Don’t Flinch – Part 3

Of all the parts of this “mini-series,” this has been the hardest to put into words. There is a delicate balance that must be struck and requires a certain sensitivity of one who wishes to implement what I am about to say. It is difficult to share what I have learned without sounding arrogant or condescending. So I ask for your grace as I share. Please bear in mind that I am only submitting what I have learned from experience, both as someone who has been judged harshly and as someone who has judged others harshly.

When we take the title Christian, or Christ Follower, we are shouldering a tremendous responsibility. It is a declaration that as we walk through this world, we are to be a revelation of the Lord who gave his life on our behalf. We are to be an example of his grace and love to a world that is suffering the effects of sin, sometimes as willing participants and sometimes as another faceless victim. How we respond to those who are dealing with the effects of sin in their lives may be the only clue they have as to how God responds to them. It is our duty and obligation to fulfill this role with integrity and compassion.

Unfortunately, many of us fail to meet this standard. We act as if God’s holiness is in danger of being contaminated by a sinful world. We flinch as we hear the stories, we draw back in fear when we see the effects, and shun those who need his touch the most. I often speculated what could lead us into such damning behavior – are we afraid another’s sin will pollute us? Are we worried that God is unable to clean us up again if we get a spot or two on us? Do we think that he won’t love us if he found out we spent the day with a divorcee, an addict, a liar, a gossip, or worse?

Now, I have heard all the excuses. God doesn’t want us to associate with sinners. What does light have to do with the darkness? Evil company corrupts. Tolerance is the same as approval. You don’t want to be led astray. And I am not denying the validity of any of these arguments, but when they are not held in tension with the truth that we are the light of the world, we are the ones responsible for reaching out to those God loves and values as much as he loves and values us.

Don’t flinch, means that we are able to live our lives with a confidence that God is greater than any evil we may encounter. It means that instead of being appalled at a behavior or action we focus on the person, we see the need they have in their life, and we respond according to the strength and power of the one we serve. It means that we recognize the inherent worth the other person has as God's creation, and we demonstrate his desire to redeem any and every thing they may have ever done or endured.

When we flinch, we are telling the world that God is flinching, too. We are saying that God is not big enough or doesn't love them enough to reach out to them or push aside anything that separates them from him. We are telling them that their sin is so great, all hope for redemption has been lost. We are misrepresenting this God we claim to serve and have the utmost faith in, and I hope to never be held accountable for that action.

When I don’t flinch, I can hold the hand of one who is in pain. I am giving them permission to ask the questions, to seek God, and to hopefully, experience his love through me. When I don’t flinch, I am saying God is strong enough to deal with their issues, unafraid of their doubt or anger. I am declaring that he loves them enough to endure anything to be near them, including death and he has already done so. When I don’t flinch, I am saying that I am not naïve enough to think I am better than them, that I have been there and he was good enough to save me. I am giving them the hope that he may be big enough to save them.

When I don’t flinch, I am modeling the behavior of my Lord, who was not surprised that the Woman at the Well was living in sin. I am saying that he knows, he always knew and he still desires to share living water with all who are willing to sit at the edge of the well with him.

Junk Sale!!! Anyone looking for a Bargain?

Anybody want to buy some of my junk? I have a few love letters that would have been touching, had they ever been written. In the box in the back we have some great romantic evenings, if we had been. On the table in the front are some beautiful engagement rings, that are stunning if only in my mind. And I will make you a special deal on the house with the green shutters and the white picket fence, that was never built. Over to your left, are few photos. Oh, they are real enough but the smiles are fake. In that basket are some beautiful handcrafted holidays, that no one bothered to finish. And on that chair is the man who I created out of bits of daydreams and glimmers of potential, I’ll throw him in free if you are willing to pay full price for the broken promises and disappointed hopes.

I know they don’t seem like much to you, but once upon a time they meant everything to me. But that story never got written, at least not how I intended it to be. Reality looked a lot different than fairy tale ending I had hoped for. You see in fairy tales, there is only one dragon to be slain before the happily ever after can begin. In real life, many must be defeated, and even then there are no guarantees.

So I am packing it all up and hauling it to the curb if I can’t find any takers. Not because they aren’t beautiful fantasies any more, but because that’s all they ever were, fantasies. The finest quality a girl can dream up, but there comes a time when you have to turn it loose. When you have realize what dreams aren’t going to come true, because if you hold on to tightly you will drown under them

The problem is that without them my house is going to look bare, and I am not for sure if I will feel at home here any longer. Maybe that is not a bad thing. Maybe we all need to clear out some room in our hearts and minds for the next big adventure. Maybe who I was when I wove the threads of this dream together isn’t who I am today. Maybe , just maybe, I out grew them.

It is hard to know which is the greater act of faith. Turning loose or hanging on. If I turn loose am I saying that God has failed to act on my behalf, that He did not hear my prayers? Am I admitting that I just don’t have the faith for Him to perform a miracle in my life, that He can’t resurrect a dead dream? Or maybe it is the turning loose that shows faith. Faith that God is not bound to my ideas of how my life should look. Maybe faith is surrendering to a greater vision of my life, one not conjured up by outdated fairy tales, but one that He has dreamt for me.

Can we trust Him with our future? Even when it doesn’t look like we planned? Can we lay aside those things we once thought we believed would make us happy and wait to experience something new?

There are times in this life when we need to stop and reevaluate the furniture of our hearts and minds. Maybe we need to do more than clear away the cobwebs and just get rid of all the junk. It doesn’t mean that we stop dreaming or hoping. It means that we learn to dream with Him, and let Him dream through us. We need to make room for the things He wants to bring into our lives, and that we turn loose of all the stuff that clutters up our hearts and minds.

We often wonder what is holding us back, why we can’t seem to take the next step forward, even when we have the desire, but so seldom do we stop look at the things that are holding us in place. The dreams that once defined us, who we thought we should be becomes weight upon our shoulders, silently condemning us for having never achieved what we somehow believed to be our right. We see ourselves through the lens of those dreams, and until we turn loose we will never be able to see the possibilities that lay before us.

So I am having a junk sale. Learning to turn loose of the stuff I really don’t need. The things that I will no longer allow to define me. I am clearing away the rubbish and making room for new treasures, because sometimes moving forward means turning loose of the past.

