The Seed of Hope

...a terrible thing to waste.

In the early 1970’s there was an ad campaign sponsored by the United Negro College Fund and the Ad Council that featured the slogan “A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste.” The campaign was initiated to draw attention to the UNCF, whose primary purpose was keeping tuition rates low and ensuring that a college education was available to every young black American who dreamed of attending college.

I wonder if UNCF envisioned, when it kicked off its campaign in 1972, that its slogan would withstand the test of time and become a part of the American vernacular. I can’t tell you how many times through the years I’ve heard the slogan used, not only in the realm of college educations, but also in referring to drug usage, and quite often, in a joking manner when referring to an individual’s mental state.

During my college years, alcohol was my favorite choice of substance abuse.  Throughout my twenties, I turned to marijuana. Then there was that period in my thirties when cocaine became the center of my world…

Sadly enough, during each of those periods in my life, I would laughingly tell anyone within earshot that “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” as I got drunk, or high, or ramped-up on coke. The possible long-term consequences of what I was doing paled in comparison to the immediate escape from reality that I was getting at the moment. And from where I was looking, anywhere other than where I was at the moment was a better place for me to be.

That was then…

It’s amazing as to what a change in lifestyle can do to your perspective in life.

About five weeks ago I woke one morning to find three small bumps just above my beltline on the right side of my torso. Suspecting that they were spider or some type of insect bites, I began treating them with an ointment for exactly that.

A few days later, the three bumps had now multiplied to seven or eight. Deciding that I’d been exposed to poison ivy, oak, or sumac while pruning some shrubs at our lake house the previous week, I found an ointment that I’d used last summer after being exposed to the latter of the three, and generously applied it to the infected area.

Several days later, whatever it was that I had wasn’t getting any better. In fact, it was getting worse. It had spread to the right side of my hip, and it was starting to itch; a lot. It was Saturday night, and I’d already made the decision to call my primary care physician on Monday morning. My wife Jackie and I were leaving for a much anticipated and long overdue vacation the following Friday, and I wanted this “I-don’t-know-what-it-is-but-it’s-driving-me-crazy” under control before we left.

I was able to get an appointment with my doctor on Tuesday afternoon, June 22nd. He hooked me up with a steroid shot to curb the itching and halt the progress of this still undefined rash that was getting the best of me. He also gave me an ointment that he was sure “would do the trick.” After I’d informed him that we were leaving for the Northwestern U.S. and Canada on Friday, he also provided me with a steroid dose-pack for just in case.

Today…

Today is Wednesday, July 13, 2011. It’s been three weeks and a day since I was in my doctor’s office before leaving for vacation.

The rash that I had made the trip with us, and was with me every day that we were in Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In fact, it made the trip back home with us. As soon as we got back, I went for yet another visit to the doctor’s office, where I received yet another steroid shot, another dose pack, and another ointment to try. He also referred me to a local dermatologist to try to pinpoint exactly what it is that I have. Yet another type of ointment and an antihistamine was prescribed to ease the itching, and to cure the rash.

Another week later, and this stuff is still hanging around with me. It has now spread across my body, from hipbone to hipbone. It’s on both of my forearms, and has nestled into the small of my back. To say that I’ve been miserable would be a bit of an understatement.

Connected?

So at this point are you wondering what an ad slogan could have in common with a rash, or vice versa? What does a wasted mind have to do with an itch?

Well, it turns out that the antihistamine that I was given to relieve the itch is also often prescribed as a sedative, as an anti-anxiety medication, and as a treatment for motion sickness.

The bottom line is that the medicine has knocked me for a loop! The feeling of escape that I’ve spent hundreds, even thousands of dollars on in previous years, has been my constant companion for the last eight days. I’ve been disconnected, lethargic, and unable to comprehend even the simplest of written words. To coin a phrase that’s well known in many circles, I’m wasted.

I’ll say again that it’s amazing how a change in lifestyle shifts your perspective on things.

I can’t stand being “wasted.” I don’t want to be knocked for a loop, and I don’t want to escape from anything, especially reality. At this very moment, I’m fighting the urge to itch because I wanted to have enough clarity to write this post. In fact, as soon as I’m done, it’s back on the drugs.

