A Beach Trip, And Fighting The Urge To Imitate Others

Image by Oatsy40

Kevin sat alone at the back of the bus, watching.

It was a long ride to the beach, and you know what high schoolers do when they get bored on a bus ride -- they find ways to make things less boring! Another guy, we'll call him Jeff, was capitalizing on this. He commanded the attention of the entire bus, particularly the girls, with his quick wit and seemingly endless supply of cheesy jokes. Sometimes, cheesy jokes are the best jokes.

Kevin, however, didn't seem as amused as the rest of them. He watched the charade from the backseat with half a smirk and a hint of sadness.

When we arrived at the beach that night, I got a chance to have a little 1 on 1 time with my friend Kevin (not his real name). As we walked along the powdery, moonlit shoreline, I asked him what was up. The first words out of his mouth were "Sometimes I feel like I should be different."

Those words cut straight to the core of me. I knew exactly what he meant.

You see, I was one of those guys in high school who really wanted to be funny, but didn't quite know how to be yet. It's an attractive thing, the ability to make people laugh. It gives you the security of having visible proof that people aren't having a terrible time when they're around you. That's as good as gold when you're in high school. I grew to depend on it. But I didn't know how Tim Branch was funny; I just knew how other people were funny. And so I imitated the humor of my friends.

Ever seen someone try to imitate a different person's humor before? Not as good as the real thing, normally. Sometimes, it's even painful to watch.

I have imitated so hard all my life in hopes of winning approval and affection from people. Even down to my laugh, or my walk. The level of self consciousness I would feel as I would walk through a parking lot in high school, checking my form in the vague reflections of car windows, still makes me sad. But welcome to my adolescent life. I finally thought one day in my early twenties, "How would I walk if I wasn't looking at myself through everyone else's eyes ALL THE TIME?" I would walk however I felt like. That's the best way for me to walk.

How would Tim Branch act if he wasn't always looking at himself through the eyes of the people whose affirmation he longs for? 

Maybe that's how I should act. Maybe there's power and freedom in that.

We walked a while, me and Kevin. We walked along in the darkness, talking about life and people and purpose. I heard all his stories of longing to be the one up in front of the bus, garnering all the attention from all the pretty girls. I told him all mine.

Then we talked about something different. We discussed what it would be like if God had something better for each of us than cheap imitation. I told him about the places where God had shown me my real self, my best self, and how different it was from the people I had imitated in high school and college. And as we talked, he and I both began to name off some of the qualities of his true self.

That information frees people.

As Kevin began to see the ways he was different from Jeff as good things, he finally stopped disowning the gifts God gave him to influence and teach people. This kid may not have been a stand up comedian, but he was brilliant. And there was power in his Original Design -- power he largely hadn't used.

If we were to live truly and freely out of our own gifts, we'd become a real problem to the enemy. That's why his main goal is to keep us from believing they have any worth. The enemy shuts down our gifts by making us think they're not gifts. He makes us think we need to be someone else instead -- and thereby steals away our world-changing power through fear. Do you really think people would like the way you normally are? Be more like this person... at least you KNOW that's safe!

It doesn't feel safe to be "us" because we haven't seen anyone else do it before. It's untested because it's original. But in my experience, it's the only way to experience true life. And as a side note, I've never seen someone truly living out of their original design that wasn't loved and valued by their community.

In this world, there are personality imitators, and there are personality trailblazers.

Which one will you be?

What My Best Friend's Wedding Taught Me About God

These are the Matthews. They can beat you in doubles foosball.

Meet Justin and Mackenzie Matthews.

They're quite a dynamic duo.

I had the pleasure of living with Justin (AKA "J-Matt") for around four years before he moved to Colorado to pursue his lady-friend, to whom he then popped the question shortly thereafter.

Some of the highlights of my time living with J-Matt included him driving down the UT pedestrian walkway, pulling his shirt off during group pictures, and running from UTPD on foot.

Sorry, but I can't write all of our adventures down. The internet wouldn't be able to handle it.

I'm sure you understand.

Around a year and a half ago, my buddy Justin married his longtime sweetheart, Mackenzie. I got to see it all unfold, from start to wedding. I love them both to death. They're a power couple, if ever you saw one.

It's definitely been a little while since the wedding, but there are some things you just don't forget. Like that time I cried at the rehearsal dinner while speaking, and, if my memory serves me right, more than most of the girls did. Where did that come from? I'm normally a steel fortress. Or that time when our friend Tyler Underwood went krump krazy in the middle of the dance floor. I've seen krumping before, but this was rage dancing to a degree one only reads about in the storybooks.

