Circles of Influence

There is something I am concerned about.  Well, there are many things, but this is one of the giants that have shadowed my thoughts as of late.  The horror of what is becoming has finally reared its ugly head to the point of me being able to openly address it in my own life.  My hope and prayer is that you will be able to relate with my situation and we may seek out a solution together.

Being a “Navy brat”, I am used to having a few good friends for short periods of time.  Over the course of 20 years, I’ve had several best friends, many close friends, and I daresay 100s of acquaintances.  In fact, most of them I keep up with on Facebook.

I remember a time after I had been settled in Virginia for many long years when I had many friends and I kept up with each of them as best as I could.  I cared about everyone.  I had a large circle of influence over those I interacted with.

As the years have gone by, I have seen this slip in my social life.  I have become less invested, even interested in the lives and troubles of others.  I still have a group of close friends, and I am ever loyal to that small circle of people.  But what I have realized looking back is that I once had a bigger circle of people I was loyal to.  I once cared more about many instead of caring more about few as I do today.

My influence has lessened.  My passion for people has dwindled.  When I try to pinpoint how exactly this happened, I can safely conclude that things in my personal life spun out of balance and I became socially selfish and spiritually introverted.  I closed up my walls and locked the doors while I did some repairs emotionally.

In the process of doing that, I became less concerned for others.  I became hardened to the struggles of others because I was dealing with my own junk.  Over the past few years, I have become hard hearted and cold towards the suffering of others because of the ordeal that I myself had suffered. 

But this is not an excuse worth hiding behind.  I used to be a trustworthy companion.  I used to lead by example and be the friend to many.  In short, I used to love people.  And now I see myself only loving my friends.  Jesus had something to say about that. “If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that” (Matthew 5:47).

I have some heart changing that I need to do.  I have not loved selflessly and made myself truly available for the people in my life in a long time.  I can feel myself becoming a shell of who I used to be.  This has got to end.

There is a scene from the movie 10,000 BC, in which an elder warrior is explaining to a younger man with a great destiny before him what it means to be great.  Here’s what Tic’Tic says:

“A good man draws a circle around himself and cares for those within.  His woman, his children.
 Other men draw a larger circle and bring within their brothers and sisters. But some men have a great destiny. They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more.  Your father was one of those men. You must decide for yourself whether you are, as well.”

The fact is, it is expected of us as social creatures to take care of those within our circle.  But a greater person is the one who draws a larger circle around himself and draws as many into it as can possibly fit.  I used to draw larger circles than I do now.

I am called to draw large circles and care for those within.  I am called to leadership.  I am called to bravery.  I am called to serve the Lord and the souls He puts in my path. 

I am not called to close in my walls and invite in only a few and offer no love or help to others.  I am not called to form my own little social club and bar the gates so that no other can enter.  And yet this is what I have done, in a way.  For someone who spent years in service to those around me and seeing God work through that and finding true joy and contentment out of that love and service, there is shame in the coldness I feel towards others today.

The challenge God has laid at my feet and I am throwing at your feet as well is this:  have you allowed the pain and suffering of your own life to shrink your circle of influence among your friends?  Have you allowed your own trials to stop you from being a bright light of hope and love towards those who you interact with?  Today is the day to end the selfish social game.  Today is the day to start serving and truly seeing the people around you.

I’m going to call my brother out onto the floor again as I did in my last post.  We are men.  We are not dominate or better than others, but we have been called to a role of leadership.  That role requires service and love towards others.  Just as good king loves his land and his people, a good leader must love his followers and serve them above himself.  A good man must draw a large circle around himself and lovingly invite all to enter into it.  Tear down your walls of self pity, prejudice, and selfishness today.  All are worthy of your time, your smile, and your service.  Take up the mantle of manhood that Christ calls us towards and open up to the people around us.

What does your circle of influence look like?  It is large and open to many people, or has it shrunk over the years and do you now only trust a few with your time and love?  Examine your heart and make the change if a change needs to be made.  So God has spoken to my soul and so I have declared it to you. 

A Rally Call For Guys!

I did not sleep much last night.  In fact, I went to bed around 7:00am.  Just before I finally crashed into a coma, I had the clearest thought…the clearest realization about myself.  I want to be the epic hero that I see in the movies, but that’s not who I am.  Why is that? 

Why do I even watch movies in the first place?  Why do I have this need to be entertained?  You see, it takes a very specific thing to entertain me.  I have to be moved.  Most often, I watch action/adventure movies with a hero who is given a difficult challenge that seems impossible to overcome.  I hold my breath when they’re on the edge of failing, and cheer for them when they walk out alive and victorious.  Hollywood is filled with stories like this. 

But to return to my question, why am I drawn to movies like that?  Could it be that my very soul was designed to be in that kind of an epic role?  Could God have created me for the purpose of throwing myself up against the difficulties in life and overcoming them?  Could it be that my life is meant to be as entertaining as the best that Hollywood can offer?

My favorite movie characters are all men.  They all have characteristics that I wish I had myself, whether I admit it or not.  Aragorn from Lord of the Rings resisted the temptation of Sauron’s ring and let Frodo go on alone.  Persevering, he faced impossible obstacles and held out against the greatest of evils.  Though he had at first chosen exile, he eventually faced what he was meant to become and accepted his role as king and leader.  He made the ultimate difference.

Then there’s Balian, son of Godfrey in Kingdom of Heaven.  We find him at the end of the film holding the burning city of Jerusalem against thousands of Muslim soldiers.  The other leaders have long abandoned the city, yet Balian remains behind trying to save the people.  I get chills every time I watch the enemy swarm into a breach in the wall and Balian and his soldiers bravely stand guard and fight them back for hours and hours. 

