This past Wednesday I celebrated 7 years on staff at NewSpring Church. I’ve said before that this is easily the best job I’ve ever had. I can’t imagine a better way to pour out my gifts, talents, and abilities than to do what I do right now. I love it.

Is it perfect? No. Nothing is perfect. There are challenges we have to work through all the time. As long as us imperfect humans are involved, nothing will ever be perfect. Even when the robots take over it won’t be perfect because people had to program those robots. But is it awesome? 100% yes.

The other day one of my coworkers asked the something akin to “Knowing what you know now, what would ‘now’ you say to ‘7 year ago’ you?” That’s a great question, It’s been kind of stuck like a thorn in my mind ever since. I have some thoughts. Here are just a few … a “completely incomplete list” … of things I wish I knew when I started.

Your job or title doesn’t matter as much as your calling

In my seven years I’ve gone from developer, to leader of developers, back to a developer, to almost a leader of developers, to solidly in developer land again. I’ve gotten raised up and lowered back down a number of times. It’s exhilarating to know that there is something I can contribute beyond writing lines of code and it’s disheartening when you’re told that part of who you are isn’t needed in that role anymore.

When you place all of your hope in a title or a job and that thing doesn’t pan out, what does that leave you with? After all, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” (Proverbs 13:12)

What I’ve come to realize is that regardless of what job I hold or what title I’m given, I have a calling and a purpose. My calling is to use technology to reach people for Jesus. I can fulfill that calling in thousands of different ways. When I tie my hopes to a certain job or title I end up disappointed or heartbroken. When I tie my hope to my calling and if I’m working inside that calling then every day is fulfilling, no matter what I’m doing.

There are very few emergencies.

People are the worst at making things seem urgent.

Just watch the news. Everything is bad everywhere and we’re all screwed. If you don’t do these 3 things today you might as well kiss it all goodbye. Good luck.

We are great at doing this in the tech realm too. “Feature A is broken and we need to fix it … now!” Notice the exclamation point. Everything has an exclamation point.

• “I need it!”
• “I can’t do my job without it!”
• “It’s the end of the world!”
• “You and your software sucks. Fix it!”

We get things thrown at us left and right. We’re told all the bad things about our software almost every day.

Here’s what I’ve learned: Take a breath. It’s almost never as bad as we make it out to be. Most of the things we call emergencies we make into emergencies ourselves or let other people make them into emergencies for us. We shouldn’t let other peoples emergencies become ours.

Put out the very best product you can. Work hard to make it better. Of course, fix the problems. But if you spend all of your time responding to all the “urgent” things that people say is wrong with your product you will never move your product forward and give it better value for the people who are currently screaming that “this line of text isn’t centered.”

Can your product be better? Yes. Is it an emergency? Take a step back and look at it twice. Chances are it’s not.

Rest is important

If you’re working in your calling and making things happen, chances are that you love your job and you have a hard time disconnecting from it. It can consume your every waking moment (and sometimes the non-waking ones too).

This is a good thing! You want to be greatly invested in what you’re doing.

But God gave us six days of work and one day to rest for a reason. He told his people to work the field for 6 years and in it’s 7th year to rest it … on purpose.

The magic happens when we rest. When you exercise you tear muscles and break them down. It’s only when you rest that your muscles heal and grow. We leech the nutrients out of the soil for 6 years and it’s in the 7th year that they return to normal. We work our fingers to the bone for 6 days a week and it’s only in the 7th day that we can find the peace and strength we need to go forward into the next 6 days.

At the end of 2019 I took a sabbatical. I was off work for 5 weeks and it truly was magical. I didn’t set an alarm clock. I slept until my body was rested. I read books I had been wanting to read but wasn’t making the time for. I started exercising and moving my body again. I read my Bible every day. I discovered newfound health in my spiritual and physical life. I spent time with God and renewed my commitment to my calling and confirmed that I was in the right place doing the right work.

None of that wouldn’t have happened if I had just kept trudging through and had not stepped back in a concerted effort to find rest. I knew my body needed it. I had no idea how much my soul needed it.

Please, whatever it looks like for you, find rest.

Don’t do it for the money

As a husband and dad, I want to provide for my family as best I can. I want to give them the best and make sure they have no need. I think this is a noble and honorable goal.

Here’s the thing though. If you work just for the money to fund the things that you think your family (or you) wants or needs, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. There are always more things to buy or more ways to spend it than you have money.

The result is that you’ll end up hating your job or moving from job to job constantly in search of the next pay raise. You’ll end up resenting yourself or your family because the search for more is endless and you can never find the end of everyone’s desires. You’ll keep seeking, but never finding.

