the F’s of success vs significance

As we journey through life, It is my hope that we each have weighed the importance of the pursuit of Significance in our own lives. A few months back I heard these and have spent a good deal of time meditating over them and their impact on how I live my life.

The three F’s we concern ourselves with when seeking success are:

1. Fame
2. Fans
3. Fortune

Let me start with, “there is absolutely nothing wrong with success” assuming that all else has not been sacrificed in its pursuit. If I take pause for a moment and really dig into those three words getting past the “American Idol” concept of Fame, Fans, and Fortune, it is not far fetched to personalize where my attention has been placed both past and present. As a society we are SUCCESS crazed as we watch time and time again the lives of those who in all appearances have reached the pinnacle of the three F’s and their lives are destroyed. The tragedy with the Three F’s of Success can be that they are all about “ME”.

The Three F’s we concern ourselves when seeking significance are:

1. Faith
2. Family
3. Friends

There is no doubt a difference in the focus off attention as well as the long term impact of that focus. See our investment in Faith, Family, and Friends has a compounding interest over time. It is so much bigger than the “ME” of the Success F’s.

Although I could spend hours on this subject, I hope to give you a little something to chew on over the weekend.

Be in Church with God’s people on Sunday.

See ya Monday.

above the rim rock

A hunters guide to His Heart

I have found myself on many occasion asking, what is it about hunting, and the event that ensues as part of it’s pursuit, that breaths into me life and stirs my heart. The crack of the gun and the buckle of a bird in mid flight is no doubt satisfying, but most certainly can not justify the level pain and exhaustion that infiltrates my body in the midst of a ten mile chukar hunt, the bird of this hunter’s choice. There have been numerous occasions that I have found myself in places on a mountain I had no business being and asked myself “What in the heck am I doing”? Only to find myself in that place time and time again. And so my life long question was answered one blue bird Saturday morning of which I will never forget.

As all of my chukar hunts do, I began preparing all of my gear Friday night after the kids had been tucked safely in bed. Even sitting here now I am rushed with the stale blunt smell of bee’s wax, which as part of my hunt ritual, is thinly coated over my boots before each hunt. Like a soldier my gear is systematically inventoried and placed in it’s appropriate place for the early morning departure. Gramps’s savage 16 gage double triggered side by side that has been passed now to me, is sheathed and stored safely in the cab of my pickup along with my hunting vest. With the highs being in the mid 30’s an Under Armour cold gear under shirt, my frayed red Eddy Bauer shammy, and the standard issues Carhartts would fit the bill. And though I could count on one hand the number of times I have used it, my Swiss Army Leatherman just in case. With lunch packed and the coffee timer set, my mind could be at ease at least knowing I was prepared. But it is that boyhood excitement that awakens me at 2:00 am and 4:00 am just to make sure I haven’t slept through the alarm that causes me to pause and soak in all that hunting has brought to my life.


I am not sure why it is, but coffee the morning of a hunt, that I sip from my hunt day coffee mug, which displays airbrushed replicas’ of my two German Shorthair Pointer hunting partners, seems ritualistic as each sip holds a different memory for me.

With the dogs loaded up, gear packed away and final preparations completed, my hunting buddy and I set off for the days adventure. The two hour drive seemed a blur from the endless recollection of past hunts, the days strategy, and the typical hunting banter. As previously stated we found ourselves amidst one of those stunning Northwest blue bird days, a Chukar hunters dream with a ground temperature of about 26 degrees. Perfect for the dogs and scenting birds. The perfect day to be sure, or so I thought.

Within a quarter mile of the truck we had to cross “Sucker Creek” which as I would soon find out was very appropriately named. The creek spanned about fifteen feet across and was somewhat slow moving. The water level was abnormally high and rather than risk my feet getting wet, I opted for what seemed the logical choice and crossed over a frozen section of the creek. Half way across and with dry land only steps away it happened, the deafening pop of the ice and my plummet into the waist deep bone chilling water. Within seconds I had broken through the remainder of the ice and drug myself to safety. NOT the way to start the day.

At twenty six degrees it took all of ten minutes for pants to freeze leaving me hobbling like the TIN MAN from Wizard of OZ. After stripping down and wringing out my clothes, we were back on the trail.

By noon we had GPS ourselves to be around five miles into the back country. With the bird finding being discouragingly slow we opted for a new strategy and split up. I’d been side hilling it for about ¾ of mile when my highly trained hunter’s eye spotted something increasingly peculiar. Grace (my female shorthair) appeared to be carrying a bird in her mouth. Problem was, I hadn’t shot a bird all day. And to my horror with every step closer I came to the paralyzing realization that what I thought was a bird was a face full of porcupine quills. They covered her face from snout to ear, in her gums, tongue, and lips. And so I spent the next forty five minutes yanking one after another out of her face and mouth, putting to good use the Leatherman I so seldom used.

