Every once in awhile, I\nthink about how I got here. Not the incredible odds of being born in one of the\nmost abundant countries on the face of the earth. How did I get here, where I\nam sitting right now? It may seem a strange thought, but it is quite amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1966 I was a sixteen-year-old high school student living in Marseilles, a very small Midwest town. I was not extraordinary in any sense of the word. I spent very little time thinking about my future, that is the future after high school. I had a lot of thoughts about high school. I knew about jobs; I had already had a few of those. The concept of a career was foreign. So how did that kid, end up here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you had told me\nthat I not only would graduate from college, but I would do it more than once.\nI would have told you I\u2019m not bright enough for that. How about travel? Not\nonly will you leave Marseilles and the state, but you will also leave the\ncountry. You will log over 3 million miles on airlines alone, covering six\ncontinents. Before it is over, you will have hundreds of people reporting to\nyou. You will work for big companies and even start some of your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You will never live in\nMarseilles again. I would have been terrified and sadden, that last part\nespecially. It was my world, and to this day, my home. To even write it forty\nyears later, saddens me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
God sent me on a\njourney. Although I felt in control most of my life, I wasn’t. Oh, I could make\ndecisions. I could choose not to do what was best for me, and believe me; I did\nat times. But interestingly, all that wandering in the wilderness still brought\nme to right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Job 12:24<\/strong>,\n“He deprives of intelligence the chiefs of the earth’s people And makes\nthem wander in a pathless waste.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Volume One: “The\nPagan Era”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are three volumes\nto the book of my life. The first is “The Pagan Era.” Although I was\nbaptized around nine years old at the Marseilles Baptist Church, I don’t think\nit took. The first third of my life was covered by doing the thing in front of\nme. It got me through adolescence into young adulthood. God was there, someone\nhad to have created all of this, but after He finished, he was done. He wasn’t\na micromanager. He put it all in play and then sat back and watched. How else\ncould you explain all the dysfunctionality in the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Volume Two:\n“The Age of Enlightenment”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 Corinthians 1:27, <\/strong>“but\nGod has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen\nthe weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Volume One ended with a divorce and a pacemaker, a stone in my memorial. We experience the natural repercussion of our actions. Now is the start of Volume Two, I call “The Age of Enlightenment.” I turned back to my roots. I started to read the Bible. I didn’t go to church at this time. Church people seemed hypocritical in their approach to others outside the church. They always seemed to know what was best for everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The revelation was\nthat the Bible made sense at a very practical level. God created us to function\nin a given way. The Bible laid that out nicely. I started to see that if I\ncould be a perfect version of myself, my life would improve. It might not\nimprove materially, because my life was pretty good materially, I would improve\nemotionally. My life was an emotional desert. With all of my worldly success, I\nfelt alone and anxious. There still was a void where my passion should have\nbeen. I wasn’t living for anything in particular. I just was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The image I have of my life at this point comes from a science fiction movie. The astronaut escapes from his rapidly disintegrating ship. His capsule is thrust out into the vast black void of outer space; it is endless and ominous. He is alive with limited life support and no destination. Drifting aimlessly until it all ends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I came to the understanding that God loved me\nintimately. So much so, that He died on the cross for my sins. He wanted a\npersonal relationship with me. But to what end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n After reading the\nBible through every year for several years, I decided I needed another point of\nview. I started going to church. I went to several of them until I found a\nBible teaching, non-denominational church that I enjoyed. They taught directly\nout of the Bible, no condemnation, just truth. Some of that truth was hard to\nswallow, but I was here to learn. September 11 put a temporary end to my\ntravels, so I joined a local Bible study geared to the technology industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Volume Three “The\nAge of Truth”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 John 3:17<\/strong>,\n“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet\ncloses his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interaction with other\nChristians breathed life into my existence. This started Volume Three, \u201cThe Age\nof Truth\u201d. Henri Poincare said, “Science is facts; just as houses are made\nof stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house,\nand a collection of facts is not necessarily science.” This idea is my\nspiritual revelation. My head was full of facts, but that didn’t make me a\nChristian. It made me a good guy with good intentions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the very first\ntime in my life, I understood it was never about me. Everything I had, have, or\nwill have, is to be shared with others. My job, my time, my money all belonged\nto God for His use. I could never be good enough to earn my reward. I should\nthen spend the rest of my life rewarding others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Serving others was\ninsanely freeing. There was a purpose. It was surprising how quickly I embraced\nthis idea. There was an explosion in my consciousness. All of a sudden, I got\nit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At one point, I gave away everything, and I do mean everything. It became one of the stones in my memorial. I would not recommend it without intense prayer and competent counsel. It is a big ask, and God reserves it for the most important of assignments. I just happen to have one. God rewarded me with a sense of incredible peace. He has also done a great job of restoring me. It wasn’t just a stone; it has become my Gibraltar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are all on a journey. The question is, \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d God knows the answer if you will allow Him to direct your steps. My experience is; that it is freeing at a level that few experience. To be \u201cChrist Like\u201d is our purpose, our passion is how we live our purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Galatians 6:2<\/strong>,\n“Bear one another burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever thought about the journey that brought you to the place you are today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,6,7],"tags":[12,9],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motivation","category-purpose","category-stones","tag-christian","tag-purpose"],"yoast_head":"\n