There’s a better way. There is fulfillment in more than things. Stop chasing money and start chasing hearts.

By all means love your job but do it because you love it and it’s fun and challenging and growing. Do it because it helps you grow as a person and it has a positive impact on others. Show up because you know it’s something you are supposed to be doing.

Don’t do it for the money or the fame or the chicks or whatever. All those superficial things will go away and you’ll still be left with you and the positive or negative results of your work. When you work a job you love and that fulfills your purpose, that will overflow into everyone around you. Maybe your family dynamic changes because now Mom or Dad is happy when they come home from work. Perhaps they have time to spend with the kids instead of constantly rushing in search of what can only bring temporary happiness.

Do what you do because you love it, not for the paycheck it provides. You’ll be happier all around.

Fin

These seven years have gone by so fast. I’ve never been at a job this long but it feels like I’ve just gotten started. Seven might be the the number of completion in the Bible, but I’m nowhere near done. I’ve got more to do. I’ve got more to see God do. I’m definitely not done yet and I can’t wait to see what’s next. Let’s go!

I once believed that, as a parent, my job was just to raise my children to be as independent as I could so that one day they would leave the house. That was it. That was the goal. So many people told me that. The literal goal was to spend 18-24 years or so putting all my effort and energy into these humans who just so happen to share my last name so that they would go on to do their own thing where I would no longer have any influence or impact in their life. I was taught that the “goal” was to, at some point, be able to do whatever I wanted to because I would no longer be “held back” by having children around.

I feel like that is such a dim and short-sighted view of what being a parent is.

Now, what I’m not saying is that I want my kids to be 30 years old and living in the basement with no prospects or plans for the future. I’m not saying that I want to baby them forever and never have them know what it’s like to work hard or sacrifice. I want them to have goals and dreams and plans and to take action on what they want in life.

But would it be so bad if that action, if those plans, revolved around being a part of what our family does as a team and that I would get to have an impact and influence in their lives for the rest of my life? That doesn’t sound bad at all. In fact, it sounds amazing!

I love my children and I want to be able to spend time with them on a regular basis for the rest of my life. I don’t want to push them out and tell them to never come back because now it’s “me time.” “Listen kids, I’ve put in my 25 years with you. Now I’m going to go do all the things I couldn’t do because I had to feed and clothe you.” That sounds horrible and completely selfish. My job is to raise my kids and that job doesn’t end until I’m dead.

I want my kids to be around forever if they want to be. I want to build a compound and let their families live near us. I want to build our family as a team that has an impact on the world for a thousand generations.

I’ll be talking more in the coming weeks about what it means for our family to build a “family team.” But let me end with this:

If you want to do something, whether it’s building a family, making a website, starting a business, or even changing the world, it has to start with you. This whole change I want to see in my family thing … it has to start with me. I have to be the one to start it. I have to want it with everything I have. No one is going to do it for me. If I let it slip then it will be another generation that has to pick up the slack and who knows if they will? Change has to come from somewhere and it has to start with me.

What kind of change do you want to see? It starts with you. Make it happen.

Can you actually feel better without caffeine?

If you remember from this post a few weeks ago, I have been experimenting to see what it would be like if I removed caffeine from my life for 30 days. After hearing Jeff Goldblum say that he hadn’t had any caffeine in years and he felt better because of it, I wanted to give it a try. I figured that 30 days would be long enough that I would be past the withdrawals and it would give me a pretty good indication of how my body would feel without it in my life.

Well, I’m happy to report that this past Monday (February 17th) I celebrated 30 days caffeine free!

So How Was It?

I’ll be completely honest, it was pretty tough for me in the beginning. Like I mentioned in the post linked above, that first week not only did I stop using caffeine, but I had to get up 2 hours earlier than normal because it was the last week of 6:00am prayer time at church. So I was going through the headaches and the out-of-body feeling that goes with not having the caffeine in my system plus I was sleeping less. It wasn’t my best week.

Since then though, it really hasn’t been too tough. There have been times when I’ve been super tired where I would normally have reached for a caffeinated drink only to replace it with a nap. Let me tell you, having the occasional nap back in my life again has been awesome.

Plus it’s not like I just stopped drinking caffeine and replaced it entirely with water. There are still plenty of sugary, overly-intense flavored, high-fructose corn syrup wielding drinks out there that don’t have caffeine. I’ve had my fair share of root beer and Hi-C and other such things. So while I’ve made strides when it comes to one chemical in my body, there are still plenty more that I need to work on removing from my life.

One step at a time here folks.