Now, my heart is as “WILD” as the rest of them, but after the ice and porcupine I figured I best be getting the heck out of there before something else happened like getting shot. But oh that would be all too simple. At approximately four miles from the truck, Hersh (my male shorthair and the heaviest of the two, 65 lbs) cramps up and won’t walk anymore. And so I packed him out on my shoulders for the remaining four and a half miles. Once again having to cross “SUCKER CREEK” this time with him on my shoulders, and once again breaking through the ice. At least the temp was a balmy thirty six this go round. And my aching legs appreciated the numbing effect of the icy water.

For four miles I struggled and fought each and every step. I fought exhaustion. I fought pain. But perhaps the most significant battle was the one raging over mind and thought. You can do this, you can make it. One step at a time.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO GLAD TO SEE THE TRUCK.

That night as I sat inhaling a dinner that I could only dream about hours before, I shared the days adventure and hardships with my wife. To which she responded “that’s why you do it. You love it. The risk and the danger.” Hold the presses she is right. With every hunt comes the adventure of risk and danger, the kind that tests a man’s heart, his strength, his endurance, and his mind. Days like this force a man to answer “DO I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES” and on this day I could answer YES. And with that YES my heart is filled.

I have to wonder after the third day, as Jesus sat in the tomb resurrected from death, was His heart filled in the same way as mine. Did he reflect back over the brutal blood laden beatings, the agonizing pack to Golgotha, the sacrifice on the cross, and the war that He raged in the bowels of Hell, and think “I HAD WHAT IT TAKES” for He completed the mission. Our God has what it takes.

If we could only realize that the same adventure of risk and danger awaits each of us every day as we cross the thresholds of our homes. There is a battling raging for your mind, and for your body, and for your spirit. And it is far more exhausting and painful than any self inflicted adventure we have taken part in. YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES, but you must “prepare the horse for battle”.

Paul in I Cor. 9:27 says: "No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” Be in the word and on your knees each and every day so that you might finish the race and know “YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES”

a battle is under way

I will devote space at the beginning of each week to share thoughts of others who are much more intelligent and insightful than I, with the hope that their words encourage and challenge you as much as they have me. This weeks thoughts are from John Eldredge's Book Waking the Dead:

But there is another, more urgent quality to every true myth. The Second Eternal Truth brought to us comes like a broken message over the radio or an urgent e-mail from a distant country, telling us that some great struggle or quest or battle is well under way. May even be hanging in the balance. When the four children stumble into Narnia, the country and all its lovely creatures are imprisoned under the spell of the White Witch and have been for a hundred years. In another story, Jack and his mother are starving and must sell their only cow. Frodo barely makes it out of the Shire with his life and the ring of power. In the nick of time he learns that Bilbo’s magic ring is the One Ring, that Sauron has discovered its whereabouts, and that the Nine black Riders are already across the boarders searching for the little Hobbit with deadly intent. The future of Middle Earth hangs on a thread.

Darth Vader just about has the universe under his evil fist when a pair of droids fall into the hands of Luke Skywalker. Luke has no idea what is unfolding, what great deeds have been done on his behalf, or what will be required of him in the battle to come. Sitting in a sandstone hut with old Ben Kenobi – he does not know this is the great Jedi warrior Obi-Wan Kenobi – Luke discovers the secret message from the princess: “This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

Again this is exactly what scriptures have been trying to wake us up to for years. “Wake up, O sleeper…Be very careful, then, how you live…because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:14-16). Or as the Message has it: “So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!” Christianity isn’t a religion about going to Sunday school, potluck suppers, being nice, holding car washes, sending our second hand clothes off to Mexico- as good as those things might be. This world is at war. Something large and immensely dangerous is unfolding all around us, we are caught up in it, and above all we doubt we have been given a key role to play.

Waking the Dead

men of honor 1 of 3

Honoring God with your Mind

As it relates to Men of Honor, I want to lay out a three part series on what it means to be a MOH (Man of Honor) as we seek to Honor God Mind, Body, and Soul. It is my desire to explore scripture as it relates to our mind, body, and soul as well as hit head on issues that specifically take men to task as we seek to arm ourselves with the “weapons of warfare” that Paul so eloquently challenges us with in II Cor. 10:4-5. Not withstanding I will as well attempt to lay out an action plan of sorts.

