I’ve had a lot of false starts in my life.  I’m not saying this is one of them, or that this is even a ‘start’ at all, but my heart is open at the moment because of I book I picked up and started reading today.  The Barbarian Way is a book by Erwin McManus (apparently I’m not too ashamed to read these post-modern Christian authors!) that was given to me by my good friend George Ortiz.  He highly recommended it to me, and it’s been sitting on my shelf for almost a year.

I only read the first chapter.  Maybe it was that I’ve had such a famine with books lately, or just that I connected with him because he is a fellow FOD (fathers of daughters), but the bottom line is, I was choked up when I read a single line about people who are out there living their lives in service to God and giving their all with no regard for their well-being.  I just felt convicted.  I am so luke-warm.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in a huge spiritual drought…after all, I have a great church, a great family and I get to connect with God through both of them on a regular basis.  Also, I’m approaching my job as a church leader more diligently lately.  However, my commitment to fighting for God – you know spiritual warfare? – has never been real.  I’m content to sit on the sidelines and lay out the strategy like some Christian version of the board game RISK.  I never really immerse myself in the fight.  It’s more like walking along the shore with my feet every now and then getting lapped by the waves.  Like all I need is a taste and then I’ll understand what it’s like.

So here I am…28 years old, been a Christian for 24 of them and yet I’m an untried soldier in this regard.

I gave a talk at church a few weeks ago outlining some strategies for getting back in the game and I’m going to go ahead and use those strategies here I think.  I will meditate on these things and come up with some disciplines that I can commit to that will help me focus on the war that’s going on.  If anyone wants to join me, let me know by responding to this post below.