The thing that's burned most into my memory, however, happened during the wedding.

I was given the honor and pleasure of being one of Justin's groomsmen. If you've never done this before, it meant I was behind Justin the whole time, giving me a great view of Mackenzie's face throughout the whole ceremony. (Nothing weird, Justin...)

After she walked down the aisle and the pastor had said a few words, it was time for the marriage vows. To be honest, I don't remember exactly what he said. What I do remember, though, was Mackenzie's face.

As the pastor began to read the vows prepared for Justin, she looked into his eyes and held his hands. With each line the pastor read, Mackenzie's gaze was communicating something very clearly: I know someone else is saying these words, but these are my words. This is how I feel about you. Don't miss this. These are my words for you today.

Something happened in me when I saw this. I felt myself tear up again. My heartstrings were being tugged again. What in the world was going on with me? Was I going to be the crier of the wedding party for the second day in a row?

Then I realized what was happening.

I had just seen a picture of what it's like for God to speak to me through a friend, a song, a movie, or a verse of scripture.

Of course that's why I teared up! Because I got a glimpse of something I was made for.

My personal times with God can often feel so impersonal, so transactional. I can read something like Zephaniah 3:17, which says, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing," and log it away as fact without letting it be God's personal words in that moment, a renewal of his wedding vows. I think often God wants to be more intimate than I let him. But I want to learn to always say yes to the gaze that invites me to accept his advances through whatever avenue he's choosing to speak.

When I feel like God's speaking through a person or a verse or whatever way he chooses, I see that picture from the Matthews' wedding again. I see God, smiling at me with the same expression Mackenzie gave Justin during her wedding vows, saying, "These are my words for you. I know someone else is saying these words to you, but they're my words."

"I know you're reading these words, but they're my words to you. Look into my eyes. Don't miss this. This is how I feel about you."

My best friend's wedding taught me something special about God. It gave me an awesome picture of the way God speaks to me. When I read or hear his words, I have a better picture of what expression might just be on his face.

Could it be that he looks at you the same way, too?

How I Learned To Consistently Be Myself

"Just be yourself!"

Yeah, that's easier said than done.

You'd think it would be easy, right? I mean, seeing as how you ARE yourself and everything. It would really make sense, wouldn't it? But somehow, it's just hard for some people. And when I say some people, I obviously mean me...

Ever thought about why it's so hard, though?

We constantly feel the pull to be more like other people. As we go through life, we are thrust into situations where someone we know is telling a joke and a pretty girl's laughing, or a confident girl is being asked out on the street by three different guys in a night. Normally, we feel something as we stand on the sidelines. If that feeling had words, it would be this.

Not enough.

Why is that not happening to me? Why don't I get attention from those guys or those girls? What do I have to do to get it? Who do I have to be to get it?

Everyone has felt "less than" in their lives. It's one of the most common ways the enemy undermines our original design, the way God intended us to be. You're not as funny as him. You're not as pretty as her. Who you are is not enough. 

Eventually, we wear it around like a name tag.

Hello, My name is "Not enough."

Most of us have ended up believing this about ourselves in some form or fashion. And do you know what it does? It forces us into imitation. It causes us to be someone we're not. It makes us forsake our own gifts, our own demeanor, and our own sense of identity in favor of what we have deemed to be "better."

But what if we weren't meant to just be imitators? What if the way we normally are is valuable?

It's time to rip that name tag off.

The truth is, God enjoys the way he made us. He wants us to be the most "ourselves" that we can be. Our gifts are undermined by a need to be someone else, because it stops us from cultivating them. And diversity is necessary in building the Kingdom. Do we really think God is looking at some of us, thinking, "Man, I really wish I had made more of this guy and less of that guy"?

Of course not.

So that must mean he likes the way he made us, doesn't it? It must mean he wants us to be exactly the way he designed us, doesn't it?

Again, it's easier said than done. When I was a Young Life leader, I struggled with being myself. I would look at the ways my fellow leaders would get positive reactions from high school kids and try to imitate them. Because I had only seen it done a certain way, I was afraid to do it my way.

Many personality types are hesitant to do the things nobody else has done before.

But here's what I had to do. Instead of asking myself, "What would my leader have done in this situation," I had to start asking myself, "What would Tim Branch as a leader do in this situation?"

