Jesus | Heartstone Journey

What Greatness Is Not!

Well, here is where my story begins…

Like most men, I wanted to do something great with my life. Like most men, I desperately wanted to be “somebody.” Like most men, the focus was on me!

I had it all, I was addicted to winning at all cost and over time and I completely lost myself in the pursuit of greatness. My identity became to twisted and interwoven in position, prosperity and power that the man God created me to be…was barely recognizable!

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

—Norman Vincent Peale

I was an easy target for the narrative of the world and I exchanged “the truth of God” for a lie and destroyed myself and my family in the process of wanting greatness.

This is what greatness is not! So, what is greatness?

What Team Shirts Can Teach Us About Our Faith In God!

You’ve seen this scene before.

People gather together every week for one cause — clapping, singing, worshiping. They donate their hard-earned money and their time, knowing they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Heaven, they believe, surely will be something like this. Were you picturing a church? It’s actually a sports event happening in cities across America.

We have this love-affair with sports and we will pay hundreds of dollars for game tickets and sports gear with our team’s logo on it…won’t we? Without hesitation we join in an addictive rant while at games, watching games and checking on games via social media with our praise or curses concerning our teams’ play.

Now picture this. You’re a Red Sox fan and you’re visiting friends in New York and they invite you to a Yankees game (I know it’s tough, but stay with me). You’re a Patriots fan and you’re invited to an Indianapolis Colts game (even tougher to watch) with work colleagues. You so want to wear your team’s game shirt, but you’re outnumbered and want to fit in. So what do you do?

Why God’s Math Just Doesn’t Add Up

Out of my brokenness, I realized that it was time to let God step into the ruins of my life. Personally, I thought it would be awesome to have some of that supernatural strength, so I said to the Lord, “Go for it!” So I slowly started to let God have His way, but it didn’t take long before I became impatient with the process and tried to wrestle some control back. Taking inventory of my current state of affairs, I hit the pause button and thought to myself, “Wait a second!” I had lost my hope, my family, my house, many friends, my financial resources, and almost my job, and I kept crucifying myself with the regrets of my past and the fear of my future. Furthermore, I had lived in a basement, in a dreadfully hot and small apartment, and now found my existence within a single room in a friend’s home with the remainder of my stuff. I just wasn’t feeling the supernatural strength, so I got on my knees and began to have a chat with the Lord, during which I basically asked Him why this was all happening, and He simply replied, “Because I love you!” I have to be completely honest and transparent with you: I was wondering if He could love me a little less, because this was not fun!

I could not see the picture that God was painting.

Here is where the lesson in fuzzy math began for me.

Why Gender Reassignment And Altering Pronouns Won’t Change Who Bruce Jenner Is

By now most people on the planet have seen the picture of the “new” Bruce Jenner on the upcoming cover of Vanity Fair. As a Dad who is raising a son to be man, the very idea that culture is praising Bruce Jenner for his so-called “brave” and “courageous” decision is such a foreign idea to me.

I remember Bruce Jenner winning the decathlon in Montreal Canada in 1976 making him the male athlete of the year — the guy got on the Wheaties box! When I look at the upcoming cover of vanity fair I see a man plastered with makeup, hair extensions and wearing who-knows-what-that-is. His entire persona has been artificially altered by hormone pills, Photoshop, and plastic surgery.

What happened?

There’s a tremendous amount of buzz in the mainstream media and social media spaces, but here are some items that caught my attention. The White House said that President Obama believes Bruce Jenner’s transition into Caitlyn shows “tremendous courage.” Bruce Jenner’s “female” alter ego Caitlyn got over a million Twitter followers in four hours. Wikipedia has already gender altered the history and lifestyle of Bruce Jenner. Caitlyn Jenner will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPN Espy’s this year.

Really?

There are so many thoughts swirling around in my head right now, but I want unpack some of them as I feel they are very important in the conversation of today’s culture.

Why Waldo And Bigfoot Are Better At Hide-N-Seek Than God

Ever notice this pattern? People do bad stuff to us -> we retreat from life -> God where are you? -> we project our pain onto God!

Life sucks. I’m being bullied. I lost my job, my house, my car, fill in the blank______. He/she divorced me. I was abused physically and sexually. I could go on-and-on listing life’s hurts and pain.

When we feel the pain of life and the hurts of others, we blame God. God how could you let this happen? God, why did you do do this to me? God, where the @#!$$!! are you?

People continue to hurt us, the blame-God-game continues, we retreat and build walls of hate around us thinking that somehow they will protect us. How do we get to the place where we have so much hatred for God?

What Greatness Is Not!

What Team Shirts Can Teach Us About Our Faith In God!

Why God’s Math Just Doesn’t Add Up

Why Gender Reassignment And Altering Pronouns Won’t Change Who Bruce Jenner Is

Why Waldo And Bigfoot Are Better At Hide-N-Seek Than God

Favorite Quotes

Cool Scripture

Never Out Of The Fight!

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