The things that are most important to me in life have taken a hit, not because of this interminable rash, but the treatment for it. I roll out of bed in the mornings in such a drunken stupor that I can’t get focused during my personal time of worship and prayer. When Jackie joins me for coffee and reading the day’s passages in the One Year Bible, I have trouble reading them, much less attempting to discern what they mean. Several e-mails generated and received through The Seed of Hope have gone unanswered because I don’t have the clarity to compose a response. A huge opportunity to be a part of a team at Highlands College that’s writing a Daily Devotional is on the verge of falling by the wayside because of my inability to concentrate on a given passage from Scripture. Even my time with Jackie has suffered. Aside from going to church and eating, I spent this past weekend sleeping on the couch, and I confided to Jackie that I felt as if I’d lost two days. Come to think of, I feel as though I’ve lost the last week.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Good question. And I’m not really sure that I know the answer.  

Perhaps it’s because my attention has been drawn to something that I’ve taken for granted: my mind.

I’ve taken for granted the ability to read, write, and comprehend. I’ve taken for granted the ability to think, and to reason. I’ve taken for granted the ability to pray and meditate. I’ve taken for granted the times that I get to spend with Jackie. I’ve taken for granted the ability to be in control of my faculties.

Look, this rash, or whatever it is, will pass. And with it will the need for me to be on this medicine. I believe that it was part of God’s plan for me to go through this, not only to change my perspective towards my abilities, but to be more considerate of those with special needs who will never have the capabilities of doing what I get to do every day.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. I’m very grateful for the one that God has given me, and I’ll never again take it, or the gifts that come with it, for granted.

Calling you out!

A bit of research revealed that calling out, in essence, is the act of pointing an accusatory finger at an individual and saying something bad about them.

In this instance, I have nothing bad to say about you or anyone else. I am pointing a finger in what I’m going to say, and if you feel that it’s pointed at you, then I dare you to do something about it. You read it right: I dare you to do something about it.

You see, I want to do more than simply get your attention, or stir your curiosity, or entice you to read this because I wrote it. This is not about your attention, your curiosity, or my endeavors. This is about you and your journey, and above all else, I want you to get it, because when you do, you’re just not gonna be the same.

What is it that I so desperately want you to get?

It is the rock upon which I stand. It is the basis of my faith in God. It is what allows me to stand firm in the storms, and to walk without fear in my heart when things seem to be at their very worst.

It’s not about whether or not I believe in God, or in the Holy Spirit, or that Jesus is the Risen King, the Savior of the world. To be sure, and just so there’s no room for doubt, I believe in all of the above with all that is in me.

This is about the depth of my belief in God, and I offer you the one verse in the Bible that sums it up best for me:

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

All things.

Notice that Jesus didn’t say a “few things”, or “several things”, or “many things”. Jesus didn’t put any limitations on his Father or His abilities. Imagine him looking at you in the eyes and without the slightest notion of doubt, saying “Look, our Father can do anything! Anything! Don’t you get it? There’s nothing that he can’t do. Nothing.”

Why do we have such a hard time wrapping our minds around what Jesus told us? Why can we so easily accept his teachings on life, love, giving, forgiveness, and salvation, yet not accept the fact that his Father, who is our Father, can do all things?

Okay, you know that I wouldn’t have posed those questions to you if I didn’t have an answer for them. Actually, I have a few answers, and I’ll be honest in telling you that while they may not be the answers, they’re what God put on my heart.

·         The word Father. It’s not so much the word as it is the thought process and confusion that goes with it. As children, we look to our earthly fathers as being our heroes. They can do no wrong. In our eyes, minds, and hearts, they “hung the moon.” Unfortunately, at some point all of us come to realize that our earthly fathers, even the very best of them, aren’t perfect. As mortal men, they come equipped with limitations and flaws. When we’re hit with the reality, I believe that a smart part of us dies inside, along with a sliver of hope that comes with it.

Our heavenly Father, on the other hand is perfection. He has no flaws, no weaknesses, and no shortcomings. He’s always with us, even when we don’t feel his presence. His forgiveness knows no bounds, and His love is everlasting.

·         Satan doesn’t want you to believe that with God all things are possible. You see, the absolute belief that God can do anything filling our minds and hearts leaves no room for fear, doubt, and worry, just a few of the weapons that Satan has in his arsenal to use against us.

·         Our hearts. We’re afraid of putting too much faith in God and then being disappointed if things don’t work out the way that we want them to.  Throughout our lives, we’ve been let down because of the unmet expectations that we put in others, and we’ve felt the hurt that accompanied the resulting disappointments. In our minds, because He is God, we feel that the disappointment would be too great to bear. And curiously enough, we believe that He is our last bastion of hope.

·         Our minds. Because of our own limitations, weaknesses, fears, and frailties, we have a hard time freeing our minds enough to believe that anyone, even God, has none. NONE. He doesn’t.

