Wednesday night Cyndi and I went to the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center, the coolest addition to Midland and Odessa in ten years, to see the traveling Broadway production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It was excellent. The cast was perfect, the singing was spot-on, and the sound and production were exactly right. We loved it.

I remember watching the animated movie many times back in the 1990s, on VHS, so I knew the story and the songs. But I was completely surprised at my own reaction during the second act, when Belle and Beast were dining and dancing and Mrs. Potts sang:

Tale as old as time

True as it can be

Barely even friends

Then somebody bends

Unexpectedly

I had huge big-boy tears rolling down my cheeks. I didn’t see that coming at all. I mean, I was thoroughly enjoying the play and pulled in by the performances, but I never expected to cry through the signature love song.

Maybe my reaction was due to the influence of industrial-grade antihistamines I’d been taking all week to fight off a cold; or maybe I’ve become a big softy as I get older; or maybe I really am a hopeless romantic, surprising for a degreed engineer; or maybe I haven’t been able to stop crying since Walk 135 in 1998; or maybe, even after thirty-five years of marriage, I still can’t believe the girl sitting next to me holding my hand fell for me so long ago and keeps falling for me time after time, year after year.

Besides all that, one of the coolest parts of the evening was how many young girls came to the performance wearing their yellow Belle princess dresses. I counted at least a dozen, but I’m sure there were twice that many. Being a bit out-of-touch, I wasn’t expecting to see that. Cyndi said, “Of course they wore their dresses.”

I asked, “Was that the little girl’s idea or their mom’s idea?”

Cyndi said, “It was the little girl’s idea, and their mom was cool enough to let them do it.”

Cyndi told me that our 4-1/2-year-old granddaughter, Madden, wanted to wear her red Santa dress to school and her mom let her do it. Why not? The little girl wanted to be beautiful. Cyndi said, “We all want to live the fairy tale.”

I said, “You’re right, we all do. Even adults. We’ve just outgrown the costumes.”

Even men and boys long to live the fairy tale, but we call it living the adventure. We all want to live in the bigger story, be part of the grand tale, and have more than a provincial life. As we get older we wear our princess dresses and warrior’s armor on the inside where only we can see it since it would be too embarrassing to wear on the outside and reveal our heart’s desire.

Thursday morning as Cyndi and I were getting ready for the day and talking about the play, I told her about crying through the love song. I brought it up while she was in the next room in case I started crying again telling the story. I said, “In the past five years, I’ve heard a lot of guys tell their life story, and all of them think they got lucky in marriage. Just like The Beast, they can’t believe this beautiful woman fell for them.”

Cyndi repeated what I’ve heard her say many times, “The best marriages happen when both people are convinced they are the lucky one.”

She was right about that. Except, in our case, in our marriage, I am certain that I’m the lucky one. Maybe that’s why I cry through love songs.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

This morning we engaged in one of our semi-annual Thanksgiving traditions – we joined 15,000 other runners and walkers for the Ft. Worth Turkey Trot 5K race. It was a great morning; just cool enough stay comfortable in winter running gear, but warm enough to be pleasant and friendly.

Entering a race with 15,000 people takes courage; our ability to perform is public, on city streets, for everyone to see. But it’s also very private because all those peering eyes are only worried about their own lives and loved ones.

Yet, it’s great fun to be part of such a large tribe of people, to be one of us with all of them. It’s contagious. We’re all wearing the proper tribal colors (race T-shirts, high-tech fabrics, running shoes), and we all had fun.

Maybe the reason we hang on so desperately to family traditions (watching the Muppet Christmas Carol, running the Turkey Trot, reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, going to a Thanksgiving movie together, and like that) is because we need them.

Too many things in life change too much too fast; we need traditions to hang on to.

Because …

Families change is ways we never expected.

Some relationships get destroyed, other relationships get restored.

Daughters fight through disappointing outcomes and feeling abandoned and unimportant.

Sons fight their way back down long crooked roads to find their voice and place and value.

