Your playing small does not serve the world...

Not even a little.

   Am I playing small in my world?

   I have asked myself this question a thousand times in the past few years. There is no question that that is true. I have used the old battlefield adage "This is not the hill I choose to die on" as an excuse to avoid conflict way more than a well thought out or fully prayed through decision barometer.

   With that I feel I must confess and ask forgiveness to those I love and journey with on a daily basis.I have not served my wife well. I have not served my family well.  I have not served my students well. I have not served my friends well. I have not served those I despise well. Most importantly I have not served Jesus well.

   Please believe me, I have no intentions of trying to evoke any kind of pity or sympathy. I say all this not under a cloud of self-condemnation, but of discovery, of renewed hope and a profound experience of freedom.
   For many years, due to my own inability and my choice not to heal from "church"ianity and the loss of my dad, and my chosen profession of pre-hospital EMS I allowed myself to become bitter and jaded. I did not guard the gift God gave me that was once detected by everyone I came in contact with.

   I once lived out grace the way that God showed me grace when I first met Him. Bold, loud, merciful, compassionate, with wisdom, love and with reckless abandon. ("back when I was young and "unchurched"") I have been playing small for a long time. To the point that I have forgotten what my faith could be like, and what it used to be like to allow Jesus to use me without hesitation or embarrassment and reluctance.

                          ¹⁶ But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show my                power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.

Exodus 9:16 (NKJV

Matthew 6:6

“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

John 4:23-24

“It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

   My commitment to my wife, my family, my friends and Jesus is no more playing small. No more role-playing with "church"ianity and conterfiet faith. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship.

   To those I journey with: Choose to live big. Choose to live and as my beautiful and very wise wife says everytime one of us leaves the house, "Leak Jesus today"

Peace to all



Thank you Papa for continuing to call me out on my crap and point me to you.