I recently went to the circus…..I love the circus. One of my favorite things about the circus is the elephants. I believe that this is partly due to the fact that I am an Alabama fan and our mascot is an elephant, but the other part is that there is something about that animal that just amazes me. To watch something that large respond flawlessly to the commands of a trainer was incredible. They sat down, stood on their back legs, laid on each other all at the response of a simple command. This got me thinking…..Why would an animal that large and with that much power respond to a person barking commands at the fraction of it’s size? Why wouldn’t it just take off and run away?

The answer to this question stems from one of the most unique traits found in elephants, their memory. They don’t forget! My first reaction to this is that I wish I had that! How many times could I have used that little gift on tests or when I meet people….Oh well. But, the more I think about elephants the more I see that one of their greatest gifts can quickly become one of their greatest limitations.

You see these elephants begin their training when they are young. In those early months the trainer attached a chain to the leg of the baby elephant. The chain is secured to a small stick lodged no more than a foot in the ground. The young elephant pulls and pulls on the chain but it doesn’t budge. The small stick is more than strong enough to resist the best efforts of the elephant. The young elephant quickly learns that the stick is immovable. As the elephant grows and grows and grows, the memory that the stick is immovable stays and the elephant continues to believe that no matter how hard he tries he can’t move the stick, so he doesn’t try. He simply succumbs to the thought that was implanted in his mind so long ago. He is literally chained by his own memory.

When we think about it there isnt’t much of a difference between us and the elephants.

We constantly chain ourselves to our own small sticks with our memories serving as the chains. We continue to let our past experiences, our mistakes, our screwups prevent us from the freedom in which God intended us to live.

Galatians 5:1 says that, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Philippians 3:13 also calls us to forget what lies behind and press on to what lies ahead….

God is trying to tell us that those things didn’t happen and our past doesn’t help shape us, but he’s telling us that the things that chain us, the things that hold us back are not nearly as strong as we assume they are.  He has given us the strength to overcome and break all the chains that bind us.

Rest in the knowledge that you are free from all the things that attempt to hold you back from what you were created for….

Jealousy warning: I am currently rocking out a 2002 Toyota Camry!

My Camry and I have been together for nearly five years (that’s my longest relationship by far!). She’s snow white with 17″ standard alloy wheels. Her windows have a dark tent that blends in to a mirror reflection as if to say, “I know I look good, check out yourself.” She’s a well experienced beauty. If the block was a mile, then she’s been around the block approximately 209,365 times.

She’s a keeper….

Don’t get me wrong, she has some minor scratches but all in all she’s in great shape. But here’s the thing, because she’s white it seems that she gets dirty in no time. And this dirt seems to be exaggerated on the white back ground. It sticks out like a sore thumb. So naturally, I have to wash her. With a little bit of soap and water she magically transforms into the beauty that I feel for so many years ago. She sparkles and shines. People turn to look at her and I know exactly what they are thinking. They’re saying to themselves or those around them, “Wow, that’s a really good looking 2002 Camry. It’s a great ride.”

Those people are right….at least sort of.

What they can’t see is that through the flashy tent job, on the inside it’s a mess. There are clothes strewed all over the back, books that I probably should have read, weights, receipts for various things that don’t matter, left over wrappers, pieces of animal crackers, and who knows how much loose change. It’s utter chaos! I couldn’t fit a person in the back seat if my life depended on it. To be honest, I hate it on the inside. It’s dirty, it’s cluttered, it’s uncomfortable….It’s not me!

I had to ask myself, “Why didn’t I clean the inside when I washed the outside?”

When I thought about this question my answer came pretty quickly, well people don’t see the inside, so it’s ok, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Most of us, including myself, are just like my 2002 Toyota Camry. We work so hard to clean up the outside. We use clothes, make-up, and jewelry. We go to the gym, hit the track, and even resort to surgery all with the thought that people will look at us in passing and say, “Wow that’ a really good looking Dallas. He’s really got it together.”

But what about those people who know us more than just in passing? What about those people who are around us all the time? What about those people who have to ride in the car?

They see something completely different. They see all the junk that fills the insides of us. They see our anger issues, or our problems with self-esteem. They see the struggles with addictions and countless other sins. They see the real person.