Parents fret over life’s role reversals and take on responsibilities for their own parents they never expected. Parents fret over their own kids long after those same kids are grown adults.

Grandparents find expected and unexpected joy in being called by name by little girls.

Living with families breaking up and families being restored takes courage because everything is so unexpected. As my dad said after an hour of hiking on Guadalupe Peak, “You can’t train for this, you just have to do it.”

The grace of God flows down and covers empty chairs and broken hearts and restored lives and lost memories and growing boys and lively little girls, so that making the best of it becomes a worship experience.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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This week I told my life story (that’s right, 1956-2014) to two young men, something I’ve done many times as part of the Journey Group exercise. It always leaves my heart soft for several days afterward. Maybe because of the raw exposure, or the vulnerability of being known, or maybe it’s the recalling of those scary episodes I was lucky to survive.

Being the reflective and analytical type, I end up wondering why events happened the way they did, and more importantly, what will happen next. And I wonder what I will have to offer in the next decades of life.

I recently attended a retreat in Colorado with The Noble Heart ministries, and one of the speakers, Gary Barkalow, talked about the value we gain from our years of experience. He quoted Proverbs 20:29, which says, “The glory of the young is their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old.” (NLT)

Now that’s the sort of verse I can enjoy since I have several gray hairs of my own. Gary said men often fret because we don’t have the strength we used to have when we were young, and we tend to discount the strength we now bring. Since we are not the man we used to be, we must be less of a man now, so we pull back and sit down and give up.

What a terrible way to live.

At the retreat in Colorado it rained and snowed all day so it was too wet outside for a big campfire. We watched a manly movie, instead. We watched Skyfall. There was a great scene where James Bond, thought to be dead, comes back to finish his mission. He was questioned by Gareth Mallory, Intelligence and Security Committee Chairman, who wondered why Bond was so determined to return to his very dangerous job. “Why not stay dead? Few field agents get to leave so cleanly.”

Do you ever hear this voice in your head? As in, Why don’t you simply retire, stand down, let the younger passionate guys handle it from here? Don’t you think you’ve earned a break from the action?

But if we are following the calling God gave us, we can’t simply stop. Gary said when the stress of his own ministry becomes overwhelming he sometimes says to God, “That’s it, I’m done,” and God replies, “You don’t have permission to be done.”

God says that to all of us. It’s actually good news, not bad. It’s confirmation that we still have lots more to accomplish. We still have value to add.

We discussed another Bible verse, James 1:3-4, which includes, “… the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.” (AMP) These qualities … endurance, steadfastness, patience, come only through time, struggle, and battle. They don’t dwell among youngsters. And because of these, we are more, not less.

Back to the movie. When he finally meets the villain, Bond says his hobby is “resurrection.” You and I ought to make that our own hobby, our own life objective. Resurrection. We should be continually restoring what we’ve lost, constantly learning new things, redefining ourselves, and embracing the next phase of our calling.

I have been reading the new book by Sam and John Eldredge, Killing Lions: A Guide Through the Trials Young Men Face, and one of the first things I’ve noticed is how the trials that young men face are the same trials that all men face. The spiritual battles are the same no matter how old we are. The difference is that having many years of survival helps bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

Any time I go to a workshop or retreat I come away with a bigger vision of life … which, of course, is one of the main reasons I attend in the first place. And I came away from this retreat repeating what Gandalf said about Bilbo in The Hobbit: “There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.”

I need to be reminded of that constantly. So do you. Your best days – your most enduring, steadfast, and patient days – are still ahead of you.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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How many times has God finalized His message to me while I’m running down a dirt road? Too many to count. It happened once again last Friday as I “ran” on the Old Stage Road near Bear Trap Ranch, in the mountains above Colorado Springs, Colorado.

It had been raining and snowing all morning. After lunch it finally dried out enough that I decided to go for a run. After all, I didn’t bring my gear up here for nothin’. Unfortunately the camp is about 9,300’ elevation and every road is either steep up or steep down, so what I really did was walk at slightly-above normal pace while wearing my running gear. There were no disappointments, though, because what I really needed was not exercise but information processing, and that happens best for me when my feet are moving.

