So many phases, so many changes. And despite the happenings of life, the victories and losses, the breakthroughs and setbacks, I will declare that the future is only getting brighter for us who choose.
When I look over the last 15 years, it’s quite astonishing to see where I was, and where I am now. But to say that it’s been a smooth ride, would be untruthful.
Although the journey typically may have looked like seamless days of living the dream, it was often quite the contrary. Because the process is never as inspiring as the highlight reel.
I believe there comes a point in everyone’s life, where they face obstacles they doubt they can overcome. A point in every leader’s life, where they question whether or not they can lead their troops into victory.
Because sometimes it just seems like the odds are stacked too high against you.
During the times that I experience this, I remember God’s command to Joshua. To be strong and courageous, and to fight for what He had promised him.
Its a part of the message we seldom hear. Rarely do we hear about the doubts and discouragement of the greatest leaders and overcomers in history.
The road to your greatest victory isn’t paved with streets of gold. It’s paved with lot’s of little victories, along with the failures and losses you acquire along the way.
Your potential, and the potential of your life was made before you were formed in your mother’s womb. But even though it may be promised, you have to realize it comes at a price.
And though many are called, few are chosen. And the ones who claim the victory are the ones who stay faithful in battle. The ones who endure to the finish.
There is something to be said for the those who continue moving forward, when it looks futile or like nothing is happening. For those who choose to fight for something, when it appears that there is no hope for victory.
This is what it is to live a life set apart. To be one who succeeds where others have failed.
It takes another level of faith to go all in on something that many consider to be impossible or hopeless.
Joshua was one of only two people, out of an entire generation to enter the promised land. David was a Shepard boy who took on a giant single handedly with a sling and 5 Stones, when an entire army stood in fear.
There is always opposition. Always doubt. Always the reasoning of why not to. Of why it won’t work, why it won’t happen, or why you can’t.
But that comes with the territory when you choose to be an overcomer. It’s part of the package.
To reach your potential requires you to do what others may not understand or agree with. To be able to see what they can’t, before it happens.
In world where culture decides what is and isn’t acceptable, you cannot just go with the flow. Instead, you must allow the divine artist to flow through you.
To fulfill your destiny is to do something that has never been done. Each of us have been uniquely designed with a calling in life, specific to us.
Every decision you make and each step you take toward your destiny, is a step into uncharted territory. Because your destiny is for you alone.
And as you cross new barriers, you must do battle. Because no new territory worth having, was ever taken without resistance or opposition.
Most people only see the highlighted victories of those who succeed. What they often fail to see are the battles that lie in the wake.
They fail to see the struggles that happened. The doubts, the setbacks, and every moment where the conscious choice to keep moving forward was made.
We all will face unforeseen trials and troubling circumstances. And just as those are inevitable, we all can choose to holdfast. We all can choose what we believe about our future and our potential.
Because what we see and can rationalize, isn’t always the reality. What it appears to be, isn’t always what it is. And what it is at this moment, isn’t what it will always be.
The rational mind says 2 – 1 = 1. But faith says if I have two, and I give one, the impact from what I gave has a ripple effect that produces tenfold. It doesn’t always make sense according to the way we see things.
Sometimes the only way to victory in a battle is not picking up your sword, but laying it down. Even when your enemy sleeps at your doorstep. Sometimes the greatest battle is to surrender your own desires.
5 Stones is not a representation of performance. It’s not just about achieving, doing better, or about being somebody people aspire to be. It’s about overcoming.
The trumpet is sounding, and there is an army rising up. Not an army of destruction. But an army of overcomers. An army that does battle with the testimony of their overcoming. Testimonies that cause a ripple effect that will transform the world.
So to all the Overcomers, I salute you. To all of you I say, here’s to the finish. Here’s to the Victory. Here’s to reaching our Potential.
In this post I mention God and my spiritual views, but please don’t let that keep you from reading on. This isn’t merely a post about God. It’s a post about my personal experiences with family, both growing up and raising my own. And how I see the impact of life experiences and upbringing can shape not only an individual, but an entire generation.
As I’ve gone through this season of my life for the past two years, God has put this message on my heart over and over again. And in doing so, I’ve come to realize how much I have overlooked such a vital aspect of life and humanity. The family Unit.
How almost every issue, as well as solution in our society can be linked back to the family unit. That the health of the family unit can make or break communities, culture, the world.
But for that to hold true, so must this…
That family was created by God with a specific design, for a specific purpose. For His glory to be reflected by humanity, and fill the earth.
God is a God of intention. Everything He creates, He does so with specific and intentional design. Every aspect of His design carries a purpose and is formulated into His creation, to produce what He intended.
When all variables of the family are in alignment with God’s intended design, it produces good fruit. But if the variables are out of alignment, whether by choice or by circumstance, the fruit is tainted.
In other words, instead of healthy and wholesome people coming out of healthy and wholesome families, we have broken families producing wounded and broken people.
And this brokenness manifestats itself in negative character traits and behavioral patterns creating social issues in which we struggle to find solutions for.
