The Most Interesting Man In The World

I always dreamed I’d marry someone like my father. He was exciting, daring, curious, charismatic, and not afraid of anything. I was convinced he walked on water and was pretty sure there was no one out there who could hold a candle to him.

And then came Wolf.

One evening early in our marriage on a flight home from Atlanta I woke up from a nap midway through the trip and noticed him hard at work on a yellow pad. I leaned over to see what he was doing and he hunched over the page, shielding it from my eyes. Now, too intrigued even to respect the privacy of my new husband I begged to see what he was doing. After repeated attempts to peel his fingers off the pad, he finally relented and bashfully showed me what he’d been working on.

Before continuing, it’s probably only fair to tell you that I married “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. No, I mean THE GUY. Both sides of this guy’s brain fire on all cylinders as he goes through life as a business owner, a competitive athlete, chef, adventurer, sculptor, and so many other things. Our daughter says he’s the kind of guy you want to be with when you’re in a real jam because he will just simply get you out of it.

His appetite for adventure and travel were two things that particularly attracted me from the gate. Like my dad, there seemed to be no end to what he’d done or would do. Before we met, this Indiana Jones had experienced a lot of unusual things, exposing himself to a side of life most only see on a beer commercial or read about in a magazine. He had stared down the barrel of an Afghani nomad’s rifle in Band-e-Amir over a fifty cent dispute on his horse. He had paddled with a pod of dolphins a thousand strong while kayaking off Espiritu Santu. He photographed rhinos in the Brahmaputra from the back of an elephant. He once circumvented the entire shoreline of the largest lake in Bali, water skiing so long his fingers couldn’t hold a pen the next day to sign his name. Out of respect for the atoll’s custom, he once ate the heart of a tuna given to him by a Tuamotoan woman while it was still beating. He made mango crepes while 30-foot waves crashed over the bow of the sailboat on which he and his buddies crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He had eaten thousand year old eggs in China, crickets in India, and salamanders in Hong Kong.

But I digress. Back to the yellow pad.

At the top he had written “Things To Do Before I Die”. It started off with
1. Explore Patagonia.
2. Kayak around the islands on the Sea of Cortez.

Okay. Sounds like him. He continued:

3. Sleep on the crater floor at Uhuru Peak.
4. Take Sylvia down the Baja peninsula in the van.
5. Be a greeter at my church.

Wait… what?

The list went on:
6. Enter the Molokai Challenge.
7. Build a house for someone who doesn’t have one.

Whoa, whoa… what was that last thing?

Buried in a list of things typically featured in outdoor magazines were two little pearls. Easy to miss, but oh, so telling. Those two pedestrian items were placed right alongside things on which adventure movies are made but they told me more about the soul of this man than anything I read that night.

Since that day some of these things have been done (I highly recommend the drive down Baja, by the way; EPIC).

The economy has tightened though and we are using our scarce dollars in other ways, suspending his quest to finish the list for now.  But his unquenchable zest to live life to the fullest hasn’t been snuffed out and besides, he’s begun to make a new list:

1. Start every morning in the Word.
2. Adopt an older adult with no kids of her own.
3. Pray my daughter will want nothing more or less than what God wants for her life.

Although initially attracted to his daring spirit, it is now his gentleness, generous heart, and commitment to God that draws me to him the most. Today, I think he’s way more interesting than ‘The Most Interesting Man In the World”!

So what’s the point of going on and on about Wolf? None really. I just like to talk about him.

But I do think we all need our very own bucket list. Life’s so short, why not dream BIG and commit ink to goals that will supercharge the few years we have on this planet? Our lists shouldn’t only include things that require money we don’t have or personality traits we don’t possess. What would happen if our list reflected a change in the definition of what interesting is? What if our list demonstrated a focused effort to pour into the lives of others? Bob Goff says it simply: “Love does“. To be the mom who raises kids who know they are loved, the teen who spends free time with seniors who have no one else, the business professional who pushes a competitor forward, the family who makes room for a foster child, the secretary who buys a bag of groceries for the co-worker who is struggling, the unemployed person who sponsors a 3rd world child, the busy dad who takes an 15 extra minutes to mow the difficult neighbor’s lawn, the single guy who volunteers a Sunday a month in the nursery… these are the places where character lives.

So do tell… what’s on your bucket list?