Putting it all Together Part 11 - Preaching to Myself and Other Drowning Rats

Then there are the days. . .Days when you wonder if this thing you set out to do will ever happen. If you have bitten off more than you can chew and think that you are going to choke on the bones. I would be lying to you if I said there is point in time when you get over it. If there is, I haven’t found it.

As most of you know we are putting together an event in February called Splendor and Holiness, and at the beginning we were all excited. Electrified might be a better word. We had carefully planned and prayed over our topic, we identified the need for Christians to learn more about worship, what it is and how to engage in it, and we had the means to make it happen. Several of our friends supported us as we fleshed out the idea, so we jumped. It was easy and it felt like flying, for awhile.

But something happens on the way to the realization of a dream. For those of us who have figured out how to dream and given ourselves permission to dream, that is the fun part. What isn’t so fun are the times that you wonder just how big of a fool are you going to look like if it doesn’t happen?

I think that sometimes as Christians we are told that following God’s lead should be easy, everything should fall into place with supernatural precision, and sometimes it does. Those are the great times, and you know you can’t fail. However, more often than not there is a time when everything seems to stop and you are left dangling over a cliff, waiting for something, anything to happen. God gets real quiet, and you realize just how big of a chance you took.

This is the place where most of us give up, where we think that we had a delusional moment and made a mistake. After all if we are serving God shouldn’t it be easier, safer? We begin to doubt our ability and God’s faithfulness. So pack it up, retreat to safer ground, and tell ourselves and our friends our excuses for why we stopped. I would be lying if I said I have not felt this way about the February event.

We have had many people say that they would be there, and we have had a few register, but there is an image of a theater in Muskogee with only a handful of people that I just can’t shake. It makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, and I worry if I will disappoint the friends that I have convinced to help me. Some bit of self preservation is screaming to get out while there is still time, keep my dignity intact.

In my more rational moments I have to wonder exactly where we got the idea that following God had anything to do with dignity. The truth is a lot of the time when God called people to great things the first thing they had to abandon was dignity. Noah built a stupid boat in his front yard, David danced through the streets in his underwear, the cowardly Gideon declared he could lead and army to victory, Hosea married a woman that would have shamed a sailor, and Peter made a fool of himself more times than I can count.

Maybe that is why these guys are our favorites. We all know what it is like to fall flat on our faces and make fools of ourselves. They took a risk, they even looked foolish as they did it, but they succeeded. They are remembered as men of faith and courage.

I have to wonder exactly what did Peter think as he lowered himself over the side of that boat. Did he leap out onto the waves with no fear? Or did he shake as he gripped tightly to the hull? Did he play out all the scenarios of how badly this could end for him? Or did he just see the chance to do what his Lord was doing? The Bible says that Peter saw the wind and was afraid. In that moment he began to sink, and I wonder how far down he got before he totally freaked out. Sometimes we see the pictures of Jesus pulling something resembling a drowned rat from among the waves, and yet, I have been told that Peter never made it past ankle deep before Jesus saved him.

Either way, any of you who have fallen know that a split second is all you need to envision your untimely demise. We see the wind and know the distance we have left to travel before we reach our destination. We feel the pressure of having to navigate the waves, and begin to doubt we will be able to do it. We feel the eyes of all the smart people who stayed on the boat and know they are thinking what fools we are while envying their safety. The thing is we know that if we can make it, if we can reach out and touch the object of our desire, no boat will ever be good enough again.

And the truth is, we never wanted sit on the stinking boat to begin with. We wanted to be the One who needs no boat, the One who did great things, and now empowers us to risk great things on his behalf. Striking out for the place you believe God is leading you is scary, but it is exciting and the grandest adventure we can ever know. How many times do think Peter sat around a fire and told friends about that night? How many times do you think his friends asked, “Can he do that for me?” I want a story like that for my life. How about you?

Can you leave the boat, brave the waves, and ignore the wind? There are times when it is easy, and there are times when it is the hardest thing we will ever do, but the good news is if we fail, if our gaze should wander to the elements cause of us fear, there is One who doesn’t mind pulling us drowning rats from the abyss.

Hope to see you in February!

Blue Skies Views from the Bottom the Well

Repost from June 11, 2008, in response to the questions that so many of you have asked over the past week. My prayers are with you all!


I have often wondered what did Joseph think when he sat at the bottom of that well, the one his brothers threw him into after he told them his dream. The dream where they would one day bow down before him. What other black thoughts must have followed when he wasted away in the Egyptian prison?

I wonder because I know what it is to think that God has spoken to me, revealed some special thing that was about to happen in my life. The promise of a new tomorrow where for once all things will be as I had hoped that they could be,but always there seems to be dark time where the promise is lost in the reality of miserable moments. Moments where my ability to affect change is swept away from me, where the power is given to another and I must continue to live despite the pain of watching my hopes fade before I ever touched them.

I wonder if Joseph could see the sky in that pit. Did he see the brilliant blue as assurance that God still watched over him or did he feel mockery at its distance? Those years when he was forgotten in a prison did he resent the woman who
wrongly accused him or the God who allowed him to be placed there? Were there moments of anger, pain, and confusion? Or was he blissfully faithful that there would be a day when he saw his dream manifest? Did he reason away hope?

Did he think that perhaps he had merely been the victim of misplaced hope? Did he think God a liar? Did he believe that his pride and arrogance caused this catastrophe? Were there days when he regretted placing credence in the images that
filled his sleep? Did he weep over the death of dream? Or did he stoically accept his fate, believing that all would be well in the end?

I wish I knew. Maybe if we heard the fights, the inner battles he waged with himself, there would be a clue for those of us who wait for God to move on our behalf. Some instruction of how to handle those times when we sit in a pit listening
to our brothers squabble as to whether to kill us or not.

I don't know why dreams often have to die before they can be realized. Sometimes I think it is so that we never mistake this thing that God wants to give us is something we conjured up. Maybe it is so that others will see it truly is God who
brought it into being and not the work of human hands.

There is some comfort in that thought, but my faith isn't always that big. If it was would I mourn the dream? And yet even as I type that last line, I hear the words, "Jesus wept". He wept at the news that his friend had died.

It is a baffling thought really. Jesus wept. I mean wrap your head around the whole scenario for a moment. God incarnate the one who breathed life into the original man, the God who spoke the universe into existence, the God who knows all things - weeps over the death of a friend, the death of his dream.

