What Causes Leader Territorialism?

YL Leader Survival Guide, Chapter 4

Here's a healthy thing to consider: have you ever gotten confused about who actually needs who in your relationships with your high school friends?

A while ago, I had a leader from a church tell me a peculiar story. She went to visit some of her high school friends in the lunch room. She was overjoyed to be met with excitement and hugs from the girls she knew. Then one of the girls said, "Hey, do you know our Young Life leader?"

"No, I don't, hey, it's good to meet you!"

"Oh, hey," the leader replied, then gave her the why are you talking to my girls look, and walked off.

The high school girls were a little bit confused. "Did you see that? What was that all about?" they asked the church leader.

"Ehh... I'm not sure," she replied. She felt a little strange and sad, like some sort of competition had just been started, where just seconds ago she was elated about the idea of a new counterpart in ministry. She wanted a ministry partner, and instead got a turf war.

What causes us to say "Get off my turf!" as opposed to "Yes! Reinforcements!" in these situations?

While there are definitely healthy reasons to spread out, I think our own neediness far too often plays a big role in saying the former.

Young Life leaders (and other student ministry leaders) are some of the bravest people on the planet in my mind. They charge into cafeterias, student sections of the bleachers, and other minimally attended sporting events, laying their pride on the line at every juncture necessary to weasel their way into the seemingly closed systems of high school friend groups.

But when a person, no matter how strong, puts his/her heart on the line like that to give his/her friends a chance to hear about Jesus, the sad truth is that there are simply a lot of ways insecurity can creep in. Self conscious thoughts about how funny we are(n't), how hard it is for us to carry a lunch room conversation, and whether we are good enough to even be doing this in the first place begin to plague our time around our high school friends. We start looking at other leaders, wishing we were like them. We compound our problems by lusting after other leaders' "success stories" and trying to find a way to become more like them.

All too often, these insecurities will cause something strange to occur. We start using our high school friends as a measuring stick for our worth. We let interactions with high schoolers determine how cool/funny/interesting/worthy we think we are in life (Didn't we get enough of this in high school? We've already paid our dues, friends...).We develop this desire to be desired, this need to be needed, this want to be wanted around. And when we need that, we become as needy of feeling important to our Young Life kids as they are of our leadership and guidance. This often leads to leader territorialism.

But let's just call it what it really is: a form of codependency. 

When we have the need to feel needed by the people we minister to, it often leads to leader codependency. We find a group that satisfies both our need of personal approval and our need to feel successful (due to our investment), and we just latch onto it as an energy source. We become understandably hostile when our security blanket of feeling important is in danger of being stripped away by someone else. "They're going to take my place!"

Here's something embarrassing: Leader codependency is also why some of the leaders I knew, including me at one point, refused to go after anyone but the popular kids. Because it was like a second chance to be popular in high school. It was another way way we could bolster our insecurities about our deep selves by having other people endorse us by wanting to be around us. It's one thing to pursue a kid because you connect with them. But I distinctly remember finding high schoolers similar to the people I wish thought I was cool in high school and trying to make them think I was cool as a Young Life leader. Dang, that's a hard one to admit to the public. And thankfully, it was just a phase. the healing truth came about eventually...

What do we do about it, though?

Check your security blanket. Is it something it was never meant to be? If God sent someone to take your place, would you lose the only thing that makes you feel worth anything? We weren't made to be fueled by the approval of others. It's never satisfied us in the past and it won't satisfy us now. I know from experience that when I let the enemy redefine success as "whether I'm beloved enough by those I minister to," my entire ministry not only becomes solely about me, it becomes a desperate grasp for approval that just doesn't fill me like it advertises it will. It is unsurprisingly a recipe for ineffective ministry... A healthy leader is able to give without needing from high schoolers.

Fill yourself with God. He dispels lies and frees us to be truly us, at our best. Spend time with Him frequently (this doesn't have to look a certain way), and allow praying and listening to Him to be your highest priority. Higher than contact work. Higher than your need to be needed by people, which comes from a beautiful place deep within us of wanting to be significant, but it's just twisted up a little bit. You'll be pleasantly surprised to find that everything you need for your deep self is part of God's personality!


Know the truth about yourself. You are valuable to God. He celebrates you at all times, and you were made to be filled by His celebration instead of the celebration of people. If you don't know why He celebrates you, figure out why, because it's true. Whether your high school friends think you're the coolest person on the planet, or whether they would rather hang out with the principal than with you, your worth just doesn't come from last week's interaction with 16 year olds. They have enough insecurities on their own plate to explain pretty much anything they do as a way to make themselves feel better instead of trying to bring you down because they think you suck. And even if they do think you suck... Why do they get to decide that? Your worth is in the fact that you were made in God's image (Genesis 1:26). How can you deny your worth when you can go home, look in the mirror and squint, and see a completely unique expression, albeit a broken expression, of the God of the universe?