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23

 

 

Sylvia Lange is a Christian women’s speaker who lives in Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!

Hang a right

When you look at this image, what do you see? One person might say it’s a silhouette of a woman while the next sees a man playing a sax.

So which is it?

A singer on a stage will hear something vastly different when staring down the throat of the speaker’s horn than what she hears upon taking just two steps to the right. The dark image up ahead the hiker is sure is a bear ends up being a rock when he advances just 20 feet. The neighbor who bugs the snot out of you today ends up being a treasure after you find out she’s the one who called the police when an intruder broke in your house. A prolonged period of great financial uncertainty becomes the very thing that confirms deep in your spirit that you can’t only depend on your own ability.

When circumstances suck, many of us get stuck. But even a tiny step in either direction can make that which we initially viewed or heard or felt one way suddenly look, feel, and sound completely different.

When I came face to face with my alcoholism 13 years ago, life seemed to be over. It was as if I’d been bathing in emotional cement which had hardened when I wasn’t looking and I couldn’t see my way out of the mess I’d created. I’d failed everyone I loved and everything I attempted and felt nothing but shame about who I’d become. I was stuck and wanted to die.

But then.

After walking block after block down the depressing road that was my life, out of nowhere I took a right and found myself on a new path. Here, nothing looked familiar but man-oh-man, the light felt good. On this road, there were trees and empty lots where kids played basketball, and all that would come out of my mouth was “thank You”. With the help of good people, a solid program, and a new understanding of a great God, the reflection I’d see in the windows as I passed revealed that indeed, I was beginning to look like a new creature. Over time, the feeling of shame that had choked out all semblance of living within me was replaced with the overwhelming awareness that it had all been a gift.

My friend Ann showed us how it’s done recently after a long and devastating battle with cancer. As she began to take the turn on to heaven’s road, she chose not to feel sorry for herself but rather to thank God through it all. She continued to thank Him, even up to the time she gracefully moved from her current location to her celestial zip code last week, inspiring all who watched her go through the fire.

Perspective.

When one of my girls was hit with breast cancer this Spring at the age of 30, she decided to articulate gratitude instead of swimming in fear as she went through a double mastectomy. Though still dealing with it, Erin has come through this ordeal a vibrant and catalytic believer, profoundly influencing the spiritual lives of all she touches.

Perspective.

Is that really all it takes? Yah, pretty much. That, and a belief that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to a place of wholeness. Things we thought were insurmountable become small mounds when we give it up, make it a practice to turn it over to God on a daily basis, and watch the Spirit do mind-blowing things inside of us.

I believe this stuff, I really do, and everything has changed as a result. Is my life all sewn up? Not even close. In fact, at this writing I’m going through one of the scariest things I’ve ever faced. I’m anxious and I’m scared– but I’m not derailed. In fact, I see my connection to God deepening and the size of my own agenda decreasing as my eyes are glued to His. When life is going well there is a tendency to give Him a fleeting glance but I thank Him for this trial because through it, I’m getting more in the “habit of Him” as I hang on to Him more than ever before. I also know I need people who want the same things I do. I need caring souls to refresh my memory that I’m God’s very favorite child or I’ll get caught in the cement again. I need folks with a sunny outlook and a great faith to remind me that God is nuts about me and doesn’t want me to stay stuck. Perspective shift? You bet. In fact, the way I see it these days is that I have the extraordinary life I have today all because once upon a time I drank too much. No matter what your issue is, we have Power available to us to squash our flaws, foibles, failures, and fears– we only need to seize it… and live like we believe it.

Maybe the skyscrapers on the road you’re on are so tall they’re blocking out the light. It seems no one notices your feet are dragging. But up ahead is an intersection; you can keep walking down this street or you can make a turn up in the next block. You may be unemployed, on the verge of divorce, ill, bankrupt, or just plain lonely. Take a different path. Hang a right. Get out from in front of your computer, have someone move your bed, bring the phone closer to you… whatever you’re doing or wherever you are, call or go talk to someone. Now. One of my favorite passages from James says “Tell your stuff to another person”; the words on the page actually say “confess your sins one to another” but what it’s telling us is open your mouth and tell another human being the exact nature of what you’re up against. Why? “So you may be healed”. Healed. Trite? Maybe. But pinky swear, this stuff works.

It takes guts, but come on… you can do it. Hang a right.