Arent’ these the people who really matter to us? Aren’t they the ones that are there for us when we need something? Aren’t they the one’s who choose to walk through life with us? Aren’t these the ones we should have it together for?

It only seems to make sense that the stuff that people closest to us see is the stuff we should clean up first. Aren’t they worth that much?

Isn’t Jesus worth that much?

I mean he is the one that’s with us when no one else is. He’s the one that see’s all of our junk.

I would think that if we change the things on the inside that the outside would naturally follow. Clean up the interior and the result is a natural desire to have the exterior match whats on the inside…..

Maybe this is why my Camry gets dirty so quickly…..

Spoiler alert: I have a few flaws. That’s right I’m not perfect. There are qualities about myself that others don’t fully appreciate, come to think of it, there are a lot of qualities about myself that I don’t fully appreciate….So I decided to take this opportunity to share one of those with the 5 or 6 people who might end up reading this at some point because they have nothing better to do….

Have you ever seen the videos of people trying to combine mentos (The Fresh Maker) with Coke? I’ll admit that I have both seen the video and attempted the feat (don’t worry that’s not the flaw I’m talking about). A few months ago I was with a few friends and we decided to attempt this feat.

In theory you are supposed to take a handful of mentos, put them into a 2-liter coke and close the lid. Once the mentos contact the coke, a reaction takes place with causes pressure to build inside the bottle. In a few seconds the bottle is hard as a rock. The next step is to slam the bottle on its lid, the cap will bust all the pressure will shoot out the small opening and the bottle will launch into the air similar to a rocket.

The friend of mine who suggested the idea began by taking a just a few mentos in his hand. He unscrewed the cap to the coke casually dropped the candies into the coke and started to place the cap back on the bottle, but before he realized it the coke was already flowing out the small opening.It wasn’t a lot and didn’t make much of a mess, but all of the fun and pressure was gone. He was too slow. We attempted this 3 or 4 times before we came up with the idea of keeping the candy in the foil wrapper that it comes in. This allows us to quickly drop all the candy in and gives us a split second to close the lid before the coke begins to flow. A success! Within a matter of moments the bottle became rock solid, impenetrable. All that was left to do was to shatter the cap and watch the bottle shoot off into the sky. We have all seen rockets launch from a distance but surely nothing at Kennedy Space Center would compare to what we were about to witness.

The bottle was slammed down……..Nothing happened

The bottle was slammed down again…..Still nothing

We realized that the bottle was much harder than the soft earth in which it was colliding with….we decided to move to the brick patio.

The bottle was raised overhead and with all the force that could be mustered it was thrusted to the ground. As soon as the bottle hit it was utter chaos. The bottle shot to the side coke shot behind, in front of, on top of, and under the bottle. It covered the wall of the house. It covered any unsuspecting bystander unfortunate enough to be anywhere close to ground zero. The blast radius was monstrous.

Looking back on that….I’ll probably strike that one up as a loss…..

The more I think about that night and that bottle, the more I realize I’m just like that bottle way too often. I constantly drop things in and quickly close the cap. It’s usually small things. I’ll get frustrated with the way someone handles a situation. Someone will say something that hurts my feelings. Before I know I become hardened to just about everything around me. Little things weigh on me for hours. Things said in passing have a lasting impact, until finally I’m slammed down and all that pressure releases.

The collateral damage is usually massive.

The contents that were so tightly stored inside go everywhere, impacting all those around me. The interesting thing is that this is not massive physical or mental damage. For the most part this is small sprays that spread out to everything. It small, sticky, attacks that lead others more to inferences about who I really am than actual pain. It shows in small snide comments, or shutting others out, and inevitably someone takes the brunt of it. Most of the time, whoever that is is taken off guard at the irrational response spewing out from me.

All because I tried to keep the lid closed.

But what happened to the earlier attempts at our coke rocket? When the pieces were dropped in the bottle in small amounts and the lid didn’t close in time the results were just a little bit of what was inside came out. It didn’t mess anything up and didn’t hurt anyone else that was around.

I want to be more like that. I want to do a better job of opening myself up. I want to share more, both good and bad. I want to talk to those that hurt me and let them know how that felt, not in avindictive way, but out of love and respect for them. I would want other people to share with me the same things. It might be hard things to hear and difficult to say, but I know if it’s out of love that their best interest and mine are the focus, and conversations, however painful they may be are ment to build me up and to build up others to be a closer image of Christ.