And we are God's dream. Each of us is a reflection and product of his desire. His dream of relationship, his dream of passion and revelation. We are his dream.

As Jesus moved towards the grave of a man who was his friend, as you and I hope to one day know him, he saw his dream die. With one amazingly distinct difference, he knew that with a few simple words his friend would walk at his side once more.
His tears never made sense to me, but tonight I think I get it.

As we strive to attain a level of communion with God that allows us to walk in faith, even in the most extreme situations, we are not to be callous to the death of a dream. Grieving over the loss of something we hold dear is not a sign of
weakness or even a sign of a lack of faith. It is being human. Indeed, if I may be so bold - it is being God like.

God never asked us to be without emotion. He never demanded that we deny pain. He only asked that we seek him, become conformed to his image as presented through the humanity of Jesus.

There is some debate on how much Jesus realized about his deity while he lived on earth. Some claim that he knew he was God from the moment he was born, others say it was not until he sat in the temple questioning the rabbis. Still others
point to his baptism as the moment of revelation. And even if a time can be determined there is still the question of how much did Jesus know, how much of his God consciousness was he able to access in his human form.

I tend to believe it was limited in many ways. That he knew what he needed to know for the moment. To me it makes his time here more - well, human. It makes his knowledge of our experience more intimate, and his tears at Lazarus death less
hypocritical. It makes his grief real, and not merely a display. And I have to ask, what did he think as he made his way to the grave of his dream?

At what point, did he know that his words held the power to call a rotting body from the ground? At what point, did Joseph realize it was his God inspired words that pulled him from his captivity? Will I know that moment in my life? Will you
know yours?

I really don't know, but I do know that in the mean time it is okay to weep. It is okay to mourn. I am not relinquishing my faith by acknowledging my grief, and should this be a dream that finds resurrection - it will be beyond what I had ever
dreamt it could be.

Putting it all together – Part 10 Eliza Doolittle and Fading Posies

Picture this.

One day you are out selling posies on the streets of London. You have learned how to pick the right mark, you can judge the just the right moment, even know how and when to apply the right pressure. When to use tears, when to give an insult, when to feign the proper amount of arrogance. You know you are good at what you do, and you have provided a good living for yourself, comparatively speaking. You even a have a dream, to sell flowers in a real store. You know it is farfetched and everyone thinks you are daft just for entertaining the idea.

Then one day this man comes along who tells you that he can open up worlds of opportunities you could never even image – if you learn how to use your words. At first his words throw you for a loop, you decide he must be the crazy one, but there is something inside of you says you were meant for more than walking the gutters selling wilting flowers to the people who have the type of life you would kill for. You are caught, you have to find out if what he says is true, so you find him commit yourself to his tutelage – as bizarre as it may seem. You fight your way through the frustration, and learn how to do what he says, and like everything else in your life you do it well.

As proof of your success he passes you off as nobility at party for the queen, and you realize how much you really have changed. No more extra “r’s” in your words, you know the topics to avoid in proper society, and how to hold your head just so. Now what?

All along you have known your were just pretending to be something and someone you are not. He knew, but somehow you fooled everyone else, even the experts. So do you return to the streets to sell flowers, do you settle for the flower shop on the corner? Can you, now that you know what it is to be a part of the new and fascinating world? Or are your once wildest dreams faded and worn now that you have seen how truly small they are?

Some of you have already guessed that this was the basic plot to My Fair Lady, but I think it is more than just some story from a movie. Maybe that is why it continues to be so popular.

In some ways we are all nothing but Eliza Doolittle’s, we have safe attainable dreams. Dreams that other people may question, but ones we know we can do. There is something inside of us that knows the status quo isn’t for us. So we dream, but one day this guy comes along and suggests something that you never would have considered. And he is so sure of himself, you find yourself believing.

Only in this story it isn’t a professor, it is God. He walks into our world and turns it upside down. He demands things of us that make no sense. He tells us that we can do extraordinary things with our lives and we get caught up in his vision. The thing is most of us feel like Eliza, pretending to be something we are not, wondering when we will get caught, and kicked out of the private club – maybe even hoping to get caught just so we can stop pretending.

But then there is the moment of truth, when you try to leave the dream behind. You go back to your old haunts and realize no one recognizes you. To sell flowers now would be just as big of a sham as passing you off as a duchess. You find that no longer do you dream the dream, but the dream has dreamed you.

So you are left with the dilemma, where do you belong now? Are some strange little homeless oddity? Are you better than you were, or worse? Was ignorance bliss and now you are being crushed by the weight of a dream you never asked for?

God’s dreams are always greater than anything we could design for ourselves. The problem is there is always this moment, which sometimes last for years, where you realize you don’t really have a place where you fit. You can’t go back to who you were before the dream, you have seen too much, but you don’t know how to be who you want to be.

Luckily for us, God doesn’t need to dance in an alley and sing “I’ve grown accustom to her face,” before he realizes he has no intention of returning us to the streets. He has known all along he took us home to keep. He gave us a dream that is not a fiction designed for his amusement. All the hard work wasn’t so he could perpetuate a scam. He did not fall in love with us accidently somewhere along the way, nor was he taken by surprise by us.

The only one surprised by the escapade is us. We wake up to find that we are changing, and what felt false and fake in the beginning is really who were all along. It can scare us to know that a dream has the power to shape us, rebuild us, and make us stronger, faster, and better. God has the technology. The question is do we let the fear drive us back to the gutters or do we have faith in the God who has revealed to us a plan that far exceeded anything we ever imagined.

If you can survive that moment, if you can get past the feeling of dangling in space, you can make it, but I won’t lie to you. It is scarier than anything you have ever faced. Nothing feels natural, nothing feels safe, and your skin sometimes feels like it was made for someone else. But the truth is once you surrender to the dream, you can live nowhere else.

Putting it all Together – Part 9 Juggling on a Tightrope Or Things that Go Splat

Most people need to know the permission to dream big, I am generally not one of those people. I need to scale mine back more often than not, and it was hard to accept that world domination was not in my future. I love to dream. It is a beautiful activity where life looks like I want it to look, I can actually dance and people don’t laugh, and it is free. So this entry is for those of you who are like me, our dreams are big, bold, and completely beyond all realms of possibility.