“I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor (wo)man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles.” Psalm 34:4-6

 

Sylvia is a singer and Christian women’s speaker, and lives in Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!

They’ll know we are Christians by our T-shirt

Across the street from where I grew up was a big Catholic church complete with a school, rectory and nunnery.  They hosted robust fiestas, the priests wore floor-length robes, and the nuns were nice to me.  Don’t get me started on the holy water; let’s just say for awhile that year every door in our home had a half-full Dixie cup on its threshhold and an eleven-year-old who crossed herself before going in to the toilet to pee.

I was jealous of my friends who got to go there as I thought the place rocked. My experience with it was only from a distance though, but from my upper bedroom window looking down over the church yard I saw and heard a lot.  But what really got me was the music; Folk Mass was on Sunday nights and the songs were some of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard, igniting my budding musical sensibilities.  This was the beginning of the 70’s… a time of simple words with simple melodies sung with a simple acoustic guitar.  One stanza and chorus of one song said

We will work with each other, we will work side by side.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side.

And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride.

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love. 1

 

I never forgot those words.  But the real impact of them didn’t hit me until much later.

I learned that when He was here, Jesus ticked off the religious leaders of the day when He said the commandment that trumped all others was that we should love God with everything we are and next, that we should love our neighbor like we love ourselves2.  Who wouldn’t agree with that?  But although I called myself a “Christian” for a long time, for years I didn’t live up to what that moniker means, in fact, sometimes not even close.  I didn’t love — I lied.  I judged. I compromised. I put myself first and tried to get away with all degrees of ugly.  But I sure looked good when I needed to.

Oh maaaaan, it seems to be there’s a lot of that going around especially on the public stage. Is it just me, or lately does there seem to be a rash of Christians in the news who seem to be tarnishing the label beyond repair?  As I listen to some of Christianity’s more vocal public critics like Bill Maher, Joy Behar and Jimmy Fallon bashing so much of what I hold dear, I want to shout at the TV  “that’s not Jesus!”  And although I cringe at their vitriol, I have to admit something to you:  I kinda don’t blame them.  I mean, come on.  If all they see “Christianity” to be is a TV pastor who once publicly decried homosexuality but then was caught in the back room with a male companion, or believers picketing a California state proposition in anger, or the singer who sang songs about Jesus but then stole another woman’s husband, or a Christian politician’s family member who (whoopsiedaisy) had a child outside of marriage… what are they SUPPOSED to think it’s all about?

Lest I scare some of you, I hope you’ll hear this: I believe we need to stand up for what we believe and strongly defend our faith.  I do. But when we do, do we sometimes forget people are watching as we claim to represent God Almighty?  Are we only ambassadors of His judgment… but not His mercy and love?  What would it look like in today’s political and moral climate if we “put on love”3 in the way He did?

Here’s how I see it.  I can’t speak for how you’ve “lived love” in your life, but I can sure say I’ve done some of those despicable things they’ve done when I knew better.  Many of the hurtful, selfish, idiotic, judgmental things I’ve said or done would cause anyone to question whether I was in fact a real Christian, or certainly whether or not I knew how to love.  As a result, I know I’ve caused a whole lot of people confusion and pain.  Worse, I have very likely done serious spiritual damage in some who might’ve looked to me for what a Christian should be like.  That’s just the awful truth and although I know God’s forgiven me, I have to live with that.

But here’s the sweet part of the deal: today I know God is the “God of the second chance”.  He forgives, He remembers no more, and He moves on, wanting us to do the same so that we don’t waste one more second of the limited time we have on earth wallowing in yesterday’s news.  That’s the beauty of being His kid!  I will always be a bonehead who blows it but hopefully, those “I knew better” moments will be fewer and farther in between and man-oh-man am I grateful He wipes the slate clean each time I recognize it, tell Him so, receive His forgiveness and MOVE ON.  Hopefully I am learning each day to be less concerned with being the perfect Christian and more concerned about what it means to love Him (action) with all that I am and to love others around me (action) as God asked me to do, whether or not they believe the same way I do.  The rest will take care of itself, I know it.  I am convinced today that I am a member of a royal line who is forgiven, loved, and thought the best of by the King.  I want to live like I believe that and will keep on trying to love the way Christ would want me to, all the way until He greets me at the door of heaven.

How will they know we are Christians?  I’d like to think it’s more than what’s emblazoned on our T-shirt, but rather, by the unmistakable way we love.