Earlier that same day I listened to a great talk from my friend, John Hard, which he titled, “Experiencing the love of the Father.” And by listening, I mean I really only heard part of it since John began his session playing a song by Geoff Moore, Listen to Our Hearts. It took me back several years to a time when my heart was soft and full of Jesus. After that it was difficult to concentrate on anything else with that song rolling around inside.

John ended his time sending us out to be alone with God to answer two questions: (1) What is the Father saying to you right now, and (2) what facades are you using to hide your true selves?

By the time I walked downstairs to my bunk room the words I was singing inside my head morphed from “Lord, listen to our hearts,” to “Berry, listen to your heart.” And so I started writing in my journal the thoughts that rushed at me concerning my own heart and what I was hearing. I wrote:

I get so caught up in teaching and sharing and writing and mentoring (my calling, the very things I should be caught up in) that I’m afraid I’ve lost something that needs to be restored.

What have I lost? Maybe loving God from my heart, not just my intellect.

And for me, opening my heart means more music. Music is the secret code that goes straight to my heart. I need to find ways to let music speak to me, to open my heart again.

Have I lost something by becoming so narrow in my relationship with God?

Sometimes on the journey we’re so focused on what’s important we fail to notice what’s even more important.

Has my spiritual connection become more about data-gathering and insight-harvesting, rather than heart-loving and soul-feeding?

And what is the facade I hide behind? I’m good at telling the story and teaching and writing. I’m good enough to cover and hide the inadequacies of my heart … at least, for a while.

That afternoon I took a first step toward feeding my heart during my run by listening to music (instead of my normal practice of learning more by listening to podcasts). Specifically, I listened to an old standby, the Exodus album released in 1998 by Michael W. Smith. And wouldn’t you know it, one of the songs by Sixpence None The Richer, titled Brighten My Heart, has the lyric: “Help me open my heart to You.”

And so, it wasn’t that my application from the weekend was to go home and simply listen to more music. Music is merely a tool. It isn’t enough.

What I need is to restore that heart-level connection that was once so important but has become lost in the clutter of all the good and important things.

Help me open my heart to You. Help me restore what has been lost.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Where do you run to, to find answers? How do you reboot your brain? How do you settle your brain-floaters (those nagging thoughts that won’t go away and won’t solve)?

Me, I’m a solitude seeker. That probably comes as no surprise if you’ve read my writing before.

In 2004, at the age of 48, I made my first solo backpacking trip into the Guadalupe Mountains, looking for answers. It was my first planned solitude.

The curious thing is, at the time I didn’t have any haunting questions, or burdens, or emotional struggles. I wasn’t fleeing responsibilities or trying to connect with my mountain-man self. I just wanted to do something radically different to feed my heart and connect with God. Someone recommended a solo backpacking trip, so I went. I borrowed an ancient Boy Scout backpack, used my own broken sleeping bag (I didn’t know the zipper was broken when I left home), took a finicky tent that was too heavy, hiked in the snow, and thought I was going to freeze to death during the night and knew Cyndi would be really mad if I did.

I survived the night. I had a great adventure. God spoke to my heart in comfort and acceptance and companionship. I was hooked. I’ve made many more solo trips into those very same mountains since then, and I hope to have many more.

I recently finished reading Running to the Mountain by Jon Katz, a book he wrote in 1999 to chronicle his escape to solitude, to a dilapidated mountain cabin in upstate New York, where he confronted his own questions about spirituality, mortality, and his own self-worth. He was even less prepared than I was for his solitary mountain adventure.

He wrote, “On the mountain, I found myself truly, literally alone for perhaps the first time in my life – solitude being very different from loneliness – without really being prepared or knowing how to respond. Like (Thomas) Merton, I’d left the real world, though temporarily.”

When I read that, it reminded me of a backpacking trip I took in 2008, when, like Jon Katz, I was literally alone for perhaps the first time in my life. I wrote in the margin of my book: “Like Wilderness Ridge. I was alone. No one could’ve hiked up during the night in the dark. The gate was locked.”