The problem for me is once I have the kernel of a good idea, I have to improve on it. If having an event with fifty people is great, than we really want 350, and if setting up one event is exciting than planning twelve is amazing. And for some odd reason, it all seems completely possible in my mind, but what winds up happening is I over commit. I try to juggle too many balls while balancing on a tightrope and I am always surprised when I go splat.

At our first Pagus event, Barbie Jared (who is now one of our speakers, check her out), told me, “Don’t despise small beginnings.” We had way over planned and as a result spent more money than necessary to be prepared for people who did not show up. It was disheartening. We had prayed about this, and we truly believed that this was something God intended for us to do. And it was, we learned a lot but I wish the price of education wasn’t quite so high.

Barbie and I really did not know each other that well at the time. We had grown up together, but had never really been close friends. (She is significantly older than me.) Over the years she had gone on to do her thing and I had done mine. What we did not know was that within a very short time after the conference, she and I would be pursuing our dreams together. Now I get to remind her, “Don’t despise small beginnings.” Got to love that.

The point to this part of the story is I needed someone to remind me that we all start somewhere, and like or not, it is usually small from our perspectives. It is the conference with thirty people and a hundred empty seats. It is Bible study in our living rooms, the painting that sells for $2o, the two talents, and the mustard seed. The small stuff that has been entrusted to us. So what are we going to do with it?

Do we lament the fact that this wasn’t as quick and easy as we thought it should be? Do grow tired and bitter with the years of tending a dream often demands to survive? Do we rail against the mustard seed for not being Jack’s magic beans? Or do we find a way to celebrate the small beginnings, grateful for a chance to be part of the process? Humbled by the fact you were given a gift to start with?

These small beginnings have all the elements within them for great things. We just have to be faithful and attentive to their needs. When we over commit or allow other ideas to overshadow the original vision we stretch ourselves way too thin and we will soon find we do not have the resource to care for anything properly. It is not to say that the other ideas aren’t good or worth pursuing, but we need to guard the vision. Often a good idea is simply a distraction in disguise.

Dream and dream big. Let your mind go there every so often, but never lose sight of the original vision. The vision may grow and morph, but ask yourself “Does this fit with what I have been called to do?”, “Does this move me any closer to the ultimate goal?” or “Does this move resources like time, money, and energy away from my primary calling?”

In order to know the answers to these questions, we have to know what the dream is to begin with. We have to have its borders defined. We have to know what it looks like, feels like, and smells like if we are to remain on course. Write it down, give your dreams some tangibility. In fact, you should really have two sets of writings. One with your dream clearly defined. The dream you know you are suppose to chase, the one you want to be remembered for in your obituary. The second writing should be all the good ideas that float your way. The things that you would do if you never needed to sleep, had unlimited funds, and an army to implement them.

The first one is your northern star, showing you how not be pulled of course by unruly winds and choppy waves. The second is the place where good ideas can be born, some to be used to fulfill your dream, some to be discarded, and some to be given over to other people to pursue.

The thing is about a tightrope, we are supposed to walk across them not simply stop in the middle to do another performance. The goal is much like the chicken’s – to get to the other side. If we stand out there too long, no matter how great our juggling is, or however entertaining we might be, we all wind up going splat. It’s that forward moment that help us stay balanced, don’t lose it.

Putting it all Together - Part 8 No Smoking, please. Or “What if we are all God’s dream and He wakes up?”

Putting a dream in to motion is not something you can do all by yourself. Even Joan of Arc had to recruit a few troops. Convincing people that you really are following a God given vision isn’t always easy. I mean not to be harsh, but most people have never really struck out to do something bold and audacious in order to be who they want to be. Most people are content to look around, find the expected and easy path for their lives, and stick to it.

So when you come along and declare, “Follow me and France will have victory”, people tend to think you are psych case. The truth is if you chose to give life to your dreams, you are not normal, and that’s a scary thing for our friends and family to face. This why it is often hardest to tell the ones you love about this personal vision. We know that they know all our flaws, our stupid mistakes, and all the reasons we aren’t qualified to do this.

I wish I could tell you to be bold and all will end well, but as we all know even Joanie’s world got a little heated due to her boldness. But way before that she had people who believed in her, who followed her, people who used their power and connections to help her pursue her vision. My question is do you have the audacity to demand to be heard in the courts of the king? Are you that passionate about your quest? Or are you content to stay home and whisper it to the chickens? If there is a stake in your future are willing to face it, content in the knowledge that you did everything possible to make it happen?

You have to tell people about your dreams. You have to be willing to face the skeptical faces, questions full of doubt, and you have to be bold. It means talking to everyone, and I do mean everyone, about what you intend to do. You tell your friends, your family, and the stranger at McDonald's because people are the key to seeing the dream take flesh.

One of the truly amazing things I have discovered is that God has way of bringing the right people into your life, if you are looking for them. Consistently he has placed people in our path who have a talent or ability that we needed to make a certain aspect of Pagus happen, and often the people we thought would be the ones to fill these roles are the first ones who run screaming to the hills.

I cannot over emphasize this point. It feels awkward, even arrogant, to go around telling people that you are capable of doing something as awesome as fulfilling this dream, but you have to find the words to share that vision. You have to find a way to make others see this dream as a reality. They have to have something to believe in and since you were the one entrusted with this vision that job is yours.

In some ways this is the most fun part of all of this. You get to share your vision, your hope, and somehow in just speaking the words it becomes even more of a reality through just saying it aloud. You can get so caught up in describing the dream that you can forget you have an audience, and in those moments people find your passion contagious.

In other ways, it is the most difficult. I still find myself stuttering through a simple presentation I have given over and over again when I am introducing myself and Pagus to a new audience. I start filling the blanks of a conversation with what I imagine that other person must be thinking about me. I interpret their questioning looks as amused dismissal of me and my ideas. So when I say, you have to break that habit, know I am speaking from a place of experience and not throwing any stones.

Some could argue that Joan of Arc was terrible failure. I mean after all, all most of us really know about her is that she burned at the stake, but the point is hundreds of years later, we know her. We remember her, and I would have to say that is a victory. I hope yours and my dreams have happier endings, but if we are remembered, if following our dreams is noteworthy in history, isn’t that some sort of victory? Think about it, one nobody country girl from Nowheresville, France changed a nation just because she was willing to follow her dream, to speak passionately about the things she believed God called her to do.