For you new leaders that may be thinking, "I knew it was fine for me to just hang out with my team leader's seniors! Yayyyyy now I don't have to meet new people," don't get ahead of yourself just yet. There are two sides to this coin. The unhealthy territorialism is a need to be needed, but the healthy territorialism is a response to Matthew 9:37: "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." If you don't know how rare it is for high schoolers to have any sort of mentor in their lives telling them about what's really important, what is healthy, or anything about Jesus, then let me tell you.

It's really, really, really rare. Painfully rare.

There are too many kids that don't have a solid role model in life for four different leaders to pursue the same kid. We as YL leaders spread out for the sake of the broken world; they need us to spread out. That doesn't mean four leaders can't be friends with the same kid... just because someone already has a friend doesn't mean they don't need another friend. But just remember... "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."

So spread out! But above all, listen to God. Allow chunks of time in your day to listen to God. If your main goal is to do exactly what God tells you, you'll be sitting pretty. You won't have to worry about whether you're in the right or wrong place.  Let your need to feel successful, a healthy need, be satisfied by the real success: you followed God's call. Let yourself be celebrated by God for this success, and be filled by that celebration!



Galatians 1:10 - "For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."


Luke 10:2-3 - "He told them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves."

Prayer Is More Necessary Than You Think

I'm going to go out on a limb right now.

I am going to commit to writing one post per week.

At least until I mess up... which given my previous level of consistency could be until... next week...

But I enjoy writing these a lot, and I think that I'm learning as I'm writing as well. Thanks for reading!

Without further ado...

YL Leader Survival Guide, Chapter 3

Prayer is the best chance we have at changing anything in this world.

Here's the problem though: we don't really always do it very often.

We've all felt what it's like to take kids to camp, tell them about Jesus, and then have those kids who just "committed their lives to Christ" pretty much run off and do the same stuff they always used to do. That is, if you've taken kids to camp, you've probably felt that. Even if you haven't, think about a time when you poured into a high schooler and then they just basically turned around and did the opposite of what you were hoping they'd do.

One of the enemy's most potent lies is making us feel like we are responsible for this happening, that we're failing our friends and failing God when our high school friends run wild and refuse salvation. It frequently leads us to thoughts like these: What have I done wrong? What can I do to fix this? How am I so terrible at this? Am I wasting God's time out here? How are other people having success and I'm not?

I want to be a voice that shouts the truth over all these lies. So listen up.

As we begin to take responsibility for the refusal of our friends to embrace the Gospel, we begin to try to fix the problem ourselves. We try harder, and harder, and harder to get them to club, and to get them to open up, and to hang out with them all the time. Those are all great, and I've seen God speak to high schoolers over and over through all those things... But without us knowing it, our priorities begin to shift. We begin to care more and more about whether our high school friends think we're cool, or open up to us, or want to hang out with us. The lie that we are responsible for saving people puts tons of undue weight on every little thing we do. And you know what? We just weren't made to shoulder that.

Here's the thing, guys: You can't save anyone. You can't make God's spirit move in the lives of a high schooler. You can perform exactly zero eternally significant things in high schoolers' lives without the movement of God.

This is a good thing. For real. If you've ever felt the weight of that responsibility, you know that it's not meant to rest on our shoulders. When God told you to be a YL leader, that responsibility wasn't in your job description. That's His job.

Lean in close, because I have a Young Life trade secret for you that will revolutionize the way you do ministry: Prayer is the best shot you have at bringing any lasting change to the high school friends you love. Not making sure they see you catch a football with one hand before club. Not being extra funny. And honestly, not even spending hours and hours per week hanging out with them is truly going to bring the fullness of the change you desire to see in their lives. Think about it: If the only one who can truly change hearts is God, and if The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:16), then our main strategy has to be intercession. Because through Jesus' blood, we are righteous before God.

Wanna go to bat for your friends? Do it through prayer. Lots of prayer.

In fact, I wouldn't put it past God to not bring our friends to salvation until we start praying. He has done weirder things than that...

What if our priority was prayer even over contact work? Is that even okay?

Here's something I know about God: He loves the quiet, the unknown, the heartfelt cries of His people that nobody hears but Him. Why does He love them so much? Because that's where the real work gets done. That's where the real heavy lifting happens in the building of the Kingdom of God. When God's people commit to prayer and start throwing their weight around, that's when stuff starts to happen.

I know that some people like to say, "What even is prayer? He's just going to do what he wants anyway if it's his will, so me asking for something isn't going to make a difference."

It just doesn't feel like it's making much difference sometimes. And we can't always see the difference. And we sure don't like not being able to see the difference, do we?

Here's the thing. That is the opposite of what the Bible says about prayer. We see all over scripture places where people asked God for things, and He changed his mind. Abraham talked God down to sparing Sodom and Gomorrah if there were 10 righteous people there. Which there weren't, but he was really just wanting Lot to be spared. And God brought Lot out of the city. Job's friends had to ask Job to pray for them before God would forgive them at the end of the book of Job. Moses talked God out of destroying his people when they turned away from him. Those are just a few examples of people asking for things in the Bible.

