Get A Different Seat

The license plate “God is My Co-Pilot” ran through my head as I saw my truck rumble down the road.  It wasn’t me, nor Jan behind the wheel, it was the 17-year old team manager of the track team that I coach on her way home to get some things after her car wouldn’t start.  For some reason that classic novelty license plate ran through my head as I had a fair amount of confidence that everything would be fine.  But asking God to be a co-pilot couldn’t hurt! 

The funny thing about that license plate is that God doesn’t exactly do “co-piloting”.   Viewing God as the co-pilot puts the focus on ourselves and what we want to do.  While that’s the way of the world and pretty normal, the road to contentment and peace means sliding out of the pilot’s seat and into the passenger seat.  This leaves God to navigate, orchestrate, and show us what He’s doing.  There’s purpose to the position of Pilot because we cannot do it all on our own.

So as my truck rumbled over the hill and far out of my control I went about my business coaching and trusted God to bring my truck and my loyal and enthusiastic team manager back to our track meet.  I felt like I was meeting a need that was in front of me and I let God do the piloting on the rest!  There’s obedience and then letting the outcome go, which is tough to do sometimes.

What does it look like when we slide out of the pilot’s seat?  The view is different, that’s for sure.  I can summarize that things move differently yet they are orchestrated in a way that we could never imagine.

Take for instance the time I accompanied our youngest son Sam on his first preschool field trip.  We boarded a faded yellow school bus and made a run for the orchards.  The old bus was built in 1972 and was as “old-school” as anything; manual transmission, big-block engine, and all of the noise and harshness that you could handle.  The trip went great until it didn’t…the old bus sputtered, the driver gave a huge groan, and our bus suddenly ended up in the front yard of a rancher house with an empty gas tank.

Sam and I sat and observed the other kids, the teacher, and the other moms that were on the bus.  And after a few moments we decided that we needed to leave the bus and look for some gas.  When you’re out of gas you can call and wait for someone or go looking for some.  Since we weren’t going anywhere quickly I grabbed Sam’s hand and we embarked on a valuable life lesson of how to talk to complete strangers when in need.

The first two houses were empty but the third was the jackpot.  This house was not only part of an estate but it was going to auction in a few weeks.  We explained our situation, Sam flashed his long eyelashes at the lady, and we were given access to the garage and told we could take anything that helped.  Everything in the garage had to leave at some point and we were the beneficiaries.  What were the odds that our bus ran out of gas just feet from a stocked garage that had everything free for the taking? I grabbed a gas can full of fuel and we made it back to our class and thirsty bus.

And then I found out that buses built in the 70’s have the gas tanks very far inboard the body.  Rats.  There was no way my gas can was going to get fuel into the tank.  So we walked back to the garage, cut a section of hose with a razor blade, and returned to our bus.  An added step but all of our needs were met with that garage.  A few minutes later we had enough fuel to make it over the hill and to the orchard where we continued the field trip as planned.

When God is the pilot He may lead you off a bus that’s not going anywhere and teach you how to make new friends that can help.

A few days ago I was riding my bike on my favorite road at 7am.  It’s my favorite place to ride and when I can get on this section of road early there’s rarely a vehicle.  But, on this early Sunday morning there was a lone vehicle stopped in my lane of traffic.  I kept pedaling and as I approached the back of the vehicle and started to pass on the left the driver threw his car in gear and merged into the lane.  I pulled on my brakes and when he saw me in his mirror just a few feet from his bumper he stomped on the gas pedal.

We had miles of empty road and here we were, a guy on a bicycle and a guy in car, sharing a small section of road.  What are the odds?

He sped off and I continued my path back on the right-hand side of the road.  I thought my excitement for the day was over but minutes later I spotted the same car coming the opposite direction.

As he rolled towards me, I saw the drivers head stick out the window and he slowed to a stop, which I admit made me a bit nervous.  But his smile helped me put my guard down and as I slowed I heard him plead for forgiveness.  In his words, he turned around because he didn’t want me to think he was a “*?!k”.  He didn’t realize how fast I was riding!  I laughed and said I didn’t think that and that he shouldn’t let it ruin his day. 

When God is the pilot He may lead  you turn the car around.

Years ago I was attempting to drive home from Washington D.C.  I call that whole network around our nations capital “the belly of the beast” and for good reason; it’s a mess of wide highways, crazy drivers, and basically an asphalt jungle that is to be avoided at all costs.  And yet here I was, driving my truck in a blizzard on the beltways and highways that somehow connect me with my destination of home.

Driving for the conditions is usually recommended and snow, slush, and ice definitely warrant a steady hand and complete focus.  But in the front of my mind was the phone call from Jan where she informed me that our water lines at our house were frozen.  She was home with the boys, who were 4 and 2 at the time.  It’s never good to be apart from the love of your life but in this moment I needed to be home.  Now.

When a sign flashed that there was an accident ahead and the rest of the traffic slowed to a stop I took an exit and started piecing together roads that I thought would bypass the whole mess of people and snow.  I’m sure my passenger was skeptical but I was confident that if we kept moving it was surely better than sitting on a 6-lane highway. 

My plan almost worked but we found ourselves in the wrong lane with a small median/curb separating us from our destination lane.  I needed to be in THAT lane to go home and we were in THIS lane, which would take us back to the belly of the beast.  I didn’t want that.

So with a glance in my mirrors and and a leap of faith I slowed, crawled over the curb, and got back on the gas towards home.  If I remember correctly it was not a “small” curb!

I will always remember my passenger saying, “What if you would have gotten stuck?!” to which I answered, “That’s a question I’ll never have to answer…because we didn’t!”. 

When God is the pilot you may have to confidently change lanes.

Being a co-pilot means sliding over into a new seat.  It doesn’t mean leaving the car.  You can still be you but your heart will change and your perspective will certainly change!  There’s less happenstance and more Holy-Spirit led!  Do you see it?  Can you feel it?  It only happens when you slide over into the co-pilot seat.  Your dreams and goals don’t necessarily die when you change seats, but how you perceive them and work at them most certainly does!  God intervenes in a way that can leads us to do His will.

Anyone can pretend to be a pilot and we all do it at times.  It’s because we are selfish, bullheaded, and sinners by nature!  But there’s a sweetness to being available, being open, and being led by the Holy Spirit.  You may find yourself doing things differently.  You will have solutions that come from nowhere.  And you will travel the road of life from a new position with a loving leader.

Time to get a new license plate.

#DonkeyLife

Their voices carried excitement while I carried a bit of apprehension.  It’s not every day that little boys get to stand next to vehicles that carry 7-figure price tags.  And yet here we were, walking around really expensive cars with prestigious emblems that bore the image of raging bulls and prancing horses.  We were in the midst of supercar heaven and while our boys’ voices squealed with excitement as they recognized their favorite, high-horsepower machines I made sure that we didn’t touch or mark the “lambogeenies” or “ferrarrreeys”. 

This is life at a “Cars and Coffee” event with young boys.  Cars and Coffee is a new twist on the common car show.  The recipe is pretty simple; invite people with amazing cars to bring them out and park them in an open lot on a weekend morning.  Tell the masses with an interest in cars to come out, drink coffee, and check out all of the shiny bits parked in the lot.  There’s usually a wide variety of cars with proud owners nearby ready to chat about their rides.  It’s a good way to kill a few hours when you are car enthusiasts.

Our boys were barely attending school before we ended up at a Cars and Coffee that featured “supercars”. These were vehicles on another level; Sure, you could call them transportation, but the amount of engineering and proliferation of carbon fiber made them stand out from anything else on the road.  They were designed to attack a track or quadruple speed limits.  And they made our boys, and me, marvel at being so close to such excess, engineering, and expense!  It was awesome.  All of the cars there were big bucks, very low mileage, and lived a life of cleanliness and perfect maintenance.  

We rolled up to the show in our minivan, which wasn’t terribly bad looking but it was more of a cargo hauler than a showpiece.  We didn’t have a badge with an exotic, majestic animal on the door.   We weren’t the only ones of course.  There were lots of cars stuffed within parking lots without prestigious names or fancy badges. All of these cars were daily drivers.  Cargo haulers.  The family trucksters.  A donkey would be viable option for a hood badge for these vehicles.  They do their thing day in and day out without appearances that demand attention.  They are practical and common and live a life of transportation that’s slow and steady compared to the supercars that rolled out for a monthly Cars and Coffee.  I can appreciate the supercars with prancing horses for what they are, but I find myself driving a vehicle that’s more like a donkey.  And that’s ok!

Jesus found himself using donkeys as well.  A donkey carried his mother to His birthplace.  Later on, when He knew that his death and resurrection were upon Him, he sent his disciples to fetch a donkey.  This donkey would carry Jesus to Jerusalem where throngs of people would worship Him; only to later turn their backs and demand His death.  People at that time probably wanted their Savior to have more prestige and swagger than riding a donkey.  They wanted the Cars and Coffee Christ to have a prancing horse or raging bull for transportation.  But that’s not how Jesus rolled, er, trotted. 

The donkey delivered Jesus.  The Son of God could have used any animal and yet chose a lowly, common donkey to carry Him to the people.  Jesus came to bring Hope and take away the sin of the world…and a donkey was the chosen deliverer!  Jesus believes in #donkeylife.

We might want to consider how we carry the message Jesus gave us.

Whether you are decades old Christian, a recent born-again Believer, or someone that’s still wavering in what you believe it’s time to align our emblem and mode of transportation with Jesus.  It’s easy to slip into seeing ourselves as that prancing pony or raging bull and just pull out our beliefs and actions-filled-in love once a week or once a month when it makes us look good.  But those aren’t the animals Jesus chose to bring His first appearance on earth.  It was a donkey.  Jesus didn’t want the biggest, baddest, fastest animal of the day.  He wanted the one that could carry his message.

It’s a really good time to be a donkey.  Jesus has a need for donkeys to be available and carry Him to others.   We don’t have to be a prancing horse or raging bull.   We shouldn’t pretend to be an expensive supercar tucked in a garage that comes out once in a while and exclusively on the nice days.  We don’t have to be perfect and flawless in front of a crowd.  We are called to be real and available; just like the donkeys Jesus chose to cart Him around 2000 years ago.  

Donkeys are the perfect creatures to carry a message of a life freed from sin and shame.  Donkeys literally have a cross on their back; it’s as if God wanted that particular animal to carry the good news.    The message of salvation is on them as long as they keep “donkey-ing”.   The world will say you need to a have that raging bull or prancing horse as your sign of importance, but history shows another story; You can be a simple donkey and make quite the difference!

Lots of Little

Out of all of the excitement that could happen in a teenagers life I chuckled when I received a photo of a running watch with workout data flashing across the screen.  There was a sense of pride and accomplishment from the numbers of the run, but not the ones you would think are most important.  And this high-school runner was excited that an often overlooked number was right where it needed to be.  There was evidence of the distance and pace traveled in our track workout but the focus of this picture and the joyful approval of the runner was strictly on cadence.   Why would cadence be so special?

Cadence is how many steps per minute one takes while running.  While this can be a nice number to dig into when studying one’s performance it’s not very often that a runner gets excited about seeing cadence over everything else.   Cadence shows them HOW they ran; literally every step of the way.  Many want to see WHAT they ran; the distance, the pace, and the finishing place if they are racing.  Those can be important as well but only show one side of the story.  Cadence breaks it down further and shows us all of the little steps we took to get to the big finish.  Cadence puts the distance and the pace into lots of little stories.   

I admit I’ve leaned on cadence a lot in my life as a runner.  I have been extremely durable, sometimes “fast”, and once in a while I could move my big frame in an efficient way.  Cadence helped with all of this because I did a lot of work in smaller chunks.  Adding a few extra steps per minute wasn’t a penalty, it actually made me more complete as a runner and cover the distance without inflicting more damage to my body.   Using what I had to the best of my ability has allowed me to keep running and not fall into a big old heap of Beck broken bones.   

If I continued to run the same distance and pace but had a slower cadence I would feel the pain of running more.   Each stride would cover more ground which sounds great on paper or first thought.  But long strides and “overstriding” means that I’ll be hitting the ground with more force on each step.  More force is detrimental to running long term.  Going far with that stride means more impact and eventual pain. 