It wasn’t scary. It didn’t make me nervous. I knew I could hike out of there in a couple of hours if I had to. I wasn’t lost. In fact, I could see my car way down in the parking lot. And besides, I went up there to be alone.

I had been by myself in the Guadalupes many times before, but this time was more definite. I could see the trailhead parking lot from where I was sitting on the edge of the cliff, 3,000’ higher and four miles of trail away from the visitor center, and my car was the only vehicle in the lot. I knew the entrance gate was locked, but it was too far away to see. However, that locked gate and empty parking lot was a picture of finality – at least, until the next morning, when the visitor center would reopen.

As I sat watching the sunset, with my feet dangling over the cliff edge, it occurred to me how few gates had closed behind me in my life.

I was laid off more than once by various employers, but I eventually found work in my same profession, so that wasn’t so final.

In 1980 when our son, Byron, was born, I felt like a gate had closed behind me; it came over me all at once during the first half of a six-mile run down Highway 137 in Brownfield, Texas. Being a father was the most permanent and irreversible change in my life to that point. But that evening, as I ran on those thoughts, I began to see it as gate opening instead. By the time I’d finished my run I was happy and ready to be a daddy, full of joy over that tiny boy with skinny legs. I couldn’t really count that as a locked gate.

I’ve closed and locked the gate myself on several foods that I once enjoyed. Green bean casserole, for one. And kale. I both cases I remember my last serving, when I knew it would be my last bite. But neither of those choices left me feeling alone.

But my sunset experience on Wilderness ridge was a turning point in my life that I still don’t completely understand. The solitude felt warm and comfortable, as if God was reminding me to trust Him a little while longer.

That evening I felt the need to make a statement, so I marked the cliff face in the fashion male mammals have used since the beginning. Whatever happened in my heart up on Wilderness Ridge, whatever the closed gate meant for me, however I was supposed to be alone, I now owned it. It belonged to me. I had marked the moment.

QUESTION: Are you a solitude-seeker or community-dweller? Have you had an experience similar to mine? Or Jon Katz’? I’d love to hear about it.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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On Monday I traveled to Westminster California with my wife, Cyndi, her sister, Tanya, and Tanya’s son Kevin, to attend the funeral for Cyndi and Tanya’s father, Bill Richardson, who passed away after a long battle with cancer.

Rather than sleeping in a hotel, the family invited us to stay at Bill’s house, which could’ve been creepy but wasn’t. It gaveus another bit of insight into the life of a man none of us really knew. And we enjoyed his backyard orchard of pomegranates, avocados and apples.

What made this an unusual trip was that the girls (Cyndi and Tanya) had no real contact or interaction with their father for most of their lives. Cyndi was only two years old, and Tanya was a baby, when their mom and dad divorced. After that, they lived a thousand miles apart. Through the years there were a few letters and photos, minimal financial help, occasional gifts, but no real contact. In fact, they didn’t know enough about their father to recognize him on the rare occasions when they saw him.

In the early nineties, about 1991 or 1992, Bill and his wife Jan came through Midland and took Cyndi and me, Byron and Katie, out to dinner. It was a one-evening encounter, and the only time our kids ever saw him.

During the past ten or fifteen years Cyndi and Tanya have connected with Bill whenever they happened to be in California, so that he would know them and their own growing families. He was always friendly and gracious, but the effort to establish a relationship always seemed one-sided.

However, it was important to both Cyndi and Tanya to come to the funeral and be part of the larger family. It was an opportunity to connect with Tiffany, their sister in California, and her family, and maybe provide some closure to all those missing years.

I think the funeral itself was a little rough, hearing the stories they’d never heard and seeing photos from a life so far away, wondering how different their own lives might have been with an engaged father at home, or even with summer visits.

As a father myself, and now a grandfather, I’ve tried to understand how there could be so little contact over so many years, but I finally decided it wasn’t important. Who knows why we live the way we do. We all do things we can’t explain even to ourselves. We all get trapped in behaviors we don’t know how to change.