 "But what if they hadn't asked? He would have done the same thing anyway because it was his will."

There is really no such thing as "what if." There's one way that things have happened, and there's one way that things are going to happen. You can't say "what if they didn't ask," because they did ask. That was the story. The story is that they did ask, and because they asked He decided to do it. "what if" is a moot point. Therefore, ask, knowing that what you ask God for matters to him! We truly do influence things when we pray.

Here's the other thing: You need prayer for yourself. Badly. In order to make sure you are spiritually healthy, which as it turns out is mission critical when it comes to ministry, you need to be communicating back and forth with God. We were made to need to pray. That's why we are commanded to "pray without ceasing," because it's something our spirits need. My team leader enjoyed sharing this quote frequently with our team: "If you aren't being fed, then those who are feeding off you will eat you alive." So... stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

"Prayer is to our spiritual lives as breathing is to our physical lives. If you're not breathing, you're dead. If you're not praying..." - T. M. Moore


Young Life leaders, be free from self condemnation based on visible results! Commit yourselves to praying for your high school friends, your team, and everything else God puts on your heart, believing that God acts upon your prayers. Don't listen to the voices that say you aren't doing enough. If listening to God is your main priority, in Young Life or out of Young Life, your obedience should provide peace of mind. Care for yourself well by staying connected to the Father, so that you can be a more clear picture of Christ to those you minister to. Don't be fooled into thinking that you don't need to pray about your ministry frequently, because "Ministry without prayer is the highest form of arrogance." Don't be tricked into feeling like you must shoulder more responsibility than you need to... otherwise it gets really easy to start selling God to people instead of listening, obeying, saying what God puts on your heart to say, and then letting Him do the heavy lifting of the heart, which only He can do.





James 4:2 - You do not have because you do not ask God.

Hebrews 5:7 - During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

1 Timothy 2:1-4 - First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings, be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.


Jeremiah 33:3 - Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and hidden things you do not know.

Ephesians 3:20-21 - Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Diversity is Necessary

I mentioned last time that I wanted to compile a few hard-learned lessons into a survival guide; this is the second installment. 

The thing I want to write about is incredibly easy to forget, especially during all the highs and lows in the ministry field. But it's an incredibly important thing to keep open conversation about, so I'm going to break the ice and start writing about it. So get ready.

YL Leader Survival Guide, Chapter 2

Here's something you've no doubt heard before: Comparison is the thief of joy.

I would love to say that comparison's work stops at taking our joy. Unfortunately, this fun little phrase we use is the understatement of the century... ESPECIALLY for people in ministry like Young Life leaders. I wish it had stopped at stealing my joy. Comparison takes vibrant, green, growing ministry and turns it into rotten, dead wood filled with termites and other nasty little insects. It takes a beautifully diverse leader with the tools to connect with high schoolers no one else can, and turns him/her into an insecure mess, doubting the worth of his/her Original Design and trying to destroy or muffle his/her own unique song in order to instead become a cheap knockoff replica of someone else. 

I bought a pair of Beats by Dre (normally around $300) in China. They cost me $6. They looked similar until I held them, realized they were made of plastic instead of metal, and heard their $20 sound quality (I still came out on top. Thanks, China). I've noticed that when I try to be someone else, even though I'm dang good at imitation, I can only get about that close to the beauty of the real thing.

Out of all the strategies the Enemy employs against people in ministry, this particular tactic has to be the most terrifyingly effective out of any that I had the severe misfortune of experiencing first-hand.

Let me go ahead and show you a classic example of how this can play out as a YL leader, and you can decide for yourself if it sounds familiar.

You begin your Young Life tenure charging into the ministry field on your white stallion, pumped up both by God's call that you've obediently followed and the gratitude/celebration of your new ministry teammates. Everything is awesome; you're on top of the world.

You and the other new leader enter the high school for the first time with the same nerves as a UT freshman cornerback, straight out of high school, lining up to guard his first real opposing adult man receiver in front of 100,000 screaming Neyland Stadium fans. The older, more experienced leader you came with senses your anxiety and comforts you and your counterpart with some words of wisdom that he was told when he first entered the school. You and the other newbie pump each other up, pray a quick prayer together, and then launch off to start meeting people.

The bell rings and students flood out of the doors. As usual, the Young Life leaders move to intercept. You both meet about 60 people within the first 5 minutes, and in the flurry of mnemonic name memory devices and nervous bad jokes, you begin to notice something.

The endless waves of people you are meeting seem to be stopping to talk, laugh, and carry on with the other new leader significantly longer than they did with you. In fact, he already has a growing circle around him of people you wished had stopped to talk to you longer, because they were all really cool. After a while, the condemning deductions begin. He can talk better than you. He's more outgoing than you. They're all gravitating to him instead of you. Everyone's being polite to you, but they really just want to talk to the other new leader. He's got that something and you don't have it. And it all leads up to the climax, the end result, the sum of all the parts. Something's wrong with me. What's wrong with me? What do I lack?