How Do You Feel?

I feel good. I think I was expecting to be feel sluggish and run down all the time but I really don’t. My body is reacting just fine to it. If anything the struggle I have is habitual. It’s been harder than I thought it would be to just be able to stop wanting the thing I know I’m trying to get rid of. My habit of going to the grocery store or gas station and getting a Mountain Dew off the shelf is a hard one to break. Right now, I’m doing that by grabbing something non-caffeinated. In the future though, I can see myself wanting to remove sugary drinks entirely too. That one will be a little harder to work through, I think. I haven’t gotten to the point where I love water enough by itself to not drink anything but that. That day may come though. And maybe sooner than I think.

If this is something that you’ve been contemplating, it’s totally doable and worth it. You don’t need that mood-altering substance in your body anyway. Be prepared for the first week to be hard, but after that things should get easier for you.

As for me, I’m going to keep going on the non-caffeinated track. I feel pretty good so far. Let’s see where this thing leads.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

– 1 Corinthians 13

Fair warning: Today’s blog post is me attempting to think through things in a public forum. I’m thinking through this subject as we go. There will probably be no definitive answers to anything and you may completely disagree with where this goes. That’s okay. If you see me, pull me aside and let’s talk about it. I’d love to hear your opinion and use it to help me form mine.

After writing last weeks blog post I’ve been thinking a lot about fear. In that post I talked about “the fear of the new” and how fear always shows up no matter what. I gave the argument that everyone has a fear of something and that if you can name your fear then it becomes not so fearful after all. I mentioned that if you can recognize it, you can tell it to leave and defeat it.

I still believe this is true, but like I said, I’ve been doing a little more thinking and praying about this and I have some other thoughts.

First, Some Context

The topic of fear came up again last Friday night, right after I published that last post. Our church hosted a Men’s conference last weekend and on Friday night Jeremy Foster, pastor of Hope City Church in Texas gave a great message about how it’s time for men to step across the threshold from where we are and into the lives that God has for us.

Side note: Jeremy, if you ever read this, I know I am probably not quoting you exactly right. I feel like I have the gist of this section pretty well down though. Forgive me if it gets too far off course. Also, feel free to correct me. I can take it. 😄

Over the course of the message Jeremy mentioned a few reasons why we stay where we are instead of stepping into what God wants us to step into. One of those reasons was fear. You could probably think of a few fears right now that would hold you back from stepping up into what you know God wants you to do, couldn’t you? You can probably physically feel them. The fear of the unknown, the fear of what the people around you might think, the fear of letting other people down … these are some of them. There are most likely others.

At one point during this section of his message Jeremy sort of joked about an old preacher that said something to the effect of “If you have Jesus in your heart, you never have to fear again.” Reading those words doesn’t do justice to how Jeremy delivered it. Read it again, but think old southern preacher as you do. There … you got it now.

Anyway, the point Jeremy was making was that what the old preacher said just wasn’t true. We will always have fear with us. He said that if we ever want to do anything significant it will be full of fear. Taking unknown steps, doing big things … these will be fearful.

In the moment I agreed with him. We will always have fear. I said pretty much the same thing last week, didn’t I? I agreed that the old preacher was probably wrong and fear is just an inevitable conclusion to a life lived on the edge. Well then I started thinking about it some more over the course of the next few days and … well now I’m not so sure.

So What Changed?

I just couldn’t shake the idea that something about this whole fear thing was not quite right. Like maybe there was something to what the old preacher had said. Perhaps he wasn’t completely wrong.

I started wondering, thinking, and praying. I started asking questions. What if there was a difference between the fear we talk about having, and actual, deep-seated, real-life fear? Is it actually possible to live without fear?

I think there is a difference between actual fear and what we call “fear” on a daily basis. When I think about “fear” I think a “deep down at a soul level” kind of fright. When I think about the “fear” that I experience when I open up a new document to write, that’s just me being scared of what people might think about what I write. I believe more and more that there is a difference between fear and just being scared or nervous about something. That it comes down to the level of the soul. When the old preacher said that you never had to fear again, I believe he was thinking soul-deep, not skin-deep.

Maybe I’m just arguing semantics here. If you look up the definitions of “fear” and “scary” they are pretty much the same thing. But I don’t think that God defines them the same way and I think that distinction is a big deal.

Here’s why I say that. As I was thinking the things above I went to God to seek some clarity. Clarity on subjects that you find muddy is like cool water on a hot day. You know what I’m talking about right? You’re out there working in the yard and it’s hot, you’re sweaty and getting kind of tired. Then someone wonderful brings you a cold glass of water and you take that first drink … it’s like life has just been shot directly into your veins, isn’t it? It’s amazing what clarity can do for your life.