 “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I could be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13: 1-3; 13

 

Sylvia is a singer and Christian women’s speaker, and lives in Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!
1 ©1966 F.E.L.Church Pub., Ltd. Assigned 1991 to Lorenz Publishing Company, a division of The Lorenz Corporation. Reprinted with permission (8/30/12).

2 Matthew 22:37-39

3 I Corinthians 13

4 Isaiah 43:25

It’s too stinking hard

In the first few weeks of my new life a young woman asked me to coach her through a similar struggle as I’d experienced, saying she “wanted what I had”.  She told me the courage she saw in me motivated her.  She said my commitment to doing what it takes to have a changed life inspired her and the steps I was taking to have an authentic experience with my Higher Power made her want to know more about Who He was. I felt insecure about helping her since it was all so new to me but upon the advice of my own sponsor Susan, I decided to give it a try and gingerly accepted her invitation.  I told her if she wanted what I had she would need to do what I did and she agreed.  For weeks and often for hours on end I met with her one-on-one,  patiently listening to her pain and offering the same tools I’d been given.  I took her to meetings, dried her eyes, prayed with her, and generally stopped at nothing as I poured into her life.

After a short while, she started drinking again.  Further, she gave the middle finger to the investment I was making in her and all the progress she’d made and never looked back.  I was floored.  What had I done wrong?  Did my enthusiasm to help her have the opposite effect and chase her away?  Or was I too soft?  What happened??

When I shared my dismay with Susan, she told me something I didn’t expect to hear.  She said it didn’t have anything to do with me, but said the reality is- most people don’t want it.  What?  How could that be?  How could anyone NOT want to sleep soundly knowing they’d been truthful in everything?  How could anyone NOT want the peace that begins to flow into relationships as one by one we make things right with those we have hurt?  How could anyone NOT want to stop looking into life’s rearview mirror as each new mile traveled is honest now?  How could anyone NOT want the freedom that comes with being naked before God and feel no shame?  How could anyone NOT want to stop arm wrestling with what they knew to be good and right and true?  I had drunk the KoolAid, saw how amazingly improved my life could be, and just assumed everyone wanted it too.

Over time I began to understand what Susan meant as I watched many I loved or admired seemingly satisfied with “close enough”.  I watched churches split over power struggles, single Christians get impatient, and the need to be right destroy relationships on all levels.  I watched drinking get out of control in the life of influencers, anger go unchecked, and the perceived “right to happiness” blow marriages apart.  Earlier in my life, I had done a lot of the same kind of stuff; professing faith in God but then making choices that would belie such belief if I thought it’d suit me. It’s one thing to say “I believe”, but to live it?  Ouch.  I couldn’t help but wonder how different it might’ve been if someone had just grabbed me by the shoulders in those days and asked “what are you DOING?”

So… what is it with us?  Why aren’t we willing to do what it takes to have a rich life on every level?  Why do we allow low-living to steal from us what God has to offer?

You know what I think?  Sorry to be blunt, but when it really comes down to it, it’s just too stinking hard.  That’s right.  It takes a lot to swallow our pride as we listen to counsel and apply it to our life.  It takes GUTS to shut up, share the credit, be tolerant with others, tell the truth, stop whining, return the money, admit we’re wrong, serve with no recognition, say we’re sorry, and really make things right.  It costs us a whole lot and too often, we just don’t want to pay up.

I don’t know what you believe, but I believe the reason Jesus went through all the drama of coming to this earth as He did was because He wanted us to have it all.  Think about it: He lived as a man, was criticized and tortured and ultimately killed by a passel of religious leaders who were ticked that He’d pulled focus from their legalism. He then rose up from the dead (He was also still God, you know) and a month or so later returned to heaven where He tells us He’s preparing our eternal home for our arrival.  The whole point was that He came to give us a shot at a life that is marked by great plenty1, no matter how much or how little we have.

So what stops us from jumping in the deep end… from biting into the juiciest part of the apple… from living and being all God made us to be, even if it costs us a boatload to do it?   What would it take for us to muster up the GUTS to, as my buddy Danna says, do the right thing for the right reason, and trust God with the outcome?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; but I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  John 10:10 NASB

 

Sylvia is a singer and Christian women’s speaker, and lives in Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!

1“Abundant”: www.Merriam-Webster.com