Perhaps we are simply failing to realize that the structure of the family and it’s intentional design is simply irreplaceable.
Me and my Dad
As people, we’ve been given the gift of free will. Because there can be no such thing as love, without choice. We are free to choose what we believe. Free to choose what and who we follow. We are free to choose how we steward our hearts.
But with this freedom, comes responsibility. And because of choices made over time, we have now become a culture which has shifted it’s values. A culture that elevates emotions over morals. Fact over Faith. Logic over the word of God.
A culture who cares more about what people say about us, than what God says. That derives self worth from the world, rather than our Heavenly Father.
We’ve become a culture that is encouraged to pursue our dreams at all costs. That doing what we love is more important than loving.
That working harder is a justified replacement of our family time. Because after all, it’s all for the benefit of our family, right?
We’ve become a culture that esteems what we produce, higher than what and who we are. We’ve taken the highest producers and put them on a podium, rather than recognize that each one of us is a creation of a loving creator.
In this culture there are some families that look like fairytales, some that look like tragedies, and some that fall in between. Many of which are broken and dysfunctional at the core.
This brokenness and dysfunction stemming from wounds that were never healed, cultivated into families, and passed from generation to generation.
It’s become easier to live life wounded, than to go through the process of healing. It’s easier to find ways to cope, than it is to revisit, confront, and deal with the source of the pain.
And if gone untreated, these wounds manifest themselves in our character and behavioral patterns. And after time, these flawed patterns are no longer something we address and work to restore. Instead, we own them as part of our Identity.
And now, we’ve created a culture that says, “yes, we are all flawed, accept it. Let’s all come together and embrace our flaws.” We then accept our character and behavioral flaws as we label them our uniqueness.
But once these flaws have been accepted as identity rather than behaviors stemming from brokenness and dysfunction, there can be no healing.
If we never recognize that we are broken, we cannot change. Once we believe it’s just part of who we are, there can be no restoration. Because you can’t restore what was never broken.
So now we have broken and hurt people who never dealt with their wounds. Who don’t even realize they are hurt anymore, because they are modifying their behavior and their beliefs in some form or another in order to cope.
Then owning those behaviors, character flaws, and beliefs as part of who they are, and how they view the reality of the world. Where there is no longer truth, but instead a self created perspective of what truth is.
This only perpetuates the cycle of brokenness and dysfunction from one family to the next. From one person to the next, as the ripple effect of their beliefs and behaviors affect those around them.
This is how a culture shifts. This is how communities end up with issues they cannot find solutions for. If there is no truth to stand on, deception can and will come over anyone.
To walk by faith and not by sight, is a choice. We can let what we see and our own perspective define truth, or we can choose to believe the words spoken by the one who came and died for us.
When His word doesn’t add up to our own view of reality, we choose which to believe. It’s called faith. The essence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
As one who has overcome and continues to overcome, my own brokenness was bred from a cycle of brokenness. A cycle which I was completely unaware of, as I unknowingly became part of it, and reproduced it in my own life and family.
I often tell clients, “The thing you think is your problem, likely isn’t your problem. And the reason you can’t find a solution, is because you’ve dismissed the real problem altogether.”
As a child there were things that I dismissed as identity. My internal beliefs created my view of reality. And without me even being conscious of it, these very things sowed seeds of fear and worry in me from a young age.
And as I developed, those seeds of fear and worry developed into character and behavior traits. Things like anger, the need to be in control, and the need to feel significant, just to name a few.
And since I derived the truth collectively from my own experience, from what I could see, and what others believed, I could only see my flaws through a lens of deception. It was a lens I subconsciously created in order to cope.
I saw control as discipline.
I saw anger as being strong. Not being timid, not being scared. Not letting people disrespect me.
I saw the need for significance as ambition. As being driven. As being a go getter.
I took all my character and behavioral flaws, and subconsciously put a positive spin on them, and proudly owned them as who I was.
If someone would have told me I was a controlling guy with anger issues, who only worked hard out of his need to feel significant, I would have laughed.
Because in my mind I was just a driven guy, with the discipline to do what it took be successful, and the strength to resist and overcome what stood in my way. And that right there is what the world would applaud. But the truth was that I was just deceived.
My behavior was my way of coping. And if we do not have truth, we all find ways to do so.
Instead of me coping with drugs or alcohol, women, porn, shopping or partying, I chose other forms of addiction which I justified as being noble.
I thought I was rising above, but in reality I was sinking. All the while I was simply trying to fill a void, heal wounds that could not be healed through exterior things. And while I thought I was breaking the cycle, I was perpetuating it. Affecting the ones around me. The ones I loved the most.
It’s one thing to know the potential repercussions of doing something wrong and doing it anyway. It’s another thing entirely to do something wrong while thinking you’re doing right, and for the right reasons.
It’s called deception.
The phrase, “What you don’t know, won’t hurt you” is a lie. In fact, God said something very different.
He said, “For lack of knowledge, my people perish.” In other words, what you don’t know will actually kill you. What you don’t know, keeps the cycle going. Without truth, we perish.