I don’t necessarily believe in New Year’s Resolutions but this might just be a goal worth setting for the year.

Day 1: I was born

Day 2: I was in the hospital

…..Ok, that’s just ridiculous. I couldn’t tell you what happened in each of those 10, 409 days. I can’t even tell you what happened each of the 365 days in 2011. As I started to think about this concept of age and time I realized that I don’t measure my life by days or hours or even years, but rather by moments, by specific events in specific times that have a lasting impact on who I am. As a result, I’ve decided to reflect back on my top 5 moments of 2011. Here they are:

5. I am currently in my 10th year of college….That wasn’t a typo, I’ve really been in school for 10 years! Currently I am in the final stages of finishing my PhD. The last step of that being the writing of a dissertation. Since I began the program, the dissertation has loomed ominously over my head. It was the unscaleable mountain. We are talking about a document that stretches into the 100′s of pages category. I struggle to write a five-page paper. How am I ever going to get through this? In the middle of November I found myself in my office putting together the first three chapters of my dissertation in preparation to defend my proposal. As I started to add the sections together (knowing I still had a lot to do…) I saw the document get larger and larger……and larger. My working proposal that I knew wasn’t finished was already pushing close to 175 pages….Wow. It was at that moment that the mountain towering in front of me got much smaller, at that moment I realized that this was something that I could do….

4. I spent last New Year in New Hampshire sking for the first time (I was actually snowboarding. I think it’s cooler). I got invited to go with a family that I met at Wind River Ranch just before I moved to Orlando. Since moving down here, they have served as my second family and a great example to me…We were staying at a resort that seemed to push us back in time. Everything seemed slower, more elegant, more communal. We had an incredible week. I was welcomed in as part of their family and fully embarrassed the trip. Towards the end of the trip there was a moment when I walked out the back of the resort and looked up at Mount Washington, covered in snow. There were giant ice sickles hanging from the top of the porch where the sun seemed to shine just a bit brighter….It was in that moment that I got an overwhelming feeling of God’s grace. Even something as small as a ski trip had me overwhelmingly grateful for things that I did not deserve…..Little did I know, that I would experience this so many more times over the course of the year…..

3. I had the privilege to spend two weeks in Africa this summer working with a group of teachers. The trip in and of itself was amazing. It was my first time leaving the country and serving in that capacity. I was unsure what to expect but felt the call to go and serve. This moment comes not while I was in Africa, but as we were flying back. On the first leg of our trip home, from Malawi to Ethiopia, the airline mistakenly brought the wrong plane. We ended up flying on a plane that was about twice the size of the number of people flying. This ment that we had all sorts of room to spread out and relax and talk. I was reflecting back on the trip with our trip leader and one or two other people when we began talking about surprises. She said that one of her surprises was my ability to speak. I had the opportunity to lead a devotional with the students and teacher there on the final day and by the grace of God it seemed to go over well. Our leader said that she knew I could do it, but didn’t know that it could be done that well. As our conversation continued she continued to speak into my life about how God was going to use me in big and powerful ways (I have been told this before and hope that I am obedient when God presents those opportunities). Shortly after that conversation my moment occurred. As we looked out the windows to the left of the plane we saw a mass of clouds covering the other and then out of no where stood the top of this mountain. We had an overhead view of Mt. Kilimanjaro! Wow….Looking back that moment seemed to validate all that had been said on that trip home for me. I don’t know how that tied in with the conversation, but for some reason it did.

2. While I was in Africa I also started to feel the tug to start leading a small group at my church. It was a small pull at first but then I came home. After I was back state side there were a couple of other situations that seemed to confirm what I had already thought when I had a phone call with a friend. During that phone call he was sharing about his relationship with his girlfriend and about their conversations about who Jesus was and other parts of scripture. His girlfriend would ask questions that were difficult for him to answer and frequently lead him to question what it was he believed in the first place….We talked about how that was a great opportunity for the two of them to dive into scripture together. Right when I said that, I seemed to get total confirmation on the leading the group, not only leading the group but what the group would look like. In that moment I knew that this was my next right step. Looking back on that decision now, I am so grateful for taking that step. We have a group of 9 people all in different stages of their lives, but all seeking to know more about who God is. We have grown closer to God through this process and much closer to each other…..

