I wanted to punch a guy...

Last week, Traci and I had the opportunity to take in a Mariner’s game and visit some dear friends while we were on our West Coast tour. We drove up Wednesday (about 4 hours from my family in Salem) and enjoyed a beautiful night, even though the M’s lost, while catching up with Bob and Emily, the first couple to join our youth staff when we worked in Washington. It was a great night.

The next day, we caught up with friends Tal & Joan, and then thanks to a blown appointment (I really felt like April 8th should have been a Thursday...not a Wednesday! Sorry Ritters!) we ended up with a somewhat free afternoon. The sun was shining and it was the first alone time we had experienced in a couple of weeks, so Traci and I took to downtown Seattle on a gloriously sunny day. If you can catch Seattle on warm and sunny day, it truly is one of the great American cities to enjoy.

After hanging around Pike’s Place Market for a couple of hours, we headed back up toward the Space Needle where we would find a pizza shop to eat, and hit the road to catch up with another friend before leaving for Salem. While walking among the crowds who were enjoying the weather like us, we fell in step with a man talking on his cell phone.

I totally started listening to his conversation and saw that Traci was doing the same. After just a few moments, I realized what was happening, and I wanted to intervene. I’m not, nor have I ever been, any kind of fighter or brawler, but something was rising in me that wanted to hurt this man at some level. He was a pimp, and he was preparing one of his girls for her night of work. Here’s what we heard at the end of his call:

“Hey, where are you at?”

[response]

“How much money have you made?”

[response]

“It’s only $150? You’ve gotta do better than that.”

[response]

“So here’s what I want you to do. Go get your son and spend some time with him. I’ll get you a place to rest and I’m going to buy you a coffee...”

[response]

“That’s right, I’m going to buy you a cup of coffee, get you some food, and I want you to rest up before you take more calls for tonight. So just enjoy your son, and then we’ll take more calls tonight.”

Traci is preparing for a trip to Thailand to work with women who are trafficked for sex. As a result she’s been learning a lot about the problem of human trafficking and the reality of its ugly presence in countries like Thailand, and in places like Seattle. The use and abuse of women (and men) for sexual pleasure is vile.

This guy’s call was a textbook call to “his” girl. He was gentle and kind, although very firm ($150 was not enough profit so far) but he was providing her a chance to be with her son, have a place to rest, and even a cup of coffee. In his own sick way, he was taking care of her needs, while coercing her to use her body for his own financial gain and perverse pleasure. The whole thing is sick, yet the cycle is complex and the solutions aren’t simple.

Going to Thailand this summer, my wife will get to experience a rescue work happening in one of the major human trafficking places in the world. This issue is both heart-breaking and sickening, yet there is an army of people rising up to bring true hope and healing around the world, and here in the U.S. I’m sure we both will be sharing more about this topic in the weeks to come.

What ultimately “got me” about the call in Seattle, was the thought that the person on the other line was a woman -- not a thing, not a sex toy, not an item to posses. She isn’t any man’s property, but she is a beautiful person created in the image of God, created to know Him and be known intimately by Him. That she is a prostitute doesn’t change her value as a person (any more than this guy who is pimping her, is somehow less of person). Our actions don’t determine our value to God.

A couple years back I wrote a post about this topic, reminding readers that these women were born as daughters to moms and dads. They were precious little children, perfect in their parents’ eyes, and they entered this world adored. The tragic events and choices that led to their current condition, doesn’t change their true identity. And even if they weren’t loved by an earthly family, they were -- and are -- intimately loved by their Heavenly Father!

No matter where life takes you, or where those you love choose to dwell, the truth of Psalm 139 rings through all of our circumstances and tells us that God loves us deeply, and longs for us to know Him as He knows us:

“I look behind me and you’re there,

    then up ahead and you’re there, too—

    your reassuring presence, coming and going.

This is too much, too wonderful—

    I can’t take it all in! (139:5-6)

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

    you formed me in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!

    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

    I worship in adoration—what a creation!

You know me inside and out,

    you know every bone in my body;

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;

    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

The days of my life all prepared

    before I’d even lived one day. (139:13-16)

Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!

    God, I’ll never comprehend them!

I couldn’t even begin to count them—

    any more than I could count the sand of the sea. (139:17-18) The Message

As my pastor says at the conclusion of every message, “You are dearly loved.” Indeed, you are dearly loved, and I trust today you will know God and His love more, and share it with the world that so desperately needs to hear the message. The woman on the street, her son and even her pimp, need to hear the message of hope that God loves them, He has provided hope and salvation and He answers anyone who calls on His name.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

You were born for this.

I’m a sports movie junkie. What can I say? I’m just a sucker for the kind of drama most sports movies bring -- you know, the “no one thought they could do this” kind of stuff? Think about it, all the great sports movies involve underdogs overcoming great adversity to win: Hoosiers, Remember the Titans, Miracle, Secretariat, Invincible, Rocky and The Mighty Ducks (ok…that last one is a stretch). This week, I want to feature three of my favorite speeches from three of my favorite movies. If you haven’t seen them -- watch them. You don’t have to love sports to love these movies, you just have to love the true grit that inspires people to achieve greatness when the odds are against them, and supporters and believers are few.

My all-time favorite movie is Miracle, the story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey team. Their feat became known as the Miracle on Ice. Coach Herb Brooks put together a team of amateurs to play against the world’s elite hockey players, and their rise in the 1980 Winter Olympics is heart warming, powerful and even a smudge patriotic (for my American readers).

In this clip, Coach Brooks speaks to the boys as they sit in the locker room, waiting their semi-final game against the Russians. The Soviets had won the Hockey gold in five of the previous six Winter Olympics and they’re early tests showed them ready for another gold medal celebration. In fact, earlier in the year, the Soviets pounded the American team in an exhibition game in the U.S. -- and most people thought a repeat would happen in this game, too.

Listen as Coach Brooks inspires his team before they take the ice:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/tdmyoMe4iHM]

I love the line he uses: “Everyone of you was born to be a hockey player.” These men weren’t playing hockey because they were good at it. Coach Brooks didn’t select his team based on skill alone (watch the movie…it’s really good), but based on some intangibles -- the “it” factor. These men were supposed to play hockey, it’s who they were.

Great moments in life come to us when we are in the sweet spot, doing what we were made to do. God was intimately involved in your creation, inside and out, knitting each aspect of your life together. Your likes and dislikes, your passions and your skills. Look at how David describes it in Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

You were created by God, intimately and personally, created to be His child. He longs to have a personal relationship with you and for you to live by Him, for Him and ultimately with Him. You will find your sweet spot when you embrace your God-given design , being who God designed you to be so that you can do what God made you to do.

A great life isn’t about the number of dollars you make, the number of people you touch or the number of countries you visit. Greatness is about being satisfied in God’s presence, fulfilling your design in the every day opportunities that surround you. In those moments, God gives us all different platforms from which to speak, different audiences to influence and particular lives to invest in. But it’s in the “being” that happiness and greatness are found.

If you want to live the Overboard Life, you must embrace your Creator and His specific creation. Stop trying to be someone else, stop trying to do more to please Him -- be who He made you to be, and the doing will take care of itself.

The 1980 U.S. Hockey team found greatness. Yes, the did something amazing, but that doing came out of each one of those men being who they were made to be -- hockey players. Have you found your greatness? You will, when you stop doing and start being who God designed you to be.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is better on the water!