REALfitness by Scott

On Monday Night at our men’s group we are looking at patterns of behavior. We are using an analogy of a train. The engine represents a “trigger event.” That event then taps the second car of the train, the coal car or fuel car. That car represents the emotion we feel not just because of the trigger event, but largely through how we interpret the trigger event. This then leads to a pattern represented by numerous train cars that follow. Ultimately, we wake up in the sleeper car, the next to last car on the train wondering, “How did I get here again?” The caboose represents the consequence or outcome then of the entire pattern. Here is an example of what I mean. A guy comes home from work and the wife has been working all day too. As soon as they are together an argument starts, something is said that stings (trigger event) that comment is interpreted (you never understand me) and taps an emotion. That emotion fuels the pattern, the guy runs for a man cave somewhere and clams up or has an angry outburst and then runs. Nothing is resolved. It may lead to the silent treatment for days. Finally, he wakes up and says, I swore I would not react that way anymore and here I am, how did I get here. The consequence is more distance, having to grovel, or apologize. The pattern just keeps repeating itself. Here is why, “When you do what you always did, you get what you always got.”
The next insight is before sin entered the world, God looked at Adam, who had a great relationship with God, and said, “It is not good for you to be ALONE.” I believe we are designed to need intimacy with God AND with some significant other people in our lives, primarily your spouse if you are married. But the above kind of patterns become entrenched early and they guarantee we will not be able to have a deep connection with our spouse. I got this picture of a fruit tree. The roots go deep into the ground for nurishment and that represents our intimacy with God. When we don’t have the deep connection with our spouse and a few close friends represented by the main trunk of the tree and the branches that bear fruit, we often put all the nutrients into “sucker” branches. I remember as a kid, dad teaching me about suckers. They are branches on a tree that take nutrients but have no purpose. They don’t bear fruit, they just take from the main tree and the fruit so it isn’t as good. They had to be cut off. See, because when you are in a committed relationship more is at stake, it makes it more difficult to share deeply in life because we fear hurting our partners or that we will be hurt. It is easier to invest energy into “sucker” branches. Get this, when we avoid the main branch and invest in the suckers, we guarantee we will never find what we are looking for that deep connection. Something must change. We must wade through the emotion, potential hurts and fears and invest heavily in deep levels of communication with our partner. Only when we break the pattern of running at the first little ping of hurt can we learn this new pattern.
Hope that is clear?
Blessings,
Scott

As I got up this morning day 10 of living by myself, I was reminded what lonliness feels like. I have a new and deeper appreciation for my single friends, for those who have lost loved ones or were once married and now find themselves single. I especially have thought about our troops and their families. The long periods of time away from each other must be very difficult. This morning on my run I was thinking about personality profiles? In the Myers-Briggs Profile the first letter is an E or an I, representing Extrovert or Introvert. Basically these terms are not so much whether you are outgoing or quiet but rather how you are energized. So, yesterday my laptop computer’s charger died. I was watching the little battery indicator slowly draining throughout the day, and today that picture came back to me. If you are an introvert your battery gets fueled by being alone. You get a full charge and you can enjoy being with a group of people for a while, but while you’re there your battery is slowly loosing its charge. I’m an extrovert, which means it is just the opposite. If my battery is low, being in a high energy, room full of people puts the juice back to me. It charges my battery even more if there is some people who know and love me and connect at a deeper level than surface talk. The charge fills more and more the longer I’m in the crowd. When I’m all alone for very long I can feel the charge slowly depleting. So, I’ve felt something I’ve carried most my life, a sense of deep lonliness in times like this. For me, that feeling growing stronger is like the warning light coming on my computer, “Plug it in or its shutting down.” So, tomorrow afternoon I’ll be in a room full of family and feel the energy coming back to chase the lonliness away for now! Thanks to all my friends who helped keep my charge from totally depleting while the misiz has been away.

Interestingly enough, after I wrote the previous entry, “No silver bullets,” I went out for a run. I’ve been relentlessly driven for the last 10 years to figure myself out. Some who know me well may think that’s a hopeless project! Our men’s group is working through a book titled, “Wild at Heart.” As I have been reading and highlighting and thinking through each chapter it is almost like it is putting an exclamation point at all my discoveries over the last decade. One of the realities I’ve discovered and is written about widely in all kinds of literature, including the Bible, is our fabrication of a public image while the real person is buried deep within. I believe for ten or more years I’ve been searching. Okay, I know I’m a late bloomer, but I’ve been searching for who I am as a man and do I have what it takes. I know I’ve had deep wounds that I’ve medicated, ran from, been ashamed of and hid from. But, with my hand in the Divine hand, layer by layer I’ve been peeling trying to get to the core. I’ve made discovery after discovery but knew I wasn’t done. I believe I guard that core wound for all I’m worth because it brings shame. My last discovery about my passivity brought more pushback from the men in my life than any other, but to me it is very real, tangible and Gayle would agree. She has lived with me for nearly 38 years now! On my run in a very deep and personal way that I’ve come to know well, I believe the Lord told me I’m done. The passive piece was the last piece of the puzzle. There is no more to discover! I honestly sensed a huge load lift from me and I said out loud, with arms up like a boxer in victory, “I’M FREE!” The wounds have been discovered and healed. I also believe I sensed Him say, you are tenancious like a fighter, now fight for the men in your group. Your search took a long time because you did it with Me and you alone. Your men can find their wounds and heal much quicker with a tour guide. You go fight for them, for their families, you are where I want you! It was like a sense of calling for me again! There is so much more I could say but much of it is so personal. I shared it with Gayle through tears on my return. Now, I’m free to battle everyday life with no deep wounds driving me. Just the common battles of life and many years of training to deal with them. The levels of discernment and understanding to the human condition I’ve learned are worth all the time it took. I never would have learned these things and found this sense of freedom without the journey to the core! Ultimately, in God’s sight this position was mine when I received Christ thirty-six years ago, but the practical outworking of that freedom has taken all this time. I am a grateful man tonight!