Maybe Bill wanted to be part of the girl’s lives but didn’t know how to get started after the divorce. It was a different era and people weren’t surrounded by advice like we are today. Or maybe he waited too long to try, and once he realized how much he’d missed it was too difficult to reverse course. Or maybe he tried to make contact through the years but their mom stood in the way. The only ones who know the answers are gone, or incapable of talking about it.

But I know this much – it isn’t impossible to stay in contact, even after divorce and re-marriage. I saw my own brother move his family three hundred miles in order to participate in the life of his daughter from a previous marriage. And I’ve seen how the two surviving families can be friends and invest in each other’s lives. It is a beautiful thing to watch, and I am proud of the way Carroll has made it work.

So our stay in California was great. Tiffany and her family made every effort to welcome us into the close family huddle, and tried harder than many would’ve or could’ve to make Cyndi and Tanya feel loved and accepted. It was a reminder that the loss wasn’t just between two daughters and a father, but between three sisters. They all missed growing up together.

After my mom passed away this past July, I thought a lot about what was lost. The sad fact of Alzheimer’s is that you lose the person you knew long before they actually pass away. I told friends that I really lost my mom two years ago.

It occurred to me that, in this case, the loss wasn’t so much the death of a father as the loss of fifty years. Those years cannot be replaced, and it does very little good to be angry or bitter.

But it doesn’t end there. Our lives cannot merely be about what we missed. The loss of time and relationships is painful and can never be replaced or forgotten, but that isn’t the whole story. To live lives of purpose and meaning, we have to restore what we lost

The Gospel story of the Bible is about restoration. In fact, Phillip Yancey says the Bible can be summed up in one sentence: “God gets His family back.” And so, one of our core purposes as Christ-Followers is to restore what was lost. We can redeem the past by forming new relationships and fighting for the ones we have. We can change the direction of our own lives if necessary to prevent losing another 50 years.

How about you? What do you need to restore today?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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There I was Wednesday morning at 7:45 AM standing in line for new tires. I had a nagging leak in the front passenger-side tire but I knew I had worn out the original factory tires and should replace them all.

I posted on Twitter: “At Discount Tire, and none of the manly men in line knew their tire size. I don’t either, but I’m feeling better about myself now.”

My dilemma reminded me of a story from a few years ago when my manhood was tested at the local quick oil and lube place.

The oil-change guy sauntered into the waiting room holding some piece of automobile equipment and walked across the room directly toward me. He asked, “Mr. Simpson, here is your air cleaner; do you want us to replace it?” and I was paralyzed.

The waiting room was full of ace mechanics who normally did this sort of work themselves in their own garages with their own tools which they kept in perfect order hanging over perfect outlines on the wall. The only reason they were in a commercial oil and lube joint on this particular day was because they were saving their energy to do some bronco busting later in the day, or maybe rugby, or competition power lifting. They weren’t sitting around the waiting room reading David McCullough’s biography of John Adams like I was, they were being manly and strong and virile.

In the brief moment between seeing the air-cleaner man come toward me and hearing his question, I knew I was trapped. What if I said, “Yes, change it out?” and in reality it had another six months of life in it. All those knowledgeable men might look at each other and wink, thinking, “This fool is wasting his money. He has no clue about his car, and he probably wastes money all the time. I’ll bet his family is destitute, all driving ten-year-old vehicles, living in the same house for twenty years, and struggling to pay daily expenses because of his irresponsibility.” It’s amazing what you can pick up just from a wink; I could hear them all thinking those thoughts about me.

But what if I looked at air filter and said, “No, it looks fine to me; let’s wait until next time.” What then? Once again, I was trapped. I imagined those waiting room guys looking at each other and slowly shaking their heads as if to say, “His poor wife. He’s going to be sorry when that dirty air cleaner causes a major engine malfunction and leaves his cute wife stranded on Interstate 20 in front of the prison complex in Colorado City – the one where the two mass-murdering gang members just went over the wire. He’ll never see her again.”