The Bible says the power of life and death are in the tongue, and nowhere is this more evident than in the lives of our dreams. How else to do they come to life unless we give it to them through our words?

When my youngest daughter was four, she asked “What if we all just God’s dream and He wakes up?” After I recovered from my aneurysm, I realized the truth of what she was asking. God is by no means asleep, but even you and I are his dream, one he gave life to through his words. Think about it, what if he had never spoke up?

Putting It All Together – Part 7 Five Easy Steps to Financial Ruin, and Why We Took Them

I really don’t like this topic, so don’t expect too many entries on this one. It seems like all the conversations about it are a lament on how I just don’t have enough. Yep, you guessed it – money.

As I am sure most of you have figured out by now, money is a big deal. We have to have it if we are going to finance our dreams, visions, or survival, but the truth is we often make it a bigger deal than it has to be. Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe we need to be good stewards of our finances, but I don’t think that means we have to obsess over them. And if you figure out how to achieve that balance, let me know.

I think sometimes we put off our dreams until we can afford them, but dreams are like children. If you wait until you can afford them you will never have them. The people who have both are usually the ones who found themselves in the position of simply being told one day they had better gear up, adventure ahead. Now to paraphrase Louis L’Amour, adventure is the romantic name we give hardship when it happens to someone else.

And that what this is – hardship, tough times, big and scary moments, and the most fearsome beast you may ever face. But hey, no monsters, no monster slayers. Right?
Oh, I was talking about money.

I wish that I could tell you to command money to come to you through faith, that a certain prayer prayed three times a day, or even that a special internet offer would guarantee you financial success so that you can pursue your dream. I can tell you that if you will mail $2.50 to Emily Underwood-King, I will send you the instructions on how to get five fools to send you $2.50. Barring that I have no great get rich quick schemes, at least none that are legal.

I wish I could tell you that if you just follow your heart God will let a distant rich uncle who had fond memories of you as baby die off and leave his giant oil fortune to you, but if you are like me, all of your relatives are broke and probably don’t even like you that much.

So let me give it to you straight. If your dream is really that important to you, you will invest –everything. Your time, money, energy, blood, sweat, and tears all go into it. You begin saying no to that great pair of Italian heels- even if they are on sale, and know that that money represents one printing of fliers and posters or three days of Facebook ads. You do without the chocolates, even if they are just M&M’s because that is the cost of new ink pens.

There will be times when you take a leap, schedule something, commit to something, and then pray, “Dear God, how are we ever going to afford it?”, but you do it anyway because something in your gut tells you it is the right thing to do. You become creative, learning what sort of things you really do need, and things you just want. Believe it or not you can survive without cable, internet access in your home, and Starbucks. Ramen Noodles aren’t all that bad and Folgers can be an acquired taste.

You figure out how to pace yourself – translation, you only do things as you can afford it. We have all sorts of blow your mind ideas, but we are still waiting to make enough money to bring them to you. We have had to learn how to resist the urge to do everything at once, simply because the money is not there, and I don’t think it has been a bad thing.

Now don’t go and be stupid, because I know someone out there is trying to break this down into three easy steps. Let me save you some work.

1.Put everything you have into your dream.
2.Sacrifice all comforts in life.
3.Over commit yourself financially.
4.Pray God will show up.
5.Pace yourself.

There are five easy steps, and if you do them in this order, you are almost assured of filing bankruptcy in no time. Let me repeat, don’t do it this way! If you do then the list will ultimately look like this –

1.Delusions of grandeur
2.Martyr syndrome
3.Manic spending
4.Vain attempts to manipulate God.
5.Depression

So if this isn’t how to do it, why admit to this is how we did it? Because this is what we felt led to do. We spent a lot of time in prayer and preparation for this, and this time it worked. Maybe next time we will do something completely different. It is called walking in faith for a reason, there are no fool proof formulas. Formulas mean you control the outcome, but God isn’t in to that. In fact, He’s pretty big on being the one in charge of things, even the money.

And who knows, maybe next time, some forgotten rich uncle will leave me fortune. You never can predict what God will do.

Putting It All Together – Part 6 Giving out and Giving Up

There are days when you don’t want to do this. Days when nothing seems to flow and all the little details overwhelm you. You are standing at the edge of a cliff and you are not for sure if you are jumping or if you are being shoved.

There are bills to pay, mailings to do, people to meet, and so many other things that keep you from focusing on the dream before you. Inevitably this is when someone in the family has a medical crisis, the car breaks down, or the dog dies. All you can think about is how much easier it would be if you had a real job, a boss to blame, and a regular pay check.

If you think that you will never have this day, you are lying to yourself. There is no way around it, and you need to be mentally prepared for it. This why you need that group of supporting loving people around you. You need to talk it out, remember why you chose this road, and keep dreaming together. It is what keeps the dream alive. I truly believe this is a central part to overcoming the enemy by the word of your testimony.

We seldom think of telling speaking our dreams out loud as part of our testimony. We think about our testimony as something that is done, not something that we have yet to see materialize, but the dream within you is a major part of you who you are and becomes the blueprint for the testimony you want to have.

Honestly, today was one of those days for me. I did not want to do all the things I know I need to do. I wanted to crawl back into bed and forget about all the stuff that requires my attention. It was so hard. So hard that I really did not accomplish much of what I intended to do today. And at the end of the day, I had to deal with the feeling of being a complete failure.

I wanted to give up and questioned why I do this. Sometimes there are ways to rekindle that excitement. I practice my presentation to an empty living room, give myself permission to read a book or watch television for a while, or simply to sit and dream about how it is going to feel when I finally get to do what I have been preparing to do.

Other times, forget nothing is going to work and you just have to wait it out. At these times, I have to step back and cut myself some slack. I try to put a time frame on it, a day or a few hours, or the next thing you know you have taken up residence in the land of “What might have been.” It is easy to become exhausted and your thoughts become muddled. Decision making abilities fly out the window, and it can affect your whole endeavor. If you can take a short break, do it. If not, go back to the original plan and make sure everything you decide is based on it, and not some by product of an emotional breakdown.