This is the start of something super not fun...

From this point on its a downward spiral of trying to be more of someone else as much as you can every day, instead of trying to become more yourself every day. And this happens under the radar because we don't realize we're believing something untrue, and we DEFINITELY don't realize what the actual truth is. And here is the cornerstone lie that drives that motivation: Because of the way I am, I'm unable to bring Christ to these people in a meaningful way. I am failing, I'm not good at this, I'm not enough. My desire and efforts to help grow the Kingdom are in vain. If only I was like THAT, maybe I could actually make a difference and be worth anything on this ministry team. We get tricked into thinking we are failing both our teammates and those we are ministering to. And even worse, we get tricked into thinking we're failing God.

Here's the first of many, many problems with this way of thinking. When we think about ministry like this, we assume that there's an ideal person that everyone needs to be as much like as possible. In other words, we assume that in ministry (and in life... let's be honest, it bleeds into the rest of our lives) everyone falls along a 1-10 scale of how good you are.

I lived with that view of the world for a long time. But now that I have learned the things I've learned about God's Original Design for each person, that notion really just makes me want to go start setting things on fire (I have to hand it to arsonists; they seem to have a very effective way to vent their anger).

What about diversity? What about the body of Christ?

Everyone is most certainly NOT valued on a linear scale such as that. In fact, the reason why God doesn't want us to compare ourselves is because we don't even belong on the same scale. Instead of this completely inaccurate 1-10 scale, we need to compare people like this: that person is a painting, that person is a book, that person is a song, and that person is a movie. Nobody says "that painting's way better than that book," because they don't belong on the same scale.  And here's the best part: when you combine a movie and a song... both works of art benefit and become even better than they were before. That's how people are, and that's the beauty of the body of Christ. People are too different to sum up on such a linear scale, and we all know it deep down inside...

This is what I'm hoping to convey: Diversity is necessary. The stereotype Young Life leader isn't necessarily the "prototype" Young Life leader; the "prototype" Young Life leader is a person who is both called and willing to give themselves away to minister to high schoolers. Leaders come in all shapes, sizes, and types. Because that's how the kids come. You don't have to be like someone else, because if you do, you lose out on the attractiveness you have to kids like you who need you. Contorting yourself to fit into a cookie cutter dilutes your power to make a difference in the world, because it dilutes your Original Design. Be free to be yourself. If you feel the need to change, feel the need to change more into who you truly are, and grow into the unique skill set that lies latent within you. I guarantee you, your ministry team needs that skill set. That's how the body of Christ was made to work. If you believe everything in the Bible is true, you are literally required to believe that you don't suck.

Don't be afraid to be a trailblazer. Don't be afraid to be different from what a "normal leader" looks like. The best leaders are genuine leaders. Many of the most successful leaders I've ever seen were just normal people who were willing to get ridiculed for being goofy or weird, and simply kept coming back. And success doesn't mean campaigner's groups, and it doesn't mean high school popularity (when will we grow out of wanting it???). Success simply means obedience.

Romans 12:4-5: 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

1 Corinthians 12:17-26: 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Time is your best friend

So I'm starting a crazy new thing, in honor of beginning a crazy new season of life. 

As I was talking with my friend Tyler one day, we were discussing how we'd learned a ton since graduating about Jesus, and about ourselves and other people. We talked about our experiences in ministry through college, the different battles we each have had, and the growth we have seen since then. And then at some point, I realized, These things would have been really nice to know earlier when I was a Young Life leader... why not write these things out where people who actually ARE Young Life leaders can read about them and take what they want from it?

I don't know how many people who would read this are still Young Life leaders, but I wanted to write this anyway because I feel like the things I learned aren't just useful for me in a ministry setting... they're really important to me throughout my entire life. So every once and a while, I'm going to try to write a little something that I've learned about being involved in ministry, and I'm going to create (for myself, if no one else) a Young Life survival guide... which should include important advice such as how many times in a row you're allowed to sing Don't Stop Believin', whether to get the toe strap or not get the toe strap (yes, Chacos), and the best ways to fake like you're having fun while going down the water slide at fall camp in November.

In reality, it will include things I learned, places I fell down, lies that I believed about myself and God that hampered my ministry, and the ways He brought me out of them. But if everyone ends up also wanting a comprehensive guide for all that other stuff... who am I not to give the people what they want?

Alright. Serious mode engaged.

YL Leader Survival Guide, Chapter 1

It's really, really easy to get discouraged in ministry. We have this tendency to freak out when things aren't going well, and doom ourselves to remain where we are forever. But wherever you are in your ministry, whether you're getting the silent treatment from half the sophomore class, or whether you are being ridiculed at the lunch table twice a week, remember this: time is your best friend. For all the confusion it creates to think about a God that may exist outside of time, I have a theory that we really don't understand time as well as we think we do. People have an inconvenient habit of seeing the way the world is, and forgetting that it changes; that it's always changing.