Once again I was haunted by the question that haunts all men: Am I enough? Am I really a man? Can I make the right decisions under fire?

I wish the oil and lube place, or Discount Tire, was the only time I was ever heard that question in my head, but in fact it hits me every day. Every time I’m out running, every time I work out at the gym, every time I try to keep up with a fellow cyclist, every time I teach a class, every time I scribble thoughts into my journal, every time I post an essay and wonder who will read it, every time I pull out my trombone at church orchestra rehearsal, every time I make a presentation to my engineering peers, every time my son or daughter calls to ask for advice, every time I work through our family finances on Quicken, every time Cyndi holds my hand and opens her heart and shares her love with me. Every time. Every day.

Fortunately, I don’t have to answer that question all by myself. What I’ve learned is this: I am a real man, and I am enough, because I was made in the image of the living God who breathed His life into me and saved me by His grace.

Well, back to today and my four brand new Michelin tires. Not only is my pickup happy, but I’m happy. By the end of the day Wednesday my Twitter feed was being followed by four man sites: @MenRealMsgs, @gentlemenqz, @malesenseohumor, and @gentleguyqz. I took that as an endorsement. Maybe I’ll be OK next time I need to change my oil or buy new tires.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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A couple of weeks ago, in my adult Bible class, we discussed the famous story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den. It is one of those stories more famous than the Bible itself; what I mean is, even people who don’t know the Bible know this story.

Daniel was a Hebrew serving at the top of the Babylonian government. He was trusted by the king, and it appears they had a close personal friendship. Of course, this stirred up jealousy among Daniel’s rivals in government, and they conspired to get him in trouble and have him thrown out.

Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t find any scandal or failure to pin on Daniel. Not one. The only hope they had was to trip him up regarding his personal and consistent devotion to God.

They convinced the Babylonian king to make a decree that no one could worship anyone but the king himself, knowing this would trap Daniel. And it did. And as a result, Daniel was sentenced to spending the night in the lion’s den, and certain death.

However, Daniel survived. God shut the mouths of the lions, they left Daniel alone, and he survived.

My contention is that the story would be better served if the title were “Daniel in Window” instead of “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” because that would put the focus on Daniel’s practice of prayer.

Our spiritual self grows when we maintain spiritual practices. Practice in the sense of daily regular activities that we do for the purpose of doing them. Not out of rote or mechanical repetition. When I was younger, we called them spiritual disciplines, and the list included Bible reading, study, prayer, meditation, scripture memory, fasting, worship, and many more.

Alberto Salazar, a former world class marathon runner and current coach, has been a practicing Catholic his entire life, and in his later years, he has become more outspoken and deeper in his faith. In his memoir titled, 14 Minutes, he wrote this: “I don’t regard faith as a passive virtue but as a praxis, a habit of heart and mind, which we build through effort and over time. … In my experience, miracles grow out of faith, and not the other way around.”

I think Salazar pegged the life of Daniel. Daniel’s miracle in the lion’s den came from his faith developed over years of spiritual practice.

Even though it was miraculous that Daniel survived his night among the lions, he had very little to do with it. He didn’t use his ninja moves to fight off the lions. He didn’t hypnotize them and put them to sleep. Daniel didn’t climb the walls and stay out of reach.

No, Daniel’s strength, his “accomplishment,” came from decades of devotion to God. Daniel was known for praying in his window several times each day. He didn’t pray in his window to attract attention or to show off, but because it faced Jerusalem.

Daniel had lost his family, his name, his culture, and his social net. Daniel became a eunuch when he entered government service, so he had no family of his own.

Daniel didn’t even have a home to return to. Jerusalem, the center of his previous life and the representation of God on earth, had been leveled by war with Babylon. All Daniel had was a memory. So when he prayed, he prayed in a window that faced that memory, to connect him to God, to connect him to home.

