.  At first the headlights reflected off the trees and provided some light.  But as the bus rounded the corner a ways off behind me, it went to pitch black.  I've been in a super dark place before, and I just keep trying to open my eyes further.  It's as if I don't believe they're open because nothing is registering.  The weird thing was that I've never been in a place so dark outside.  Usually, there's light bouncing off the clouds, or the moon is providing some light.  But not in these trees.  

I put my hand out in front of me and could not see it.  So, I was walking slowly down the driveway that I knew was there, but I was wandering off course into the muddy ditch on the side.  It was so dark that I literally got down and touched the edge of the driveway with my hand to feel my way down the driveway.  Eventually I got to the part of the driveway where I needed to leave the pavement and go down a gravel driveway.  There was no more pavement to guide me and I didn't want to go into the ditch.  At that point, I looked up that I discovered a path to follow.  Where the driveway cut through the forest, there was a path of stars above, and if I just kept looking up, I could stay in the middle of that path and walk straight down the driveway.  Eventually, I got down closer to the house and a light from the house guided my path.  

Later I was thinking about that experience as a metaphor for my life.  I struggle to see where I'm going and I insist on finding a way to do it myself.  And a lot of the time that works well enough.  But is that any way to live...well enough.  I want to live a life that is full and rich and meaningful, and the path to that life is there all along.  I need only look up.    

"I am the way, the truth and the life."  - Jesus, John 14:6

Give Deep

I've earlier said GIve Until It Doesn't Hurt, but the next question that must be considered is: to whom?  If you turn up the dial and give more than before, where should it all go?  Should you give to more organizations or causes, or just give more money to the same ones you already support?  Naturally, the first thing is to pray and ask the LORD to lead your giving, and the next thing is to seek wise counsel.  In the spirit of living in community and learning from others who've gone before us, I'll share how my wife, Elle, and I have been giving for the last 20 years.  Generally, we have felt compelled to give deeply to organizations where we can have some sort of personal connection.  I get the sense that a lot of people get the warm fuzzies at Christmas time by giving some money to buy a cow for a family in South America or sign up to sponsor a child in Africa.  Don't get me wrong.  Those are both VERY good things to do with your money.   

BUT, that is not anything like a tithe, not for most of you reading this in America.  What is a tithe anyway?  I like to think of it like this:  it is the 10% (or more) of your incoming Time, Talent and Treasure that you DON'T take from God even though he's given it to you.  He gives it to you and you give it right back.  

If you are a typical American earning a typical household income of roughly $55,000, that means that you would leave $5,500 of that back on the table for God.  That's a lot of child sponsorships or cows and chickens for families in need.  If you have an income more like $100,000, it's obviously $10,000, and so on.  So where should you give that money?   

I suggest you pray, and talk to friends and then put most of it into 2 or 3 ministries or missions that God puts on your heart.  Invest in those ministries with your Treasure AND your Time and Talents too if at all possible.  Give Deep.  For us, first off, we give 50% of our tithe to the local church.  That is a very important place to start.  It just happens that we live in a wealthy part of the wealthiest country on the planet, so running a church here is expensive.  We give our Time, Treasure and Talent to help our church thrive.  But we are also fortunate enough to have even more to give, so we give it to Dixie.  

A year or so after our daughter was born, my wife and I began seriously considering adoption, and after a good deal of research on different regions of the world, we felt a pull and interest in Haiti.  Through additional research, my wife learned of Dixie Bickel, the founder of God's Littlest Angels (GLA), an orphanage in Haiti, and through an awesome set of circumstances, we had the honor of hosting Dixie and her amazing husband, John, in the humble little chicken coop we called home in 2007.  We were honored to hear their story in person at our dinner table, and a few months later we had the opportunity to visit the orphanage in Haiti.  That began a personal connection for my wife and I with the people and the country of Haiti.  Our first gift was to pay for the college education of a young neighbor of GLA that we met while we were visiting.  We figured that until we adopted a child, we could at least adopt this young man by helping him get an education.  Within a few years he was finished with his college and it was clear we were not going to adopt any children.  So we shifted our giving to sponsor students in the area around the orphanage who are with their families but can't afford to go to school.  There are not government sponsored schools in Haiti.  Every school is private, so we are helping Haitians to get an education in the hopes that a more educated Haiti will contribute to a better electorate and economy in the long term. 