I survived the day, and the progress can only be measured in inches and not miles, but it was progress. I figure that if I don’t give up than I can’t fail. There is no finish line for our endeavors only mile markers that show how far we’ve come. I know there will never be a day when I can wipe my hands and say “There we did it.” The best I can hope for is a chance to ask “So what’s next?” And if I am I am lucky it will be something else equally impossible, and entirely too ambitious. I look forward to it really, because I have found that God is usually somewhere out there in the impossible and that’s the best place to be.

Putting It All Together – Part 5 The Hills of Sparta

Putting your dream out there is a lot like leaving a baby exposed on the hillsides of ancient Sparta. If the child is fortunate some compassionate soul will come and save it from impending doom, if not it simply dies of exposure.

Unfortunately, many times dreams do die of exposure, and we wonder why we did not just keep them to ourselves. It was easier before we told everyone what we hoped to achieve, before they started telling us why we should not try doing something so audacious as teach people about God, or think that we are something special. We begin to doubt the wisdom of revealing this fragile piece of ourselves to the world, and we decide to stick to something less daring, less painful.

In the last entry, I talked about the team of people who have invested in this dream called Pagus, and I know that some of you are wondering how we managed to get so much help, why our dream wasn’t rejected or allowed to die of exposure. There are two reasons –

The first is we worked our fannies off for years before we asked people to take part in this. We demonstrated that we were willing to put in the time, effort, money, and energy to make it happen way before we ever approached another person to help. As I said before, I went to school and Nathan went to work with a church plant in Norman, and it was not quick or easy. We did not take short cuts in establishing our identity as people who were dedicated to pursuing our dreams. We actively demonstrated that we believed in the dreams God entrusted to us, we valued this vision, and were willing to make the hard choices to make the dream a reality.

When we discovered that we needed a tool or skill we did not possess, one of us learned how to do it. Nathan who had no prior experience designing a website, asked for some help from our uncle and learned as they put it together. When we need fliers, I read design and advertising books to find out how to create an eye catching mailing. We networked like crazy, calling people we had not seen in years, mere acquaintances, and even accosting strangers. We found that our years in retail sales jobs had prepared us to talk to anyone at anytime about this thing called Pagus.

People saw how hard we worked and were intrigued with our passion. We began to get little bits of encouragement that turned into full on curiosity, and finally became “Hey, what can I do to help?”

As each new piece fell into place we would get more and more excited. And the more excited we became the more we talked about it. I think I told five total strangers the day I opened our Pagus checking account – We have a debit card that says Pagus! Really, I did not announce my daughters’ births with such glee, and when we got the first run of fliers. . .rarely in my life have I experienced such bliss. Years of work and sacrifice were beginning to reveal their purpose. It was amazing! It still is, and when you are this thrilled about anything, people tend to listen. They want something to be excited about, and there are not enough real things for people to get excited over.

People wanted to be a part, and out of the goodness of our hearts we let them. And we had something, and someone else to be excited about. So we began to talk more to more people, and . . .

The second thing is we were very intentional from the very beginning that we wanted everyone’s experience with Pagus to positive. Not just for those who attend a Pagus event or those who work with Pagus, everyone. This means if we go to a restaurant and we pay for a dinner on the Pagus account – the servers should be tipped well. When we have an event, we want all the coordinators from that venue to be happy to work with us. We want them to want us to come back.

We want people to know that we are different from other groups they may have worked with in the past, and as we have both worked in service industries we realize that many times the easiest way to separate yourself from the crowd is to show some courtesy. I know it sounds way too simple, but it is the truth. Smile at the sales person, talk to the clerk like they are person, offer to wait when there is a rush, and voila, you are an instant celebrity.

I feel the need to clarify one point. We did not make this decision to manipulative. We made it as people who have been that server in the restaurant, the barista in the coffee shop, or the clerk at the store, and too often the rudest people we dealt with were angry Christians. We made this decision to remind ourselves that we never wanted to be like that. We wanted to be who the Bible declares we should be, it is amazing how well it works.

When you couple enthusiasm with some grace people are thrilled to be a part of what you are doing. In world where Christians are so easily identified by what they are against or angry about people are dying for chance to be a part of something meaningful , a part of something that is for a greater cause. And when you are chasing a God given dream these things should be defining elements of our lives.

Putting It All Together – Part 4 Passports and Puffins on the Pagus

In case you haven’t realized it yet, dreams are big deal to us at Pagus. My dream, your dream, and the dreams we get to dream together.

Several years ago, I was trying to find just the right Christmas gift for Nathan. Now we grew up in a family where getting gifts usually meant buying something practical or needed for a person, and I tended to follow that rule. After all, can a person really ever have too many socks or too much underwear?

This year, however, was different. I kept thinking I needed to by him a leather passport cover. I tried to talk myself out of it. It seemed like such a frivolous waste of money when we were both struggling to get by, but nothing else seemed to be the right thing. As I drove to Tulsa to fight the holiday crowds, I kept thinking how foolish I was being wasting a whole day to get a cover for a passport he did not have, for a trip he would not be able to take anytime soon. It was really beginning to bother me that something in me refused to yield the idea to commonsense.

I kept asking myself why it was so important for me to get him something so pointless, so worthless to our present reality. Somewhere on that drive I found the answer. I won’t say that God spoke to me, there were no burning bushes, clouds did not part, no audible voice shook the world, but it was like all the little pieces of
everything I knew fell into place.

That year had been really tough on us. If I remember correctly we had both lost romantic relationships, and were feeling rather lonely. We were both wondering if we had made the correct decisions – he was living far from home and I was single mom working her way through school. Money was almost nonexistent, and we just wanted something to make sense. The dreams were becoming obscured by reality.

Sometime about then we had begun to learn more about our family history, and became intrigued by our Irish ancestry. It seemed the more we learned about this people and land the more we understood ourselves. Many of the books we read would describe a particularly Irish trait and we would call each other and say “You know that thing you do. . . Well, this book says this about that.” The more we learned the more we wanted to go and see this place. We would talk about the day when we could go check out this pub, that castle or monastery, or the island where the puffins gather. And who can resist puffins? Really? They are like little cartoon characters God decided to bring to life just to make me smile.

But back to Nathan’s Christmas present. I realized that this year I wasn’t just buying him something everyone else thought he needed. I was buying him something I knew he needed. He needed to know that his dreams were important. He needed to know that someone else saw the value of his desire to go and see this land. Not because it practical in the conventional sense of the word, but because it is necessary in the truest sense of the word. And I do not know if I actually mean that the trip is necessary or if the gift is necessary.