I have chosen to start with the Mind, because quite frankly within it’s complexity many of the most strangulating strongholds we as men face can be locked up in it’s vault. Now don’t get me wrong, the last thing I will attempt to do is scientifically debug the inner working of our minds cause quite frankly I am not sure I am smart enough to understand what I just said much less the brain. However I do know that we as men are stimulated by sight and there is most certainly a chemical aspect to how what we see is stored in our minds which can influence what we meditate on and how it perpetuates our self image or lack there of ultimately rendering us useful or useless in fulfilling God’s transcendent call on our lives.

Man, this is such an incredibly critical subject for us as men. Though there are many aspects of the mind we could tackle together, I am choosing to hone in on the one area that I feel is the single most detrimental stronghold facing men today, SEXUAL INTEGRITY.

Let’s be real, you can’t even go to the grocery store without being bombarded with sexually explicit magazines and advertisements. Unfortunately we as men find ourselves smack in the middle of an epic sexualization of society. So, if we are keeping it real, every one of us finds ourselves on the proverbial “Bell Curve” of sexual addiction. As a point of reference, those on the far left of the curve are winning the battle and have instituted a game plan to protect against unwanted images and thoughts being processed and held captive in their minds. Those on the far right of the curve are the heinous lifeless criminals we read and hear about that have committed rape, molestation ect. My point is this, sexual addiction is unequivocally devastating, and it ALWAYS starts on the left side of the curve. It is imperative that we orchestrate a battle plan and follow it explicitly.

So let’s talk a little biology for a moment. It is important for us to understand why and how we process things that we see and hear, and how that relates to where we as men find ourselves on the CURVE. It breaks down like this; there are three primary chemicals infiltrating the brain when we are stimulated, endorphins, encephalins, and epinephrine. The endorphins/encephlins are the single most powerful pleasure chemicals in the human body. In testing, lab rats (and yes I support the testing of lab animals, better them than me I always say) would endure ten times the pain level for one shot of endorphins/encephlins than they would for cocaine. Some powerful stuff. Now, the epinephrine’s role is to permanently cement what ever it is you were seeing at the time of stimulation in one of the many chambers of that brain of ours.

And this is how it all plays out; you are rolling minded your own business and out of no where you see something you like and think WOW! Now instead of fleeing you stop for a moment and think HMMMMMM! Pow, here comes the endorphins/encephlins and we officially have stimulation. At that very instant the old epinephrine takes that image and files it away for a time and place to be named later. OK, your thinking, no big deal, so I got a little hit of the old pleasure chemicals. Remember the whole lab rats more powerful than cocaine thing? Now I am not saying were are like rats, but we most certainly enjoy the pleasure chemicals, and will always want more, and more, and more. And the funny thing is, we actually associate that epinephrine filed image with the pleasure chemicals we desire and therefore keep going back to the old file time and time again thus sending us further and further to the right of the old BELL CURVE.

Here is the thing, none of this is by accident. God intentionally created these exact chemicals and this exact process so that we would know deep intimacy with our WIVES and our WIVES alone. She is who God intends for us to be stimulated by and it is her face that is to be cemented and filed away so that we associate her beautiful face with the pleasure chemicals we tend to desire.

To be a Man Of Honor, is to be a man that Honors God with his mind and that can answer the call of 1 Peter 1:13 (Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled;) and with all of my heart I believe that this issue of sexual integrity is devastating our men daily, keeping them out of the fight. The fact is, within this sin comes a great deal of shame, which I will address in my post about Honoring God with our Body. And it is that shame that puts men on their face floundering like a fish out of water, right where satan desires for them to be. Out of the game and out of the fight.

The Game Plan

1. Chose to Fight – Be a man step up and commit to daily taking captive your thoughts. II Cor. 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The Greek word for captive is Aichmalotizo- to lead away captive, to capture ones mind, captivate
2. Take it to HIM – pray, pray, pray with transparency to God about the struggle. Check out this promise: Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. The Greek word used for guard/keep is Phroureo- protect by a military guard, either to prevent hostile invasion. Your mind has at it’s disposal Military type protection from our Lord. Claim it.
3. Starve your eyes – Be intentional about what you look at, magazines, tv, computer home page, ect. Example: I had to change my home page from Fox News because of all of the Sexually explicit stories and ads to a non intrusive home page.
4. Renew your mind – Use scripture as a cleaning agent and a filter. Be in the word daily and memorize scripture. Deuteronomy 11:18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
5. Be accountable – Get accountability and filtering software on your computers NOW. I have several resources in the resources section of my blog.
6. Get educated – there are some great books on this subject. I have several of them listed in the resource section of my blog such as “The Game Plan” and “Every Man’s Battle”.

