Our Deepest Fear

On Friday night at Coach Camp, we had Steve Scanlon do a talk on Vision up at the top of the Pine Marten chair lift at Mt. Bachelor. It was awesome. One of my takeaways was to wrestle through the concept of diminishment. He shared this quote by Marianne Williamson. It's most often noted as a quote by Nelson Mandela because he used it in his 1994 inauguration speech.

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Centering

I'm having a hard time centering today, focusing. I have nothing to do and can't figure out where to put any energy I might have. I can't workout, back still hurts. I'm not tired so a nap won't work. I read and looked over my scripture verses already. I cleaned the office. I showered, I went to church and served on the setup team.

I did alot today but I am utterly bored. I could go and get a movie, I could sit here and blog some more. I could go to the office and declutter my space so that it looks better.

Oh, I also washed the Jeep and reorganzied the book shelf.

I just had a really good snack. 1/2 cup of Dannon Light & Fit Strawberry Yogurt. 1/2 cup of Fat Free Cottage Cheese. 1 cup of whole fresh blueberries and 1 cup of Honey Nut Cherrios. Man, it was really good.

I want to redo my life plan and vision but mostly because I feel like for some reason that will help me. it won't really. I need to stick to the one I've got and just make sure it's continually refined and refreshed. I want to put together a training schedule for my upcoming events but I can't do that either since I don't know when the dr is going to clear me for exercise again. I see him tomorrow.

I think I'll use the time to call my friends and family, go get a movie, do some tasks for work and just relax.

Honestly...I think I miss community. I can't think of anyone that Anna and I can call at a moments notice and just go over and watch a game or hang out and drink a beer with. I can't wait for my buddy Kris to move to Newberg.

Coach Training Camp 08: 4H...err. 5H Model.

E3=D2

Education + Exploration + Experience = Delivering Dynamic Change



We're nestled at the Inn of the 7th Mountain just outside of Bend with all of our coaches and their wives this week learning and growing together! It's been incredible. I will post more later but I already engaged with my good friend GaryO on some third person teaching on Relational Health.



I seem to be running into "signs" and "billboards" reminding me that I need to build my relational health. One way to do this is to remember the 4H system of engagement.

Whenever you meet someone try to get through these 4H's in the first conversation as a means to engage them, to activate your own listening and to find common ground.

• H - History; ask them about their history
• H - Hobbies; ask them what they like to do, what are their passions
• H - Home; find out about their home life, kids, spouse
• H - Hopes; what do they dream to do or become; and I would add
• H - Help; how can you serve them, is there something you can do to encourage or add value to them as an action?

So as I wrote that I guess I changed it to 5H's.

I think one of my biggest challenges as I blog is that I live what I am writing. Even last night, I was on a shuttle talking with the driver of the van and we were discussing life but I left that conversation without going through this process and the most powerful part are the bottom 2. If I can get to someone's hopes and find a way to serve them, I am creating a jump point for talking about the Lord and sharing with them my hope - Christ. I commit that I will make these things a part of my own life toolbox so that I will live what I am writing.

Control

My lovely wife just gave me a wonderful reminder of the word above.

I had a great and fantastic devotion this morning. I spent the past 20 minutes writing out a beautiful and challenging blog and then somehow deleted it, instead of posting it.

So as I sat here at my computer angry, she came in and said, "look, something you don't have control over..."

So there you have it. My greatest lesson today. You who read this will not get to experience what I thought were really good words but instead can laugh as you sit back and see God working in my life.

Have a wonderful day.

All In

If you play any poker nowadays you've certainly heard the expression "All In." It's a gutsy move but one that is necessary by players to replenish their chips, take down other players and generally wreak havoc on other players' psyche.

I was thinking about that expression today when I was reading 1 Peter. Been stale in my walk the past couple weeks, wrestling through faith and hope and trust. I began to realize that I'm holding all my chips back. I'm in the game but not really playing. I only play out a hand when I'm sure I've got the cards and therefore I never really go or do anything. Metaphorically this works so hang with me on this...

"Set your hope fully..."

This is what sticks with me today. I need to fully enter the game, play with all my might, not hold anything back. Put my whole weight into it, jump in with both feet.

This past week Anna and I went on a 40 mile backpack trip down the Wild and Scenic Rogue River. It was incredible. About 35 miles in there is a creek called Tate Creek. If you stop and hike about 1/4 mile up the creek you come to a 25 foot natural rock slide into a deep pool of water. You can sit down in the slide and the water pushes you down and off the edge into the pool. Anna couldn't go up because she had some blisters so I ran up to take it all in. As I stood at the top of the fall I decided this might not be the smartest thing to do. I was 5-10 miles from help, my wife's feet were in bad shape and she wouldn't even be able to hear me if i got hurt. I am having some minor problems in a joint in my back and then of course there is the broken tailbone from 5-6 years ago. All this starts going through my head and I decide I'd better not do this...that is until i accidenatly dropped the camera down the slide into the pool below.

It took me all of 10 seconds to decide to jump. It was awesome! I found the camera by the way. The point of all this is that for me to jump, I had to have something that took me out of thinking about all the why not's into the action forward.

Today - that is my focus. Forward momentum along this path of jumping when I'd rather look, pushing all my chips in more frequently and keeping my eyes on the Lord. After all, nobody knew better what happens to you when you don't set your hope fully on the Lord.

I gotta get out of the boat.

Camp Day 1 on the Rogue

TAWG

Getting back into the swing of things after a vacation is always hard. At least for me. I come back refreshed but almost always thinking about wanting to do something slightly different. This trip was incredible and I don't have the time to blog all my experiences or things learned right now. Today's post is simply to share what I am experiencing with my God as I spend some alone time with him this morning.



God wants me to trust him, even when I don't want to. It's obedience and discipline. That's what I'm learning. Still. He wants me to trust him out of a love relationship, not just becuase I feel like it or am compelled because of rules and regulations. I may not want to, that's different, that's the point of growth, but the relationship, I obey, I trust because he is my God, my loving Father and I know it!

This has to be one of the hardest things ever. It affects how I listen to him as well. If I trust him, then I find I want to listen, if I don't then what's the point? What I'm up against here is that my faith has been shaken over the past several months and I'm beginning to falter. I have the same ups and downs as any believer would probably say they do. It's just right now, I am in the down swing, I don't like it, don't want to be in it and am struggling to get out of it. My head knows that I can trust Christ for everything, and in everything - my LIFE is his for cryin out loud, my heart however, the emotional side, the feeling side, is not so sure.

Proverbs 3:4-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."

Here's my commitment today. I will apply this verse to everything. Every situation, every thought, every questionI have about life or work or faith, I will bring this verse to bear upon.

Fitness

I'm frustrated today. Not that this is of mind bending importance but I'm having crazy hip pain, it's constant, I can't make it stop and i've been overly irritable and moody.

Gotta let my roots go deep and not be so shifty. Fact is, God has as much control over this small issue of mine as he does everything else - TOTAL control. Why is trusting him so hard? I mean, it's easy to trust Him for salvation but when it comes to the little things, it's harder. I want to have control, I want to fix it.

The fitness part of this comes in with the fact that I'm becoming obsessed with it. I enjoy being fit. I love working out and being active but it's hard to balance and it kind of takes over my head. I found out today that my max heart rate is lower than what I've assumed it was for the past 10 years and although it wasn't a scientific test, it still pissed me off. The flip side of that is of course that now I can be better about what zones I'm training in and how I'm doing with my fitness levels so that I can increase my LT (lactate threshold) and build more endurance. I think I'm just tired too. I want to take a break.