We have been sponsoring kids' educations in Haiti for 8 years now and we give about 20% of our giving to them.  Another 20% of our giving goes to a Love Does school that Bob Goff started in Uganda.  We met Bob Goff and the Love Does Crew at a conference in 2012.  With 50% going to our church, the remaining 10% of our giving goes to the little things that come up here and there: education, radio stations, arts, and other ministries.  We like to say yes when asked for help on little things.  

So, our approach has always been to focus the bulk of our giving on just 2 or 3 main ministries with which we were closely familiar.  I encourage you to find your 2 or 3 and go deep with them.  Commit a serious amount of your giving and make it a lasting commitment for at least several years.  There is a time and place for changing your giving patterns, so when you are going deep with your giving, you need to communicate that to the recipient of your giving, because they'll be depending on you, and they'll need time to replace your giving.  

Our goal has been to give at least 10% of our total income before taxes, and while that was tough in the early years, it's become easier and easier.  Last year we gave more than 10%, so now my goal is to increase our total giving as a percentage of income every year.  The more we make, the more we can afford to give right?  So why not give 20%?  Give deep until it doesn't hurt!

Who are your favorite ministries and missions?  In addition to our core ministries, we are also big fans and supporters of: 

Carden Country School - an amazing school here on Bainbridge Island.

Pacific Northwest Ballet - the fantastic ballet company in Seattle.  

KNHC 89.5 Dance Music Radio station run by students at a public high school in Seattle.

First Aid Arts - an amazing program using art therapy with people who've suffered horrific circumstances.

American Heritage Girls - an awesome program for girls

And many others.  What are your favorite organizations to support?

My Embarrassment of Riches

First, let’s go back in time a little ways.  Many years before college, or even high school, I started my first little business selling holiday cards.  I was the only 12 year old I knew with a checking account which I used to pay for the cards that I later sold.  Over the years since then, I’ve had many entrepreneurial ideas, but for the most part, I’ve been employed by others most of the time.  Now, I’m over 40 and I’ve finally come across what may be my best business idea ever, but I’m too embarrassed to make it a success because I would be ashamed to make money with it.

Am I ashamed of making money?  No!  I actually have a relatively healthy income that puts me in the top 5% of the US, and I’m not embarrassed of that.  I’m proud that I’ve worked hard and I fully appreciate that I’ve had many undeserved blessings that contribute to that financial success.  I’ve had some windfalls and I’m not embarrassed of them either.  I’m actually proud of how my wife and I have learned to manage our money to God’s glory and give money, time and spirit to do good works.  Then what kind of business idea would I be embarrassed of making money?  

Ironically, it is a message that is partially about how badly I managed money before and got myself into a heap of debt.  It’s a message that could help save a lot of people from a lot of pain and suffering from debt to addictions, bad habits to bad relationships.  So far, I’ve captured the story in form of a short novel (buy a copy of Pillows For Your Prison Cell for your friend today), but I’d like to reconfigure the message in all forms of media over time.  Eventually, I believe it would make a powerful play for the stage, a fantastic feature film, an awesome interactive VR experience, and a fun children’s story book.  I want to create weekend retreats to give people the opportunity to take the message and apply it to their own lives.  I went to create sensational events with bands and multimedia to reach young people.  I want to create workbooks for churches and small groups.  I want to create curriculum for use in public schools.  I want to get the message into the hands of college students across the country in campus-wide reading programs.  In short, I want to create a thriving, profitable business that has a positive impact on hundreds or thousands or even millions of people.  So what’s wrong?  
I am so embarrassed of the possibility of making money doing this.  I’m embarrassed to even admit that I’m embarrassed.  The only reason I’m doing it is in the hopes that some of you reading this can help me overcome my ridiculous conclusion.  