The text says Daniel prayed every day, three times a day, for his entire life. It was that very practice that gave him strength to endure. It was that practice that deepened his character so that king after king after king sought him out to serve in the upper echelons of government.

How about you? Do you have any “Daniel in the Window” practices?

One of my longest running practices has been reading my Daily Chronological Bible. I started when someone convinced me it was a good idea to read the entire Bible from start to finish. I kept at it because I wanted to learn more things about God. After I few more passes through the Bible my reason was to change who I was and how I lived. My motivation passed from knowledge to character.

It became a daily practice for me. A spiritual thin place. The daily habit itself is as important as what I actually read. It grounds me. It brings me back home to my root relationship with God. It settles my wandering mind and keeps me from rambling too far from God’s truth. The physical act of doing it brings peace. A day feels strange and empty until I have my reading.

What about you?

What are the practices that anchor your faith?

What are your “Daniel in the Window” moments?

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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One of our go-to movies, The Bourne Supremacy, has a heartbreaking scene that shows Jason Bourne burning all the evidence of his girlfriend and their life together. He was making it harder for the bad guys to find him again. He wanted to disappear.

I’ve watched this scene so many times and I always thought it sad he had to destroy everything. For most of us, our most cherished possessions are the photos and stories of our life.

What Jason Bourne was doing, is the opposite of how I want to live. I want to leave lots of traces. I want to leave lots of evidence. I want to use the stories of my life to tell God what has given me.

Back in December 2003 Paul Byrom asked if I’d be part of a new men’s ministry he was pulling together at our church. I said I would gladly be part of it but I didn’t think I should teach it, or lead it, since everything I was doing at the time I was the teacher. I worried that I was teaching too much and listening too little.

Another reason I was reluctant to lead a men’s ministry was because I never considered myself a man’s man. I was not an athlete, didn’t play golf, only followed sports sporadically, would rather be by myself reading or writing than hanging with the men spitting and whittling, didn’t hunt or even own a gun, rarely went fishing, had never been to drag races, and was totally indifferent about NASCAR.

But when Paul told me they were going to start by going through the Wild at Heart materials I knew I was full in. I think Paul knew it, too. My wife, Cyndi, had already tipped him off during one of their early morning runs.

What happened next is summed up by this quote from Mark Batterson’s book, Wild Goose Chase: “Nothing is more unnerving or disorienting than passionately pursuing God. He will take you places you never could have imagined going by paths you never knew existed.”

This past Tuesday evening we celebrated ten years of that same men’s ministry, which is now known as Iron Men. It has grown into a band of like-minded men dedicated to helping each other live solid, godly lives as leaders, husbands, and fathers.

I consider any man who has been to one of my Wild at Heart classes, or a Relationship Lab, or for any other reason has landed on my email list, to be an Iron Man. If you stand next to me in line at Whataburger you might end up on my list. Why? Because I want all the men who come close to come in closer. I know that if we all move further up and further in together, we will be better men with deeper character. I know we all need each other more than we know, and certainly more that we are willing to admit.

The relationships I’ve formed during those ten years have been the most significant influence in my spiritual formation. I did not expect that, back in 2003.

The name of our group comes from Proverbs 27:17 that says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” But sharpening each other isn’t all we do. We also smooth each other. We’re like old wooden-handled tools that show the wear of constant use, the smoothed portions worn smooth by the hands that used them. Our constant contact with each other wears away the rough spots leaving us with the pattern of our fellow valiant men. The older I get the more I look forward to being worn smooth by these men.

And we don’t just study books together. We do a lot of hiking in the nearby Guadalupe Mountains, at least two big trips each year. Why” Because men make friends outside, especially when they’re doing something difficult together. One morning, on the strenuous opening mile of switchbacks of the Guadalupe Peak Trail, I mentioned to my friend Paul Ross “Surely there is an easier way to do ministry.”

Well, there might be, but I doubt easier is the same thing as better. I don’t know any other way to duplicate the time I get to spend with my guys; the extended conversations along the trail are my favorite part of the trip.

