Some anniversaries aren't fun to remember

This past weekend we remembered an anniversary. It’s hard to say we “celebrated” because that certainly wasn’t the tone, but we definitely remembered. Some anniversaries are, after all, hard to enjoy. The moment in recall was the day I lost my job, January 16th, 2015, and the day our family began a year like none other we’ve experienced. In the 12 months since the afternoon I took my last walk from the office to my house, we’ve experienced the life of faith like never before. Traci and I have felt the love of friends and family like at no other time in our marriage, and we’ve felt some of the highest highs and lowest lows. It has been a wild journey.

The first seven months after that departure were filled with many couch-surfing adventures (with our family of five!), thousands and thousands of miles on the road (two trips to the West Coast and back) and many tearful nights and tension filled days. We had to make tough never-been-here-before decisions, and trust in God’s hand to take care of us. We made some great memories along the way, including the time we spent on road visiting friends and family.

I remember vividly, the August 5th morning that we were returning from our six week, 11,000 mile road trip to the West Coast. We were still uncertain about the details of the future, but confident that God wanted us to stay in Michigan. We were driving in from a couple night’s rest in Galena, Illinois, and we literally didn’t know where we were going to stay that night (or any night thereafter!).

Some dear friends texted with my wife asking about our living situation, and they assured us that their home would always be available to us, and for the next two nights we would rest in their hospitality. As Traci and I fell asleep in their camper (not even joking when I tell you that it was the absolute best night of sleep I had experienced in months!), I became profoundly aware of how much God had taken care of us. How much He had provided for us along the way.

By that night in August, I had lost track of the number of different beds we had fallen asleep in (well over 30!), and the number of times financial gifts came in to bless us at “just the right moment” of need. Two trips to the West Coast had gone off without a hitch, literally, without a single problem from our 280,000-mile-old vehicle. Hundreds and hundreds of emails, FB messages and posts, texts and phone calls had come our way from people who just wanted to encourage us along the journey. Truly, in the midst of being homeless and jobless, I had never had a more profound sense of God’s work in my life.

So this weekend, on the one year anniversary of watching God change things up as only He can do, I remember, somberly, that His ways are not mine. I remember that He holds the future in His hands -- He already knows tomorrow better than I know yesterday! While I was experiencing (perceived) injustice, hurt, uncertainty and far more questions than answers, God already knew where the path was leading, and He was directing me -- the whole family! -- with the patience, grace and mercy of a loving father.

Ultimately, the goal of living the Overboard Life is that, through an active faith in God and His work in our lives, we are becoming more and more like His Son. That transformation is worth all the uncertainty, hardship and challenge that God directs our way and that this world throws at us. I am praying that 2016 is vastly different than the year we just put behind us, but even more, I am praying that the seeds of change God planted in our hearts and minds last January, take full root and began to blossom and produce fruit in this year.

When I think of the past year with that perspective, I have no choice but to celebrate this anniversary.

What about you? Do you have a painful anniversary that you need to see in a different light? It’s not easy, but it is freeing. After all, since becoming like Jesus is the goal, we must learn to embrace the process that gets us there.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life -- even your painful past -- is better on the water!

What's your dream worth?

This morning I was watching a documentary on some of the biggest oddballs of baseball: Knuckleball throwers. These are pitchers who throw a ball that doesn’t rotate, is hard to catch and that doesn’t usually travel faster than 75-80 mph, and often travels more like 55-60 mph. In a day and age when pitchers are praised for throwing 100 mph, or where curve balls make great hitters look bad, few teams have a place for an old-fashioned knuckleballer.

One of them, R. A. Dickey, was facing the end of his tumultuous career after one good season (2010) was followed by an injury plagued year where his pitch just wasn’t working (2011). But his dream to be a great Major League pitcher, and to dominate at his position, was too big to end. So R.A. drove across the country to meet other pitchers of his ilk. In baseball history, despite tens of thousands of pitchers, less than 100 have been knuckleballers, and today, there are only two who pitch the knuckleball in all of baseball.

R. A. met with previous knuckleball pitchers. He analyzed bad games. He changed how he held the ball. He learned to adjust to his speed. He pitched through some serious pain. He didn’t give up.

His dream was worth the work, and a year later (2012) RA won baseball’s highest honor for a pitcher: the Cy Young Award. He was the first knuckleball pitcher in history to win that award.

Is your dream big enough to work for? Will you meet other who can help? Will you learn from the “bad starts” an mistakes you’ve made? Will you work for it when you’re not at your best? Will you play hurt? Will you change your approach?