blessings and Happy Thanksgiving,

Scott

One of the main men who meets on Monday Nights with our men’s group said, “learning all this stuff is really helpful but life is still pretty hard.” Our fall men’s retreat had a theme this year, “No silver bullets.” The idea is there is no one time course adjustment that means there will never be a need for more. There is no one “aha moment” to end all “aha moments.” Life is an adventure that unfolds as we go. In reality, history is linear not circular, it doesn’t repeat itself. It keeps moving forward.  It seems the adage from AA is still the best, “One day at a time.” Or as Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will have its own worries.” So, we take each day with its joys and obstacles. We do the best we can with what we have to work with. Part of the purpose for periods of introspective work is to prepare me better to live each day with joy, purpose and impact. The healthier I can become spiritually and emotionally and yes even physically the more likely I will able to take what life brings and handle it in a God honoring, joy producing way. I’ve discovered the Lord is my best teacher for deep discoveries about myself and life. I’ve found the more I learn the less I judge anyone else’s situation. The more I discover the more I know there are “no silver bullets.” Let’s see what today brings and what I do with it!

blessings,

Scott

I actually believe the Bible to be true. I take it literally, which means, the meaning the author intended to convey when he originally wrote. If the writer was writing to capture historic events, it is historical. If the writer meant to use a figure of speech, you figure that out to the best of your ability. All that to say, I believe the original creation story. I read this week and pondered for the first time, the time gap between when Eve ate from the tree and Adam was figuring out what to do. Eve was “fallen,” Adam had to choose where his loyalty would lie, Eve or God? He chose Eve. Men have been faced with that same choice down through history and for the most part Eve has been the choice for us as well. Looking back to my previous articles, my mom is a very dominant personality and a huge impactor of my life, like most moms are! You never see an NFL guy after scoring a touchdown say, “Hi dad!”

I shared earlier how I’m discovering I tend to passively disengage from my family. This week as I’m pondering all this, I see that passivity has tenacles that are far reaching in my life. I enjoy someone else taking responsibility for me and my life. I’d rather work for a company than be responsible for my own business. Though I have a million ideas, I’ve never pulled the trigger on any of them. I’d rather someone else make decisions for me that effect my life. Then I can be a critic and spectator but can say, It wasn’t my choice. I can advise my superiors how they could do a better job but when I am in the top position, I tend to freeze up not knowing what to do.

What I’m learning is all of life and life participants are imperfect, including me, but I am called to actively participate in life. I am to engage at all levels. I need to grasp opportunity and responsibility and stop waiting on life to happen to me!

I read recently a line that hit me hard. If life is like a game of checkers, most of us are waiting on God to make His move, but God says, I moved first, its your move!

I will continue to explore how far reaching this passivity is. I know this. Passivity is largely where the “cup half empty” originates. I am waiting for something, some opportunity outside of me to take the responsibility to fill the cup the rest of the way! If I’m waiting on “something or someone” to fill my cup so I’m happy, I’ll never be happy.

That is my cup, I must fill it to the level I desire. How about overflowing?

blessings,

Scott

Probably a year ago now, I wrote and taught my men about living within your own circle. It has become one of the most used concepts I’ve taught. The concept is to draw a circle on a white board with a stick figure inside the circle representing you. The concept is based on the Scripture that says, each of us will give an account for OURSELVES to God. The circle then represents the things I am responsible for in my life that I will one day answer to God concerning. Imagine everyone then having their own circle of responsibility. My responsibility is to develop and guard my relationship with God. If He is in control, I will have joy, love, peace, kindness, goodness, self-control, etc. I will respond to those outside my circle in healthy ways, not controlling, not manipulating or not allowing them to bulldoze me. My value will not rise or fall based on your opinion or evaluation of me. It is living responsibly with healthy boundaries.

It actually develops more fully to include who can or cannot add anything to me as a person. Who can or cannot validate me. Ultimately, I am who I am, I rise or fall before God alone. He says I am His Son and He loves me, has gifted me for His purposes and that is enough.

So then, apply this concept to the earthly life of Jesus. From the get-go He received all his validation from the Father. He was sent on a mission and accepted that as His role, so, he never thought Deity was something He had to grasp or attempt to hang on to. He humbled himself and became a man, a servant and willingly died a cruel death. He heard the booming voice at his baptism, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” He moved right into forty days of fasting and toe-to-toe with the devil. His ability to stay within his circle meant Satan really had nothing to offer him, nothing to pull him away because he was fully validated by the Father, he needed nothing outside his circle. Same throughout his earthly ministry. He knew who he was, he needed no validation from religious leaders so he could challenge them and show them plainly when they were in error or hypocritical. He also, was totally comfortable with the down and outers, he mingled with anyone because they could do nothing to diminish who he was either.

Even in the end when he was beat, mocked and challenged, “Prophecy who hit you!” he had no need to play the game, totally confident in the Father’s ability to judge fairly later on. Then from the cross, totally within his own circle, “Father forgive them, they have no clue what they are doing!”

Jesus is the perfect example of living within your own circle. He always knew exactly where the lines were drawn between his responsibility and calling and where others were responsible for themselves. A great lesson to ponder and practice. In this life we will never get it down as well as he did, but it sure is the most healthy way to live your life.

blessings,

Scott