I’m often surprised that the guys want to go up the same trail again – same mountain, same hike, year after year. But of course, we don’t really do it for the actual hiking; we do it for the time together on the trail. As William Blake wrote, “Great things are done when men and mountains meet; this is not done by jostling in the street.”

So many times we’ve come down off the trail, collapsed into our seats on the bus, changed into comfortable shoes, gulped water, scarfed down Advil, and immediately started telling stories from the day and congratulating each other. It makes me happy. My heart swells and my brain settles, proud to be one of us. The world is full of men who live their entire lives with no real friends who will hike to the top of the mountains with them, yet I have a bus full of guys like that.

It reminds me of a Bible story about a young man named Saul who lived a small life tending the family flocks until God called him out to be the first king of Israel. I Samuel 10:26 says, “Saul went to his house in Gibeah, accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched.” Before he became the king, Saul was all alone. But afterward, he was surrounded by valiant men. Coming off the mountain, I realized I was like Saul, surrounded by valiant men whose hearts God had touched.

Rick Warren once said, “We overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in ten.”

Ten years ago God gave me a gift I didn’t request or expect, or even understand. He gave me the Iron Men, and they are the finest men I have ever known.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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I find it comforting that I don’t have to learn everything on my own; I can look it up. I can research anything. And with my smart phone, I can look it up right now. No waiting, fewer unknowns, and less guessing. It’s a great time to be alive.

Of course, looking up the singer of a certain pop song from the 1970s, or the origination of a physics quote, or even the meaning of cliché, is more fun and games than researching serious life work. Understanding how to live life is a harder search.

This week I have been reminded once again how many important things I didn’t have to learn from scratch. Like whether to go to church, or read the Bible, or pour my life into God’s work. I didn’t have to figure out the answers to all of that because I had living examples in my mom and dad.

I am writing about this because my mother passed away this week, about 2:30 AM Wednesday morning, after suffering from Alzheimer’s for the past four years. In the past few weeks she began to fade quickly until she finally just dwindled away. It was time.

Almost immediately I thought of this verse from Jeremiah 6:16, “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk it in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

I like this verse because it paints a picture of someone searching for a better life. And the search centers on “the ancient paths,” which for me, represents family. I didn’t have to bushwhack my way learning the best way to live, it was lived out before me by two faithful followers of Christ – my mom and dad. And beyond them, my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I have a mental image of my family tree filled with row after row of people, all of them walking with God and preparing the path for me. It gives me confidence. Cyndi and I are not in this life alone, we have a long history behind us.

Another phrase I like from the verse in Jeremiah says, “Stand at the crossroads and look.” God is calling for a pause in the action, asking us to stop in our relentless pursuit of the future, to stop and ponder our way. God is telling us to stop at the crossroads, at the obvious point of decision.

It requires action on our part to follow Jeremiah 6:16. We have to stop moving. We also have to look and ask “where the good way is.”

Not all ancient paths are good ones. We don’t have to hear very many old stories before learning to be choosy about following someone’s footsteps. We discover which roads not to take and which mistakes not to make.

But by looking and asking, we also learn the wisdom of consistency. Many of those ancient paths became paths because they were tried and found to be true. Those are the paths we should remember and follow.

The final expectation from Jeremiah 6:16 is to “walk in it.” It isn’t enough to identify the best path to follow; we have to commit to it. We have to act on the knowledge, we have to walk.

I hope to spend the rest of my life walking the path forward – learning new writers, new teachers, new language, new skills – and at the same time, facing back into the past – remembering the old writers, old teachers, old languages, and old skills.

I have a head start on that path. I was raised by two people who tried to do the right thing, following God every day. And because they did, I can enjoy my own walk with God today. Maybe I would have found Jesus on my own had I not been raised by this powerful family, but I’m glad I didn’t have to do it that way.

And so I promise – I commit – to sharing the ancient paths I’ve learned, to passing along the good ways, and more importantly, to living my own life for God, quietly and dependably, doing the right things, for the sake of my own children and grandchildren. I can do no less. I owe it to my mom.

“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

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