When we have been through a lot of things with someone, we just become connected with that person. That person knows part of our past, enough of it to make us feel like they understand us and what we’ve been through. I look back at my best guy friends who’ve walked with me through the thick and thin of life, and I see that history in their eyes every time I look at them. We share something sturdy, something lasting that makes up the groundwork of meaningful friendships, something that doesn't allow it to be easily shaken. I look back at girls that I shared special experiences with, like special trips or special missions or special accomplished objectives or special hardships, with fondness. I see something in them too, something that creates a special connection... and that thing is an understanding of where I’ve been. Where we’ve been and what we’ve been through are the things that make us into who we are. So, when someone is with you through good times and hard times, you're going to feel like they know you. Not only that, but paired with an aura of safety (which is your responsibility to exude as a Young Life leader, or mentor, or even a parent), that person becomes both a safe haven to share deep thoughts with and a solid lifeline in times of severe hardship. And that, my friends, is something both special and uncommon in this world. All you have to do to be a good Young Life leader is to follow Jesus and be willing to give that away.

Here’s what I’m trying to say. For those of you who, like me, had a hard time seeing how you could possibly end up getting a high schooler to care even a tiny bit that you drove 30 minutes to come see them, take heart. Time is your best friend. It’s not as imperative as you think to earn cool points. Just grab onto something and hold on tight, and keep holding on for months, or even years. Because once you have continually offered a safe place to a hurting young person (which I promise you is rare in their lives), and you have walked with them through happy seasons and sad seasons, time just gels you together. You just find yourself in the place you hoped for, all of a sudden, without having to earn any favor or any cool points. And man, isn’t that a relief. I broke my back for some cool points. It mostly ended badly... I don't wanna talk about it.

Here is a small math equation that illustrates what I'm saying:

cool points <<<< quality time

those are "less than" signs, just to be absolutely clear.

You don't have to strive so hard for the affirmation of high schoolers to be effective in ministry. You just have to be with them (and be with God). It truly is a waiting game. Just keep showing up. You're normally guaranteed to be "that weird guy/girl that comes to lunch" for the first semester, or even year. But time has a way of normalizing things. You become normal, eventually, and when that happens you end up (by default sometimes) rooted into the lives of people you never thought would care that you even exist. So keep doing what you're doing, and don't worry if they're not responding well. A successful Young Life leader is simply a thick-skinned Young Life leader who doesn't give up despite multiple rejections. And who knows? Maybe through being rejected in ways you didn't even think possible, God wants to show you a little bit about how he pursues YOU. God has a way of using my ministry experiences to say, "Here's what's happening between you and Me."

If He's called you to ministry, failure only happens when you disobey. We can't change what happens when we follow the call. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. But God doesn't need us as much as we think He does. Our role in his plan is basically the same role as a kid whose dad boosts him up to dunk a basketball. All we have to do is go where we're called, and the rest is up to Him!



Ezekiel 2:4-8:  The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’5 And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious people—they will know that a prophet has been among them. 6 And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or be terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people. 7 You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. 8 But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious people; open your mouth and eat what I give you.”


Hebrews 12: 1-3: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Listening in the Silence

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a really short fuse when it comes to waiting on God to speak to me.

There's something about waiting that's just repulsive... I guess I wouldn't consider myself a waiter (not the kind that bring people their food, although I can't see myself being able to deal with rude people well enough to work that job either). Maybe it's because we're here in good old America and we don't have to wait for anything, so we just get used to having what we want when we want... But I've learned something about myself through times I've had to wait; I just can't stand waiting.

God brought me outside into my yard today to have some time with Him. I didn't know why... I just felt like that's where I was supposed to go. And when I feel things like that, I normally begin to churn out thousands of expectations for what that time should look like: "Oh man, it's probably going to be something crazy that He's going to show me..." or, "Oh man, he even gave me a destination! He must have lots of things to say to me today..."

I went out there, sat down, and heard nothing.

I saw a bird next to me with a big juicy bug in its mouth. It squawked at me a few times, then opened up the old gullet and swallowed it whole. My mind was racing to try to figure out what it could mean. I finally parked at "Careful, Tim. Let's not try to be that guy and make something out of nothing."

I walked into the backyard and saw a rabbit taking shade under the long shadow of an overgrown bush. It stood still as I watched it. As I stood there watching, the thought entered my head, "I don't think I'm going to hear anything from God today."

That's never something I like to hear when I finally end up taking time out of my day to try. Doesn't always do wonders for your morale to push into that time tomorrow either.

My mind began racing. I was reminded of a conversation with a good friend a couple days ago about what happens when we are listening but God's not speaking. We discussed at length how we had both recently experienced times when we went out of our way to listen for God, but came away with nothing (or seemed to, anyway). And I have wondered about that place ever since, because it seems that that is the place He wants to address.