Let me set the record straight here, not every man is a sex addict and suffer from addiction. However every man is susceptible. So regardless of where you find yourself on the CURVE, you must stay engaged in fight. Take captive your thoughts and renew your minds so that you might be found honorable by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

a healthy notion of manhood

I will devote space at the beginning of each week to share thoughts of others who are much more intelligent and insightful than I, with the hope that their words encourage and challenge you as much as they have me. This weeks thoughts are from Robert Lewis and his Book Raising a Modern day Knight:

“You need to know, Dad, that your son and thousands like him are presently being stripped of their maleness by modern, secular, feminist culture. Over the last few decades, this culture has steadily and relentlessly undermined healthy notions of what it means to be a man. Once-noble images of masculinity have now been replaced by images of men behaving badly…or incompetently… or both. Manhood is no longer a unique calling; it’s now seen more as a problem to be overcome.

At the same time, many young men are confused because of their lack of connection with their father-socially, emotionally, and spiritually. All this has created an acute masculine identity crisis. If you were to ask most young men today “How does a man act?” or “What are his unique responsibilities?” or “What role should he assume in his marriage?” you would receive little more than a blank stare. Many have no concept of the kind of man they should become. Not a clue. Listen to the poem one young man penned for me out of his own personal manhood vacuum:

What is a man?Is he someone who is strong and tall,Or is taut and talented as he plays ball?Is he someone who is hardened and rough,Who smokes and drinks and swears enough?Is he someone who chases women hard,With a quest to conquer, but never dropping his guard?Is he someone with a good business mind,Who gets ahead of the others with his nose to the grind?Or is he someone who tries his best,Not really caring about any of the rest?What is a man? Does anyone know?TELL ME!Who is the prototype? To whom shall I go?

Dad…your son is asking those very questions right now as he grows up under you. In fact, many of the social problems of our day (plummeting morality, rising crime, violence, abuse, reckless pleasure-seeking) spring from the soil of directionless, disconnected sons.

Conversely, I believe a healthy, vibrant masculinity goes hand-in-hand with social stability. So, I feel hope for our country when I see the rise of movements such as Promise Keepers. It’s obvious that many men today are searching again for their true masculine identity.

The best hope still lies in the hearts of fathers…in dads who are beginning to ask, “How can I raise my boy into a man? A real man?” These are the right questions from the one who is most suited to give answers that will stick for a lifetime.”


Raising a Modern Day Knight

sowing seed

A few weeks back under my "I was Thinking" category I had the following quote by John Maxwell:

"The success of my day is determined by the seeds I sow not the harvest I reap."

Take a moment and really chew on what that statement is saying. The fact is that true significance is deeply rooted in SEED SOWING, not HARVEST SEEKING. As you look back over your days this past week were you seeking the harvest or did you SOW SEEDS?

Examples Please!

a guest appearance

As we embark on our quest to live a life that Honors our Savior, I firmly believe that we as men are in desperate need of Godly mentors in our lives. I have been greatly blessed with several men that I can call friends and mentors. Periodically I will share their thoughts and perspectives with you as guest bloggers from week to week. So here we go.....


Religious Culture

As I’m reading Matthew 16:13-19 I can see that Christ knew that the people around us influence us greatly. He knew that public opinion would have a tremendous impact on us, and I wonder in your work place, in your neighborhood, wherever you spend most of your time, maybe inside your own home, who do people say that God is?

Our culture has an opinion but I’d like to suggest that we have to also be careful of the opinions of our religious culture. You and I have to understand that we are dealing with a religious culture of our day. And we’ve got to know what the religious culture is so that we will know when we’re buying into propaganda that is not what the Word of God says.

I’m just saying that we need to know the difference of what man is telling us in religious terms and what God is saying to us in His Word. When we stand before the throne of God and he says, “Why didn’t you believe me?”, we’re not going to be able to point to those that gave us propaganda. We cannot point back to all those other people and go “he’s why”, “she’s why”. God says, “Believe me.”
God says, “You called yourself a believer for 40 years and I kept waiting for you to live up to it.” Do we believe or don’t we? What are we getting, what is coming to us through our religious culture? Are we receiving truth? And what is propaganda and what do we want to dump? I’m not talking about dumping the people either.

I want to be real clear when I say, you and I get to choose, you and I get to choose what we’re going to buy. And you and I want to be people of God.

See, we have a lot of things going in our religious culture. Let’s be people that believe God because of what His Word says. Let’s not buy into propaganda that doesn’t line up with God’s Word.

Posted By: BEAR4BBC