What dream have you been holding onto for five, ten, twenty years? How many steps have you taken toward that goal? 

If your answer is “none”, I’d like to suggest that it’s possible you don’t want what you think you want. 

Growing up, my family talked a lot about camping. We purchased the tent, sleeping bags, and a host of other tools. To my recollection, we went camping a total of two times. We had one bad experience with a heavy rain and we never went back. 

I remember hearing about how amazing camping would be. But we never tried it again. Ultimately, we held an affection for the idea of camping, but not the reality. 

How many times in life is the dream sweeter than the reality? I guess that depends on how you dream. 

Every single vacation, birthday, and special event I’ve ever attended was somehow less than what I imagined it would be. The idea of a party looks perfect in my imagination. The lighting is perfect, the music is on point, and everyone is in a good mood the whole time. But when does that ever happen in real life? 

I don’t want to beat you down. This is a challenge to reexamine your dreams. Whatever dream you’ve been holding onto but not acting on, ask yourself whether it’s really something you want to do, or if it’s something you want to imagine. Is 

Being a writer isn’t about having hundreds of adoring fans lining up to get a signed copy of your latest bestseller. If that’s your daydream, that could explain why you’ve never written more than two chapters. 

The work of being a writer, a painter, a sculptor, a coder, an architect, a public speaker requires exponentially more day-to-day grind than anyone dreams about. We tend to dream about receiving the accolades of having completed something. But how often do we dream about doing the hard work every single day to get there? 

It’s good to know what you really want. You’ll know by what you’re willing to do.

It’s one of those topics that divides a room. There’s always at least three groups in the room. 

Group 1 believes that a life always focused on attaining something in the future is a life spent never enjoying the present. Group 2 believes that a life always focused on the present sacrifices the future. Group 3 believes that life is a disappointment and will continue to be so no matter what. 

Should you be hungry or satisfied?

The correct answer is: “it depends”. 

It depends on your reasons. Not the ones you tell yourself, because we’re experts at lying to ourselves. But the REAL reasons. 

Are you satisfied because you’re sucking the marrow from the bone of life? Or are you satisfied because you’re afraid to risk anymore and fail? 

Are you hungry because you have so much more potential to create and build and make the world a better place? Or are you hungry because you don’t fully appreciate the people and things you already have?

Do you believe life is destined to suck because it’s impossible to turn out any other way? Or do you believe life sucks because you believe it and won’t change your choices because of that belief?

Which one are you?

I don’t have the energy to spell out a scenario that might apply to you. What you need to know is that you’re hurting yourself and your future when you hold onto resentment. 

It’s a poison. It feels justified. Why should he or she get off Scott free? Where’s the justice? How is that fair? So you hold onto the dark, bitter poison in hopes that your betrayer will experience the same level of pain they caused you. 

But you are sabotaging yourself. You can never, and I mean NEVER, live a good life full of joy and contentment if you are holding onto resentment. It guides your life. It influences your decisions. It prevents you from being carefree and at peace. 

Do yourself a favor. Forgive and let it go. Not because they deserve it. Because you deserve to be free of the poison.

This is the last day my youngest son will be six years old. He’s growing up and I love the person he already is. 

What a treasure to us both. Each child is unique and special. What set him apart early was how openly and easily he folded into receiving affection from both parents. He receives it and doesn’t question it. 

I wish I’d been more like that, don’t you? 

Everything in life is brighter, richer, and more bearable when you know that you know that you know you are loved and cherished. 

Things will go wrong. They always do. But when someone is in your corner who sees a value in you that cannot be replaced, you have already won at life.

No one likes suffering. I hate it. And yet I know that in suffering I have learned love and compassion to a greater degree than in any other way. 

It is so easy and automatic to pray selfish prayers. It is so easy to assume our agenda is God’s agenda. 

I grew up in a church where churchy phrases were tossed around rather cheaply. One that I heard enough but never connected to was the “sacrifice of praise.” 

Sacrifice sounds pretty much terrible any time. Marry that to praise, which is a selfless act of declaring someone else is amazing and not ourselves, and you get a pretty bizarre cocktail. 

Bill Johnson finally spelled it out for me in a way I could understand. God has no actual needs, and everything I own already belonged to Him first. So what do you give the One who already has everything?

Praise, when it costs you. Have you ever been in a situation where things looked really bad, and you decided to vocally celebrate and praise God even though you saw no solution? 

To anyone else, you’d look like a fool. People suffering alongside you will resent you. They will mock what they can only assume is either foolishness or madness. 

You will be alone. You will not come out of it unscathed. And in this sacrifice of your dignity and reputation, you will have laid before His feet the only precious gift you really have to offer. And it will be a sweet smelling perfume to Him. 

I’ve started more than a hundred articles that never saw the light of day. Sound extreme? 

It is. And yet, it’s completely reasonable. As I’ve aged, I see the world differently. I see my role in this world much differently. And I can’t justify mouthing off at 43 like I did at 33. 

Everything has a cost. For every action there is the equal and opposite reaction. 

I wish I was like Gary Vaynerchuk, publishing dozens of pieces of content each day. But the reality is that I don’t have permission to express myself so liberally. 

Permission from who? Myself, perhaps. Maybe God. Likely both. There’s an internal check that stops me from completing most articles I begin. 

Either Time or branding. As I get further into an article, I get a clearer sense of how deep and how broad I’d need to go to do the topic justice. Most often I can’t justify the time needed to complete the thought. 

Or it’s a matter of branding. We are what we say, and sometimes the blog posts and tweets that bubble to the surface are the most superficial or hair trigger reactions. 