Let me explain.

The truth is Nathan may never make it to Ireland, but that’s not the point. The point is we need someone to see our dreams and value them with us. We need people by our side who say I will make your dreams a priority to me. And we need to invest in the dreams of those we love, because our dreams are the truest part of who we are. They reveal our hearts and souls as nothing else can.

As Pagus had grown beyond just me and Nathan, we have found a group of people who believe in our dreams, who have chosen to value our vision. Some have chosen to walk with us because they believe in what we are doing. Others simply because they love Nathan and me. There are a few who have joined us because we have believed and invested in their dreams. And I believe it is safe to say, that for most of those who are now a part of Pagus it is a combination of all these factors.

We could not do without their help. We have people who work on the website, take photographs, check my layouts for typo’s, donate studio time, offer their homes for meetings, prepare meals for our gatherings, pass out fliers, make phone calls, do research, and listen to me rant. People whose talents fill in the gaps in ours, people who are more practically minded and keep us on track. I have one friend who randomly texts me good ideas for marketing – got to love that. Another one who gives me lime and chili almonds because she knows I will forget to eat, and still another who watches my kids so I have time to put things together.

And it is more than all the work we do or the things we give, we have begun to dream together. We have found the pieces of ourselves that might have been lost if someone else had not said this part of you is valuable and worthy of my investment. There is power in that, something indescribably freeing, and of infinite value. My dream does not work if theirs fail and something in their dreams will be lacking if I get left behind. We all need this.

It is not enough to dream in the dark. We have to expose them to light of day if they are ever to take a form. Find your team, find people who can value what you do, who you are, and people who you can trust with something as delicate and valuable as this piece of yourself. They are the ones who help you make it happen, and you do your best to make it happen for them. You will be surprised at how far you can go.

Putting It All Together – Part 3 Google searches and Noah

Okay, have you figured out what you do?

No?

Then maybe you need to consider a second question. What do you want to do?
Remember the caveats from the first entry, and then let yourself dream. If you could do anything at all what would it be? What have you kept yourself from doing because you were worried it was too big, too costly, or too outrageous?

My head shrinker once asked me, “If you woke up tomorrow and God and performed a miracle in your sleep how would you know what he had done?” (Yes, I have a shrink, insanity at this level requires some coaching.) Knowing what the dream looks like is vital, or life becomes like a Google search – so many great and not so great options, so little time. Envision yourself there, figure out what it looks like, how
it feels and smells.

Once you know your dream, and you have recognized your gifts, you need to figure out how to make it happen. I like to work backwards. When we started with the idea of Pagus, we asked ourselves what would we change about our world? For us, we would be able to embrace both our artistic sides and our Christianity. These two realms often seem worlds apart, and as Christian artists we need both.

So we began looking at ways to bring these two parts of our lives together. We realized that we faced some serious obstacles. The first most artist do not feel like they fit or need religion, spirituality yes, religion no. The second obstacle was a lack of appreciation or understanding of the arts within Christianity. So that meant we need to be able to teach.

Okay, we wanted to teach, but to who and how?

We wanted to teach to artists. We wanted to reaffirm their position in the body, but we really did not know what the Bible taught on that. We had an idea based off our personal experience, but that is really shaky ground. We had some circumstantial evidence, but we felt like we needed something more solid still. We could envision some really great events – which we are still planning to do – to bring the church and the artist together, but it soon became apparent teaching the artists was not enough. We had to reinform the church about the forgotten artist.

Now things really got hairy, because it is all well and good to have a dream, but can you hang onto it when everyone says you are crazy? When no thinks it will work? Or accuses you of being too idealistic? Or do you simply say, “Well, God closed the door on that dream.”?

Let me tell you a story. There was once this guy named Noah, and he decided to build a boat. His neighbors ridiculed him, his kids complained about having to work on this thing with their weird dad, and I am sure his wife reminded him daily that he had lost it, but he went out every day for probably years and cut down another tree. And he saved a bunch of animals and all that were left of the human race. The end.

Doing the things that make your dream possible is easy, doing the dream is often difficult. We realized that if the church was ever going to hear what we had to say we needed to bring more to the table than “Hey, I have this great idea.” So we made a plan. I went to school and Nathan went to Norman, Oklahoma. For years we each worked at gathering the information and experience we needed to make our message credible. I got a degree in psychology and another in Biblical Literature (just a fancy way to say I read Hebrew and Greek). Nathan became a worship leader at a church plant and later moved to the Dallas area to work in another body.

Learning is easy for me. I was trained to absorb ideas by my parents. I love to read. I can write a killer paper, but three years of days that began at 5:30 a.m. and ended at midnight or later got old really fast, as did three hour round trip commute to school. It wasn’t easy.

Playing music is easy for Nathan, but things were no picnic for him when he left to go where God called him to prepare for Pagus. I won’t presume to tell his story, but there were times we both wondered why we were doing this. There were times the dream was obscured by circumstance, but once we had caught a glimpse of what was possible we knew we could not refuse to take the chance.

Ask yourself, what are you willing to lose for the sake of a dream? Sleep? Meals? Some self respect? The respect of others? Can you live with yourself if you didn’t try? That’s the dream to chase with everything you have in you, and when you run out of yourself and it still won’t leave you alone, you are probably on the right path.

Putting It All Together - Part 2 Just saying No at Church

You will find out pretty quick that we are not big on formulas at Pagus. We really don’t believe that God is as simple as any quick fix or easy cliché, no matter how pithy the titles of the books or how great the new programs out there are. Not to say aren’t things to be learned from other people’s observations, but we should never place another’s personal experience on the same level as Biblical principles. And the number one Biblical principle is God is relational, hence the whole Jesus thing. So I may repeat myself a few times on this, but it is worth remembering – no one else’s journey will look like yours or mine.

We learn from examples, and the enemy is overcome by the word of our testimony. However, we share our stories not to provide a cookie cutter or fool proof way to achieve your dreams, but as a way to encourage you to seek out how God would have you chase your dream. And right there is the problem, how do you know which dream you should chase?