Somehow, in my mind, it would be perfectly acceptable to create a new hotel reviews website (another one of my ideas) and build it into a thriving business used by millions of people and sell it for a massive amount of money to Expedia or Priceline.  Making $30 million with a software/app company would be fine.  Not so with a book that aims to help people!  

Is my hang-up tied to the notion that doing good should not, pay well?  Look at what our society says.  Consider teachers, very high on the doing good scale, very low on the pay scale.  Counselors and therapists, same thing.  Pastors, mostly same.  Heck, the highest paid public employee in most states is a Football or Basketball coach!!!  It’s ok to earn $1 million per year as the Football coach at the University of [any state] but it’s not reasonable to pay teachers a living wage.  

At this point, I have to thank Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, Tom’s Shoes and others that have paved the way showing that it’s perfectly fine to do something well and make money and be a blessing to others in the process.  Earlier this year I decided that 2016 would be the year that I start seriously investing energy into this venture.  I am taking a crack at this.  I still have a day job, so this is a weekends and evenings kind of thing, but I’ve hired others to help me.  If you are interested in helping me succeed in any way down this path, I’d love to hear about it.  I’m looking for script writers, translators, artists, musicians, photographers, film makers, VR designers, and anybody that has a passion for helping people live the full, rich, and meaningful life that God designed us to live.  If that’s you, drop me a line at mark@pfypc.com.  Oh, and if you’d like to invest in this venture, I’ll need that too.  

Upward and Onward, Mark

Give Yourself a Break or Your Self Will Take One from You

As a sophomore fighting to keep up at an Ivy League university after a blue collar high school education, I was struggling to find time for reading the Bible.  I had not been admitted to Cornell as a regular freshman because I was not good enough to get accepted.  Instead, I had been admitted for January admission off the waitlist along with a handful of other “second rate” applicants.  I got into Cornell by the skin of my teeth.  So, I was working hard to fit in among a class of better prepared kids from prestigious high schools around the world.  Class work was hard and on top of that I had to work 20 hours a week to help pay for an education that my parents couldn’t possibly afford.  So that was my excuse for why I didn’t have time to read the Bible. 

The trouble was that the more I learned about God, the more I wanted to read the Bible and found myself hungering for it.  “As the dear thirsts for the water” the Psalmist says.  But my schedule just didn’t allow for it, or so I thought.  That is, until I sprained my knee in a weekend game of touch football.  As I prepared to leave the ER, the doctor explained that I must ice my leg twice a day for 20 minutes, once in the morning and once in the evening.  I was motivated to get my leg back in shape, so I was absolutely willing to do exactly as he said.  

The first time I sat down to ice my knee, I thought to myself, “This sucks.  What am I supposed to do for the next 20 minutes while I’m stuck here.”  Then it occurred to me that I could read the Bible.  So every time I iced my leg, I read the Word of God.  Amazingly, my life didn’t fall apart.  My work got done, my studying got done, I had fun with my friends, and my grades didn’t suffer.  As my leg healed, I remember thinking that it was a shame I wouldn’t have time to read once the icing was no longer required.  I actually thought that!  But thankfully, I also realized the craziness of that conclusion.  This accident had shown me that I had always had the time, I just wasn’t prioritizing it effectively.  That lesson stuck with me.  If I didn't give myself a break, my self would take one from me.   

Think about it.  Don't you find it to be true in your life?  If you push too hard, your body pushes back.  You work long hours on end, and you get sick.  You run too many miles to prep for the marathon and you get an injury.  You rush to catch the ferry and you miss it.  At least that's what happens to me.  Your body was designed by God to have breaks.  That's why we sleep.  That's why we take a Sabbath day of rest.  That's why you should take a vacation.  Seriously, I'm talking to YOU (you know who you are, you haven't take a REAL vacation for years.).  

I've tried to really live by this mantra and it's helped me and my family in two ways.  First, it helps us to slow down and take time the "smell the roses" along the way.  (SIde note, the next time you see roses, take a moment and smell them; you won't regret it.)  We will regularly choose to do something fun in the middle of work as a way to take a break.  Or, sometimes we need to to just stop and do nothing in the middle of a lot of work and play to give ourselves a break.  

Second, it has given us a different perspective when something goes wrong.  Rather than say, "This is so unfair, why is this happening to me?" we look back and ask, "Were we going to fast?  How could we have given ourselves a break earlier?"  I think I've become good enough at this that some people must think I'm a slacker.  Sometimes I worry about it, but then I say to myself, "Self, it's time for a break."    

PS. I have to give credit to Mr. Sam Moyle, one of my favorite high school teachers, for regularly saying, "So I said to myself, 'Self'..."  I love saying that and it partially inspired this mantra.  

QUESTION: When was the last time you DIDN'T take a break and paid for it when something when wrong?  Tell me about a time you DID take a break and it was just what the doctor ordered?  

Listen to Advice, But Don't Follow It!

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. ”

— Proverbs 12:15

When I was a senior at Highline High School, my guidance counselor offered me the following advice, “Mark, you shouldn’t apply to those Ivy League and prestigious liberal arts colleges because they are highly selective and you don’t have what it takes to get accepted.”  Was that good advice?  As it turns out, he was mostly right.  In April of my senior year, I got three thin envelopes from Dartmouth, Williams and Amherst.  But the envelope from Cornell was slightly thicker.  I had been put on their waitlist, and a month later, I was accepted as a January Freshman.  In the end, mostly right was totally wrong. 

First of all, if I hadn’t applied to both Dartmouth and Cornell, I may not have been accepted to Cornell.  And the experience of visiting the very elite Amherst and Williams as a soggy Seattle kid from blue collar Burien was very impactful in my younger years.  So, the whole experience of applying to, and being rejected by, all four schools was, on the whole, a very positive experience. 

I guess I shouldn’t listen to advice, or maybe I should consider the source… OR, maybe I should acknowledge that advice is not prophecy. 

The fact is that his advice was perfectly reasonable given all of his experience.  I had good grades (3.8ish or something like that), a decent SAT score (750 Math, 560 English), and reasonably good activities and extracurricular experience, but there was nothing special about me.  What Mr. Maloney didn’t account for was how good I am in an interview, and something neither of us appreciated about me at the time was that I’m a halfway decent writer.  As it turns out, Cornell required a lot of writing in their application (insert thank you to my Junior English Composition teacher, Mrs. Melba May McConnaughey), and Dartmouth required an interview (which went so well that the Dartmouth alum wrote a letter to Cornell that got me accepted off the wait list).  My counselors advice was sound, it just wasn’t descriptive of how things turned out.    

Advice is often based more on people’s own experiences and history than on your situation or your history.  Lately, I have been asking friends and advisors about what I should do with my book, Pillows For Your Prison Cell and the No More Pillows retreats I’ve designed.  One successful business man I spoke with is noted for his ability to turn around distressed businesses.  His advice: Find churches with anemic or nascent youth groups and give them resources to help them grow.  Sounds a bit like his method, eh?  Another good friend is a trainer among other things, and he suggested that I should look into training other speakers and leaders to give my retreats to extend my reach.  Is that advice for me or for him?  Here’s the thing, these are both good bits of advice and I am currently investigating both approaches.  But they are not everything. 

The proverb says, “a wise man listens to advice.”  It doesn’t say, “a wise man does what his advisors tell him to do.”  Listen to advice.  Don’t follow it. 