And yet the common mindset of a runner is to capture as much distance with each step as humanly possible. Stride it out.  Take those long steps.  Cover the distance with gusto!  Launch with every step and pound that pavement into submission!  Big strides can get you there but that doesn’t mean it’s advantageous to run that way.  There’s a sweet spot for running cadence.  Too low of a cadence and we’re beating ourselves up.  Too fast of a cadence and we aren’t covering much ground with our steps.

An ideal cadence is adopting a healthy rhythm where your feet stay under your body and mimic a wheel. Gone is the long, loping strides where knees beg for mercy and shins shout in agony.  That sweet spot of strides per minute is the fusion of covering the right amount of distance that our legs are capable of in the correct timing of our feet hitting the ground.  As an added bonus a quick cadence allows us to pivot, change directions, and run up and down hills with less pounding.  In a world that covets WHAT we run, I think it’s more important to focus on HOW we run.

I’m not exactly talking solely (Ha!  See what I did there?) about running and foot strikes.  I’m talking about living life by accomplishments versus a cadence that completes the distance wholly and completely.

Life is more than what we do or did.  It’s more than the big steps.  And yet we find ourselves falling into the big strides mode.  We stretch out the way we live by trying to focus on what we accomplished and did.  We let our resume speak.  If we can just curate the correct image based on the big things we did then that will be success.  That will be a legacy!

But just like efficient running, life isn’t all about those big strides.  It’s more about making every small step count.  The small steps are not insignificant.  In fact, small steps show character and a willingness to let God work fully in our lives.  I know I sometimes want to skip over the little steps and go straight to the big picture and take big steps to get there.  Go big and go long!  But God doesn’t work this way.  He tends to work in His own timing if you haven’t noticed.  But the process is thorough and complete once all the small steps are taken.

Every day is an opportunity to work on cadence and bring it into alignment with what God is doing in your life. And that cadence is going to involve a lot of little steps!   Little but significant, the small steps of how we do life matter.

People are drawn to HOW things are done but are often saddened by knowing the discipline and process it takes because it’s tough living by cadence.  It’s not popular because it’s not natural.  It’s not easy.  It’s counter cultural!  I think we all want to get to the point where we know and accomplish the “What”.  That’s usually the goal or the big thing to paint the picture.  But God wants our heart and will work consistently and constantly on the little steps to get you to the destination He designed for you from Day 1! 

The next time you measure your life try to take inventory of the not-so common metrics.  You are more than the big numbers.  More than two data points.  More than just how far and fast you went.  Look at your cadence; did your steps allow you to depend on God a bit more?  Did His work in you allow you to have influence on others?  Did your small steps lift up others along the way?   How are you running today?

Pastors, Pickups, and Angry Squirrels

From the way I heard it, there was a whole room full of kids in music class that were totally silent.  I found this hard to believe but it was the story that my youngest son, Sam, told me on his way to school. 

As it turns out, his favorite “special” class is gym class.  I know, shocking!  And his least favorite is music, and again, shocking!  The day prior his music class had been taught a new song.  A new tune.  A song with actual words, parts, and meanings.  And this song was meant to be sung!

But when the music started and the first verse was to begin there was a room of 10-year olds standing together with their mouths moving and absolutely no sound.  The music played but not a peep from Sam or anyone else in that room.

In Sam’s words he thought he found a “workaround” having to sing.  But this workaround is really just pointing out the obvious; if you wanna sing you have to use your voice!  And no one in that room wanted to sing!

Sometimes we don’t sing because we are too afraid.  Too nervous.  Or too ashamed to let others hear our voice.

I had a good laugh at Sam’s class because it did sound familiar.  It did sound like a very Josh Beck way of trying to survive music class.!  I was not known for musically talent or any talent that was related to singing.  In fact I would say that my wish was to always make a “hard pass” when given the option to sing.  I simply did not sing as Recess and Gym class were my passions and anything musical was down with other options, like recovering from Chicken Pox or have tonsils removed.

But Newville Elementary chorus had other ideas.  It was mandatory, yes mandatory (!) to try out for chorus.  One by one my classmates and I took the position behind a curtain on the stage and belted out whatever we were forced to sing. 

Luckily for me there was a substitute teacher the day of try-outs.  And since chorus was an after-school activity whose grand performance coincided with little league baseball there was no chance that the substitute chorus-evaluator was going to hear my pipes produce audible song.  Not when I was gonna miss baseball games.  It seemed like an ideal situation for me to get out of chorus when the substitute teacher was evaluating.

So I produced a performance not unlike my son Sam would do 35 years later.  I was weak, barely screeching a tune and muddled through a song and scampered off the stage confident that no one would want me in their chorus.  I was pathetic!

But I was wrong.  So wrong.  A few days later my name was on the list and I was doomed to weeks of do-rey-me’s.  As it turned out the song was to be sung no matter how bad my singing sounded!  And as luck would have it, I never missed a little league game for chorus.  It rained every time chorus overlapped a baseball game.  Go figure!

Sometimes you need to sing your song to an audience that isn’t part of your plan.

A few years later my chorus career was over.  Chorus was an elective in high school and I elected to never have to sing again.  Being 16 years old also meant I was driving.  Even though it only packed 4 cylinders it was way more fun to listen to the old “Iron Duke” engine sing in my Dad’s truck that it was to hear myself sing in chorus.  So that’s what I did, even though that engine didn’t make quality sounds.  It was like 4 angry squirrels playing with a hammer in a trash can under the hood of that machine.

But being a tinkerer of automotive things, I found out that if I flipped the air filter cap upside down…well that made some sweeter sounding tunes.  It was still a red Chevrolet pickup, but with this modification it had a touch of race car to it!  I took advantage of this modification every time I buckled up and started the truck.

All was well until my Dad used the truck for his business of the day, which was preaching at a funeral.  It seemed as though I forgot to flip the air filter cap the correct way when I was done driving so instead of the relatively smooth and quiet sounds of a 1991 Chevrolet pick-up he heard 4 cylinders pulling in massive amounts of air and pumping out a few extra horsepower with authority!  It wasn’t a pleasant surprise when you are in a funeral procession or when you pulled into the church parking lot with a population of grieving family members.

Later that day I had to come clean and explain why I couldn’t just let the truck sing its normal song.  I didn’t have a good reason other than louder seemed better, which was really no reason at all when my pastor father needed to bury the dead, not wake them.  Lesson learned.  My Dad forgave me and helped me find my own vehicle that I could modify with my own reputation on the line.  He then drove in peace and quiet!

Sing the song that’s unique to you; and louder doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better!

I’d like to encourage you to find your voice.  It’s specific to you because God put it there.  It’s not to be stifled.  Silenced.  Manipulated by man’s own ideas.  It’s a sweet song that God puts in your heart so that YOU get to make a difference in the hearts and minds of others.  Are you singing that song? 

Can you relate to Sam’s music class?  You know you have a song but hesitate to put it out into the room? 

Can you relate to my chorus adventure, where you don’t want to go to a certain group, place, or audience and sing your song?  It’s fun to know you have a song; the destination of that song is sometimes debatable however!

Can you relate to my Dad’s little red truck, that desperately tried to sound different than its intended purpose?  Instead of resting in your uniqueness you try to go above and beyond and overreach your intended reach!  There’s a time, place, and sound for every song.

I can say “Yes” to any or all of these.  But walking it out with a daily dose of God’s direction and steering can help you sing the song for the day.  Maybe it’s squeaking out a tiny tune for the first time among peers.  Perhaps it’s being around a different group of people that need the gifts that are unique to you.  And maybe it’s staying humble and trusting a process rather than being bigger, louder, and more aggressive. 

Sing your song.

Ratchet Strap Salvation

Have you heard the phrase, “10 pounds of flour in a 5-pound bag”?  Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, maybe you use a different substance other than flour in that saying!   Either way I’m probably showing my age.  But the point is that we have always struggled with trying to put too much stuff in too little of a space.

I don’t know how to say “10 pounds of flour in a 5-pound bag” in Swiss but that was an accurate description of my rental car experience in the Zurich airport.  You see, this was our family’s first big international experience and we had STUFF.  Sure, Jan and I had been to Switzerland quite a few times and really had our trip dialed in with how to go, what to see, and how to get there.  We were a lean, mean, traveling machine. 

Enter the boys and things became much different.  Just getting to the airport in the US on time was a win.  When we walked on the plane with a 6-month old and 2-year old we had a lot of stares.  No one wants to sit on an international flight next to a baby.  It’s too risky!

As it turned out the boys slept the whole way over and Jan and I stared at the ceiling with our passengers on our laps.  It was precious and also a great way to become extremely tired the next day when we were on a new continent and I had to get ready for race.

Stowed away somewhere else on the plane were two suitcases, my bike in a giant box, a jogging stroller, and two child seats for our soon-to-be dismantled rental car.  We were not packing light and while we were “allowed” all of this stuff it was a crazy amount of stuff, even with two little crumb crunchers along for the trip.

Once at the airport our weary bones and wide-eyed children walked off the plane, through the terminal, and wandered into the car rental area.  Naturally, I was a bit cost-conscious with my decision and selected “compact” for our rental car size.  Compact seemed massive compared to “sub-compact” or “city” which I viewed as a hard no-go for our family of 4. 

When we walked up to our sweet ride for the week the wheels in my head started turning faster than the wheels of the car could ever go.  The mental math of seeing the size of the car versus all of the junk in our hands wasn’t matching up.  Our car was too small for all of our stuff.

Not one to just ask for a larger car, I started folding seats, removing interior panels, and reorganizing our luggage.  I found a spot for all of our stuff, including our boys!  Except the bike.  The bike was not fitting inside no matter how hard I reorganized.  And the bike was a crucial part of this trip’s existence!

I had two ratchet straps stowed away as a precaution to this very possible moment and they came out of the bag and over the roof of the car.  The bike went on the roof as well and I lashed the whole mess through the 4 doors and took off with a very tired giggle. 

Once we made it to our friends’ house about an hour away we were met with hugs…and gasps.  You see, in Switzerland it is illegal to have boxes or luggage loosely strapped to vehicle roofs.  Ratchet straps? Verboden!  But back home in Pennsyltucky this is a way of life.  Got too much stuff?  Strap it on, maybe flick the strap once or twice to make sure it feels secure, and then go on your way down the road!

The rest of our trip was not as eventful, in a good way, as our arrival.  We didn’t have to cart around all of our stuff daily but our return to the airport was looming.  Eventually we would have to deal with all of the stuff that we had attempted to carry in too small of a car.  We could pretend like we didn’t have the burden of too much stuff but we knew that it was inevitable that we would have the dilemma of small car, too much stuff, and too restrictive of Swiss laws!

The morning of our departure was busy.  Everything was in bags, the boys were up, and Jan I were about ready to board the crazy train that was international travel with our little guys.  I loathed loading our car since I knew we couldn’t fit it all inside the car.  And I didn’t think I could talk my way out of a Swiss traffic violation, nor did I want to even try!  But then all of a sudden, our friends started loading their van with OUR stuff.  There was no discussion or a chance to reason with them.  They simply put all of our stuff, minus the boys, into their van and said they would take care of it.  They took the burden of bags.  Suddenly our load was lightened and the things that really mattered, like our boys and this amazing life experience of being in Switzerland, became the focus.  And our compact car suddenly felt a lot larger!  We saved money by not getting a fine.  Our friends saw a need and bore the burden for us and we didn’t really argue because we knew we needed the help!

Once at the airport we unloaded our friends’ van and handed over our belongings to the airline.  They weren’t forgotten but they weren’t going to weight us down for our journey.  We turned in our rental car.  Then we all hugged and said our goodbyes and reversed the process to fly home with a boy on each of our laps and zero sleep. 

I was thankful we didn’t have to go all ratchet-strappy on our return trip.  It was much better that way.  It lightened our load.  It reframed what was important.  We didn’t have to rearrange our little car to stuff more into it and then have an uncomfortable trip.  No more stuffing things into every nook and cranny and no more big items riding over little cars.

When someone offers to lighten the load you should take that offer.  You don’t have to carry it through sheer strength.  You don’t have to be bullheaded.  There’s no shame.  Receive the offer and let that burden go.