1. January 4th, 2011, the small group that I was in was slowly but surely fading away. The few of us that were in town had decided to grab dinner. After dinner I had plans to go hang out with a girl that I was interested in. We had hung out once before and I was looking forward to another chance to see her. About halfway through dinner I got a message from her that she didn’t feel good and wanted to take a rain check. After dinner I was talking with another group member that I had recently met and said that I was going to see a movie (I didn’t have to work the next day….so why not). She offered to come along. We talked a little bit before the movie, some during the movie, and then afterwards…..As I left that night and started to drive home my moment occurred. I was in the car by myself and as I tried to process the night I said out loud, “uh oh. I’m in trouble…” This wasn’t the I’m in trouble in a bad way, but at that moment I knew there was something different about this girl, something that was going to force me to uncomfortably work through all my own issues, something that was going to be much more than just a movie with a friend……

A year later and I was right. I am a much better person because of her and when I’m with her.

As I look back on 2011 I find myself blessed beyond measure and I eagerly await the moments of 2012. As you reflect back, what are the moments of 2011 that shaped you?

But now, for the first time, I find myself in a city who’s only professional sports team is a basketball team….So when I moved here, by default I became a fan by proximity (I can actually see the arena from my porch). But my fandom didn’t stop with the convenience of being close to the arena. Within the next two years I found myself surrounded with superfans, with season ticket holders…..And like the flu, I caught it the bug….

Last year my allegiance to the team took another giant step when I found myself with a girlfriend who happened to be working for the team…..In the course of a few short years I went from despising anything to do with the sport to having a personal investment in the team. I read the articles, I follow the stats, I’m telling my girlfriend whats going on with the team…..I even found myself quoted in an article on ESPN (http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7362760/fans-show-support-dwight-howard-orlando-magic-practice). The ESPN thing is definitely something that was on the bucket list…..

This all brings me to this past weekend when the team held an open practice. For a few short hours on Saturday morning the public got a glimpse into what these guys do. As I started watching the team scrimmage there were guys on the team that casually jogged up and down the court and there were guys who were clearly running much harder than others. There were guys aggressively going up for rebounds and some that were content to just the other guy get this one. Now, to the untrained fan this would be nothing more than an anomaly, but to me I saw something else….

I saw guys who had been in the league for multiple years taking it easy, just going through the motions almost, while a few guys who were all young players in their first year or two hustling. Shortly afterwards, the scrimmage ended. The fans were thanked for coming and we went about the rest of our weekend, but as I thought back to that morning a couple of things stuck with me.

I wonder what sort of impact the crowd had on the guys practicing? There weren’t a ton of people there (7,000 or so) but did that change how they performed? Was what we were seeing on the court different from how they responded when no one was watching? As sad as it is, I know that my actions change when I know others are watching. I know I try to do things a little better when I know eyes are on me…..

But that’s not right….

I shouldn’t have to step up who I am when others are around…..I should be the same as when no one is looking. After all, aren’t the actions and thoughts that take place when no one is around the sign of your true character…..Then again, are we ever alone? Isn’t God ever-present? Shouldn’t I want to put my best foot forward for him? I should, not out of obligation, but out of a sincere desire to please him…..This is something that I’ll definitely have to work on.

The other thing that stuck out to me about the practice was the difference in experience. The energy that came from the new guys was exciting and in stark contrast to some of the verterans…..At what point does that energy, that excitement go away? When do we become complacent with just being there? These questions directly parallel my faith. I often struggle with being complacent and feeling like I am just going through the motions. I mean after all, I’ve been doing this Christian thing for some time now….There can only be so much new stuff that comes from that right?

When I step back and think about being complacent and content with just going through the motions I see just how much I miss out on. I miss out on a God who created everything constantly showing me that he loves me in unique every changing ways. I miss out on knowing him more, and all the gifts that come from that…..

I know that there are times where the desire to know Him more will be a struggle, but that’s when we, that’s when I have to make a conscious choice to embrace the moment I am in and run to Him with reckless abondon……To hustle for the loose ball, to aggressively go after that last rebound…..We never know when it might be our last one……

So my girlfriend and I decided to attempt to tackle the Tough Mudder this past weekend. For those of you who don’t know what that is, let me give you a little insight. The Tough Mudder is a 12 mile trail run that is laced with various obstacles that are designed to inflict pain and to make you at the very least, uncomfortable. There are walls to climb over, tunnels to crawl under, and an assortment of mud and water to wade through…..No big deal. We eat that kind of stuff for breakfast…..I mean it’s 12 miles, that’s a light snack. I teach 2 cycling classes a week….I’m in shape..haha or something like that.

So we get to the race and there are people for days, all ready to tackle whatever lies in store for us. My girlfriends start time was about 20 minutes in front of mine. We decided to start separately so that we could finish together, and by “we” I mean me….I non-schalauntly said, “Yeah, I’ll just catch up to you and  we’ll finish together….It’ll be great!” That confidence was thinner than the gold plating on my 5 year-old tee-ball trophy. Here’s why: 1. I haven’t ran 12 miles in….well I couldn’t tell you when. I stopped running consistently about 2 years ago when I started having knee problems, 2. My girlfriend is fast. She ran a marathon about a month ago, 3. My body was falling a part, not only did I have knee issues, but I was having shoulder and spine problems that were keeping me from doing just about anything….It’s amazying what you feel that you can do with a little bit of testosterone, some adrenaline, and a pinch of pride.

Regardless the race starts. The second obstacle we come across is a giant storage container filled with ice water….I distinctly remember ice baths being much warmer than that…..My body was numb for the next three miles. I go through obstacle after obstacle and mile after mile, and to be honest….I felt pretty good.

Finally around mile marker 9 I see my girl. We catch up and she can barely contain her excitement to see me, fully engaged in the moment she says, “What took you so long?” Really? What took me so long?

Lets do some basic math here. If she was running at a 10 minute mile pace and I started 20 minutes later than her, I would need to run at what pace to catch her in 10 miles….10 divided by….square the reciprocal….carry the one…divide by pi……..at least an 8 minute mile pace…….What took me so long???? You might as well have called me the flash! I was bookin it!

We make it the next few miles and find ourselves coming down the home stretch. Ahead of us we can see the last obstacle and shortly past it….the finish line! As we make our final turn here’s what we see. There’s a guy sitting on the back of a water truck holding a hose and just trenching all of those that run past him. That seems simple enough, take a little water….no big deal. It wouldn’t be if not for directly behind this guy is this large wooden contraption with hundreds of yellow wires hanging down. Each of these yellow wires has some sort of live current running through it…10,000 volts in all…let me repeat that.

10,000 volts!

It’s been awhile since I took chemistry or physics or whatever course you study this stuff in, but I think the combination of water and live wires is not good….Just a hunch. As we start coming down the straight away, people are lined down the sides giving us all sorts of encouragement. I distinctly remember one voice that said, “don’t stop, just keep going…” Why would we stop? It’s a race….

I glanced ahead and saw five or six racers standing still, frozen in fear, staring and this electrifying contraption and delaying the inevitable pain. That same voice followed “It looks worse than it is…just keep going”. So we just kept going.

We passed the people standing there and went straight through the heart of the beast. In the short time we were in the wires I felt shock after shock after shock….I’ll admit it didn’t feel very good. But we quickly found ourselves on the other side….A few short steps from the finish line…..

As I think back to that last part of the race, I can’t help but think about how that parallels our time here on earth. So many times we act like the people who were frozen in fear. We fail to see that whatever pain and obstacles we might encounter are temporary, they’ll pass just like everything else. As a result we never reach the prize. If I had known that the shocks would have continued and could have continued forever, I’m not so sure I would have ran into the contraption myself…..But I knew that there was something better waiting for me just past it. I could see the finish line.

Isn’t that what God tries to show us? He tells us that he has something so much better for us. He’s prepared a home for us for eternity that is far greater than anything we can imagine. He wants us to run through the charges, knowing that it’s only for a short while.

We were able to run through the charges because we saw the bigger picture, we saw what lies just beyond the wood and wires…..I hope that I am able to keep that perspective through the rest of my life…..Keep running because the reward is waiting just on the other side………

She cut straight to the point. She didn’t ease her way into it, there was no warm-up. She hit the ground running, full speed ahead. She made it really clear, really quickly that I was no longer the guy she wanted to be with. Now, being like any other man, I did my best to keep it together and act like I was cool with it. I faked the best smile I could said I understood and figured now was as good a time as any to go ahead and go about my business. But here’s the thing, we drove 15 minutes to get to where we were, 15 minutes! That means that we were exactly 15 minutes from where I needed to be……This ride wasn’t going to be awkward at all…..And by not being awkward I mean it was going to be super awkward.

What are you supposed to talk about during that time?

“Did you see the game last night?”

“Did you hear the joke about the two guys who walked into a bar?”

“So…who do you like?”

No one ever told me what to do in this situation. Do I just tell her “I’m good. I’ll just walk….Gotta work on my fitness now that I’m back on the market!” I weighed my options. I could make the couple of mile walk back through the mountains of Kentucky or I could tuck my tail between my legs, put my head down and get back in the car. This wasn’t a which option is best situation, this was a which option is not as bad as the other one. If I decided to walk there was probably a 60% chance that I’d never make it back to civilization. Crazy things happen in those hills. If I rode back with her it was going to be excruciatingly painful…..At this point I liked my odds of survival on foot, but I took the chance that maybe, by the grace of God that the ride wouldn’t be as painful as I expected.

I was right, it was actually worse…..

On a sidenote. If you ever find yourself in the situation where you are going to break up with someone, please think about your exit strategy first. You should be able to take care of business and walk away, leaving the now ex standing in the rubble. Ok, moving on….

That moment was the beginning of one of the worse days I’ve had in some time. Everything that could have gone wrong from that point on did. Next thing I knew I was stranded on the side of the road. My car had broken down, my phone didn’t work, and it was raining…..Just perfect.

I feel like I am at the point now where I can admit that day hurt. I don’t have to think too much harder to come up with five or six more days where I experienced similar feelings of being hurt and pain. Not all of them where because of girls, but they were all painful.

Those five or six moments drastically impacted my life. I didn’t realize it the time, but the further from those moments I get the clearer I see. Those moments have served as an invisible prison for me. They’ve kept me in chains and I didn’t even know it. Almost every decision I’ve made have been effected by those brief moments. They have struck a sense of fear in me that has been debilitating.

Anything that might be good or positive was quickly overshadowed with the recollection of those moments. Anytime I found myself close to someone I became consumed with the thought of how much pain those moments inflicted (I know now that as I looked back I had allowed the perception of how painful those moments were to expand exponentially, but still….). That was all it took for me. I was done, I was out. It was like the gates to the prison were open. I was free to go but as soon as I stepped out into the cool fresh air the fear of what was there drove me to run as fast as I could back to the security of my cell. Nothing could bother me, nothing could hurt when I was there……

I was imprisoned by my own fear.

As I reflect back on those moments I can’t help but think about how many of us are chained by fear. Prevented from truly experiencing the life that was made for us.

Is that really how we are supposed to go through life? Do those moments have that much control over us?

For me the answer was no! Emphatically, confidently, powerfully NO!

I love the passage in Isaiah (41:13) that says “For I the Lord your God hold your right hand; I am the Lord, Who says to you, Fear not; I will help you!”

Fear not; I will help you! Wow…..God, the creator of all things, the maker of me and everyone else, the plants and animals specifically commands us to Fear not.  God knows that fear prevents us from living the life that he has called us too. Once I came to this understanding I had to wrestle with what my fear was.

I was afraid of the pain. I was afraid that I was not strong enough to overcome another one of those moments. I was afraid that I couldn’t do it…..I realized that there was a good chance that I was right and in turn was due to miss out on all the good things that God desired for me to experience. But there was one thing that I was wrong about. All that time I was weighing my own strength and the pain that was tied with my failure or my ability to handle situations. I had completely taken God out of the equation. I ignored the fact that He is bigger than anything that I might face, and that He has already overcame whatever obstacle it is in front of me, and that He will always be there to comfort me…..

The assurance that I was not alone gave me the strength to break through those chains that bound me. I am not saying it has always been easy. There are still times when those steps into the fresh air are painful, my body has been so used to the prison cell but those are temporary. I keep pressing forward. Those days no longer control me. I am free to experience all the beautiful things that God has in store for me. I am free to live……