5. July 2008 by BruceSmith.

Check out Bruce’s July 5th radio podcast at http://wgso.com/content/view/7145/172/

Bruce interviewed two disaster recovery specialists from around the country concerning the politics of disaster, faith-based initiatives, FEMA issues, and much more.

Tune in!

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4. July 2008 by BruceSmith.

John 8:32 “…and the truth will set you free.”

Jn 8:36 “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!”Jesus, on freedom:

“THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED…”  Luke 4:18

Happy Fourth of July,

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3. July 2008 by BruceSmith.

As many of you know, I have written on the “hero” theme, particularly the super-hero theme before. After watching Will Smith’s latest film, Hancock, the hero bug has bitten me again. Hancock, unlike the typical super-hero with which we are familiar, is more than a little reluctant to take on his calling with focus and determination. In fact, Hancock is a miserable fellow who is overcome with bitterness, a bad attitude, and a significant anger management issue. Essentially, he is a unique being with unrealized potential and ability to do good. In my view, he serves as a great metaphor for many of us living in the real world.

In the movie, Hancock first greets the audience as he lays upon a bench, passed out from a long drinking binge. He is summarily woken up by a young child who, like many, has a less than favorable view of the would be super-hero. As the movie unfolds we come to find out that Hancock knows nothing of his past, has no one he feels loves him, is alone in the world, and cannot get through a day without offending people. Further, he is committed to drowning his pain in bottles of scotch, one bottle after another, day after day. He is a pitiful sight. More pitiful because he has so much potential.

Throughout the movie, although Hancock shows up and thwarts many a disaster or crime, he leaves other disasters in his wake. In all of his hero quests, Hancock’s actions are costly in terms of physical destruction, broken relationships, and societal disharmony. In fighting bad guys he often comes across as a bad guy himself who has sold everyone short, including himself.

What does all of this have to do with us? Everything, I would submit. Like Hancock, we were each created as unique beings, called to specific purposes. Like Hancock, we tend to make a mess of our lives, and we settle for less than we could be. Like Hancock, we often find ourselves forging our way through life, love, and relationships in ways which are counterproductive. And, like Hancock, we tend to look for destructive escape routes from our pain.

The most important line in the movie, in my view, comes when a new found friend suggests to Hancock that he could be so much more. Confronting Hancock amidst his drunkenness and bitterness, his friend suggests to him a very profound truth, “…you have a calling, and until you embrace that calling you will be miserable.” The depth of this reality for Hancock and for all human beings is almost unfathomable, and speaks directly to our finding the life we were meant to live.

We all know people who have sold out, bailed out, or fallen out for less than what they were capable of. The mother who leaves her husband and children for the pleasures of this world trades her soul for a lie. The husband who deserts his wife for a younger, prettier pursuit sells his soul for a trick which will turn ugly and leave him empty. The man who sells his soul for a dollar finds himself emotionally, relationally, and spiritually bankrupt. The teenager who turns from family and friends for the pursuit of another high eventually finds himself/herself lower than could be imagined. The girl who gives her purity away for a few moments of pleasure trades a lifetime of emotional, relational, and spiritual depth. Those who attempt to quell all relational disputes by means of violence, rage, anger, or revenge find life a constant convulsive storm.

As the Twentieth-Century American writer Joseph Campbell has penned, “There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.”

We are all called to so much more than we could imagine. The God of scriptures offers us the ability to live heroic lives which impact the world for good, and yet we typically settle for so much less. Imagine the loss to our world had Mother Theresa chosen the path of riches instead of service to the poor and outcast of Calcutta. Imagine what our country would have lost without the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. Imagine our society without the contribution of Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine our world without the contribution of Billy Graham. Imagine our world had Jesus rejected the cross and taken the way of comfort and self-preservation.

Now imagine your life. Is this world better because you are here? Are you living your life according to the calling God has for you? Are you passionate about the call to biblical marriage? Are you hungering for purity, truth, compassion, and righteousness? Does your life speak of something beyond the momentary cravings and addictions of this world; money, sex, power, pleasure, position, titles, and accomplishment? Let me encourage you, “You will always be miserable running from God’s call to you.” If you know there is something more to which you are being called, you will remain haunted by it. If you are continuing in a lifestyle which you know is not the plan for you, you will remain miserable. God’s “plan B” is for you to return to “plan A”. His plan for you is His plan for you. And in His plan life beyond measure opens up to you. You will not find it any other way, try as you might.

Whether you realize it or not, God calls each of us to be heroes in this life. You can be a hero to a son, daughter, mother, father, friend, foe, patient, brother, sister, co-worker, teller, cashier, trainer, tennis pro, teacher, boss, stewardess, pastor, punk, priest, prostitute, juvenile delinquent, prisoner, pediatrician, … you get the point. And you don’t have to wear a skin tight rubber suit to make a difference.

