I’m reflecting on the words of a wise man who once said “why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

Men – I have found it helpful at times to fast forward to the end of my life.  It’s the graveyard exercise recommended by 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  What do you want people to say about you?  About how you made them feel?  How do you want to be perceived by your wife and kids?  What legacy do you want to leave behind?  Now trace back to current day – are you putting in the moment-by-moment, day-by-day work that will lead to that type of man standing on the edge of eternity having left it all on the field?  Or will you look back with regret over all the hurt, missed opportunities and wasted time you had a hand in?

When I first read this it hit me like a ton of bricks.  It’s been a sobering thought experiment every time I’ve taken the time to consider it.  This world is hellbent on distracting our focus, diminishing our worth and diluting our faith.  But there is a solution.

Shortly after my 26th birthday, my life blew up.  I confessed a porn addiction to my now-wife and ministry leaders.  I almost lost everything I cared about.  Right before my 28th birthday, my life blew up again.  My work in full-time ministry that I thought would be for a lifetime came to an abrupt end after 1.5 years because I was smacked in the face with the realization that I had massive work to do under-the-surface of my life.  So as I retreated with my tail tucked between my legs, I got to work.  I started to dig and excavate the soil of my heart and soul to understand what went wrong.  How, in the course of less than 2 years, had my life spiraled out of control?

And do you know what I found?

Layer after layer after layer of pain shoved far down into the depths of my being, and it was all locked up by lies and experiences that had compounded over the years and melded together into the projection of a person I had become.  

From my initial blow up at 26 to hitting the bedrock of issues and being able to say “I finally understand myself” took about 7 years.  

And yet the battle does not stop there.  Awareness without action is negligence.  Faith without works is dead.  On a good day, I walk in awareness of my past and aim to make different choices to redirect my trajectory.  But the paths are well worn.  The enemy won’t relent.  There is still a fight to be fought.  The war is won, but there are battles everyday to engage.

Even now as I write this, I struggle to capture the ethos of the first several paragraphs of this very post from only 2 months ago.  There was clarity and zeal.  Now there is fog and confusion.  But thank you Jesus that you have not changed in this short span of time.  Have mercy on me.  You are the solution.