Live courageously from your heart!
![#010: Worry Free Living [Podcast]](https://heartstonejourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/worry-free-living.jpg)
Had another great conversation on Purposeful Pathways Radio with Caroline Gavin; Christian business coach, speaker, author and radio host. Join our conversation as we talk about how to start living a more worry free life.
Do you get a sense that most people (including you) are worried about something these days?
If you turn on the TV or do any surfing on the Internet you will run into a story surrounding the events in Ferguson Missouri. The nation watched as many in the town of Ferguson reacted with outrage and disappointment, when the prosecutor announced that officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
I am not weighing in on the justice or injustice of the events surrounding Ferguson, I am writing about a deeper issue of humanity.
Honestly, I never understood how the color of someones skin defines that person. Never understood the anger of the Black Panthers in one direction and the anger of the KKK in the other. While the modern race problem has economic, political, and social implications I believe its primarily a moral and spiritual problem.
Parsing through all the news narratives and ambient conversations on social media, I wanted to highlight the words New Orleans Saints tight end Benjamin Watson shared in the national conversation on race, racism and policing in America.
In a thoughtful commentary that was liked on his Facebook page more than 800,000 times and shared more than 450,000 times as of November 30th, Watson explained that he chose to write down his thoughts on the Ferguson decision after news broke Monday night.
Here are those thoughts and more…
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Corrie ten Boom, a hero to a generation of people who grew up after World War II left a legacy of Godliness and wisdom. She and her sister Betsie were victims of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and she survived to tell her story of faith and dependence on God during horrendous suffering.
Corrie Ten Boon, along with the rest of her family were victim of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during WWII. They were later interred in a Nazi concentration camp for hiding fugitives and others hunted by the Nazis. Corrie was the only one from her family that survived the horrific conditions of the concentration camp and had the courage to share her story in a book she wrote, The Hiding Place.
Corrie was well acquainted with loss. She lost her family, possessions, and years of her life for no other reason other than helping Jews. During the hardships of the concentration camp, she learned to focus on what could be gained spiritually and emotionally by putting everything in the hands of her heavenly Father.
Wow, what courage and perseverance this woman had!
Here is an excerpt from her book that captures this.
Some of my favorite movies include Braveheart, Gladiator, 300, Lord Of The Rings, Last Of The Mohicans and Lone Survivor. Another honorable mention to this list is the 2004 remake of King Arthur.
Here is a short summary shared by Claudio Carval. In 400 AD, the Roman Empire extends to Britain and the Romans become impressed with the fight skills of the warrior Sarmatian people, which are spared, but have to send their sons to serve Rome in the cavalry for fifteen years. Only after these services, these knights are free to return home. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have their last mission before achieving their freedom.
I chose this summary because it ends with a powerful word that is not always connected with authentic manhood and that is “freedom”. This theme ebbs and flows all through out history in narratives of the men who fought in the Revolutionary War and the movies mentioned above. Of course there are endless realities and tales of the bravery of men fighting for the cause of freedom, but I want to stay with this for a minute…for the men of today.
Why is this important for the men of today?
Why is it that most of us become spiritually lazy as we accept and embrace a passive existence stumbling through the shadows of life looking for love and acceptance? Have you ever noticed that we actually go out of our way to stay off the rough roads of life? It seems that our primary objectives become securing a peaceful retreat from the world, thinking only about ourselves, and finding a hiding place from the turbulence of life. We all seem to find it so much easier to simply go along with the status quo, which over time actually leads to a life of heart-numbing mediocrity, and we settle for something less than God’s best.
Does God share with us in His word some thoughts about this? I think He does. Consider the story of Moses. God heard the cries of the oppressed Israelite slaves, and He enters history to deliver them from the tyranny of Pharaoh and the bondage of Egypt. After the captives have been set free from Egypt, God meets with them in the wilderness to make them His people. They enter into a covenant with God promising to love and to serve Him in response to His gracious acts of deliverance. God then promises them a land in which they could be His people.
God actually hangs out with these people wanting to connect with them in a loving relationship. Can you imagine that? That would be awesome! If that happened to us, we would be convinced! Convinced for life!
Wouldn’t we?
Well, let’s see what happens…