First of all, I think God likes being silent with me sometimes. A friend of mine one time at a bible study had us all find a place to lay down in the grass, and he told us not to pray. He said, "just be with God." I still remember that, and it was called to my mind today. It was as if God said, "You don't have to hear anything to be spending time with me." I wonder why I feel like I need to feel productivity all the time?

Secondly, I spend a great deal of my life chasing after whatever will make me feel good. I don't like to admit it, but I really do (you probably do too, get off that high horse).  I have also noticed that at times I give up on listening to God quickly because it doesn't feel good to wait. I hate realizing things like that... It pretty much means I'm chasing after my own pleasure instead of making even my time with God about God. I think I'm really good at making the relationship I have with God all about me. And that's not congruent with His vision of how His people were meant to live in relationship with Him... actually, it's not even congruent with what we know about the way earthly relationships work. My definition of love is caring about someone else over yourself; putting their needs before your own. Only caring about what makes you feel good is Old Way living, as Larry Crabb would say. It's not love, it's selfishness. Love is me thinking about God's desires instead of my desires (Thinking about and praying for God's desires is a really powerful thing...).

There's something extremely intriguing to me about continuing to listen for God's voice when He is being silent. I think He likes it. I'm not super into that love language stuff, but if I had to guess, I would guess that our undivided attention is one of God's love languages. It means we stopped caring about us for a second, and now we care about only Him and what He might be doing or thinking about or caring about. That seems like something that would catch His eye, doesn't it?

So there I sat today, giving God the love offering of alertness for his voice in the silence. I'm convinced that God likes it at least as much when we sit reading or listening and don't hear anything as he does when we are listening as he is speaking loudly and clearly... considering we don't control whether he is speaking to us at all, past our own listening. God is the one in control of when God speaks. We can definitely shut him out if we try hard enough (God is a gentlemen, as I've heard it put), but when we are willing to listen, we are putting the ball in His court. And when we hear nothing, there's no way He is saying, "Oh no, I had a message for you but you MISSED it... ahh, well you blew it and I can't do anything about it now. You pretty much suck at this." Instead, I imagine Him saying, "Dang, look at Tim today. He's still listening even though I am remaining silent. He must really care about what I have to say."

There is a part of me that'd rather be in that situation. There is something really holy about it.

 Therefore I can leave my silent time satisfied with having been a watchman, alert for the possibility of His voice, knowing that God was honored and accomplished His desires for me today.

That makes the waiting much more worth it to me.

Lamentations 3:24 - "I say to myself, 'The LORD is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.'"

Dreams and God's Voice

God has been communicating with me in some unconventional ways recently. It's actually starting to freak me out a little bit. Sometimes in a good way... and sometimes... in a freaked out kind of way.

I know it may sound crazy, but I've been having some dreams. Dreams that I wake up from knowing that they mean something.

I'm not sure that every dream means something; I've had some weird dreams. I once dreamed that I was being chased around the outside of my house by a giant baby on a tricycle. And this was not just a normal baby... the baby that was chasing after me was the egg-shaped baby from whatever the opposite of "hit cartoon series" is, Histeria. I was terrified.

 Now you are almost certainly saying to yourself, "What in the world is Histeria?"

 To quote my good friend Kent Oglesby, you would be exactly right. In fact, I hope no one I know besides me is using up brain space on that show. I don't care how infinite brain space is.

Assuming you have no idea what I'm talking about (a safe assumption),  all you need to know is that one character on the show was basically an egg with a baby's face and arms and legs sticking out, on a tricycle, and that it has haunted my dreams quite literally. Thats what I get for watching that show MAYBE one and a half times (my friends tell me I have abnormally clear recall of old TV shows from the 90's. They all say, "Tim remembers everything that happened to him in fifth grade." It's a blessing and a curse). And this isn't the kind of "I've only watched this show like once" that you say in second grade to keep people from knowing you watched Barney 4 times that week, although I definitely had my share of those moments... (not that I ever watched Barney...) This is an honest to goodness "I can't believe i put one episode of this show into my head and now it is chasing me around my house."

I'm pretty sure if that dream meant anything, then it was probably "Don't watch crappy cartoons anymore."

I am by no means a dream expert. Some of my friends hold fast to the idea that God speaks frequently through dreams, and some of my friends are less inclined to think about dreams like that. I just don't know a lot about this kind of thing. But what I do know is that this is one of the first times I have felt like God had a message for me in a dream. I've also been feeling like he wants me to share the experience. He likes to speak to His children. And we are really really good at explaining him away.

 I am going to describe two dreams, so bear with me.

A few weeks ago I had this wacky dream about aliens coming to Earth and trying to befriend humans. These little guys, who were trying to convince everyone that they were nice aliens, were able to crawl into a person's head and make him/her feel intense pleasure. But in doing that, one would lose control of his/her body to the alien until it crawled back out. The aliens were trying to convince people to come back to their home planet, where they could feel this pleasure all day long if they wanted to. I remember having a really bad feeling about them. I knew something wasn't right.  In my dream, there was a group of people who wanted to go back with them, believing that they would make good on their promises. Long story short: there was a big battle between the army and the aliens (the people who were trying to go back with them were fighting on their side), their ship narrowly escaped away into space, carrying the people who had agreed to go back with them, never to be seen again.