Perhaps God is calling you to heroic service overseas. Maybe you are being called to do the heroic thing and leave a cushy job and pursue your calling elsewhere. It could be that you are being called to work harder, earn more, and give more to God’s purposes. He probably is not calling you to hoard more, accumulate more, and amass more just for yourself. Maybe God is calling you to heroic action as a teacher. Perhaps He is calling you, like He did a female friend of mine, to spend a few days/nights reaching out to prostitutes with compassion and grace, and offering them a look at what life can really be. Maybe He is calling you to mentor a kid, help a senior citizen, or reach those that most people avoid. Maybe He is calling you to humble yourself before Him and your own family and openly admit to yourself, Him, and your family that you have not been the person He has called you to be. Maybe its time to heroically lead your family in an entirely new direction, one which will set everyone on a course for life as God intended it to be lived.

Whatever it is that you know your heart beats hard for, you need to go do it. Step out, lead the heroic life, and fly like never before. You will not be fulfilled until you do. I often ask those I coach one pointed question to get them thinking about what they should be doing with their lives. You want to hear the question? I thought you would never ask! I leave you with this thought, this question, this searchlight for your soul. Answer this one and you may well be on your way to the heroic life to which you are called. If your answer makes your heart beat faster, charges your emotions, betters life on planet earth, and resonates with the heartbeat of God…your answer may be the beginning of your heroism-it may be your hero-calling. Here is the question:

If you were granted one wish, assured you could not fail, promised complete success, and given all resources needed…what dream would you pursue with the rest of your life?

Is your pulse rate up? Are your palms sweaty? Do you have goosebumps? Are you unable to sit still? Can you see it? Ready to get your super-hero on?

Get after it,

Bruce Smith

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1. July 2008 by BruceSmith.

Who am I?

This question, and its answer, one which expresses the fundamental yearning of every heart, is the key to a meaningful existence. Not everyone asks the question aloud, and some may not recognize that this question is the one which drives them and all of their searching. Some of us seek the answer in religious activity, others look for the answer in accomplishment, pleasure, relationships, fame, or many other pursuits. When we spend our lives looking in places which have no hope of answering this question on a fundamental level our sense of emptiness and desperation grow with every day.

Sadly, this seems to have been the case for a beautiful woman, an up and coming fashion model, who took her own life recently in New York City. The headlines from June 28, 2008 read as follows,

“A model who walked runways around the world and graced the covers of fashion magazines fell from a Manhattan building Saturday in an apparent suicide, New York City police said.

Ruslana Korshunova, known for her distinctive long hair and green eyes, was apparently killed in the fall at 2:30 p.m. onto busy Water Street outside the Financial District condo building where she lived.”

As the story unfolds we come to find out that this 20 year old, formerly from Kazakhstan, who is described as having fairytale beauty, jumped to her death from her swank Manhattan apartment. Just outside her ninth floor window, she actually cut her way through construction netting which surrounded her building in order to prepare for her last catwalk.  Those that knew her have expressed bewilderment, shock, and their own inability to understand how someone so “happy” and “sweet” and “loving” could make such a decision.

What is so sad about the story, of course, is not that she was a beautiful supermodel who graced the pages of many a magazine cover. The sobering, sad reality, is that many make this decision each day in America and are never written about due to their lack of fame. Rather, the real tragedy is that she was a lost soul who came to find that neither looks, nor travel, nor money, nor acclaim, nor any of the other perks that come with such a life, could save her from the most fundamental of quests–the desire to know who we are and to whom we belong.

There was a hint of the intensity of this search in her heart just a few months prior to her suicide. Though those around her perceived her as being “on top of the world”, as one friend put it, her inner world, apparently, was much different. In one of her blogs, three months before her death, she wrote, “It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over it and threw it out.  My dream is to fly.  Oh, my rainbow, it is too high.”

The hunger for meaning and a place in this life trumps all other desires.  As Viktor Frankl  demonstrates in his profound book, Man’s Search for Meaning, the cry of every heart is to find significance.  In studies he and others have conducted over the years the research continually demonstrates that “finding purpose and meaning in life” is our most fundamental urge.  Even amidst the horrors of concentration camp life, Frankl affirms that this desire remains intact.  And, as the countless stories of those like Ruslana demonstrate, the hunger to know who we are is not quenched by fame or fortune.

In a culture where we have educated ourselves into imbecility and pleasured ourselves into chronic boredom, we have brought on a pandemic of what Frankl refers to as the “existential vacuum”.  Simply put, as a people, we are at a loss on the inside.  We cannot seem to make sense of our place in this world, who we are, what we should be about.

Scripturally, when we cut ourselves off from the Giver of life and meaning, no alternative remains but an existential vacuum.  We were created for relationship with God, and all other relationships function properly, including our relationship with ourselves, only when we accept and live in this reality.  We were, indeed, meant to fly. But we can only do so upon the wings of God’s love.  The rainbow we all long for is found in the heart and mind of God and His purposes for us.  Anything else, all other loves and pursuits, are empty promises which tear us apart, leaving us as fragmented forms of what we are intended to be.

The life we are all looking for is found in knowing whose we are, and who He has created us to be.  It all begins with Him, the Alpha and Omega, the One from whom all life and meaning is derived.

As Jesus has suggested, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”  In Him we fly.  Attempting to soar in any other way leads us all to that nine story plunge into meaninglessness.

Come fly with me,

Bruce Smith

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