The Proverbs are full of advice and specifically advice to listen to the advice of others (mom, dad, friends, and elders).  I’ve learned in recent years to triangulate advice that I receive along with other sources of input, namely: 

• Advice from other trusted advisors,
• Insight and inspiration from reading God’s word, 
• Prayer and listening for the Spirit’s guidance,
• Wisdom from sermons and preaching I’ve heard. 

When I follow this practice, the LORD leads me in the path he has laid out for me, and it’s awesome.  Sadly, all too often, I ignore all of the above and go off on my own and do something stupid.  That’s when I learn the harder way:  through God’s megaphone- PAIN.  But that’s a topic for another day. 

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?  How about the worst?  Have you ever ignored good advice and been glad you did?  

Tangled

When I was in 6th grade, I knew a kid who came back from Singapore where his family had been missionaries.  His name was Steven, but everyone called him Stevie.  He had tons of really cool electronics that he had picked up during his time in Asia, and he was willing to sell me a Walkman knock off for $50.  It was made by Aiwa.  One of those brands like Thule that's so cool, only insiders know how to pronounce it right.  It was all black with some red and white details and it had two super cool features: Autoreverse and a three channel equalizer.  Hello!  It had an equalizer on a hand held tape player!  It was sooooo cool.  But there was one problem I experienced constantly ... tangled headphone wires.  

Tangled head phones, tangled electrical cords, tangles hoses, tangled christmas lights, tangled blinds pulls.  You name it.  If it could get tangled it did get tangled, and it all started with shoe laces.  Why were my shoe laces always getting tangled, and why was everything always getting tangled?  Or here's another question... why don't I have that problem now?    

It's weird.  I practically never have that problem anymore.  Either things don't get tangled in the first place, or if they are a little bit, I can easily undo it.  Why?  What's the difference?

The answer is probably a bit obvious, but it's worth looking at it and thinking about how it relates to the other parts of our lives that are still getting tangled.  The way I see it, it's a two part answer.  First, I am more careful about how I put things away.  Second, I am more patient about getting things untangled.  

When I was a kid, I just grabbed the thing and jammed it into a drawer or pocket or closet without thinking about what it would be like when I got it back out.  An interesting side note is that I also didn't think about whether that would be easy or hard for someone else to pull out.  It's no surprise then that when I tried to retrieve the item, that it would be a mess.  And of course, when I did pull it out, I was in a hurry to fix the mess and just started pulling on whatever end seemed to stick out the furthest.  

Now, when I put away an electrical cord, I plug the two ends together and wrap it up the way I learned to flake climbing rope when I was in college.  When I put away christmas lights, I wrap them around a paper towel core or at least put them in separate bags.  Basically, I've learned that if I put it away right, it's easier to get it out without getting too tangled.  

But, you know, some things just get tangled anyway, no matter what you do...especially those christmas lights.  So, now when I pull something out that is already tangled, I take a moment to look at it.  Usually, the easiest way to untangle it is to just let it fall apart.  Rather than pulling the one end you can find, go to the middle and just start opening up the knot, slowly pulling all the parts apart from each other.  In my experience, it will usually find its way open from there.  

I've found that applying these same principles to the rest of my life helps me get other things untangled too.  First of all, take the time to do things right the first time.  Then, when things still get tangled, take a breath, and go straight to the heart of the matter rather than pulling on whatever end is sticking out.  

What about you?  Is there some part of your life that's a tangled mess?  Would it be helpful to go straight to the heart of that matter rather than pulling on loose ends?  

Give Until It Doesn't Hurt

When I was in college, I went to Argentina on a mission trip.  While I was down there an awesome missionary named Dan Ryder (who taught me many great lessons which I'll share in other posts) taught me a saying, "give until it hurts".  I'm sure he didn't come up with it, but he introduced it to me, so he get's the credit as far as I'm concerned.    

What did he mean by it?  Well the way he explained it is that if we are giving out of our comfort, it's not really giving, because we're not giving up anything.  Jesus explains this in the example of the Widow's Mite in Luke 21:1-4.  