Do you know what I’m talking about?  It’s not travel advice, although it is if you are in Switzerland and don’t want a 300 Swiss-franc fine.  I’m talking about the weight of sin.  Sin is 3 letters but it carries a lot of weight.  And it separates us from God with all of its heaviness and bulk.  We are compact cars driving around with more than a full load of sin.  We strap it on the roof, stuff it under seats, cram our consoles and when we run out of room we just rent a bigger car so we can fit more in as we drive down the road of life.  Maybe we think if we can fit it all inside the outside world won’t notice.  I don’t have to name the sins, because we were all born as sinners.  We can’t escape that, even when we think we are “good people”.  There’s not one of us that is pure as snow.  But we don’t have to lug it around all the time and find ways for it to stay attached to our hearts and minds.  Thank goodness for The One that offered to take the baggage of sin.  Jesus is still offering that today and it’s not exclusive to certain people.  Put the ratchet strap down and Let Him.  You can’t carry it forever and won’t miss it when it’s gone. 

Floppy Toes

“What’s wrong with you?”.  That phrase can mean so many things, depending on the tone, who’s asking, and your “normal” versus the current situation.  I’ve been asked “What is wrong with you?” plenty of times, from laughing at things only I’ve found funny to sitting in a doctor’s office hoping to get a diagnosis.  As it turns out we all have something wrong with us at any given time!

One of my most wrong things that I have going is a case of a floppy toe.  Now you might think that this sounds insignificant.  Maybe it sounds gross and to be honest it actually does!  Maybe you even think its code for another ailment.  Nope!  And I’m fairly certain you will never see a television commercial with a medical remedy for the dreaded floppy toe.  This tragic condition means I have a toe that is floppier than most and doesn’t function like it used to when I was whole and complete.  I named this condition and its origin traces to a dog-walking incident where I was strolling along with our family pup, taking in the start of a new day, and made the mistake of stepping off a curb.  With a pop and a rush of heat through my foot I noticed that my big toe wasn’t acting so big.  A simple step caused a rupture in my foot and forever changed how my body would run and ride the rest of my life.  The big guy, the main digit, the primary mover of my foot was kind of…limp. 

Upon further diagnosis from a doctor that asked, “what’s wrong with you?” we found out that one of my two extensor tendons had snapped and stopped extending my big toe.  I was down to one very important tendon that could hold my toe in place and serve as a lever for my foot to function efficiently.  Big toes are big deals when it comes to ambulating down the road so from a sports performance perspective it’s a bit of a nuisance to only have half the tendons working.  As it turns out that one tendon is still hanging on and doing the work of two but it’s noticeably different. 

Since that day that I started functioning with 9 and a half toes I’ve noticed a few things.  See if this makes sense to you, my fellow floppy toed reader.  First of all, my floppy toe is surrounded by other toes.  They aren’t as big and don’t replace the work of my floppy toe but boy are they needed!  They have pitched in and helped stabilize my entire foot and take the pressure off of my big toe.  They all live in the same sock and shoe and work well together; even though there’s really not another example for them to follow.  They just work at it as a team.  A toe team.

Secondly, I can notice a difference between my floppy toe foot and my regular right foot.  They don’t work the same.  At all.  I can see different wear patterns on my shoes.  I’m also the guy that can really sense how things work versus how they should work.  So shoe wearing is a bit like arts and crafts time for me.  I mold, sculpt, and adjust things in every pair of shoes I have so that my floppy toe’s floppiness is minimized.  Will it ever go away?  No.  But I can spend time accommodating it and bringing it to a new state of worthiness. 

Third, I’m not disabled because of my floppy toe.  It’s not perfect.  It doesn’t work like it should.  But it hasn’t limited me from doing what I want to do, need to do, or have to do.  Declaring and shouting out what I’m lacking might serve as a reason for me to do poorly or even not try something.  But the reality is that life keeps going with bumps, bruises, and floppy toes.

I wouldn’t wish a floppy toe on anyone, but the reality is we are all walking around with a floppy toe issue in one way or another.  It’s life.  We are walking around and just like that, we are faced with a new blemish, a new issue, or a new crisis.  Maybe it’s a past decision that wasn’t so smart or a season of life that just wasn’t on the right track.  These are floppy toes!  We all have them whether we acknowledge them or not.  Some try to ignore these floppy toes.  Some try to cover them up so no one knows.  Others put their floppy toes out there as a disclaimer to do whatever or nothing.  The floppy toe is just a reason for new, unhealthy behavior.

Treating our floppy toes.  It starts with answering the question, “What’s wrong with you?” and goes along like my real floppy toe condition.   We need to find some others that we can depend on, lean on, and hang out with.  They may not look like you or act like you, but they will help you carry the load.  They are your toe team and God put them next to you for a reason; many times He speaks through them to help you along.

Recently I had a pretty substantial medical procedure (not for my toe!) and I had an army of people messaging me, contacting me, and praying for me.  They are still doing all of that!  They are helping me carry the load, just like those other toes are working with my floppy big toe.

Whatever your floppy toe issue might be it’s important to recognize it but not elevate or dwell on it.  I know my real-life floppy toe won’t work like it used to, but I can bring it up to speed to do the best it can.  I know it’s there but with some tweaking I can still move right along.  It might not be working as designed but God makes it work as intended for my learning!  Our floppy toes in life are the same.  We might not look or perform perfectly but those floppy toes are only a part of us, they aren’t the end of us.  Your mission going forward might be to keep on rolling despite the floppy toe that came along.  Others take notice because they have floppy toes as well, they just don’t know how to cope, deal, and move forward with them.   

What’s wrong with you?  Absolutely nothing if you keep going, floppy toe and all.

Soft Landings

“So everyone fits on this thing?” I chirped as I slid off the gurney and onto the slender operating table.  I heard a laughing-snort from the nurse and she responded that, yes, the table fits everyone even though it looks no wider than a sliding board you would find at a pre-school playground.  I had my doubts that I would fit but she was adamant that I would be surprised at how well they could get everyone to fit the lone table in the operating room.  I guess if you are here you are going to conform in one way or another.

Being careful not to snag my IV line or expose myself to my audience I gracefully maneuvered into place where my giant hospital gown draped over me and down to the floor.  I looked like a lumpy picnic table.

“Put your arms slightly out to your side with your palms up.” I complied, took the position, and let out a nice long breath.  An oxygen mask was lowered over my mouth and then it was nothing.  I was out of every option but rest.

When you hit a certain age you start looking at your life in “seasons”.  How would you describe the season you are in currently?  What was a memorable season you’ve endured?  How about one that was full of good surprises?  Seasons aren’t a set period of time; some can seem like a few weeks while others last years.  But a “season” isn’t really about the weather outside, it’s about the environment you are living through in your heart and head.

Besides losing nearly all of my dignity with my hospital gown I was forced to have a ride to the operating room.  I felt fine, other than wearing a king sized sheet for clothing and could have easily walked down the hall and plopped myself down on the operating table.  It’s how I roll; when there’s something to do and it needs to be done rest assured I’ll find a way to do it.  But here I was lying on a silly cart getting shuttled down the hall.

The last 6 years I would classify as a really difficult season.  Like it has been more difficult than it’s needed to be.  If I was a classic rock band this would be a greatest hits album of adversity.   That’s not to say it’s been bad or nothing amazingly good hasn’t happened.  It’s just been tough.  Have you been there?

It’s run the gamut, from being emotionally and physically spent from working in the grind for so long.  Then there was the hopeful change of a new beginning when we left that behind but there were changes in relationships that were painful.   There’s been a huge garage fire where we lost a lot of stuff and nearly our house.  Jan changed teaching positions twice.  Both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer at the same time.  Then there was the whole Covid thing we all had to deal with.  The latest in this season was my own diagnosis of a cancerous tumor.  We just added it to the list.  Many of you have had much worse and I know you understand.

And yet through it all I did what we all think we are to do.  Keep digging.  Keep going.  As I like to say, “Keep Pedaling”.  So that’s what I did.  Even after rejection letter after rejection letter for jobs I applied to…just kept coming.  I kept applying and kept getting rejected.

When we had a semi-truck smash our truck on a western road trip I found a way to keep going.  Duct tape everything and cut off anything that was rubbing.  We had a great trip because I found a way to keep going.

I found a lot of comfort in training and doing a few races along the way.  Training was more for clarity than for producing big numbers or the pursuit of place.   And yet, nearly every race was either isolating or full of adversity.

I panicked in the Pacific ocean for an Ironman and had to calm my nerves and navigate giant swells for over 2 miles.  Once on the mainland I was depleted and still had 138 miles to go.  I remember walking along the Queen K highway just physically shattered and drawing on what little emotional energy I had to get myself to finish that silly race.  I didn’t want to be the whole way in Hawaii and quit.

I won a regional gravel bike race last year.  It was amazing to win and I’m grateful.  But less than halfway through that race I rolled off the front, looked over my shoulder and no one came with me.  Now in bike racing terms that’s a gutsy move because a pack working together is much stronger than an individual.  It’s best to have some help to cover the miles is what I’m saying.  But it’s also silly to give away a chance to ride to a win. So for the next two hours I rode like a hunted animal and squeaked out the win.  And this was after declaring before the race that I would just ride around with the pack.   A win is great but oh my it was difficult. 

I was winning a local triathlon and had a flat front tire with 6 miles to go on the bike leg.  I rode the flat tire, giving up time and losing my ambition in the process.

We found ourselves in Leadville, Colorado for a bucket-list mountain bike race.  It was amazing and also really difficult.  I found myself really rolling through the field of riders on the second half and making time.  Things were going great until I underestimated my energy needs.  So I pedaled squares and really dialed back my effort until I could get my hands on some food at an aid station.  The race was still on and I did great; it just had a really tough, dark, spot in there that I had to keep pedaling.

Career-wise I was floundering.  I enjoy people, meeting their needs, and encouragement.  I enjoy this; writing to a reader with some words that can inspire and encourage.  But my job was hard to pinpoint…it just wasn’t fulfilling but it was flexible for all of the other things I had going on in life that needed my attention.  Like rebuilding garages, helping parents with their cancer battle, and doing virtual school with the boys since in-person school wasn’t a thing for almost 2 years. 

Oh seasons.  Some are hard.  Some are sweet.  Some bring you to the absolute bottom, not by a crash landing, but by a gentle, sleepy, turbulence-free positioning to the place where you will eventually start back up and return to a new space, a new altitude, and with a new attitude.

Before the sleepy gas hit my system I did everything I ever knew how to do.  I kept going.  Kept pedaling.  Kept sawing off parts of my truck so we could keep going.  More bad news?  Keep making something good come from it!  All of this mattered and is admirable, except that eventually I was going to run out of go-juice.  And that’s by design; we are made in the image of God, not to BE God.  A season of adversity has to end either by giving up on your purpose (not recommended) or by surrendering yourself to be built up and made new by God’s hands.

I reluctantly went in for surgery but knew that the only way forward to was to slow down enough for this surgery to happen.  And that meant getting pushed in a bed, wearing a stupid gown, and committing to a night in a room listening to beeping and loud patients down the hall.  But I didn’t expect to lay on a table and have to put my arms out, palms up, and surrender.  And as soon as I took the position the mask came down and there was no more pushing.  A cease to striving.  No more determination or manhandling.  No questions.  Just surrender and sleep.  Letting go in my case had to be surrender followed by a mega-dose of anesthesia two-tenths of a second later.  No time for questions or arguing.  Just surrender and sleep, Josh.

A soft landing at the bottom of a long season.   Necessary even when the world says it’s not needed because, well, we are supposed to be “your name here- STRONG”.   When the withdrawals eventually outweigh the deposits that’s the bottom.  And it’s not always a crash landing but rather an invitation to stop and rest. 

A surgery was the end of a season for me.  And now a week removed from hospital-humbling things feel different.  They really do. 

What’s your season looking like?  Do you feel like there’s an invitation to rest?   Will you surrender that last little bit in order to experience rest?  Surrender sounds like what losers do quite frankly, but I can tell you that while it is losing in one regard it’s most definitely a start to something else.   You just have to be at the bottom to actually start!  So, if you are close to the bottom and willing to surrender, God can you bring you down softly.  It doesn’t have to be a crash landing.