Conventional church wisdom says we should use our abilities to address a need in the body, and I agree to an extent. The problem is this often boils down to you should volunteer for nursery duty, teach a Sunday school class, lead a small group, mow the church lawn, or give more money. Now, if any of these things truly match your gifting or you feel called and not coerced to do them by all means do. However, if this isn’t your cup of tea and you find that you only do them to avoid the guilt, I would suggest you reconsider your involvement.

Don’t expect this step to be easy. People will look at you as if you just lost your salvation when you smile and firmly but gently say, “No, I really do not feel that I need to be in the nursery.” For people such as me this is a gospel truth. If you want to see a miracle, just lock me in a room full of screaming three year olds, if we all come out alive then God has been busy. Suggest I work with teenagers and I am probably all in. I love their energy and I get their angst in a way I have found few adults do. I am completely baffled at the number of people who cringe over sponsoring on a youth trip, but will willingly submit themselves to four and five year olds. It just doesn’t make any sense.

The point is if we allow our “Christian duty” to be dictated by needs then we will just become embittered like Martha. (Luke 10:38-42). Of course, there are times when we should respond to a need, and we need to be sensitive to God’s prompting of when we should jump in and help and when we should refrain. What we need to remember there will always be needs, and someone will always need to address them. But believe it or not God’s a big God, and the needs of his people do not catch him by surprise. Sometimes an unaddressed need is God’s way of saying we need to rethink how we are doing things, but that is a whole other basket of fish. (Mark 6:30-43).

So if needs are not to dictate our calling, what is? I bet you did not catch that. We aren’t talking about callings, or are we? We were talking about dreams, God given ones, are they the same as a calling? They were for Joseph (Genesis 37) and few other guys in the Bible we could talk about. Dreams are the truest part of who we are, they speak about the things we hold the dearest, and the stuff God has hard wired into us. And some of us function so naturally in the gifts and the abilities that would make a dream possible that we don’t even recognize the dream as a possibility.

I never will forget when one of my professors who happened to be a former editor for a Christian publishing company who asked what I had written. I did not understand the question. I thought there was a problem with one of my papers. He had to explain to me that he wanted to know if I had written any books or articles. I think I stammered out a no, and he went on to explain to me that I should. He told me I could write and I could get paid for it. It was like someone was telling me I could get paid to breathe. The idea was ludicrous – at first.

I have written since I was twelve, but until that point only for class and in my journals. It is easy for me, like breathing. When people tell me they do not have a gift, I smile because these are the ones whose gifts are so innate that they do not even realize they are operating in them. Sometimes they are overlooked because they do not fit in our pretty church boxes. For years I thought I did not have any special gift, all because nothing I do comes into play in a traditional church setting. And I know I am not the only one.

So look closely at your life, what do you do so well that it is not an effort to do? What do you do so naturally that you do not even notice when you do it? Or maybe it takes some work but you just can’t not do it. Perhaps it is something artistic and creative, maybe people walk into your home and immediately feel welcomed, may be people just smile when they talk to you, or maybe you notice the little things others miss. The list can go on and on, but I think you get the idea. This can give you some pretty amazing clues as to what your hidden dream might be.

If you are still lost, go back to your friends – preferably the ones who did not let you lick the electric fly swat, and ask them. Why are they your friends? Do you have any qualities that inspire them? Have you ever taught them something? If they had to describe you in three words, what would they be? Figure out what you do, and eventually the dream will become clearer.

Putting It All Together - Part 1 Why I Can't Ice Skate or Don't Lick the Fly Swat

When we started Pagus, we started from scratch, and I do mean scratch. It is easy to imagine doing what you love, but there seem to be no road signs or maps to tell you how to get there. In many ways we found that it is easier than what we thought would be, and a lot harder than we expected.

People ooh and awe over centerpieces and pretty presentations, but that’s the easy stuff. The hard stuff is the stuff people do not see.
The first obstacle is us, or more specifically, me. I am the constantly at war with both of me.

The first part of me says there is nothing more exciting than doing this. I have the coolest job ever, so obviously it can’t be a job. I am being selfish and arrogant in believing I can do this. I need to grow up, be responsible, and get a real job.

The second part says there is nothing more frightening than this. It is big and scary. I am constantly running the risk of making a fool out of myself, losing all my money, or simply being presumptuous.

I need both of those voices to keep the other one in check. I need to embrace the adventure, accept that I am good at this, and it is not selfish to do what God created me to do. I also need to keep in mind that I am biting off way more than I can chew and if God is not on board with this I am in trouble, so I had better stay on my knees. Either way, I have to receive permission to do what I do.

Now obviously there are some caveats. My dream to be an Olympic ice skater is probably not happening, no matter how much permission I give myself. Nor do I think I will ever create an environmentally friendly non-carbon based fuel that sells for pennies , take over a third world country, or complete a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle – my dreams are many and diverse.

I feel like I should warn you, once you make the decision to start chasing your dream there are going to those who think that you should stick to something safe. The funny thing is these people seem to have some sort of telepathic powers, they don’t even have to say the words, but you can hear them loud and clear. Just remember for some people negativity is hardwired into their DNA, don’t fall victim to their toxicity.

However, let me be clear here. We all need advisors. We all need clear headed, objective people to help us make wise decisions. Sometimes, if they really love you, they will tell you that there are things you just should not try – like dying yourself purple, eating a habanera pepper or licking the electric fly swat. It isn’t easy to hear, but if they have walked with you in good times and bad, sacrificed time and energy to be your friend then listen. Some of us really shouldn’t be doing things like singing in public, dying our own hair, or wearing spandex – ever.

If the people who really love you caution you against a certain course of action, then they are probably trying to nicely tell you that you are going to make a fool of yourself if you continue. Please listen to them. If you are unsure about the people you call friends, may I suggest a few test runs of things you know to be stupid – they sell those electric fly swats at Bass Pro.

So how do you know if your dream is the dream you should pursue?

After you have talked yourself out of it, listed all the reasons why you shouldn’t, convinced you and all your friends of the absurdity of you doing a thing like this, you should forget it. If you reject it for all the altruistic reasons, and love it for the selfish ones, but still can’t commit to the idea, try something else. If the idea makes you feel powerful and important, walk away, you are probably doing it for the wrong reasons. If it doesn’t scare you it isn’t a dream, it’s a distraction. Above all else, you should walk away from it, put down, kill it off, and if it just keeps coming back bring it in out of the rain, feed it, name it, and realize it is yours to keep. Treat it right.