“21:1 And [Jesus] looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. 2 And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. 3 And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; 4 for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.”

— Luke 21:1-4, NASB from BibleGateway.com

Giving till it hurts means giving until you notice the difference.  The next spring after the mission trip to Argentina, I was in New York City on a trip to expose us to urban missions to disadvantaged youth, the homeless and the addicted.  One rainy night in Manhattan, we went out to bring food to those on the streets and were instructed to sit down and get to know some of these folks we aimed to serve.  I talked to a guy who'd lost his job, his wife, his home, and his dignity.  When I asked him what I could do for him, he said he just wanted some socks because it was so cold and damp.  A quick look at his feet suggested that my socks would probably fit him, so I took off my shoes and socks, gave him my socks and put my shoes back on.  I was a poor college student working my way through college on a scholarship, but I still had more socks back in my suitcase.  Frankly, that didn't hurt much, but I did notice the difference because for the rest of the evening, my feet were freezing.  And most importantly, I was learning to exercise my GIVE muscle.  

Since then, I've striven to give as much as possible and there have been many conversations in which my wife and I have struggled to understand why so and so seems to have more money to spend on such and such.  Then we look at our giving and realize that we could have had a bigger house, nicer car, fancier vacations or whatever, if we had given less.  

So, we give and it hurts.  Or does it?  

Back when we first got married and we wanted to buy a house so badly, it was tough to give up 10% of our income, and we didn't always succeed.  Later, when we got into the pile of debt that inspired my book, Pillows For Your Prison Cell, it was really tough to give because it slowed down our process of getting out of our prison cell.  But we gave, and we gave, and over time we learned that it was better to give and trust our heavenly father than to keep the money for our own plan.  God's math is not our math.  His economy is not our economy.  His promise in Malachi 4:10 demonstrates how he thinks about this. 

“4:10 ‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.’”

— Malachi 4:10, NIV from BibleGateway.com

If this is God's promise, then how can it hurt to give?  In fact, the more I give, the less it hurts.  It only hurts if I think it's mine and by giving zealously for the last 20+ years, God has taught me that it ISN'T mine.  In fact, I'm not really giving anything.  I'm taking.  So I gave until it didn't hurt and now my goal is to take less.  

Let me draw a picture for you.  In the next 12 months, God is going to put a pile of resources on the table in front of you: Time, Talents (knowledge, skills, abilities) and Treasure (money).  How much of that are you going to take and use for yourself, and how much of that are you going to leave on the table to do His work?  Here's the cool thing:  It's all yours!  He gave it to you, so you get to decide how to use it.  You can invest in your local church, in a school in Haiti, an urban mission, or whatever He has put on your heart.  What you do with it is up to you.  So whether you have a little talent and a lot of money or a bit of time and some talent too, whatever you have, He gave it to you because He knows you'll put it to good use.  

Tell me how you like to leverage your time, talent and treasure with the ministries that the Lord has put on your heart.  In addition to our local church, my wife and I are currently investing in: 

Love Does - So far, all we've been able to do is give money to sponsor kids to go to school in war torn and impoverished parts of Africa and Asia.  Some day soon we'd like to visit these schools and invest in the kids directly.  

God's Littlest Angels - We had the good fortune of connecting with the founders of GLA and hosted them in our home while they were in Seattle to raise money at Microsoft (my former employer).  We then got to visit GLA in Petionville, Haiti and spend hours and hours holding babies (which is a huge blessing to a little baby in their first years and I can say that giving did not hurt one bit).  Now we are sponsoring children to go to school in Haiti where school is NOT free.  

And of course, No More Pillows the ministry I created to host fun and provocative weekend retreats for youth.  (Shameless plug...)

What kind of King do you serve?

I suppose there are three kinds of people. Those who serve a good king, those who serve a bad king, and those who are trying to be king. But is it possible that there is really just one kind of person? Wouldn't it make sense that everyone deep down in their core wants to serve a good king rather than the other two options? Then why don't they?