With God, all things are possible.  

That’s not just from Scripture. It’s from my heart, and there is no doubt in my mind that it’s absolutely true. NONE.

So how do we get you there, if you’re not?

May I offer you a couple of suggestions?

The first is an affirmation, which is a brief verbal statement about an experience that we’re trying to have, or a goal that we’re trying to reach. When we say an affirmation, and especially when we say it out loud, it works its way into our subconscious and becomes reality. Why out loud? For some reason, when we actually hear words of affirmation come out of our mouths, we’re more prone to believe them. And the more we say them, the more we believe them.

Would you be willing to try this? If you haven’t figured it out, I’ve already given you the affirmation.

With God, all things are possible.

Every day, for the next several weeks, I’d like for you to repeat this affirmation as often as possible. Say it out loud, and say it like you mean it. If you’re at work or in a public place and can’t say it out loud, shout it out in your mind. I want you to own it. Make it a part of you, an extension of who you are.

Here’s the thing. In the beginning, it doesn’t matter if you really believe it or not. I mean, if you’ve never believed that with God all things are possible, you’re surely not gonna believe it just because you’ve said it a couple of times. It takes time, and it takes patience, and it takes you loosening up your mind enough to entertain the notion that it’s true. It’ll come, and when it does, your walk is gonna get so much easier. You see, believing that God can do anything gives birth to hope in every situation. 

Oh, and there’s one other thing that I’m going to recommend that you do each morning: PRAY.

I’d like to offer this prayer to you. It’s an outpouring of my heart. If you’ll say this prayer, or perhaps one using your own thoughts each day, I believe that God will stir in you like never before. What’s most important is that you ask to believe.

Lord God, I humbly stand before You in prayer. I need to believe that with You all things are possible, and I need Your help to do it. I ask, Father, that You remove any bandages from my eyes that prevent me from seeing you as You truly are. I pray that You give me the courage to completely open my heart to You, allowing me to love You and to receive Your love in a way that I’ve never done before. I ask, Father God, that You open my mind to believe that there is nothing too big for You; no illness, no challenge, no problem, and no dream.

I ask this is Jesus’ name. Amen.

Coming Full Circle

A few weeks ago, in a post titled A Natural Fit, I made mention of the things that I get to do in the realm of serving God and serving people. During the past few years God has opened doors for me to “get to” reach out to people through this site, our church, our business, and most recently, on the radio.

I have been, and remain, so grateful for all of those opportunities, and humbled that God would choose to use me to serve Him, in spite of who I was and what I may have done in the past. But I have to tell you that it took me a long time wrap my mind around the fact that, for whatever reason, God had decided to use me in any way to further His Kingdom.

It’s “fess-up” time.

Looking back on that period of time during late 2006 and most of 2007, I can see that I was afraid that God might wake up and realize that He had made a mistake, that He’d meant to tap Sam Smith on the shoulder, and not Sam Maniscalco! Seriously, I believed that it was something that wasn’t gonna last. In my mind, I was gonna be like a shooting star; brightly shining for a brief time, and then gone. Poof!

My fears lead me to do two things…

The first thing, and in my opinion the worst thing, was the fact that back then when I said “I get to do”, a small part of it was a prideful thing, more like a child saying “Hey guys, look at what I get to do! I’m somebody! I count!”

Kind of prideful, wouldn’t you say? Ego driven? Yes, to some degree. Oh, my intentions to help others and to share the news of what God had done in my life were sincere, but there was definitely a “me” thing going on too.

Not to defend my actions, but there was a reason behind them. You see, for years, in my mind, no one had ever listened. Not as a child, whose parents were always working. Not as a confused teenager, who was searching for direction. Not as a twenty-six year old father of two, in debt and in a very volatile relationship. Not as a thirty-seven year old man, recently remarried to an amazing lady and not-so-proud owner of a business that he neither wanted to own nor knew anything about. It seemed to me that no one had listened, that no one was listening, and that no one was going to listen; not even God.

When I had my spiritual awakening in August of 2006 I quickly recognized that God had been listening to me all along. The problem was that I’d never listened to Him. Hmm…

Not long after that I had this inexplicable feeling, almost a knowing, if you will, that God was gonna use me in some way. I didn’t have the foggiest notion of why, or better yet how, He was going to do it. I just believed that He would.