The truly deep and meaningful systems of thought should be reserved for something less casual or spontaneous than a blog post. Like a book. 

Have you ever gone through a period in your life where you felt that the previous periods of verbosity were signs of youth and impulse and were not to be continued?

Check. And check. Then you’re on the same wave I’m surfing right now. 

All good things have boundaries. 

I’ve remained silent on issues related to COVID-19 for a while now because I feel the need to be intellectually honest enough to admit when the jury’s still out – when conflicting scientific sources surface regularly. 

I’m taking the precautions that I feel are wise for my family at this time. It would be arrogant of me to tell you what to think or believe. I am most concerned with how we are treating each other on these issues. 

It hurts my heart to see people shaming and accusing and belittling each other – emotions raging. I wish you well. If you disagree with me, I wish you well. And if, perhaps, we disagree, we may one day discuss it civilly. But if we do, we will discuss the issues, and not assault one another’s character. 

If today there are 652 opportunities to choose between a loving or unloving response, then there are thousands of variations of you in the potential real time present moment universe. May we all choose carefully. 

I hope we each give our best to be the best version of ourselves possible today. Because in the end, even if you believed or chose something that bothers me to the core of my being, you are an amazingly precious and important person. 

May you be seen, and your worth recognized. May your heart be heard. May you find companions who weep with you when you weep and celebrate with you when you celebrate. And may you find peace.

There are times when you need to speak up. There are times when you need to remain silent. I am not going to tell you which is which. But we each need to grow in discernment to recognize the times and the seasons of our lives. 

All you have to do is reread the parable of the sower, and consider that the types of surfaces that the seed falls upon are equatable to conditions of the human heart (emotional receptivity and response). 

If seed = message, then the message received in your heart and mind can either be robbed by fear, choked out by distractions, rooted in shallow soil, or go deep and eventually bear fruit. 

The Benefits of Silence

Silence provides the opportunity to take in the seed of the information and let it go down deep into safety. 

I consistently find that any idea I’ve had or lesson I’ve learned that I share too quickly disappears and yields no benefits in my life. It’s the ideas and thoughts that I meditate on, pray about, and research about that eventually benefit my life in a real way. 

But silence is a choice. 

With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat offering real-time opportunities to share our opinions and ideas, it takes a concerted effort to observe a period of silence and restraint. 

With great effort, we can choose moment by moment to refrain from casting our insights too casually and too quickly into the massive ocean of ideas always being shared online. 

It’s painful to not share ideas when you are desperate for recognition or respect. But true recognition and respect grow out of ideas converted into action and lived out, not in words that represent concepts that disappear once spoken. 

But You Can Be Silent Too Long

The equal and opposite side of oversharing is developing an unhealthy practice of silence. If we choose silence regardless of the situation, we get comfortable with having no one rebuke or mock or humiliate us. “Incognito” feels like a safe place to be. 

When we say nothing, we are never wrong. And in fact, the cliché tells us that when we are silent, people only wonder if we are fools. When we open our mouths to speak we remove all doubt. 

So there are legitimate reasons to stay silent. Aim small, miss small, and all that. 

But too many years of too much silence and you have a lifetime of no effect. You as a human being were endowed with creative abilities for the purpose of honoring God and loving your neighbor. And if you hold an insight that the world needs for too long, you rob the world of the chance to improve. 

Which Person Are You? 

So it’s time for self-evaluation. Are you the person remaining silent for the purpose of nurturing and developing, or are you the person hiding and avoiding? Same action, but different outcome. 

May we all examine ourselves and allow Holy Spirit to examine us with open hearts willing to be shown what is true.

I saw a post on Facebook today from a white woman who has been very vocally in favor of the All Black Lives Matter movement. And in of itself, that would be great. But in the process of being pro black American, she’s also just being mean, harsh, and critical of people who don’t respond the way she does. 

Back to her post. After noting that some of her old friends had unfollowed her, she said,

I realized that the only reason they had to block me right now is due to my vocal expression against racism, against hate crimes, against prejudice towards any marginalized community. So I guess in the end, it’s not as much a loss as setting me free from those who are not fighting the same fight I fight.

It’s true that your old friends aren’t fighting the same fight you are fighting. Not because they are cowards. Because they are not fighting their own friends. If the past month of her social media posts had been kind, empathetic, and supportive, I’d support her stance and her analysis of why she’s being unfollowed. Instead, her posts have been aggressive, harsh, critical, and vulgar. 

So to the normally wonderful white lady who has championed Black Lives Matter in a disrespectful tone, the people unfollowing you aren’t racist or unwilling to work to disarm and extinguish racism. They are unfollowing you because you’ve behaved rudely. And people don’t want to be ordered around or shamed into action by the snap judgments of a white lady on the internet. 

We have to take a stand against racism in all its forms. Absolutely. But you’ll never convert people to a new way of thinking by shouting or demanding. 

People need to be loved and accepted and nurtured into change. Taking God as our example, it is His kindness that leads us to repentance.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe we shouldn’t be sharing our thoughts and feelings and experiences online?

What if we were never meant to be known as a dissociated thought making being? What if voice and sound and smell and sight and presence were all intended to be included in the package of “knowing”?

I don’t know about you, but I find it so much easier to share my thoughts as a disembodied font on your screen. You encounter the idea without annoyance caused by my hairstyle or tone of voice or aftershave. Those components, while they tell you something about me, distract from the core of what I want you to hear. I am the biggest distraction. As are you.

But who’s to say whether this safer, palatable version is really multi-dimensional enough for us to know each other. 

Perhaps we are fooling ourselves into believing that this format means anything more than scribbles on a page.