Consider the one who is serving a bad king. Why do they do it? In the Chronicles of Narnia, there were beasts who served the White Witch, and of course, in the recent making of the film those beasts were as ugly as could be, making it all the easier to hate them. But why did they serve the White Witch? I suspect it was fear and historical momentum. Fear is how it started and historical momentum is how it was maintained. We are by nature creatures of fear. Fear is an incredibly powerful force and we submit ourselves to it daily.

When the White Witch took over initially, she did it through an exertion of power, by using her magic to turn creatures into stone. This would no doubt elicit a large amount of fear which allowed her to manipulate a larger and larger population. Once those creatures who were so afraid of her began to do her bidding, they formed habits and established a pattern of behavior that would have been passed to their families and communities. Before long there was a whole army of creatures serving an evil monarch. I don't believe anyone really wanted to serve her, especially once they got to know her. But once inside her circle fear and momentum ruled the mind and therefore the actions of her servants.

Now consider the one who wants to be king. Why be king? What does a king get that a subject does not? Power is the first thing that comes to my mind, but power, like money, is by itself is useless. It is only a means to an end. So, what end? If you boil it down, all the things one can get with power or money serve to make a person either comfortable or excited, or both. Think about it. Sex, food, toys, adventures. They all comfort and excite. So what if there were a good king who would provide everything necessary to be comforted and excited without all the stress of being in control of an empire? This brings us back to fear, because if I fear that such a king doesn't exist or won't provide those things for me, and I don't want to serve another king, then my only choice is to become a king myself.

I believe the White Witch wants to serve Aslan, but she is paralyzed by fear that he won't love and provide for her. And the wolves want to serve Aslan, but they live in fear of the White Witch who is here and now, and don't know Aslan who was not present for so long. Aslan, the true ruler could force both of them to serve him, but he chooses not to. He allows them to make their own choice. And some, like Edward and Eustace, he chooses to love in such an overwhelmingly present way that they could choose no other path than to serve him.

It all comes down to fear. Think about that the next time you see a "bad" person, whether it's at work, on the road, in the news, or in the mirror. What does he or she fear? Might you be the one to introduce them to Aslan?

On my best days, I'm trying to serve the one true good king.  But when I'm weak, I'm prone to try to be king.  What about you?  Do you find yourself more likely to serve the wrong king or to try to be king?

NOTE: This essay was originally posted on Facebook on my Mark D. Bullard Author page on Sept 9, 2014.  

What's your Faith Quotient?

You hear a lot of talk about IQ (Intelligence Quotient), and since it's so clearly measured (at least according to some) it's fun to figure out who has the biggest score and then be jealous of them or assume that their IQ explains their success.  In recent decades there's been a lot of emphasis on EIQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) and recognizing that it's as important and possibly more important to attaining "success".  Now I put quotes around success because most of the time in business or personal fulfillment literature, success is closely correlated to money.  But you and I both know how untrue that is.  Of course, now I have to admit that while I know in my head that money won't make me happy, I still want more of it, and still measure success in terms of money constantly.  OK, but what is success?  What if success were tied to something more like satisfaction with life?  Or maybe even better would be satisfaction multiplied by positive impact?  What if I had very little mullah, but felt very satiated AND had a significant impact on the world around me?  For instance, what if I were a kindergarten teacher at a private school that couldn't afford to pay me well because the state didn't support independent educational options?  I might impact hundreds of kids over the course of my life and each of them in a deeply powerful and personal way, but I wouldn't likely make much money or find myself on the front of any magazine's 40 under 40 list.    

So, what about FQ?  I know, it looks a little bit like a four letter word, but it stands for Faith Quotient.  How successful could you be if you had only average IQ and average EQ but high FQ?  When I think of high FQ, I think of people like David Wilkerson.  I don't know how much of the other two he had, but he had heaps of grace mixed with mounds of faith and he leveraged them both to awesome effect.  All three of these quotients are gifts from God and to him who has been given much, much is expected.  Whether you're smart, or good with people, or have deep pockets of faith, you have what you have to bring glory to God.  And when you use your gifts to bless the world around you, you bring glory to your maker.  We have both the duty and the joy of taking whatever quotients we've been given to impact the world and that is my definition of "success".  