Creepy and weird. I was incredibly weirded out that morning.

As I recounted the morning to my friend Pua Coffman, she said, "So do you think it means anything?" as if that's just something normal for us everyday weird dream havers. Which, maybe it should be... That's why I pay Pua to be my friend.

A few days later, I had another dream.

This dream was significantly more disturbing. This dream was about a child molester trying to trick a little boy and a little girl into getting into his car. He was dressed up as a fairy (weird) and he was telling the children that he needed them to help him rescue a princess and save the world. The little kids, who had a love for adventure, were buying it... they just didn't know any better. They began to follow him away, and as they got closer to the car, another man showed up, also disguised. One man said to the other, "Let's leave the girl and just take the boy." I ran to stop them, but before I reached the children, I woke up. And when I woke up, I didn't know what to do with myself. But I knew that the dream was from God, and that it was linked to the first one.

 I got in the shower, incredibly frustrated with God. He was trying to speak to me, but did it have to be like that? "Why did you just do that, God?" I kept asking, over and over. I just couldn't stop thinking about it. 

Finally, his answer came: "This is the kind of damage Sin does to my children."

The dots quickly began to connect between the dreams. There was a sense of something foreign, something evil, extending an invitation to the naive, an invitation that seemed to be a source of life but was something... destructive. There was also a sense of permanence to the consequences involved; things that can't easily be undone.

And to make it personal, the "let's leave the girl and take the boy" line just had to be thrown in there. It kind of felt like that was supposed to be me.

This wasn't just a lesson to be deflected onto a friend. "So and so really needs to hear this." This lesson was for me. It's funny (not haha funny, but 3 legged dog funny... as my dad likes to say) how easy it is to lose an opportunity to be changed by deflecting a lesson away to someone else in my mind. Even though that person could need to hear whatever God is saying, there is a reason he's saying it to me.

My thoughts and prayers into these two uncommon run-ins with God have culminated into a question: 

What's at stake?

What's at stake when I choose Sin? What's at stake for people living in sin, for ten years, for 10 months... for 10 days? What am I getting myself into by walking willingly into this destructive place? 

The metaphors I was given answer that question in a way I don't want to think about. But God doesn't call us to ignorance. He desires that we gain greater understanding of the truth. What is at stake? The mangling of our hearts... the disfiguring of our Original Design... that's what's at stake. 

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

1 Peter 5:8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

A few of my friends have recently expressed disinterest in God... they say "Why would I want to take that path? All it does is tell me things I can't do. It just looks like a bunch of rules and regulations." And why would they take that path when they see no life in it? Meanwhile, life without these "rules and regulations" looks so free, so inviting, so life giving. I completely get it.

This is one of the Enemy's most cunning and effective lies; making freedom look like captivity, and making captivity look like freedom.

We think we are gaining freedom... but we are losing it! This is why I sin! I sense life and freedom in my choices, and I follow them away from Christ. I follow my idols away from my source of life and true happiness, because they look like the very things I was made to desire from God. And... I am walking into future emotional and spiritual scars that aren't necessarily going to go away easily. Ugh.

"But in all that God's purposes are NOT defeated. His plan is NOT destroyed. He is able to not only cover over the multitude of our sins and mistakes, but weave them into our stories to create something beautiful." - Lee Cottrell (After I explained my dreams to him)

Thank you God, that you are a master weaver, and you can weave my mistakes and my scars, no matter how disgusting, filthy, perverted, or evil they are, into exactly what you meant to create from the beginning.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.

The Source

I've had a lot of time to think over the break. I have, for the past year, been thinking about writing a book about all of the things I feel like I have learned about who I truly am, and about the way I resemble God, and about the things that I was made to be and to do. The needs that I have had that I don't understand... The things that scream out from a deep place in me that I haven't explored yet... those are the things that I am incredibly interested in.

I am fairly certain that for each of us, some of these deep, unexplored places are the same. We all share certain desires: we all want love to some capacity, we all want adventure to some capacity, we all want to bring something special to a group larger than us. But I am also certain that we each have special places, unique to our own Original Designs, where our passions burn in a way that is different from those around us... Unique things within us that set us apart, that cause us to desire a road we don't see other people on. And that is scary. For some, that burning inside cries out to us for newness and excitement. For others, intimacy is the only thing that really matters... and finding it. Some of us are willing to give up everything to travel the world, while others never leave our hometowns as long as we had a steady job and a meaningful, intimate relationship. And neither is wrong... it's what is inside us. Maybe sometimes we misinterpret what we truly want... but the things we yearn for we should never feel sorry for.