But here is how we can break the cycle. I believe people inherently want to do good. It’s in our DNA to do better, to be better, and to change for the better. Growth and the desire for growth is something God created in us.
The first step is realizing we are broken. Because you can’t fix what you don’t realize is broken. And if we don’t have eyes to see what is really happening, we are powerless to change, to improve, to defend.
We live in a world and a culture that is constantly throwing punches to knock us off the road to our God given destiny. It’s the punches we don’t see that knock us out. And unfortunately, it’s not just us taking the shots.
Our own unresolved issues become our children’s issues. The wounds that are not healed in us, we subconsciously inflict on our children. Just think of the fears, the behaviors, the habits, and the beliefs that were modeled to you as a child.
Me with my sons, Joshua and James
The lens we see through, the beliefs we internalize, the things we justify, all affect the way we live our lives.
The way we live our lives is what creates ripples. And these ripples influence the circle around us. The circle closest to us. In particular, the next generation.
This is how things like racism, poverty, and abuse still exist in families from generation to generation. It’s all a cycle of deception. A cycle that cannot be broken without truth.
But not only can we break this cycle, we reverse it by creating ripples of love and truth that transform people.
Ripples that transform families, communities, and eventually the world. Do you see where this can go? As far as we are willing to live it.
I’m declaring the cycle stops here. That the pain, brokenness, dysfunction, and deception being passed from one generation to the next, stops here. And that happens, only when we go back to the beginning.
Acceptance is not the solution. This is not about adapting and advancing. Death and resurrection is the solution. This is about demolishing and restoring. Restoring people and family to what it was created to be.
Because regardless of what our earthly family situation is or was. Regardless of who hurt us, who failed us, mislead us, overlooked us, left or disowned us, we all have a heavenly Father who is perfect in every way. Who will never leave us, or forsake us.
A Father who knew us before time. Who created us uniquely with intention and for a specific purpose, with a specific destiny to fulfill.
A perfect Father who sent his son to die so that in all our brokenness, pain, and dysfunction, we could be restored to what he originally created us to be. In His Image. And He is Love.
And from there the ripple effect happens, society is changed, and God’s glory fills the Earth. As was his intention from the beginning.
Me with my brothers and sisters, 8 in total. The number of new beginnings. Same legacy, New cycle.
Things continue to exist when they are not addressed, when there is no known solution. So if you found this post to be insightful, insightful, or encouraging, please share with someone who may benefit.
Many times we implement changes when we are motivated to see a given result from them.
But this is about more than just getting results. This is about being changed.
The whole process that you are going through, is not something that you execute just to see a result on the scale or in your body composition. At least I hope you see there is more to it than that.
This process can be life changing if you allow it to be. But it only can change you to the extent that you persevere through the obstacles, challenges, and times of no perceived progress.
We talked about that element of faith, and that this all starts with faith. Think about this, what has been your biggest stumbling block mentally?
Were there times when you consistently executed, but didn’t see the changes you may have expected?
Did you have doubts?
Did you wonder if there was even a point to continue?
Did you wonder if what you started this for was even possible?
Not everyone has the same experience as they go through the process.
There are some people who execute and see immediate results, on a daily basis. And there are some who don’t see them as rapidly.
When you see yourself progressing physically directly related to your execution, having faith in the bigger picture is easy. Because you see how making changes directly creates change.
But that doesn’t happen for everyone, and everyone will have seasons where that does not happen.
Everyone will have seasons were they don’t see the immediate returns. And that is the time your faith is truly tested.
When you feel like you’re doing everything “right” but nothing is going the way you would like. This is my reminder to you, that faith is what takes people to the next level.
Because because if you continue pressing forward despite the lack of perceived progress, you will have your breakthroughs.
And it is this process of continually executing when you haven’t seen immediate changes, that remolds us. Changes us. Because this is not just about getting results. It’s about breaking the old so we can become new.
Good morning team! By now you understand the concept of bumps on the scale and baseline.
If you saw a bump in the past few days, your weight today should show you moving back down towards your baseline. That is as long as you have resumed your eating plan.
If your bodyweight is trending down, do a repeat today of what you did yesterday.
Yes, just eat the same thing you did yesterday, a few days in a row. We like to refer to this as #simpleandsame
It may sound boring. It may sound redundant. Buts it’s a surefire way to regain momentum and get back to baseline.
If you’re not moving back down, here’s a simple suggestion:
There is a difference between Planning what you will do, vs tracking what you did.
Don’t track food, Plan food. Then track compliance.
Instead of going about your day and trying to fit your food intake into your servings, plan what you will have today. Then eat what you plan.
-Keeping it simple and knowing exactly what you are eating is key.
-Minimizing meals out is ideal. (If possible)
-Know all your ingredients.
-Know how much you are consuming.
-Know the spices, the oil (or not) and the amounts.
This is something that I do whenever I need to get back to baseline and beyond to a new baseline.
Lay out a simple meal plan that fits into my servings and foods, then execute. Make it a simple one