"Until now you've not asked for anything in my name.  Ask and you will receive and your joy will be made complete." - John 16:24

So, how about you?  What's your quotient?  Which one is your strength?  Or do you have an even different quotient?  

PS.  I made up Faith Quotient (FQ), but of course I wasn't the first to do so.  Here's an interesting article from 1955 by a game show host on the topic:  http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1955feb-00129

A Saturday Peace

We use firewood to heat our home, and every morning I go out to the firewood shed to bring in firewood for the day.  I have to make several trips to bring in enough wood to heat the house for the next 24 hours (we burn 7 chords of wood per season).  When I'm bringing in those pieces of wood, I evaluate them to pick the right pieces at the right time.  For instance, I always try to grab wetter and more square shapes first to put on the bottom of the pile.  They make a steady base, and they'll dry out more before they get used.  Then I add the drier and possibly odder shapes near the top of the pile since they will be thrown into the fire sooner and they don't need to hold pieces above them.  

 There is one type of piece, however, that I avoid bringing in: the Saturday piece.  A Saturday piece is a problem piece.  It's too big or oddly shaped or wet to throw on the pile for a normal day.  I'm typically gone during the day on weekdays and I don't want to make my wife deal with the odd or inconvenient piece.  But on Saturdays I'm around and it's no big deal to wrestle with that piece on those days.  If it's particularly wet, I leave it right in front of the fire to dry it out, and if it's really big, I get the fire nice and hot, then make space for it.  The bottom line is that some wood is just going to be too much of a pain to deal with on an ordinary day and is best dealt with when I'll have time to address it without stress.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  It's not procrastination to identify a problem too gnarly to deal with right now and set it aside for a time when you know you can address it.  Procrastination is arriving on Saturday and wimping out and opting not to deal with those pieces when I know I can.  Knowing that I'll deal with those problems on the weekend gives me a Saturday peace all week long.  

The Nightmare of Living the Dream

     I used to dream of something going wrong that would force me to "live the dream", but now I'm living it and the pressure is on.

A few years ago I just worked for a boss.  I just had a job.  I flew around the country and occasionally overseas to sell expensive enterprise software to massive corporations.  I had 5 people that worked directly for me and a boss above me.  It was great, and I loved a lot of things about it, but I constantly dreamed of breaking free.  I would be riding my motorcycle home from my office, and think to myself, What if I got in a terrible accident and got paralyzed?

I reasoned that then I would have to quit my job and be "forced" to work on writing and marketing my book.  Plus, I'd have the added benefit of people feeling bad for me, which would give my book a nice PR boost.  I imagined the newspaper article about the guy who got in the motorcycle accident who was fighting for his family and pressing forward on his book despite circumstances stacked against him.  Sounds good doesn't it?

Well, then my company sold, and I earned a nice bonus equivalent to about one year's salary.  Not a huge cushion, not the big IPO payout you hear about, but it was enough to open the door for an opportunity.  I quit my job so that I could "live the dream" and focus on my book full time.

Wahoo!  Freedom!  Oh, snap....  Now what do I do?

The fact is that I knew exactly what to do.  I'd been working on my book for 5 years, and I had a very complete marketing plan and long lists of ToDos.  But there was soooo much to do that it was overwhelming, and I didn't have a boss to prioritize it for me or even a peer with whom I could share challenges and opportunities.  It was all me.  Turns out there's a lot of responsibility in living the dream (which makes me think about all the "Freedom Ain't Free" bumper stickers, but that's another topic....).  The good news was that I didn't have to get paralyzed to "live the dream", but the reality news was, there was a lot of hard work ahead!