You don’t have to do it on your own, you don’t have to do it for God, and you can’t do it without God.   It might require anesthesia, but there’s something to laying down, putting your hands out, placing your palms up, and surrendering.   The soft landing at the bottom of a long season.  It’s where the surrendered start anew.

Firewood Warms Twice

It seemed to even out.  For every chunk of dead wood I tossed on the trailer I had an equal thought of “is this really worth it?”.  I had a lot of chunks and consequently a lot of mental gymnastics of trying to discern whether or not all my work was going to result in a worthy reward.

Creating firewood is no easy task.  But, in an odd way of being a Beck, firewood comes looking for me.  I often find myself stomping through the woods at my in-laws woods, finding dead or fallen trees that would serve well as warmth producer.  These potentially prized pieces of the forest are there but they sure aren’t easy to extract.  I’ve bounced my truck and trailer around all kinds of stumps, brush, and a myriad of wasteland in order to get the “good” dead wood. 

And that’s the just the beginning.  Then there’s the cutting up.  The loading.  The unloading.  The splitting.  The stacking.  And then the waiting for it to be suitable to burn for, you know, warmth.  Toss in the inevitable mechanical mishap, the power-washing of mud off my truck, and the buffing of trail pinstripes and it really makes you reevaluate the whole ordeal.

My father in-law always chuckles and says, “Well Josh, you know what they say; firewood warms you twice!”.  He always has a good laugh at this because I’ll have a ring of sweat on my t-shirt while it’s 20 some degrees outside.  He’s not wrong.

Is it worth it?  Maybe not, especially since we don’t even burn wood to heat our house any longer.  I have all of this sweat equity into producing firewood but I don’t use it to heat our house.  It sounds like I’m getting the raw deal of firewood warming me twice!  All of the work without any of the reward!

But through a series of events I’ve found myself getting warm a second time by the same firewood.  And I have found a fellow that very much understands the question, “Is it worth it?”. 

In the year 2022 I might be laboring over my time and energy about firewood but back in the late 1960’s my friend had bigger issues.  His time and energy would be spent on the battlefield where everyone was questioning tactics, purpose, and lives lost.  He served two tours in Vietnam, received two purple heart medals from the government for his sacrifice, and came home with more questions than answers.

I’ve delivered firewood a few times to my friend and it’s absolutely true that firewood warms you twice.  Maybe even three times!  But as we dropped the firewood off the side of the trailer, sweating yet again, I heard the story of him dropping his medals into a river.   I listened and gathered that when you are looking for reasons of worth and value, for purpose, and to answer “is it worth it”, a shiny medal from the US government isn’t going to quench that thirst.  Not when you saw others sacrifice their lives doing the same thing. 

My firewood friend cannot understand why God saved him and allowed others to perish on the same battlefield.  But you can certainly sense the gratitude that he is still here.   I’m glad he’s here as well; and can use some firewood and is willing to chat.  But I do know that we all aren’t that much different than firewood.   We required work and sacrifice to be plucked from an otherwise worldly-wasteland.  And once we had that Savior do His saving we have an opportunity to warm twice!  Once, out of gratitude towards Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and enabled us to have a life here on earth and a future beyond it.  And secondly, warmth towards our fellow man, who needs to see the love of Jesus reflected in everyday life.   That’s chucking wood off a trailer and enjoying the company of a fellow friend that needs to hear “you were worth it” just like you and I. 

It’s worth it.  Material gains, medals, and anything else will pale in comparison to the feeling of having purpose and the ability to express gratitude and serve others.  Warming twice.  It’s what firewood does when it’s pulled from the woods, and it’s who we are called to be too.

Skinny Jeans for Life

His jeans were baggy but it certainly wasn’t meant to be a fashion statement.   There have been some that have walked this earth that somehow made oversized pants a trend or style but not my dad.  Nope, this was just the way his jeans fit since there was less of him.

A year of cancer treatments had gradually whittled my Dad’s weight down to…well, my weight.  I am holding steady to the weight I was in high school.   That’s partially due to diet but mainly due to a lifestyle where I burn calories like a banshee while riding my bike or running.   But my dad wasn’t known to be a lean, mean, endurance sport machine at any part of his life.  He had other interests that were as important to him as competing is to me.  Consequently I remember there being a lot of him growing up!

His size meant that I couldn’t push him around on the basketball court.  His weight meant that he rolled down hills faster than me on our bike rides.  And his strength meant that living room wrestling were an exercise…in futility!  There was more to my Dad before cancer.

So recently he had these baggy jeans from his “bigger” days.  They bunched at the front, his belt cinched them to his frame and he kept on living his life.  But you can’t just keep wearing the old, larger, stuff when there’s less of you.   So eventually my mom and dad went jeans shopping. 

I know my Mom would have preferred that he ate everything she could manage to cook and that her kitchen would defy the laws of cancer-fighting but the reality is that he lost weight gradually over the last year.  What started as a few pounds has added up to quite a few since the remedy for beating cancer has stolen his appetite.  The process has reduced him but not his beliefs or resolve to keep going.  He vowed to take the treatments that would sometimes wreak havoc on his body, so in a lot of ways he submitted to the process, whatever it ended up being.

Around the same time as the new, slimmer, sporty, jeans appeared I heard my Dad say that he doesn’t want to just exist and wait for something new to pop-up on the “portal” or the next doctors appointment.  He wants to LIVE while he’s alive.  I know we all want to live our life but when he was packing 70 extra pounds years ago I don’t recall hearing as profound of a statement as that.  As it turns out when there’s less of him there’s a profound excitement to live life each and every day, despite the uncertainty of what is next.  The submission to go through a season where there would actually be less of him has produced an urgency to keep living and taking advantage of the daily blessing of waking up.  One of my favorite personalities used to say “I woke up this morning and thank God I did.”  Less leads to more.

I wouldn’t recommend cancer as a weight-loss solution but I can say that when there is less of us there is a more refined desire to live a life that God creates.  Some of us have had times where we were super heavy, carrying not just our own desires but all of the anxiety and worry that comes with it!  We were heavy, heavy, heavy people and didn’t know it!  When the world revolves around me, or you, and we own the outcomes, the process, and methods to get more are we doing anything but forcing ourselves into “bigger jeans”?   Being big and bloated doesn’t mean life is necessarily better; it just means we have successfully fooled ourselves into thinking we are in control and need big jeans! 

Our big selves are common in the world.  You can be a believer of something, nothing, or everything and be big.  You can be a believer of Jesus and be big.  Big selves wear big jeans.  But to be a follower…that’s all about less of us and more of Him.  Think skinny-jeans.  And it’s not a bad thing!  Less of us, less of our own desires and understanding and more of a way forward that is full of miracles.  Brokenness converted to restoration.  Problems turned into praises.  You get the idea; it’s things that can only be done by Jesus because we would never, ever, be able to work all of this out on our own big-jeans wearing selves!  Believing is good for the head, following is strength training for the soul. 

The process of “less of us” can be gradual.  Maybe even painful or uncomfortable.  It’s not unlike weight loss.  There is a bit of a submission to a treatment that takes us through our big selves and into our lesser selves.   But less of us isn’t bad when it leads to a more vivid picture of what matters and how we should live our days.   Rapid weight loss may lead to a denim transformation but a heart that follows God’s loving plan truly changes the way we live.   

Down in the Dumps(ter)

Our marriage got off to a rocky start.  We were just a few days into wedded bliss when I tossed my new bride’s favorite athletic clothes into a dumpster and slammed the lid.

Little did I know that this would be a lesson in leadership and faith.  But as her clothes sat in the bottom of a deep dumpster perculating in a plastic bag, it became part of a story that included saving, redemption, and even protection from the summer smells of refuse rejection.

Jan and I tied the knot on June 15th, 2002.  Two days later we were on a plane and heading west towards our destination of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and a life together.  We landed in Salt Lake City and we then headed north into Idaho, where we settled into a cozy cabin in a tiny town named Driggs. 

Driggs was very small and quaint at that time.  The week prior they just installed their first red-light and the newspaper ran a front-page story of how to navigate the usual streets with this new-fangled device to control traffic.  Driggs was tiny and tight-knit but had just enough to entertain a newlywed couple for an extended stay.  We frequented a coffee shed called “Java the Hut” and ate Huevos Rancheros at a cute little restaurant every morning.

Those are some of the happy memories of Driggs.  Then the hard life-lessons of Driggs appeared but as stinky as they were they produced some lovely scents for later on.

We decided to head over the mountain pass overlooking Driggs and head into the Tetons for a hike.  So bags were packed, a lunch was made, and we set off for some memory making.  Along the way we made a quick stop at a grocery store and its dumpster where I tossed a few small bags of trash onto the pile.  It was just a small task but little did we know that we would have to revisit later!

Once at the trailhead I checked the map, laced up my shoes, and was practically ready to go when I noticed Jan rummaging around our rental car.  She couldn’t find the things she wanted for the hike.  She explained that she had her favorite t-shirt, good hiking socks, and a light jacket packed in a grocery bag and now this bag was mysteriously missing.  The t-shirt was a one-of-a-kind memory maker from a running race.  Since we were also living out of a suitcase for 15 days it was also pretty important to not just randomly lose things along the way.  These were not just clothes; these were the important clothes with stories.

When she asked how many bags I threw into the trash I responded with the number “3”.  The problem with that answer was that we only really had 2 bags of trash!  It seems as though I threw 2 bags of trash and a bag of my wife’s favorite hiking clothes into a dumpster in Driggs.  Ugh. 

Since we were at the trail and it was over an hour back to the dumpster we decided to continue on with a hike and see the sights.  We tried to live the good life and soak in the scene but the anxiety and worry about retrieving Jan’s clothes was a lot to bear.   Jan was a sport about it but tossing her favorite clothes in the garbage is not a great way to show your love for your new bride.

Almost 8 hours after my reckless tossing of the trash we returned to Driggs and the dumpster.  It was almost dark and I was about to start my first experience of dumpster diving.  That’s true love!  I flipped open the lid and stared at many more bags of garbage than what I remembered.  I was looking for my treasure but instead of clear vision of its location there was more trash in the bin and it all looked smelly and pretty disgusting.  The memory of my flippant toss of the trash ran through my brain and I tried to recollect exactly where our bags would have landed in the dumpster.  What seemed like a menial task hours before was now the centerpiece of restoring the trust of our relationship.  When it comes to a solid marriage there are no wasted actions or words!

I don’t remember the smell or even the sights, but I do remember the thrill of moving several trash bags and seeing our grocery bag of favorite clothes sitting all sad-like in the corner.  I was so happy to find our “trash”!  Jan’s clothes were still there; they remained folded and protected by a bunched up shopping bag so while they were among the garbage they didn’t turn into actual garbage! I reached down and pulled them out.  I think I felt more dirty than the clothes after rooting around the dumpster.

Jan’s favorite hiking clothes endured a small season of being in the dumps.  Can you relate?  The stinky season happens.  The times when you reside in the refuse.  It’s the times when the lid of life closes and you feel apart from your purpose and mission. 

I wouldn’t recommend tossing your spouse’s clothes in a dumpster.  But I do know that part of leadership is not being afraid to get dirty and go back for what’s lost.  There was no way to purchase another set of those particular clothes and to say “just deal with it” is not showing any kind of empathy for the situation.  Rather, our relationship mattered enough to go back.  To get dirty.  To express love through the retrieval of the lost in a stinky setting.

Once again I am writing to you, but the message is for me.  We aren’t trash.  We have smelly situations.  We have a residence in the dumpster.  We are designed for one thing and the next thing you know you’re in a situation where you need to be lifted up and out. That’s how life is on earth!  And while some let the lost stay lost or replace them with the new and shiny, there’s still a need to rescue the lost, to give the smelly a story, and to clean up the clothes that fit and are favorites.