God and I were chatting about fear and I was asking Him about whether or not there was a difference between actual fear and just being scared about something. He reminded me of 2 Timothy 1:7, which says:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

A couple of things that He made sure I noticed:

God Doesn’t Give Us Fear

Fear is not from Him. “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16a). If it’s not love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control then it’s probably not from God.

Fear is a Spirit

If it’s a spirit, and it’s not from God, that means that we can cast it away from us. 1 John 4:18:

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.

God is love. There is no more perfect love than the love of the Father. There is no fear in His love. Perhaps this is where the old preacher was speaking from. If we have the love of the Father, what shall we fear?

Also notice that if fear is a spirit (it is) then the love of the Father (and some spiritual warfare) casts out that spirit of fear.

So the next time we are feeling fearful, we can remember that fear is just a spirit and we can tap into the Father’s love and in the name of Jesus tell that spirit to leave us and ask the Father who loves us to fill that “now-empty-of-fear” place with power, love, and a sound mind.

Wrap it Up, Rich

So at the end of the day, I’m beginning to believe more and more that there is a difference between “soul-deep” and “skin-deep” fear. Public speaking, anyone? That might be a soul-deep fear for me. But I also believe that fear, in whatever form it comes in, is just a spirit, a tactic that my enemy wants to use to keep me from doing the very things that God wants me to do.

These are just my raw thoughts. Maybe they’re right … maybe they’re not. I may have made the whole subject clear for you, or I may have muddied the waters a bunch. I apologize if it was the latter.

But perhaps both Jeremy and the old preacher were right. Maybe we will always have some fear as we tread through this adventure called “life.” But if we know that the fear we experience is not from God we can defeat it at the mention of Jesus’ name and then move forward without it.

I have to be honest, as a writer, there isn’t much more frightening in this world than the blank page.

Oh sure, there are probably some large animals I wouldn’t want to run into and there are people I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley I suppose. Then again, I’m not sure why I would find myself in a dark alley anyway, but I guess that’s a different thing.

Oh … and bugs. I hate bugs. You know how the farther south you get on the Earth to bigger the bugs get? Yeah, that’s not for me. I’d rather move further north and need a shotgun to keep bears and wolves away than to move further south and have to deal with giant bugs.

No thank you, sir.

Anyway, staring at a blank page is right up there with those things. Whether it’s because I have no ideas and need to write something in a hurry or I have so many ideas that I can’t choose what to write about, the fear still remains.

What do I write about? What do I put down on that page first? I personally have a tendency to want it to be something profound or life changing. Like it’s not good enough if the first sentence is just normal. Don’t I have to have a topic before I start writing?

These and other questions flood my mind like the river that Arwen causes to swell and sweep away the Black Riders in The Fellowship of the Ring. Which only makes it harder to concentrate and actually get any writing done. The more I think about it, the more questions I have, the less actual writing I do, which just leads to more questions. It’s a vicious circle. The fear is very real.

You may not be a writer so maybe this particular fear isn’t your fear. But if you’re honest with yourself you have your fear too. Anytime you start a project or cook a new dish, it’s there. When you pull out that pencil to start drawing or make that first measurement on that piece of wood for that shed you’re going to build, it’s standing right there with you.

What I’ve learned in my time in life is that if you can name your fear then that fear has less of a hold on you. The more you recognize “oh, that’s just that fear named … “ the more you’ll know what to do when you see it. The last time you felt that fear you did “this” to defeat it. That means you can probably do that same thing (or something like it) this time and beat it again. Over time you learn your fears and how to handle them. It doesn’t mean that they don’t scare you. It just means that you get to be in charge and you can choose to dump that fear where it belongs.

It all starts with giving your fear a name.

In my case, I call this particular fear “The fear of the blank page.” For our purposes here we’ll give it a more generic, overarching name. We’ll call it “The fear of the new.”

So now that we’ve named it, it is no longer a foreign thing to us. We know that every time we start our new thing it will show up just begging to be a part. It can no longer sneak up on you. You’ll see it coming from a mile away.

The next time it comes around and you start to think “What if I screw this up?”, or “What if I fail?”, you can stop and say “I know you. You are the fear of the new. You don’t belong here. Get out.”, and then get to work. Because there is no better way to get rid of your fear than to take action on the thing you want to do.

Name your fear, and it becomes not so scary after all.

Oh, I almost forgot about dragons. As fantastical as they are, if dragons were real, they would scare me to death.