Living the Overboard Life is about taking the steps to pursue what God has in store for you. Ephesians 3:20 continues to resonate in my heart, day after day: “God can do anything you know, far more than you could ever imagine, guess or request in your wildest dreams” (The Message). Jesus is out on the water calling you out of the boat to chase after the dreams He has placed in your heart. Will you step out in faith and trust Him? Will you work through the hardships? Will you see it through?

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

Please pray

Over the past couple of months, you have probably read a blog post or two about my friend Andy. He, his wife Jodie and their four awesome kids, have taken off on a whirlwind adventure of loving God and loving others. They have left everything they know, all their close family relationships and comforts, and headed to a part of the world where electricity is a luxury that they do not get to enjoy. A place where water must be collected when it rains, where daily life is primarily about survival, where they do not know anyone or the language of the village and most importantly -- a place where God’s love is not known. They have been in this remote village for two months and have been blasted since day one. Let me give you just a small list of the trials that have hit this amazing couple and their children:

* They have been attacked by poisonous snakes

* Their third-born contracted malaria

* Their third-born recovered from malaria, only to contract it again

* All of their kids and family contracted severe diarrhea and stomach ailments

* Jodie cut her foot and experienced a debilitating infection with severe pain and massive swelling

* Andy and Jodie both contracted malaria

* Their oldest was bit by a scorpion and had to be “shocked” to curb the pain and limit the spread of poison

* Twice their life-giving water supply was contaminated with dead animals, forcing them to empty every last drop

* The oldest two children also contracted malaria

* Several of the kids have had severe fevers in a comfortless, hot and humid region

This is only a partial list and keep in mind -- it’s only be two months!

So as I woke up to start the morning routine and get the kids to school today, I stopped my running around when I saw I had another email with their latest update. I read these the moment they come in since it takes them 45 minutes to an hour, each way, to travel to a place from where they can send updates. They don’t take the stroll to tell me how the weather is doing -- I know these emails are important.

My heart broke again as I heard how things have gotten worse for this family. They are serving in this village with a team of people from the states, but none of whom are having the same trials Andy and Jodie are experiencing (although each of them is certainly facing tough times!). The team leaders has been working closely with Andy and Jodie to try and help, support and encourage them, and he has also been communicating with their unit leader back here in the states.

This morning news came down that for the sake of their family’s well-being, Andy and Jodie and their four beautiful children will be pulled off the field and sent back home to the states.

This family loves God and has a passion to love others anywhere in the world. They have been excited and passionate about doing this in a village where God’s name is not known, yet as God leads, it is apparent that they must return home from this part of their journey. I can’t imagine how difficult a decision this was for everyone. I can’t imagine the heartache the family is experiencing as they process the return trip. I’m sure there is also a little joy at the thought of being back to what’s familiar, but also a sense of loss as a big dream and goal is slipping away.

Will you please pray for this Overboard family?

I’m so proud of Andy and what his family has done. The choice to live Overboard and follow God, even in a set a circumstances that seems less than ideal or not at all how it was initially envisioned, is what makes Overboard living such a matter of faith. All of us love the mountaintop experiences where the view is clear, the path behind us is well-defined, and the struggles of the climb are swallowed up in the beauty of the view. But the Overboard Life isn’t defined by the view from the top, it’s defined by the choice to start the journey -- the decision to step onto the trail in the first place.

God doesn’t promise us any mountain tops in this life, He just asks us to start on the trail.

And when we start the trail, God promises to give us peace, comfort and rest.

Andy’s Overboard journey has just begun. I’m confident that path God has for Him will continue to unexplored lands, and adventures that only God could orchestrate. In the mean time, please pray with me, that Andy, Jodie and their children will find the comfort, peace and rest they are most certainly in need of. Pray that God will make clear His plan for them in the next part of the journey, and that whatever and where ever it is, they will be ready to go. Maybe a return to the place their leaving? Maybe a return to local-church ministry? Maybe a whole new adventure where the last few years will come into clarity and they’ll see God’s precise hand in all that has transpired. Whatever is next, God knows, and let’s pray for this dear family and their journey.

And as we do, let’s pray that you and I would be willing to live as Overboard as Andy and Jodie have. May God raise up many more who take up the Overboard Life like them.

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

A Little Perspective, Please.

A week before we moved to Michigan, we began the process of getting internet connected at our camp house. Three and a half weeks later, we’re still without internet, although the promise of digital goodness is just a day or two away (so they tell us for the fourth time!). It’s amazing how much our family has missed our internet connection. Every day Celina asks us something that requires the answer, “No honey, that app needs internet.” Each of us has had a moment on an iPad or on the laptop trying to open something before we realized…oh yeah, that requires internet!