Balian and Aragorn are just two of my heroes.  I have many.  And each time I watch a film like that, I find myself needing the hero to win.  I need him to be victorious no matter what it costs him.  I have this need in the deepest corner of my soul to see good triumph and evil flee.  So I pursue and obsess over any sort of entertainment in which I can quench that thirst.

Here’s what I have realized.  God put that thirst there.  But He didn’t put it there so I could enjoy movies where the good guys win and the bad guys die.  He put it there to drive me forward in living out His purpose.

Now we’ve got a problem.  If this innate desire to overcome evil and be “heroic” comes from God, why am I so keen to sit down on the couch and watch someone else live out my dreams on a TV screen and not live it myself?

I am passive.  Like most men in this twisted American culture, I have become dull and tolerant.  I am more content watching a movie about a hero than actually being that hero to the people around me.

When did this become okay?  Such atrocity should have never become the norm in our society.  It is time for me to rise up and become the man I thirst to be, but am too weak to risk becoming. 

I am all too familiar with the hardships involved in being strong.  It is much easier to be weak.  Hollywood depicts being the hero in movies like 300.  We watch in awe as 300 men fight off thousands and thousands of men for days.  Hopelessly outnumbered, they don’t stand a chance.  Yet they fight anyway. 

It is so easy to say that I want to be like that here in the comfort of my bedroom, but when push comes to shove, could I really join the ranks of the 300 and wage a war I could not win?  Do I have that kind of strength in me?  That kind of courage?

Most men do not.  And I am becoming sick of being one of the many who will never get up from their couch and become the kind of men they find so entertaining.

This is a rally call for the guys.  I will not pretend to understand woman, but I know the heart and soul of a man and I feel the quench to be great like all men do.  And I know what God calls me to be.  I am called to leadership.  To wage war against a spiritual enemy far older, more experienced, and more frightening than any enemy ever seen in a movie.  And my very soul and future is at risk.  There is not room for me to be passive.  There is not room for us to be passive.

Guys.  We are called to be men.  Leaders of nations.  Heads of the households.  The loyal friends.  The loving brothers.  Elite soldiers in a kingdom too great to be imagined.  This is the destiny laid before us. We are all called to be heroes.  Warriors.  Brave and honorable. 

Aragorn, Balian, Maximus (Gladiator), King Arthur.  Men such as these are only giants in our entertainment industry because American men do not have stories and lives to rival them.

This is it, guys.  A call to arms against a passive lifestyle.  An empty lifestyle.  Let’s go. 

Late Night Reflections: The Barbarian Inside Me

Here I am, pacing like a lion anxious for the kill.  Passion, fury, anxiety…they engulf me.  Consume my thoughts.  I long for days of warriors again.  We have soldiers, but the day of the warrior is dead.  Where did they go?  It seems like the only place left to look for the brave soul of a warrior is backwards into the halls of history.  What about today?  What about the fighting spirit that beats against the cage of my heart threatening to break loose?

Here I am, my hands finding every weapon within sight.  The broadsword feels strong in my hands.  Its weight not a barrier, but an addition to the strength I feel growing in my veins.  My Roman sword, light and strong, I whip it around with flashes of speed, seeking a target.  The Katana has a familiar weight, I swing it with precision and comfort, having trained in its arts for years.

I wield my weapons like a madman ready for war.  My heart refuses to stop pounding in my ears and my blood boils.   I feel my strength grow in intensity and my yearning to leap and run about digs deep.  There is a gleam in my eye and a fire in my soul that I do not know what to do with.  It runs deep, an intimate part of my very being.

The consuming need to fight.  To throw myself at another to test my skills and my heart.  I yearn for it in a way I have not yearned in a long time.  Long has my discipline held, my resilience to the call to arms.  And yet now I feel as though my heart was caught by surprise as I arm myself to the teeth, my flesh has become steel and my heart burns for conflict.

Simply, I am a man.  Worst still, I am human.   A complex web of emotions, passions, and desires that drive me forward until my days end and I rejoin the dust of the earth.  I do not pretend to understand my nature, only that I must be myself.  I cannot resist my own soul.  And my soul desires to be tested, for my body to be made war upon. 

Is this the Barbarian Way I have so long pondered?  To not just endure fear, but to seek it?  Only a madman pursues his doom and yet every fiber of my being seeks to be confronted and overcome.  Only that I might face the odds and conqueror.  Or die.  Neither outcome frightens me.  And yet both frighten me. 

I look around in my life for the warriors of my generation.  I seek and search and I see domesticated men.  I see passive souls.  I see fear and unwillingness.  I see selfishness and cowardliness. I do not see honor in my generation.  I do not see brave, untamable souls set on fire for a road of purpose and passion. 

I wish I could live my whole life within this spark of vigor.  Even now I feel it dwindling.  Seeping out of the pores of my skin like water in my hand.  There is no containing it.  I cannot even begin to grasp it.  Where does my passion so earnestly flee to?  And how might I take it captive?  I need my soul back.  Not this hollow shell of domestic living.  I was created as a man.  As a warrior with a burning soul.  A soul burning with the spirit and passion of God almighty. 

I see what I could become.  And yet I see where I still remain.  Am I unmovable in my weakness?  In my love for being passive and small?  Lord, set fire to my bones and let them never cease to burn.  Let my passion never be quenched and the warrior inside me never sleep.