Everyone has different preferences and things they find themselves wanting to do... But I am certain that whatever it is that we see on the outside runs much deeper than that. I believe that the hidden engine of each human being is made up of a unique set of heart motivations and deep needs that we don't understand and don't know how to fulfill.

I live in my own brain for most of the time. And those things are what keeps me thinking all day.

(So if you see me wandering down the hallway with a confused look on my face... just let it happen.)

I learned a ton about myself by finally getting the courage to look deep within what is really happening when I get out of, say, the movie Avatar, and feel like there is a stake in my heart because there was something in that movie that I couldn't have. I realized that there are things in me that don't just come alive, but begin screaming when I choose to connect myself with a story that has a specific recipe, a few certain special things that my soul is dying for... Which, those specific things don't make tons of other people feel the same way. In fact, I know plenty of people who thought that movie was kinda stupid. But that is what I'm talking about. That just means they have different passions. Nobody is just not passionate. Because God is super passionate and we were made in his image. My manifestation of that image just so happens to be all about some adventure... at least what I know about it right now. And the way that Avatar pressed my buttons is unmistakable. Really, a ton of movies and books do the same thing. Avatar is just the first one that came to my mind. It's not just because it was a good story. There were themes, elements from it that I just wanted to have... to be involved in. I didn't want to be blue (or did I...?). I just wanted what was there on an elemental level. There is something about a beautiful new world, a dangerous, exciting new way of life as opposed to the mundane normality of the weekly grind, all combined with some sort of mysterious romance, that just had something inside me doing backflips when I left. And these weren't the sappy love kind of backflips (unnecessary defense of my manhood? maybe). It didn't feel good. I knew there was some aspect (or aspects) of that dangerous love adventure that were unavailable to me. And every time throughout my life a story with the right recipe came along, all that would happen. And let me tell you, it sucks.

I lived my life like this for twenty years.

The next step for my heart (I don't always like to use "Christian vocabulary" because honestly it doesn't make sense to everyone... but I'm just going to call it my "heart"), after being exposed to these elements that caused the "heart screaming" to ensue, would be what I just now decided to call the "consolation" approach. I would just decide to try to get as close to that story as I could. I knew something was heartbreakingly out of reach in my own story, so I would gravitate to those other places where I felt the things that I wanted.

But was it? Is it truly out of reach? Is that the only option? I eventually began thinking about what I claimed that I believed. If God is everything that I want and need and more and all that stuff, then why do I find myself longing after other places and other stories? It just can't be that God made the world like that... the "consolation" can't be the way it was intended from the beginning.

I don't believe we have to live like that anymore. Not after what God is showing me about my Original Design.

Something about me is drawn to things like joining with a group of like minded people for an epic purpose. I am mesmerized by an epic struggle between a hero and his enemy, the fate of something huge hanging in the balance, where at the same time there is also an intimate romance growing. An adventure story intertwined with a love story. These are the things I began to observe when I looked deep into myself.

It turns out, God made me for this. Go figure.

And yeah, it's not going to look like an adventure all the time. God has spent the last 2 years of my life proving to me that this is actually my story. Because I think the enemy is good at convincing me that my real story is the opposite, that God's not really offering anything I actually want.

What do you want at your core? Could it be that God has actually made you for it?

What if there was hope that what you wanted at the deepest part of you could really be satisfied?

That's why I've been prodded by my own curiosity and my own Original Design to begin to write a book about Original Design. I am scared of saying that because I kind of don't ever finish anything. But after creating 15 pages of notes over the past year of my life, I felt the call to start it this weekend... amidst all the other voices I constantly hear that I'm too young to really know anything about the world, that I don't know enough yet, and that I'm full of crap and wasting my time.

It's going to be a really hard journey. An adventure, perhaps. But adventure is my middle name.

I will leave you with this excerpt from the beginning:

what is it in a brilliant movie, or a good story, that awakens that eerily familiar screaming in your heart? you know what I'm talking about. I’m talking about the hollow longing left after something deep in your heart connects with another story for some reason, whether it’s a fantasy story or someone else’s life, and is ripped away like an old band-aid that’s somehow retained too much of its stickiness when the story comes to an end. Why can’t that be my story? Why can’t this be real? maybe you haven't ever listened to the screaming. it just seems to cost too much. this is because to notice it fully you know you would have to come to grips with the pain of unfulfillment. but is it there? can you feel it? maybe you remember it as someone remembers a dream... something you werent fully aware of and chose to forget... but the screaming won't stop screaming. you can try to shut it up. you can try to cork the open bottle it is coming from. you can stitch the gushing wound back up. but it will catch you off guard again one day when you become vulnerable. it always does. and when it does, once again, you have the deepest hunger from the deepest pit of your heart screaming for something. are you brave enough to listen to that instead of running from it? are you bold enough to enter the most hungry place of your soul, without knowing for sure whether it can truly be satiated? what if you unleash a monster, untamable by anything in this world? but... what if you find something?

The deepest part of our hearts will only scream for what we are made for.