We are heading towards celebrating Christmas and here I am talking about dumpster diving.  But did you know that Jesus was born after a terribly long stinky season.  There were 400 years from talk of the Messiah to the time that he was actually born.  Society and culture had tossed hope and the possibility of a personal relationship with God into the dumpster and replaced them with anything else that seemed to fill that void.  But in crazy circumstances and against all odds God came back in the form of a baby born in Bethlehem.  He reached into the depth of the dumpster and not only pulled back what was lost but gave us all the opportunity to be remade, reused, and be born again.  We were once separated by sin.  Stinky sin.  But with the birth of Jesus we are forgiven and recovered.  We are his favorites, the ones that can’t be replaced or cast aside to never be used again.  You are His.  I am His.  The dumpster doesn’t win.

I’ll wrap this up by encouraging you to always count the trash bags and discern what is trash and what could be valuable, one-of-a-kind, meaningful items.  If those end up in the dumpster go back and get them.  Don’t be afraid to lead by going back and getting gross and dirty.  If it’s valuable and saves a relationship it’s totally worth the trouble.  That was the case 2000 years ago and it’s worth it now.  There’s always a story for the refuse recovered. 

The ol’ Snake Tree

We are surrounded by trees.  Big trees, little trees, and every tree in between surround our house.  Even our house was made from Tennessee pine, fashioned into nice long beams that are stacked in a way that resemble a house!  We live in a forest and trees are the scene here.

Our nightly walks and many of my bike rides and runs go further up the mountain.  It’s where the blacktop ends and even more trees begin.  There are no houses here; just more trees.  And while I can identify some kinds of trees from just being around so many there is one tree that captures my attention.  The top of this tree is most definitely a Pine but my family recognizes the bottom half as a “snake tree”.

This sounds awful and terrifying and trust me, it is!  Snakes on the ground are bad enough but seeing a giant tree with snakes suspended above our heads is downright creepy.  This tree stands next to the road and it’s bigger than just about any other tree nearby.  It’s noticeable just in its size and scale.  But in the summer months it’s creepy and gross when you see snakes slithering in and out of its many holes.  It’s a huge tree and home to stuff we just don’t want to be around and yet we always stop and stare at this towering conundrum of life, death, good and bad.

Jan and I first noticed this because we are used to looking at trees.  We look at trees all the time because they are around us; some attract other life to them.  We see squirrels jumping from limb to limb.  We hear woodpeckers pecking.  Some trees have markings from other animals rubbing up against them.  Our senses pick up what is happening to the trees around us. 

But the sight of snakes making their home in a giant tree is pure ick!  We have no idea how many snakes can fit in this tree nor do we want to find out quite honestly.   Amazingly, even with its trunk full of slithering serpents the tree is still very much alive.  Even though the bottom is hollowed out and snakes have taken up residence here the tree isn’t a goner- yet.  While half of the top has been splintered off there is a section that has taken off and continues to grow and produce pine needles every year.  From some viewpoints the snake tree is just like all the other trees standing in the forest.

Except it’s not.  This tree is like a snake Airbnb while the other trees are just standing there, smaller and less, share we say, active.  Those trees are plentiful but nothing makes them stand out from the crowd.  They will get bigger but that will take decades.  Their roots will grow deeper.  Their limbs will gain strength and when the wind blows they will be pushed around a bit.  Just their resistance to the elements will strengthen their resolve to keep growing.   There is life from under the ground to the top of the tallest branch and strength is gained over time, from the inside out.  It’s just not as noticeable as a flock of snakes moving in and out of an already big tree!

The snake tree has life too, but it appears only at the top section.  The bottom is inhabited by things that will eventually lead to the tree’s demise.  The top will cease to grow when the base is riddled by snakes doing snake things.  I can imagine this tree will eventually have to be dealt with; either with a chainsaw or by the pressure of wind, rain, snow or any other natural element that proves too much for a snake tree to handle.  It will be forever remembered by my family as the snake tree and while it captures our curiosity we won’t miss it on our ventures up the road!

I don’t want to be a snake tree.  I want to grow big and strong like any other person.  I want to have a place in the forest.  But I don’t want the bad stuff to take residence as the base of my growing!  There’s no shortage of snakes in the forest that are looking for a place to live; they may promise short-term gain and life but it would be a grave mistake to let them set up shop.  I would imagine that you don’t want to be a snake tree either.

The difficult part is that being a healthy tree, any other tree than a snake tree, isn’t quick, easy, or glamourous.  There aren’t many healthy trees that are as big as the snake tree on our road.  You can’t even see the growth of the other trees because it’s so slow!  They aren’t as noticeable as the snake tree.  The snake tree seems to have it all going on, it’s big, tall, it’s still growing and producing.  But its time is coming.

If you can relate to being one of the “regular” trees in the forest take heart.  The pressure is real but it’s going to produce.  The growth may be slow but there’s purpose.  You have been planted, rooted, and will grow to be full of life.  You may even lose a limb or two that doesn’t belong or is holding your back.  There are no shortcuts.  That part is painful for me to write!  Keep rejecting those snakes!  Existing as a healthy tree means you are set aside for something else.  The wind will blow but your limbs will wave in worship.  The ground will move but your roots will support you.  You will provide cover for others and produce good things throughout your seasons. 

If you are relating to the snake tree there’s hope for you too.  It’s never too late to ask for removal of those snakes.  Every tree in the forest has experienced a snake encounter; it’s part of living in the woods.   But allowing snakes to take up residence is where we need more than a sign that says “no trespassing”.  It needs snake repellent.  It needs something so unappealing to snakes that they move along and stay on the ground where they belong and not enter the trunk of an otherwise beautiful tree.  The snake tree on our road might have a chance if snakes stop residing in its trunk!  There will be a sad day coming for the snake tree when a lifetime of housing snakes means its base can no longer support the top.  But imagine a giant tree that has been evicted of snakes that still grows!  What a story! 

The forest only exists if it’s the land of the living.  Trees are needed to stand upright no matter what their name or species may be.  They may have a life of slow growing and steady deepening of their roots.   Others may have lost a limb or two yet still reach to the sky with what remains.  Yet others have battled direct hits of wind, rain, snow, and yes, snakes to tell their story.  But those that stand function as a forest and are rooted in the same source of life.  They cling to what is good and reject what is evil.   They are battled but not broken.   They have a name and it’s not “snake tree”! 

We live in a forest full of trees that includes you, me, and unfortunately tree-climbing snakes in the form of sin.  Jesus came to give us roots and write a story that spans from top to bottom.  It can be a slow grow, a pruning of sorts with the removal of some dead branches, or a “displace all the snakes” out of our hollow trunks!  Maybe it’s a bit of all three.   Stay rooted in Him and grow.  Reject what isn’t from Him and hold on.  Fill that hollow trunk with Jesus and not those snakes!

The Lost, the Edge, and the Held

One man’s financial future was in my sweaty hand this past week.  He didn’t know it but I had a stack of blank checks with his name on them clutched in my hand while I was running down the road.  A particular shiny vinyl book caught my eye and rather than chalking it up to yet another piece of litter I swung around to take a peek.

As it turned out it was a neighbor’s checkbook and while I had another 2 miles to go I was going to trot past his house.  So with all of his money in my gloved hand I kept on rolling and swung into his driveway to return the lost to its rightful, and happy, owner.

No one was home so I tossed it in his mailbox and went up the road and on with my day.

Later on my wife, Jan, walked by and saw a rather distraught man sitting in his truck in the same driveway. She asked if he had lost his checkbook and his shoulders sank and head bowed.  That was enough to know that he did indeed lose a checkbook and potential a pile of money.  But after he said he did, and Jan said that it was in the mailbox, his head lifted and he could ramble about the whole ordeal of sitting it on his trucks bumper before taking off towards town for errands.  As it turns out checkbooks are kind of clingy to bumpers but the darn railroad tracks can launch anything into the weeds.  Putting your financial future into gravity, physics, and checkbooks isn’t recommended!  It’s good to reunite the lost with where it belongs.

The whole ordeal brought up another one of Josh’s greatest misses with Jan.  She laughed when she brought up my whole “phone on the bumper” trick for 40 miles.  That situation was at a peak hectic time of life.  Two young boys, a new-to-us adopted mutt, two retail stores, and life was all about running and gunning!  That’s how I found myself on the highway in the pre-dawn hours, rumbling towards a town 40-miles away.  My plan was to drive into the town, hook up the 30-foot trailer we used for our retail stores, weave through town, and haul booty back in time to unload it and make it home in time for church.  If life was a race I was putting forth maximal effort.

Once at the site I dropped the trailer on the hitch, plugged in the electric cord, attached the safety chains, and yanked it through the city streets, trying not to snag a curb, parked car, or any person unfortunately up and out at that time of the morning.  I rolled onto the highway and reached for my phone to let Jan know I was on my way home…just on schedule!

Except my phone was nowhere to be found.  It wasn’t in a pocket.  Or on the floor.  Or between the seats.  It was nowhere.  And the last time I checked phones not only cost a lot but they have a lot of information on them; so much so that to lose one would be a catastrophe!  I had my life on that phone and here I was flying blind, unable to communicate, and generally upset that I was so hurried that I lost my phone.

Anxiety ensued but I kept rolling.  And I swung into the parking lot and backed the trailer into its spot.  I reversed my previous order, made sure everything was unhooked and drove over to the store to toss some stuff inside.  When the tailgate flopped down my phone popped up off the bumper, kinda like it was saying “SURPRISE!” and fell onto the ground.  It seems as though my phone was content to ride 40 miles perched on the edge of a bumper at highway speeds while I fretted and sulked in the cab of the truck 10 feet away.  It wasn’t the typical way to carry a phone but it worked.  Unconventional?  Yes!  Did it work out ok in the end?  Also yes!

These days I have one of those slick phone holders for INSIDE a vehicle.  It uses a magnet.  All you have to do is get your phone somewhat close and it sucks the phone into secure storage.  I’m sure there are even better phone holders but the idea is basically the same; hold on to that phone through all the bumps of the day and allow the phone to do its thing safe and secure!

The lost checkbook, the bumper riding phone, and the robust safety of modern phone holders paints a picture of a life of faith.  We can be lost…but reunited with the one that has our name written on His hand.  We can profess to have faith yet find ourselves riding on the edge.  That’s a constant reminder that just because we believe doesn’t mean it will be easy!  And finally, we can feel the embrace and security of a Father that loves us, that clings to us, that won’t let us go.

You may feel like you’re stuck in the “checkbook” part of life.  Doubting, questioning, maybe just hanging out in the bushes along the road somewhere doing life.  But you have value, worth, and a name.  And a place to belong.  And the best part?  You don’t have to write a check to get where you need to be!  It’s already been paid.

Maybe you are riding on the bumper and barely hanging on?  It’s easy to be anxious.  Disappointed.  Crippled by the closeness of calamity.  And yet you aren’t going over the edge! Although the timing is a mystery you never know how far you can go living on the edge and living by faith.  It defies a lot of conventional thinking, logic, even odds and science, but it’s a living testimony.  People need to see that lived out.

Maybe you’re reading this and can most relate to feeling held and secure like my magnetic phone holder.  Not necessarily in your circumstances but just in your spirit.  That’s good!  Hold on to the one that Holds you.  Get pulled in, held, and just…be.

The lost can return, the edge isn’t the end, and the hand of God will never let you go.  Believe it.

The Right Words, Unlikely Sources, and Random Places

Searching for the right words can be difficult.  We have all been there when an opportunity pops up and we scramble for words that are hopefully helpful.  Some of us have power in few words while some of us have an abundance of words.  But one thing is sure, every day we communicate through words and we hope they resonate, provide good counsel, and help the cause!  In short, we want our words to matter.

Part of being a college student was finding words; mainly in the form of lengthy research papers.  From the moment the project was announced it seemed like a ton of work.  There were page requirements, resource requirements, productivity requirements, and who knows what else.  It just seemed like a lot of work, words, and late nights.  I can remember the look on students’ eyes, and the feeling I had in my stomach, when I heard the sheer volume of work we would have to put into a paper.  The due date was weeks away which seemed like a long time to have an assignment hang over our heads.  It didn’t seem like research as much as a penalty to spend every night in the library.

What I found was that if I spent some time reading and researching I could whip up many pages of writing if I did one crucial thing:  go for a bike ride.  Now this might seem pretty unconventional and maybe even like I was delaying the inevitable hours of pecking at a keyboard.  Or maybe I was just procrastinating being a student.  But the process of reading and then organizing my thoughts and facts in my head through some strategic “pounding of the pedals” made my paper-writing flow and become an efficient exercise.  When I pedaled my mind moved and research papers were structured.  I can’t tell you how many papers I wrote in my mind while I pedaled.  Some can stare at a computer monitor in silence and pound out meaningful words but it didn’t work for me;  I needed to “prime the pump” with some endorphins, exercise, and think time.  It worked too; I graduated with a decent grade point average!

Now you may hear this and think it’s weird.  Odd.  Maybe you just can’t relate because you hate riding a bike!  But the important lesson here is that an experience can help frame facts, bring clarity, provide a bit of peace to the situation, and prepare for the next thing.  I just happened to ride a bike around a town called Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania to prove this!

A few weeks ago A friend was having a tough time.  I’d even say a tough season of life.  I had the phone in my hand, ready to text some words of encouragement because he was on my mind.  It wasn’t a light situation; my words had to resonate, matter, and console.  The problem was that my mind was empty.  There wasn’t much up there to come out through my fingers that seemed timely and appropriate!  Pithy catch phrases and generic pick me ups came to mind but they seemed less than ideal.  Remember, we want to have meaningful words!

So I put on my running shoes and started down the road like I’ve done a few times before.   On this day I donned some earbuds, put some songs on shuffle, and attempted to open my eyes, ears, and mind to whatever God was saying.  I have found that God speaks many, many ways but if I put my legs into motion and my heart into worship that I always gain some clarity.  It’s not all that different than preparing to write a research paper.

Now you may think that in order to hear God you can only listen to Christian music or that a deep, booming voice will announce a grand plan.  Maybe some miracle will happen and you will instantly have a life of ease and all your prayers will be answered.  Maybe you have more questions than anything and doubt that God will say anything.  The truth is that we need to develop a relationship with God and experience Him, in whatever way He chooses to communicate with us.  There’s not a template or method other than seeking.  Sometimes we have to keep pedaling.  Or running.  Or just living.

On this particular run Eddy Vedder, Matthew West, and a band called the Lemonheads were the carriers of God’s encounter with me.

Now that’s an interesting mix of people!  But three songs played on my playlist and the chorus’ all added up to a statement that I needed to hear.  And share.  And only one of these artists would be known as a Christian artist; but when God frames a message it’s not how it’s delivered, it’s that it’s delivered in the first place!  I was running but also in a place where I could recognize the words that needed to be taken in and reflected on.

So while I’m running down the road, sweating and working hard, with songs rumbling in the background I hear:

Song number one brought the lyrics “I’m still Alive.”

Song number two produced “I know I’m not strong enough to be everything that I’m supposed to be.”

And song number three wrapped it up with “I know I place I can go, into your Arms, Into Your Arms.”

Three lyrics from three very different artists with three different backgrounds and yet they add up to be exactly what I needed to hear on this day, both for me and the friend I was thinking about.  And it’s true!  God can use anyone, and anything, in our world today to frame a message to us that shows his love for us.  In between wailing guitar solos and my footsteps produced a timely word.

I love that I can run and ride and God teaches while I do something I thoroughly enjoy.  It’s a healthy, personal, relationship.  That’s not to say that I don’t struggle with the lessons learned from the road!  I can hear, sense, and know it’s the real deal but applying it is the faith building part.  Pedaling takes practice.  Running takes work.  Faith is much the same.

My hope is that you have these God encounters and that you recognize them and hold on to them.  It’s not always how or where…it’s that HE DOES!  You may be running.  Or driving.  Or sitting behind a computer.  You may read something, hear something, or have some random 1990’s rock bands have their lyrics tweaked to meet the days’ needs.  Further, it’s these words, these meaningful moments, these one-on-ones with God that can, and will, shape the world we live in.  God uses imperfect people like you and I to carry messages to other imperfect people, but we need to get those messages not just from a trusted source, but from the original source!  Having those pivotal moments with God, whether it’s running with Him or just sitting, frames a personal message in way that you can understand and share.  Our relationship with God should create the culture around us rather than the other way around.   Keep listening!

Don’t Lift

Have you ever been in a situation where you just wanted to be told what to do?  Maybe there was a lingering situation where you couldn’t process your next step.  Perhaps you had analysis paralysis and couldn’t stop thinking.  It’s not all that uncommon these days to just have enough fear and anxiety that the thought of making a decision, any decision, is too much to bear.

My first summer of racing bicycles was interesting and I had a ton to learn.  Bicycle racing is like a rolling chess game; there is much more to it that pedaling!  Fortunately I had a great friend that did a lot of learning years before I picked up the sport and he served as my mentor, guide, and most definitely told me what to do.

There was one particular race near Pittsburgh where he had a spectacular plan all ready for me.  The race was 4 laps of a 10-mile circuit and each lap had a sprint prize and “King of the mountain” prize.  These were the days where there was actual cash money for racing and being a broke college student I was happy to try my luck winning some moola.

My mentor gave it to me pretty simple:  I was to sit in the pack through the first lap.  Don’t worry about the king of the mountain or sprint prize on this first lap.  At the end of those first 10 miles, when everyone was sprinting for that sprint prize, I was to sprint with them…but after they stopped to recover I was to roll off the front of the field and put my head down and go!  The thought was that everyone would be tired from the excitement of the first lap and would be looking to rest a bit and I could have the open road.

As it turned out I did just that.  I kept my feet going and didn’t lift off the pedals until 30 miles later.  I won by 2 minutes and swept up all the king of the mountain prizes and sprints along the way.  When it was all said and done, I won $800 and mistakenly thought that I could make a decent income racing bikes!  That latter idea never happened but the attitude of “don’t lift” played well in that bike race.  I didn’t let anything get in the way of my belief I could win. 

Fast forward many years and “Don’t Lift” comes back in my mind quite often.  My boys have taken to riding four wheelers and have found out the way to perfect drifting and sliding is to NOT LIFT.  The heart of a boy is full of adventure and in the Beck boys’ case it’s a steady diet of adrenaline and wheeled machines.  I always want them to be safe of course but they have found that letting off the “go pedal” or the throttle puts them in a worse situation.  If you want to have that cool feeling of drifting around a turn in the dirt you can’t lift your finger off that throttle!

I have a good friend that has an outrageously cool old car that has mega-muscle under the hood.  It’s loud.  It sounds mean…in a good way!  It has been set-up and modified to go down a drag strip as well as cruise around town.  Behind all that muscle is a manual transmission where the driver gets to operate a clutch as well as try to point the car in a straight line down the track.  Do you know the fastest way to navigate this giant piece of American muscle down the track?  He calls it “Flat Shifting” and it’s where you push the accelerator to the floor the entire time; you push in the clutch super-fast and change gears all with your right foot to the floor.  It’s “Don’t Lift” in muscle car form.  The engine sings it’s song the entire time without interruption or delay.

Now you might be thinking the “Don’t Lift” sounds like an energy drink slogan or mantra to dig deeper inside of you for more output in life.  But I’m writing about the wonders of “Not Lifting” as it comes to faith.  Don’t let off the gas friend, God chose for us to live in these times and we are to live well, push on to the finish, and bring others along for the ride!

I’m constantly reminded from stories and parables in the Bible that times were tough then.  Things didn’t go so easy all of the time and that’s an understatement I’m sure.  But the most memorable stories to me are the ones where people didn’t “lift”.  They stuck to their faith.  God did things through them that were bonkers and others caught on and were encouraged as well.  I can read the book of Job and Jonah and relate to these guys in their struggles.  Eventually they came to the conclusion that God is God, they were not, and that their faith in Him will take them to where they need to go.  They wrestled and struggled but Didn’t Lift!  It’s tough to not lift when all signs, some friends, and the worlds wisdom say to abandon ship!

Every day is a new day. There are opportunities to run, ride, and live that race.  There are also opportunities to abandon God, chase our own things, and go along with the world’s ways.  I could have played it safe and sat in with the group of riders and tried to sprint at the end.  My boys could dream about drifting a four-wheeler but never experience that thrill if they let off the gas.  A big-block muscle car can be built for speed but if you don’t shift those gears and keep the pedal to the metal on the track it won’t go to its potential.  God speaks every day and it’s personal!  It’s up to us to stay tuned in, plugged in, to trust, and to obey when and where He leads us.  Don’t settle.  Don’t abandon.  Don’t Lift!  There’s purpose and life for the crowd that doesn’t lift.  Hang in there friend! 

Stacking Rocks

There is an off-road park near our house that we like to go to once in a while.  I say once in a while because it’s a calculated risk!  The park has thousands of acres of marked trails that can test man and machine; from the easy dirt roads similar to the one we live on, to the “there’s no way a vehicle can go on that trail!”.  It’s entirely up to the driver to determine which routes to take based on their experience, how their vehicle is equipped, and how much courage they have packed for the day!

Like anything mechanical, things can break.  That’s always in the back of my mind as we navigate around the park.  It’s not that I can’t fix things, it’s that I don’t want to have to do in the middle of the woods.  So, every obstacle comes with a calculation of “is it worth it?”.  You might be reading this wondering why it’s a good idea to even drive a vehicle off-road when we have plenty of “on-roads” to travel.  That’s a fair point.  But it sure can be fun and that’s enough for me!

On our last outing I had my youngest son Sam as co-driver and he pointed me up and around a large ledge. Our Jeep made quick work of the easier path and Sam was observant to point out that the ledge was much taller than my tires.  What he saw as a hindrance to avoid I saw as a challenge but I listened to the wisdom he’s gleaned over 10 years of life. 

Behind us, a friend with a much larger, more powerful, Jeep approached the same ledge.  Not one to take a shortcut, he decided to drive up the ledge.  He was successful until he wasn’t; his front tires made quick work of the ledge but the length of his rig caused it to be high-centered on the rock formation that I managed to avoid.  He had four giant tires that were off-road ready, the biggest problem was they were completed off the ground.  Fun was not being had at this point.

We put our collective heads together and looked at our options.  We had a winch we could use; those are fun and effective but also a little dangerous at times.  We could use a tow strap and my Jeep to pull the belly-dragging beast off the ledge.  This sounds pretty manly but it would also test my Jeep and risk breaking something.  Our last thought was to stack rocks under his tires and hope that the tires would gain enough traction to move the Jeep off the ledge.  This didn’t sound very exciting or glamorous but it was extremely practical and easy since we were surrounded by rocks. 

It was nice that we avoided trouble with our risk-adverse path around the ledge.  We were fortunate and maybe a bit lucky.  But life is full of complimentary stories of both successes and belly-dragging situations.

Stacking rocks was a practical way to get unstuck.  It worked like a charm!  We spent 10 minutes moving earth around into strategic positions so that his tires would meet the ground and he could move forward.  While we stacked we laughed and didn’t even talk about the dilemma we got ourselves into with poor judgement.  I think we learned our lesson but the practical placement of solid ground under his tires was our path forward.

That’s not the only time stacking rocks has come in handy in my life.  Years ago I was riding my bike on a familiar road that winds along a creek.  It’s a beautiful stretch of road and there are always wildlife to observe as the road weaves between the water and farmlands.  On this day I didn’t see much wildlife other than a 90-year old man standing next to his bike. 

I did a quick u-turn because things didn’t look quite right.  As I rolled up my mind couldn’t quite grasp the situation;  was he an escapee from the local retirement home?  Was this a normal thing for him to be out riding or did he find a bike and escape from dining hall with nurses in hot pursuit?  I had to find out!

We tried to hold a conversation but I couldn’t understand his mumbling and he probably didn’t understand my cycling attire and who I was.  I thought it would be a good idea to either call the nurses station or at least follow this guy around for a bit. 

The biggest problem, beyond our inability to hold a conversation, was that he couldn’t swing his leg up and over his bike so he could push off into the great unknown or back to the great retirement home.  He had dismounted his bike in some form in order to see the fish selection in the creek and when he returned to his bike he couldn’t get going again. 

Our options were limited here, I could try to pick the poor guy up and place him on the seat.  That would be awkward and I could see where things could go from bad to worse easily!  Another option would have been to call the retirement home and try to explain the situation.  Or “we” could start stacking rocks and build a platform for my cyclist friend to stand on while he mounted his bike.

So once again, stacking rocks was the solution.  It didn’t help to banter about poor judgement or anything else at this moment, just stack those rocks!  Within a few minutes we had a nice little ramp built, definitely not OSHA compliant, but enough for him to swing a leg over the top tube and sit his butt on the seat.  Success!

In a flash my cycling buddy started across the parking lot and moved out onto the open road.  I had to follow and find the answer to my question, “How in the world did this guy ride his bike out here?”.

I thought I would ride beside him but we were quickly up to a speed where I thought it would be safer to follow.  Every few seconds I would hear a click and I would watch his chain jump to another gear.  With that change brought a few more miles-per-hour.  The clicking and speed jump continued and while his age meant “retirement home” his speed and strength in his legs sure showed otherwise.  We rolled beside the creek and eventually he leaned into the turn that took him up the hill and towards his retirement home.  He even put his hand up for hearty wave mid-turn.  When you have 9 decades of riding you are comfortable doing such things…you just need to have some rocks stacked for you once in a while!

Stacking rocks.  What a necessary and practical way to meet the needs of another.  Stacking rocks seems simple; it’s seeing a need, seeing past a mistake or misfortune, and finding a way forward.  It’s not dwelling on the how and why but rather the “how can I help this person and meet their condition and need right now?”.    Stacking rocks is meaningful work not for self-promotion but for the movement of a fellow man that needs some help going forward.  It’s for the people that have their bellies stuck on a ledge like a Jeep and for those that can’t seem to get a leg over a bike.  I need rock stackers in my life.  You do too.  We all do!  The truth is that Jesus places people in our lives that are more than capable, willing, and able to stack rocks.  These are special people!  It is noticeable when a fellow man serves simply in a time of need.  Some would call “stacking rocks” an act of kindness.  Others might say it’s being the hands and feet of Jesus.  I would say it’s seeing putting what you believe into action when you have the opportunity and recognizing the gifts in others when you need them.  Keep stacking rocks friends!

Dead Fish Can’t Swim Upstream

It was late summer and I was in my usual Dad mode;  trying to help in an activity that I never did myself growing up.  In this case it was fishing.  I sat back and watched my son Sam cast his line over and over into the lake, trying to snag whatever poor fish decided to chomp on one of his many special lures or worms. 

I’m technically not allowed to help since he’s 10 but it really wouldn’t matter much.  I provide the moral support and encouragement that one of the casts will net him the big one.  He does all the work himself and I sit in amazement at how a 10 year old has the patience to do this; because that definitely was not my experience when I was younger!

One evening Sam put his rod down in frustration and walked over to the side of the pier.  A few laughs of amazement made me look just as he pulled a large mouth bass out of the water with his BARE HANDS.  No bait, no rod, no hook.  It was incredible…until we both realized this monster fish was already dead.  We don’t know the story but while other fish were avoiding being snared and caught this poor old guy gave up the ghost and died right there under the pier.  It was easy fishing for Sam.  We snapped a few pics and tossed him back in.  We didn’t think a “pre-dead” fish was the best thing to take home for dinner.

The dead fish reminded me of my swimming.  I think others compared my triathlon swimming to that of a dead fish.  A dead fish can’t swim…and neither can Josh Beck or so the joke goes.  I admit I don’t like to swim but I do like the other 2/3’s of a triathlon.  For a few years I thought I could find a work around with triathlons and find races that featured a downstream river swim.  If I can’t swim fast than maybe I can swim easier.  Luckily for me I entered three different races that featured downstream swimming.

The first one was local and had a short swim.  The issue here was that the river was extremely low.  So low that my belly would scrape the bottom.  So rather than gliding along with the current I bounced over boulders, scraping and scratching my chest and stubbing my toes.  I had a lot of scars for a seemingly easy swim.

The next one was in Louisville, Kentucky.  This swim was 2.4 miles and I stuck my head in the mighty Ohio river.  The Ohio was pushing me downstream but I wouldn’t know…the water was so brown and cloudy I couldn’t see a thing.  It was hot from the August heat and pretty yucky.  I think I swam this race mainly on my back so I could see and not ingest some kind of funky bacteria.  My swim time was just as slow as a lake swim would have been.

The third try at easy, downstream swimming was in Chattanooga.  This race had a ripping current and while it sent me zooming down the river I nearly missed the exit because of the giant push.  It was a struggle to leave the river and not get swept further downstream.  This race took a turn for the worse because my “easy” swim resulted in me “overbiking” and really suffering on the run.

Sam’s fish was easy to catch because it was already dead.  And my faulty logic of only swimming downstream always took a crazy turn because it was natural.  Fish survive by being able to swim upstream.  My triathlons always did better with a little bit of adversity, especially in the beginning.

I can’t see myself doing too many more triathlons but Sam and I still go fishing.  One of our favorite spots is at a local lake.  Just off to the side of the lake is a spillway where the lake feeds into a small stream.  And if you look closely there is a vibrant, beautiful fish that hangs out where the water rushes.  It’s out of the calm lake waters but not quite in the free flowing, shallow, creek waters.  It lives where water roars and churns over concrete and boulders.  It’s not really where I would want to be as a beautiful fish because the poor guy doesn’t really seem to move beyond that spot.  Every time we go he’s there.

The calm waters aren’t a sure thing for the life of this fish.  Our dead fish friend that Sam plucked out the lake proves this.  When the water is stagnant there’s no need to swim. 

A gentle current isn’t the good life either.  Always going with the flow can take a fish, or a flailing triathlete, to places they don’t want to go.  Anyone can go downstream but does that take us where we need to be?

This golden Palomino trout (as Sam tells me) has the right idea.  He’s living a life pointed upstream.  He’s ok with what looks like adversity and calamity all around and yet he’s alive and kicking (or swimming)!  He even looks like he’s comfortable and used to the scene.  I’m sure if he were to get into the calm waters he’d be on the end of a fishing line.  If he were to point downstream and go with the flow he’d end up on the end of a line or in the mouth of Heron. 

The sweet spot, the safety zone, and place of the living is upstream.  It’s counter-intuitive but it’s the place where we grow.  It’s the place we see that it’s not by our own strength but the provision, guidance, and protection of our Creator.  We aren’t supposed to live absent of sticky situations, tough times, or pressure.  We can live on and be conquerors despite calamity and a steady upstream current!

If you are feeling like life is heavy, like nothing is going your way, like you’re always going upstream, I’d like to tell you that you are right where you need to be.  You’re equipped to navigate the current and swim in the land of the living!  Consider the alternatives.  You could go belly up in stagnant waters.  Or the downstream could take you places you don’t want to go.  Be strong, depend on the One that made you to give you the strength to swim with your face pointed upstream.  You are more extravagant and beautiful than a Palomino Trout but this finned friend of ours shows us that it is possible to live life pointed upstream.  It’s possible he is only alive because he is positioned in rushing waters.

My swimming may be compared to a dead fish but I don’t want to live where fish go to die.  Go upstream; it might be the best place to survive and eventually thrive!

Stuck in a Gear

Boy do I like pedaling.  There isn’t a day that I don’t spin a pedal around on a bike, whether it’s running our dog Kobe up our dirt road or an actual workout where I’m training for an event.  There’s quite a few bikes in our garage since I have passed my love of all things bikes (and shoes!) to our boys.  Jan jumps in with all the pedaling too.

There are a few bikes in our stable that have just one-gear but most have a wide range of gears.  My favorite bike has 22 gears.  The one that I borrowed for the Leadville 100 mountain bike race had 11, but they covered a huge range that would go from barely moving to barreling down a mountain.  Gears are good; they can make mountain climbs a bit more tolerable and tailwinds that much more fun.  When you ride in all conditions and places the broader the variety of gears the better.

There’s a catch though.  You have to be able to change gears.  Switch gears.  Gears change your effort, speed, and cadence.  Gears are good but only when you can access them.

And that’s the rub I’ve faced lately.  You see, I have a pretty funky looking bike which I love, but it has gears that are activated by little motors fed by electricity.  A battery powers the whole mess and if the battery has no juice I’m not changing gears.  Whatever gear the bike is in when the battery dies is the gear I’m rolling with until it’s recharged.  I’ve been pretty far away from home when the old battery dies and I’ve had to make my one gear work for whatever piece of road confronted me.

The disappointing part to me is that for whatever reason, my battery holds charge a little bit on the “extremely disappointing” side.  I can ride as long as I need it to if it’s freshly charged but I can’t expect it to be charged enough for more than one ride.  So if it’s not plugged in and receiving juice overnight I can’t switch gears for an early morning spin.  Can I still go?  Sure.  But it’s going to be one gear out of the twenty-two and that’s not real fun or even helpful for the roads around my house.

I’ve changed cables, junction boxes, and even the battery.  I’ve plugged my bike into a computer and ran diagnostic tests.  I can’t find a mechanical problem anywhere.  In order to run through the gears and get the most out of my fancy bike I need to have it plugged in before I start my day.  That’s the solution!  My battery only stores energy; it doesn’t create it and so the routine is to ride, plug the battery in, and charge it up for the next ride.  If I want to use all the gears I need all of the juice in the battery.

Does this sound familiar to our lives?  We live in a big, complicated world.  We have more “gears” to use than any time in history.  We can be as busy as we want to be.  We can be super connected, super motivated, and super scheduled.   Our world has a lot going on and we can be participants; but we have to have our batteries charged! 

My encouragement to get charged up is to read.  Not just anything, but a readable-to-you translation of the Bible.  I say this as someone that enjoys writing but struggles to hold focus reading for anything longer than 30 seconds!  It never ceases to amaze me at how something I’ve read in the morning applies to my day.  It’s not wasted time at all.

Jan and I have a pretty good routine with this.  We’re up at 5am and we each have our chairs in the office room in our house.  She reads and writes notes.  I read and then daze off and have to go back and reread what I thought I read.  She has one translation and I read a different one.  After a few cups of coffee and a lot of silence we start talking about what we read and what the day will bring.  It’s sitting, chatting, but most importantly it’s recharging.  It’s filling up our batteries so we can change gears for whatever the day has in store.

Years ago I had a video crew come to our house at 4am to get some shots for my businesses website.  We had a script and a message we wanted to promote and the team thought some shots of me doing a morning routine would be good to help tell the story.  The bad part of this was that they rolled up to my door at 4am and I forgot to tell Jan that a group of guys with cameras would be in our kitchen while she was in her PJ’s.   She was a sport, especially after I apologized repeatedly, and the cameras started to roll while I poured coffee, laced up my shoes, put the leash on Kobe, and headed out the door.  There was also a very minor, split-second clip that showed me leafing through my Bible, because that is part of the morning routine.

I have always remembered that because that part of my morning was out there for all to see.  It’s really held me accountable.  It can’t be just for marketing purposes, it has to be meaningful and authentic.  If I’m going to say this is who I am then I better back it up. 

To wrap all of this up I would encourage you to take the plunge and get plugged in.  Get recharged.   We need all the gears we have been given to make it through a day full of emotions, relationships, and action.   Some quality time reading the Word is the foundation for how we can approach all of this in a very personal way.   I’ve always felt that a few minutes spent reading returns more than I could ever do in my own strength or understanding.  Without it is like pedaling in one gear through all of life’s ups and downs; doable but it sure feels like there could be a better way!

When the Rejected becomes the Worthy

When I was 10 years old my grandparents surprised me with an investment in the stock market.  You might think that I’m sitting pretty with my investment 34 years later, but truth be told I ended up selling my single share of Nike stock for Jeep tires.

That’s right, my single share of Nike stock was a teaching tool for my 10-year old self and while it was pretty cool to be 10 and part owner of the brand that Michael Jordan built , Nike gradually became dead to me.  My love of Air Jordans waned and I discovered that there were other brands that I actually liked better for running and riding.  I was super-hot for Nike but it eventually descended way down; so far down that I wanted 32-inch all terrain tires for my Jeep Wrangler rather than a meager, minor ownership of Nike.

Nike definitely didn’t bounce back into my good graces when I owned a shoe store.  I tried to get them to answer a phone call, reply to emails, or give me any time of the day so we could sell Nikes at the store. Nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  And the rumor was you had to sell a ton of Nikes, and only Nikes, to even get a chance with them.  I wasn’t willing to sell the farm to one brand so we gave up and started to sell anything BUT Nike.  We fixed problems Nike created, or so I thought!