Maybe Tim's leader would have told a funny joke or made up a fun game in this situation, but Tim the leader would probably just have made some small talk. Is that wrong? Is it wrong for me to be unlike any leader I've personally seen before?

Do I need to answer that question?

I began to notice I preferred to do different things than my leaders did. And as I began to act more like "normal me" would, I stopped feeling like such a fake. Also, the high schoolers that were actually like me began to gravitate towards me. And I began to have genuine friendship with them.

When we feel ourselves buckling under the weight of fear and channelling our inner (Insert cool person here), let's take note of it. Did that need to happen? What might I have done if I was brave enough to be myself right there? What's the difference, and what feels like life? It's not worth it to sell your true self for some cheap laughs or attention. Trust me. Been there, done that.

It's definitely a skill to be yourself in this world. It takes guts. But if you won't be yourself, then the world will never see the unique expression of God's heart that you are. And that would be sad. Don't make me sad. Be yourself.


Romans 11:4-5 - "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

A Little Guide To Listening For God's Voice

Photo by Ky Olsen

"She gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention." - Harry Dunne, "Dumb and Dumber"

Listening is hard.

It's especially hard when you have a supreme case of ADD, like me.

In college, the amount of time I spent in class listening was nowhere near the amount of time I spent in class daydreaming about nonsense. I couldn't help it. Nonsense is just so interesting.

"What? Did you say something important about the test? Oh, sorry—I was just thinking about how funny the word 'scantron' is."

Hmm, that's weird. Where do I turn in my test?

Welcome to my life.

Honestly, ADD has given me a great picture of what it's often like trying to listen for God's voice. Sometimes it's not so easy. Sometimes it's really difficult to distinguish his voice from all the other voices. Sometimes we can listen for a long time and not feel like we heard anything.

I wrote a post a couple weeks ago about how God speaks and he wants us to listen to him (here). I believe two-way dialogue is the way to grow in any relationship—including one with God. It's not a common thing that people talk about, because it seems scary, subjective, and full of potential questions. How do we navigate through the process of listening for His voice, when it seems so strange and difficult sometimes? I want to go through some questions I've had answered for myself, and hopefully it will be beneficial. Here's what I've got...

Where do you hear it?

I'm of the tribe that believes God can speak through anything: friends, songs on the radio, movies, dreams, thoughts... you name it, he's probably spoken through it. The most concrete words we have from him are in scripture, though, which is why it's called the Word of God. If God speaks through anything else, it's going to line up with scripture.

Sometimes a verse in the Bible will do something to us. It will stand out for some reason. The cheesier among us may or may not call it a "Holy Spirit highlighter." When this happens, take note of what's going on inside you. Why is that happening? What might you be connecting to in that passage, and why? What might God want you to know today? Ask him—after all, it's a two way dialogue!

What does it sound like?

Well, there are some certain qualities that set God's voice apart from the voice of the enemy. I really like this list, because it shows the differences between the character of the two messages.

God's Voice:                      Satan's Voice:

stills you                            rushes you

leads you                           pushes you

reassures you                    frightens you

enlightens you                  confuses you

encourages you                discourages you

comforts you                    worries you

calms you                        obsesses you

convicts you                    condemns you

Try these out to discern the origin of a message or thought or accusation.

What if it's not God?

...But what if it IS God? Asking this question changes everything for me. It changes me from "I guess I won't listen to it" to "Holy cow, I should go write this down and pray about it!" I think we are often too quick to throw out his voice in our thoughts, because we're scared we're going to get it wrong. But what if throwing it out is just as dangerous as "getting it wrong"?

I happen to think God really enjoys it when we try to listen for his voice, even if we feel like we "got it wrong" or come away empty-handed. Our goal is simply to glorify God with our lives. And giving him our undivided attention for a little while, even if we don't come away with a life-changing epiphany, is a really cool way to do that.

I don't have to be perfect at it. It's okay that sometimes I space out when I'm trying to listen, because I'm allowed to mess up. It's like learning to walk with your parents cheering you on. A good bit of advice I got a long time ago was when in doubt, just ask! Is that you, God? It's surprisingly effective...

I'll leave you with an intriguing and almost-scandalous little quote by guy named Brad Jersak: "God's voice is often the voice we hear right after we ask him a question and right before we start trying to reason it away."


Job 33:14 - "For God does speak—now in one way, now in another—though man does not perceive it."

John 10:2-5 - "The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice."