The 7 Truths About Married Life The Couples That Stay Together For Life Already Know (msn.com)
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Monday, September 12, 2022
"A Ragamuffin Prayer" - JR Everhart
Lord, give me the heart of a seeker and the faith of a child.
Create in me a desire for your holiness and hunger for your truth.
Send your Holy Spirit to comfort me in my times of self-hatred.
Help me to never lose focus on your view of me, and do send people across my path to remind me of your love for me.
Give me revelation-knowledge of your grace and mercy, Lord Jesus. Without it, I have no hope for salvation.
Never let me forget the burden you carried on my behalf as a recipient of your grace and mercy.
Remind me of how relevant sin was in your day as much as it is in mine. Forgive me for my arrogance and pride, assuming my struggles may be worse than anyone else’s.
Destroy my self-centeredness. Replace it with a tender heart for the hurting of this world.
Help me to see myself as you do, particularly within my darkest times of struggle.
Destroy the victim mindset living within me that constantly wants to drag me into its pit of self-loathing.
Teach me, through your Word, the principles of living out my life in healthy ways in lieu of simply reacting to everything around me. This is a form of self-made bondage that has robbed me of freedom for decades.
Help me to slow down and breathe in your beauty. Beauty which is all around me.
Lord, I’ve lost so much by the recourse of my own hands and poor decisions. Taking that into account, remind me as to how insignificant my past is to my present & future.
Remind me that who I was, and even sometimes still am, is not who I’m becoming.
Take my brokenness; build a strong tower of your truth from the ashes of my failures.
Help me to never focus on others' opinion of me, remind me that they may be simply reacting out of their own hurt and pain. Therefore, if they truly knew my story, they would see the beautiful brush strokes of your hand living inside of my struggles.
Thank you, Lord for never giving up of me. Thank you for loving me even when I couldn’t love myself. Thank you for all the blessings you have poured out on me, time and time again, even in the midst of what should have been judgement. You always forgive, always love, and always pursue me even when I’m lost in my deepest sin and struggles.
Protect me from the enemy’s lies and schemes of destruction in my life.
Open my eyes to your ways, and reveal the enemy’s lies to me as if I was 5-years-old.
Lord, I sometimes forgo much of your guidance and gentle direction. Reveal the narrow path to me, and help me walk that path without feeling alone and isolated.
Help me to stay connected - to the people you’ve placed in my path - to help me grow. Even when those people are hard to love.
Lord, help me to not be that guy that’s hard to love. Teach me how to diffuse my anger and rage.
Lord, I want to be a fruitful man and someone your glory can shine through. This life is so hard, and this world hates everything that we are trying to become through you. Give me patience and remind me of how broken my story has been before I start judging others.
Forgive me Lord for all my sins and restore me from my failures. Teach me your purposes inside of my problems.
I openly submit to you Lord in every way. I lay all my gifts and talents at your feet. Use me for your glory, and never let me forget just how much your love for all of us Ragamuffins.
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Friendly Fire
If I could exude one, if not the absolute best development / attribute of being a Samson guy (with the 8-year tenure that I'm honored to hold), it's the mastery of pursuing friendship that I've obtained throughout my time here. And when I say mastery, I'm talking about higher education-like credentialing.
Starting with the First Baptist Church Jackson Samson group in 2014, and then onto to Grace Crossing. From there, facilitating the Lakeside Presbyterian Church Samson Society group (+/-4 years), and finally moving to the virtual realm via "Make Thursdays Great Again". And in between, a multitude of localized (organized by Mr. Don Waller), national (middle TN) and one or two regional Samson Society retreats (organized by Chris and Kris).
Men, men, and more men. All high-quality Samson guys. Positioned for me to befriend. And, oh my goodness, did I ever take advantage of the opportunity.
But the key word here is pursuing. Mastery of pursuing. Not friendship itself. For there's no mastery of that. Friendship is a constant learning process.
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As a middle-aged man, I'm so pleased to have the resources to pursue friendship. Let me expound.
There's no greater fear that men harbor than that of rejection. Keep that in mind as you read on.
I had a Samson brother ask me earlier this week if I knew my enneagram number. I assured him that I did not. What I should have referred him to though was my temperament. That being a textbook introvert.
Introverts recharge by isolating. At any point that I'm with other people (that are cognizant of my presence), I'm being drained of my relational energy. One of the greatest gifts that I might someday obtain is the ability to become invisible. As an introvert, this would be extraordinarily helpful relative to facilitating a needed recharge.
I can see it now: "Where'd Rob go? He was just here."
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I believe overall that we introverts aren't quite as concerned with rejection as our fellow extroverts are, but this hypothesis is built on the notion that extroverts find their recharge whilst being recognized / identified / authenticated within a group. In essence, if introverts crave the ability to become invisible, extroverts might wish for the ability to be in the spotlight (in order to draw that much more attention to themselves).
Another keyword cited above is positioned. Samson guys are well positioned for me to pursue as friends.
Samson Society works as well as it does due to how horizontal each man has been positioned as broken, needy individuals. Due to there being zero hierarchy, everyone's on the same plane. Hence, friendship is encouraged by and between everyone within the same row.
And that row, typically, resets itself each week as guys return to the meetings, retreats, etc. consistently.
As an introvert, this provides me with the opportunity to strategize as to how I might approach a potential new friend in lieu of only having a happenstance shot at making a meaningful connection.
For Rob, it's truly like a subtle dance as week-to-week platonic opportunities present themselves relative to the communal recovery pursuit.
Think of it as low-pressure fun with very little (hard rejection) risk involved therein.
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But, in closing, rejection does at times occur. And in a big way. But, if you're like me, the opportunities within Samson far outweigh the inevitable rejections.
The win from all this Samsoning is whilst stepping into "the real world" (ha!) outside of Samson Society, I have found my chutzpah to be just as fearlessly friend seeking. And this applies to all ages. All because Samson Society has given me - as a man - a distinct portfolio of relational experiences to draw from. Experiences that are foundational in anchoring my confidence as a pursuer of men - in whatever setting.
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