My final afternoon of shoe store ownership was pretty terrible.  I came home defeated but also very interested in seeing my boys and my wife more often.  I was ready to give them the best of me and not what was left of me.  I walked in the house extremely downtrodden, not wearing Nikes, and sat down.  Eventually I thought it would be best to explain to the boys what a radical decision I had made and that I would either look like a moron or a genius depending on who you would ask.  So I sat them down and while I laid out the uncertain future I was hoping for a hug and an attaboy from my 6 and 8-year old wingmen.  I put it out there and asked them what they thought:

“Wait, does this mean we can buy Nikes now?!”

And just like that, Nike entered the picture again.  The brand of my disdain, the brand that wouldn’t answer my calls, and the brand that was only good for me to get some sweet all-terrain tires for my Jeep was now the widget that would kick-start a new relationship between my boys and me.  Oh how the tables turned!  My mission now needed my former enemy!

So that afternoon we went and bought Nikes.  I had spent 10 years outfitting everyone in any brand but Nike.  My boys were born and when they started wearing shoes it was anything but Nike.  But a new beginning sometimes starts with old rivals and so we revisited the brand that we used to avoid at all costs.

I don’t really care if you wear Nikes or avoid them at all cost.  All I know is that I spent many years rejecting them only to have them be the catalyst for a new season of my life.  My boys weren’t shy when they told me that the one thing they wanted in that moment was for their Dad to bend his ways, his rules, and be relatable to their world.  They wanted an experience that they hadn’t had yet; mainly because I was so bent on putting the screws to a several billion-dollar brand that could care less about my livelihood.  But the mission to me was to be a better dad, and to be a better dad you sometimes have to relate and be in the world of the ones that you love.  If it meant I had to see them with giant Swooshes on the side of the shoes than so be it.  The mission of being a dad mattered more than a sneaker brand.

In the years that passed a common theme of raising our boys has been how to be in the world but not of the world.  There’s a difference.  There’s no shortage of chances to talk about this when all are imperfect people living in an imperfect world.  You have to have values, morals, and to me it means listening and doing the will of God.  It ain’t easy!  We need to have standards and a way of doing things that lines up with what we believe.  Many times those are things that aren’t of the world.  But we have to be in the world, living with each other and somehow making it all work.  We have to relate and be approachable.  And sometimes that means the things we used to run away from become something that we can teach about later on.   I went from hating on Nike to plunking down some cash on two new pairs of shoes for my boys; strictly because it provided a pathway for my new mission!

You never know what will be brought back up from your past that will be necessary to move forward.  The brand you tried to ignore might be the brand that helps you relate to your kids!  The part of your past you want to forget?  There might be some wisdom and encouragement there that uniquely helps you relate to someone that needs to hear it.   There is history of the rejected becoming the cornerstone, the killers becoming the messenger of salvation, the weak winning battles, and the poor gaining wealth.  When we are mission focused the script is sometimes flipped and the world notices!

I think we all have some Nikes in our closets.  Not literally, but I bet we all have something,  someone, or some issue that really grinds our gears.   All I ask is that you frame that person, that thing, or that issue into your personal mission.  You never know when that thorn in your side will suddenly be the key that opens doors of possibility.  Be in the world and live it out.  I think Nike would tell you to “Just Do It”.

Red Lights, Relaxation, and No Return

I’ve never heard admiration about a red light before, but here I was, listening to the observations and opinions of a 16-year old about the wonderful waiting of a stop signal.  To me, a red light is something that hinders me, slows me down, or causes pause.  But to this adolescent with his drivers permit he saw the red light as a chance to chill out and relax. 

I wanted to instinctively say he was crazy but he continued to convey the wonders of waiting.  In fact he loved red lights so much he told a story of sitting in a turning lane and zoning out through another cycle of red-yellow-and green!  It was hilarious if not extremely frustrating for anyone waiting behind him.

I can appreciate a new perspective on a regular, every day occurance.  It can be a fresh take on red lights.  Maybe a new twist on dinner.  Maybe it’s a new look for your regular commute.  When the mundane and regular take on a new look it might not be life changing but it adds some new perspective to the normal.

I wish I had a red light a mile before our truck careened into the back of a tractor trailer.  It could have slowed us down so that we weren’t faced with a sad, sorry-looking Toyota.  There was confusion in front of the semi-truck and an ever-decreasing amount of space for us to squeak by and our family slid into a massive steel beam in the back of the trailer.  With a thud, some scraping metal, and a massive sigh from yours truly we slowly came to grips that our great American road trip was now in jeopardy.

I slinked off the side of the road and once I knew everyone was ok I got out to survey the damage.  It wasn’t pretty; in fact I had to pry the fender away from the door in order to get out.  My poor truck’s face was rearranged with bumpers protruding, fenders flared, and headlights hanging sadly from the front end.  There was paint missing, trim pieces across the exit ramp, and the hood kinda had this wrinkle like it was grimacing before the impact.  It was a sad scene.

As the dad and husband in the situation I was tasked with how to make this work.  I immediately began to think of how to get this whole traveling circus back to Pennsylvania.  We had traveled 8 hours into Indiana this morning and now I needed to get the 4 of us and all of our gear back home.  Once back home I could load our other vehicle and we could try this voyage again.  We would lose 16 hours of driving and probably our sanity.

Or we could just go home and bag the whole trip.  Forget it.  Cut our losses.  Lose our reservations but play it safe.  We could just say it wasn’t meant to be.

So in this crisis of belief I had to choose.   Which way to go…back to what we knew and try again or just go back?  If they were the only two options it sure wasn’t much fun to choose.  Both seemed like a retreat, a surrender, like we were cheating something special that could be right in front of us.  Everything else that lined up for us before the trip seemed to point West. 

But just like my 16-year old runner told me, sometimes red lights are nice to have because you can relax.  And while we weren’t at a red light in Indiana our situation did cause us to stop and, well, relax.  We had to think through this.  Despite the drizzling rain and the twisted hunk of metal that we called our truck we did have options.  And despite my runners love of sitting at red lights eventually the light turns green and you have to go.  So our decision was made for our truck and our trip.  We wouldn’t turn around.  We wouldn’t go back.  We were going to keep going the direction we were called to go. 

With so many parts rearranged it was a major miracle that nothing touched the suspension.  There were no leaks and no catastrophic mechanical maladies.  The truck looked rough but it idled on the road like it was ready to crush the next 4000 miles.  I had to perform minor surgery with an angle grinder to cut away the bumper that would only allow us to turn left but once that was done we were heading towards our destination.  There was no retreat and no returning to the way things were before.  If we were gonna head west we needed to keep rolling west, even with our bumps and bruises. 

I think we are in a time where we want to get to a destination.  It can be a physical location or just a point in life where it’s a goal, priority, or way to live.  The promised land looks so…promising!  But the journey to get there isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.  There are pesky red lights.  There are accidents.  There are those moments where you really have to drill down on what you believe and Who you believe in.  Those moments of stopping, reflecting, and contemplating are crucial.  But you can’t just sit there forever.  That would be like a teenager sitting through endless cycles of red-green-yellow!  There is a moment in that crisis of belief that you have to move forward.  Not backwards.  Not a return to what was known.  The only way to experience and grow is to go…forward.

We made it the whole way to Colorado.  The truck was thirsty and drank it’s far share of gasoline but it got us all there safe and secure.  We saw amazing things and our family bonded through the sites and scenes of that great American road trip.  We met new and old friends and I raced my bicycle.  To top it all off I would say that our trip was BETTER with the accident;  that crisis taught us a lot about moving along even when things appear bleak.  Had we returned after that accident we would have a story, but nothing like the story of continuing to go when adversity struck!   Living a life of faith is a gamble, it’s a stretch, and it’s trusting that the unseen is exactly where we need to go.   We can enjoy the rest of a red light but if we don’t move when it turns green we’re missing the experience of driving.  We can believe in God but if we don’t let him lead what are we really believing in?  And we can say we want to share Jesus but if we live life on our terms what are we sharing? 

The next time you roll up to a red light I hope it changes your perspective.  I also hope when it turns green you aren’t afraid to go!  Go big, go far, just don’t go back and miss what’s ahead.  You’ll be glad you did.

Ownership

The words of advice before a race are always interesting.  I have been doing this long enough that I have heard it all.  In an effort to overcome the terrible tension that comes before the start of an endurance race there is a lot of advice, encouragement, and even prayer being tossed around in hopes of establishing a foothold to overcome any bad thoughts.

I used to get pretty worked up, at least by my standards.  When I was in high school I thought those races were the biggest thing I’d ever do so I was tense and worked way too hard with way too little recovery.  Fast forward a few years and I was racing my bike with hopes of climbing the ladder to become a professional and heaped on some more tension.  Along the way I got married and my bike races were actually a way to pay for rent so there was pressure there.  Jan and I found ourselves in Switzerland for a big running and riding race and thinking that my participation in that race would be a “one and done” meant a lot of anxiety about producing a result.  There were marathons in those years where I hoped to hit a personal best and even silly little races where the expectation was thrust upon me to be at the pointy end of the race.

You may not have toed the line for a race but I bet you know what it’s like to have that tension.  Anxiety starts beating its drum in your heart and fear starts brewing in your brain.  And if my history and what I heard at this latest race is any indication the most common way to combat this dreadful condition is to own it.  I’ve tried this approach many times in races, business, and maybe you have as well. 

Have you noticed this in your surroundings?  “Owning It” comes in many phrases and pump-ups.  We can tell ourselves “We got this” or “Just do it” and then after we succeed we can say we are a “self-made man” or prescribe our recipe for success for the next guy so they can “own it” as well.  Owning it is grabbing life by the horns with both hands and telling it who’s boss!

Except it doesn’t always seem to end well when we own it.  We run out of energy.  Life zigs when we are trying to zag.  Accidents happen.  People happen!  Seasons change, our bodies change, and “owning it” eventually shows us that we never really had it to begin with. 

So that’s why I chuckle when I think about all of the advice and knowledge being spread around the start line of my latest race.  “Owning it” was in full speed there with some serious preparation and serious planning.  And I need to clarify; it is good to plan!  And sitting on our hands and doing nothing is not a viable option either.  But living the plan over living our life as God intended can be different!

So the part that makes me laugh is that I was on the starting line with a borrowed bike and a borrowed cycling kit.  I owned my shoes and socks and that was about it!  When I pursued this race I used my son’s bike to qualify but that bike was not a good choice for this much longer and much more difficult course.  After that initial adventure a friend of mine offered his bike as my tool of choice.  This was great because I wanted the experience of this race more than I wanted to find a way to buy a several thousand-dollar mountain bike and his bike was PERFECT for the terrain.

Once at the race another friend of mine thought it would be cool if I wore his team’s cycling kit.  While it’s not totally normal to borrow cycling clothes I ended up wearing another man’s cycling duds.  Don’t worry, they were washed multiple times before and after the race!

In a world of ownership I was happy to be there, on a borrowed bike and borrowed clothes, to do something I loved on this borrowed time on earth.

The race turned out to be a showcase of the difference between ownership and stewardship.  I rode light on my feet and protected the bike that had been loaned to me.  I didn’t crash and tear apart a pricey cycling kit.  And on another level I made the most of my ability on the day.  I didn’t add ownership or pressure to the situation, I simply managed what I had been given between the resources, the equipment, and the time.  Instead of grabbing hold of the race with both hands I felt like one hand was holding on loosely and the other was waving in celebration.   There was every opportunity there to hold on tightly and try to bend my body and the race to my will but stewardship doesn’t work that way.  God establishes the work of our hands or our feet and we just have to hold on loosely and keep pedaling.

So when the dust settled I experienced a fantastic race but one that keep teaching valuable lessons.  We don’t have to own “it” or the outcome.  We can be stewards of what we’ve been given.   Faith isn’t measured by the stuff we own and we certainly don’t have to own certain things in order to be successful.  God always has had “it” and when we work diligently with one hand it allows us to worship Him with the other hand. 

What are you owning today?  Can you maybe let go just a bit to recognize that the outcome is dependent on Who owns it and not just your output?