Almost immediately, I wrote a petition for humility and taped it on our bathroom mirror, right next to The Prayer of Jabez 1 Chronicles 4:10, which I had been saying every morning for several weeks. I believe that I’ve shared this petition with you before, but I’m going to do it once more. (I believe that we can never be too humble.)

                God grant me the ability to be all that I desire to be.

                God give me the humility to remain the man I am today.

Again, I began offering this petition to God every day. I guess it took a while for my petition to be answered; today, humility is my constant companion. Still, I recite it every morning because I know that pride has a way of sneaking in the back door.

Secondly, I went on a mission to do everything that I could before God woke up to His mistake!

Not long after my awakening, I began making business presentations for Redken (the hair care company) in various cities around the country. I never turned down an invitation to speak. I can’t tell you how many weekends I gave up spending time with Jackie (my wife) at our lake house to share what was on my heart with people everywhere else. When I received a call or an e-mail to be in Atlanta, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or New Orleans, or wherever, I was gone. Anything else could wait until I got back. God might wake up.

The same could be said for my actions in our salon. Whenever I had the opportunity to share our story with one of our guests, or listen to what was on their heart, for the next fifteen or twenty minutes they became the focal point of my life. Our business was momentarily put on the back burner. God might wake up.

When Jackie and I began attending Church of The Highlands in 2009, we dove in head- first. Within the first eighteen months we had hosted a small bible study/fellowship in our home, had volunteered to host two ministry students in our home, and had become a part of a small team that was launching a new church campus nearby. I volunteered for pretty much any and everything. I even got baptized again. God might wake up.

When The Seed of Hope was launched in November of 2008, I made a commitment to send a post out every week. Not just every week, but by 7:00 every Monday morning. The first time that I missed a deadline, not through any fault of my own, but computer issues, I broke out in a cold sweat! It was two years before I actually missed a week, and that was because I was spiritually depleted from spending a lot of time listening to the hearts of people in the prayer room in our salon. I had to have time to heal my own heart, and I took a week to do so. No more than that; God might wake up.

This trend, of pushing and pushing and pushing continued until one evening just a couple of months ago. Brooke, a second year ministry student from Minneapolis, had been living in our home since last August. Brooke would push herself as a leader, as a minister to others, and as an example of God’s shining light. Her desire is to be the hands and feet of Jesus here on earth. I love that girl and her heart for Jesus.

I was constantly encouraging Brooke to slow down, to take time to rest, and to take what seemed to be the weight of the world off of her shoulders. I urged her that she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, and especially not to God. He knew what was in her heart.    

It was during one of those admonishments to Brooke that it hit me like a lead balloon; I was as bad as Brooke, if not worse. I realized, for the first time in several years, that I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, and especially not to God. He knows what’s in my heart; that I love Him above all else, that I dedicate my life to Him daily, and that I live to serve Him. And I don’t have to worry that He’s gonna wake up because He never went to sleep.

I didn’t write a post for three weeks; not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I didn’t have to say it.

Full circle

God presence in my heart has changed me so much in the last couple years. Now, when I say that I “get to” do something, it is born, not from ego or the pride of what I get to do, but from an overwhelming humility that God allows me to do it.

I “get to” write about Him. I “get to” serve in our church. I “get to” lead small groups, and I “get to” listen to hearts of others, and I “get to” pray for people. I “get to” be a servant of an amazing God. I “get to.” At times, it’s still hard for me to believe.

I’m going to offer you a brief excerpt from A Natural Fit…

I’m reminded of a message that was given by Joshua Canizaro, yet another pastor at Church of Highlands. The gist of his message was this:

There are things in life that we’ve got to do. We’ve got to have a job. We’ve got to pay the bills. We’ve got to pay taxes, and buy groceries, and pay tuition. You get the message, right? These are things that we’ve got to do.

Then there are those things that we get to do. They’re things that we volunteer to do, because they’re in our hearts, and because doing them brings us joy.

This is where, in an odd twist, everything comes full circle…

Those things I mentioned that I “get to do” for God and for people, because I choose to? Well, when you get right down to it, there’s really no choice at all.

I’ve got to do them. All those things…writing, listening, sharing, praying, leading, and mentoring, fill me with God’s presence. They complete the circle of my life that includes my wife, my family, my business, and my church.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, just before Brooke went back home for the summer, she, Jackie, and I were having a conversation about this very subject.

Why do we feel as though we’ve “got to do” the things that we “get to do”?

After several futile attempts by Brooke and me to come up with an answer that felt “right”, Jackie looked at both of and said, “That’s easy. It’s in your DNA!”

Enough said.