Over the past two years we’ve been without conventional television, choosing instead to be a Netflix family. So being without internet has been a double whammy, because our entertainment via Netflix has also been disabled. Life is rough here in Northern Michigan!

Alas, God gave us some much needed perspective when we got an update from our friends Andy and Jodie, who are serving God half way around the world. Andy was the feature of my 100th blog (a few blogs early due to his departure from America; you can read it here). He and his family are an inspiration to anyone living the Overboard Life, and he has been one of my dearest and best friends over the past 12+ years.

Andy and Jodie are adjusting to a brand new culture. They are experiencing things I’ve never come close to: things like real hunger. I’m not talking about the kind of hungry when I just can’t decide which of the fast food restaurants I’m going to eat at, or which thing in my overflowing fridge I’m going to devour. I’m talking about the kind of hunger where you’ve eaten your “food” for the day, and your bowl of rice just isn’t cutting it at 9pm. The type of hunger where the nearest real store is 2 hours by car, and that’s if you only get one flat tire, and aren’t stopped by authorities to pay a “tax” (a tax that isn’t written anywhere and is required if you wish to proceed). A kind of hunger where you really are wondering where your next meal is going to come from, and where you have no answers for your kids when they ask about food. There is no electricity, and therefore little-to-no cold storage. Meal gathering and preparation is a full-time task, taking up over 1/2 of the hours he and Jodie are awake.

As I was lamenting my loss of internet, Andy was a million miles away, lamenting a lack of safety. Each night before they go to bed, he and his wife spend 90 minutes securing the mosquito nets for their kids’ beds to keep them free from malaria-carrying insects. He kills giant spiders and scorpions by the twos and has already had several encounters with deadly snakes. He spends the afternoons taking a machete to the tall grass; a way to keep the snakes from getting comfortable near their home.

Andy does have internet however. If he’s willing to take a 90 minute hike (one way), up a hilltop outside of his village, where he can use a regional cell phone to tether a signal and send a few emails. Not enough signal to do any web browsing, but just enough to download his current batch of emails, and send the ones he worked on back in the village. Then he walks 90 minutes home, all the while keeping a watchful eye for dangerous creatures.

Yeah…but I have to walk five minutes to my office to get internet!

Sometimes, a little perspective can go a long way. There’s no doubt that not having internet has been an inconvenience. But that’s all it is. I have access to it elsewhere, I can plan better for my time, and I still have an iPhone (with the old school unlimited data plan!) that gives me all the access I want. In the big picture, my life is still pretty good even without internet.

This unintended internet fast has been good for me, and good for my family. Is there something in your life you should take a break from in order to gain a little perspective? My friend Aaron is a 20-something young married who gave up video gaming for the month of January. That was like cutting off an arm for him, but half way through the month he told me, “I can’t believe how much time I have now!” Indeed. What about you? Is there a “necessity” in life that you could go without to gain a little perspective? Spare me the excuses (I’ve heard and used them all), and get down to the nitty gritty: how much do you really need that thing in your life? Heck, my friend Cal still doesn’t have a cell phone and he somehow manages to still stay pretty connected to his friends and family. (Although really, Cal, ditch the rotary phone and go with the touch pad!)

Living Overboard requires us to identify what’s really important, and to make sure we never compromise the important and essential for the convenient and fun. Yes, it’s ok to enjoy conveniences and to seek out pleasure and fun; it’s just not ok to think either of those things is essential in our lives! What starts out as ok, can easily become a driving force, and a real distraction from living Overboard.

One time, a rich young man came to Jesus and boasted in his diligence to obey every law (613 of them, give or take). Yet he knew, inherently, something was still missing. So he asked Jesus, “What must I do to be saved?” Jesus’ response was shocking: “Give all that you have to the poor, then come and follow me.” The man was rich, and he couldn’t imagine parting with his wealth. He left rejecting Jesus and embracing his wealth.

Jesus wasn’t telling us that having things (ie. conveniences or money) was evil. He was pointing out that it’s far too easy for those things to drive us, instead of us driving them. The rich man who came to Jesus was boasting in his actions, and Jesus was revealing where the man’s real treasure was. In much the same way, Andy’s situation has helped me identify some troubled areas in my life.

What convenience or possession or piece of entertainment has a strong hold in your life? If you’re brave, post it in the comments for others to see. Then, find a creative way to take a break. See how you can gain a little perspective and make sure your Overboard Life isn’t being limited because of poor stewardship on your part.

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