Friends...

My brother-in-law and close friend, Eric Wilson, has been busy writing.

Here is a note from Eric:



Friends, Fans, and Family: Here are few quick notes since I last wrote. Field of Blood is already

He has just released two excellent new books. One is the novelization of the upcoming movie, Fireproof. The other one is a supernatural thriller called "Field of Blood". If you're looking for a good read, you should check these books out. He has written quite few others including "Facing the Giants". You can learn more on his website at http://www.wilsonwriter.com/.

showing up in stores across the country, and the first review has been posted on Amazon. Fireproof is in its fourth printing already, and the personal responses have been amazing.

1. FREE BOOKS . . .There are 20 free, autographed copies of Field of Blood up for grabs. All you have to do is click here to visit the blog that's giving them away in a drawing. It's that easy. It's part of a whole week of interviews and such devoted to my--no, really--my books. I'm humbled!

2. BOOK SIGNINGS . . .I'll be on the road soon, from the Southern Book Festival here in Nashville, to Sherlock's Book Emporium and Barnes and Noble, to Alabama, Arkansas, and possibly Georgia. You can click here for the complete schedule, with more updates to come.

3. MOVIE OPENING . . .Next Friday, Sept. 26, Fireproof will be opening in theaters near you. It's a great movie for both men and ladies. Don't miss it!Thanks for the encouragement and prayers. Without God's help, I'm a puddle of ideas with no where to go.

Winners and Losers Audio

This is an MP3 of my comments following Jason Gray's music and ministry a couple of weeks ago at EFC.

Victory and Defeat on Kyes Peak

We knew that Kyes would be a challenging scramble (7200 ft), so Shaun and I set out early in order to leave ourselves plenty of time to find our way up and down the mountain. We left the trailhead at 7 a.m., finding a geocache at Virgin Lake before continuing on to our first look at Blanca Lake. Once there we realized our gross oversight that the climber’s ridge trail for Keyes was back at Virgin Lake, we returned and began the cross-country ascent of the ridge.

The ridge route definitely presents the challenges of exposure and route finding. Also, having my climbing dog, Kona, was a mistake on this route. It is a challenging route in many respects, and it wasn’t until 1:30 p.m. that we found ourselves working our way up the heather slopes of Keyes.

The summit scramble of Keyes was a lot of fun – but again a bit dicey and requiring care and concentration. The views and weather were awesome. Of course we were the only one on the mountain that day. On the way down we decided to find a way to Columbia Glacier and make the loop to Blanca Lake and out.

What we discovered is that there a few (one?) safe ways to descend the western cliffs that separate the glacier from the more gentler slopes above. We started off too far south, gradually working our way north (up the glacier valley) before finding a good point to descend. By then we were tired and it was getting late.

The glacier walk was one of the highlights of our trip: The moon was bright and it provided pleasant and gentle terrain. Kona was hanging in there.

Once at the end of Columbia Glacier, darkness set in just in time for us to enter the maze of brush, waterfalls and trees. We didn’t realize how far it was between the end of the glacier and the tip of Blanca Lake. This terrain was very rugged, frustrating, and often a pure “bush-wack”. At this point the scale between a “fun adventure” and “torture” began to tip towards the torture side.

Eventually was made it to the lakeshore. We had occasionally considered bivying, but we persevered in route finding and made it to the lake. By then it was probably 10 p.m.

Skirting the lakeshore requires ascending above some cliffs with additional route finding which compounded our misery. The two stream crossings required wading with me carrying Kona, but at least it cleaned our wounds.

The hike out to the car was maddeningly long and we arrived at our car at 1 a.m.

I’m sure we didn’t set a record with an 18 hour loop, and a 22 hour long day.

View more of my photos from this trip HERE.

Video is HERE.

Walking With Your Father -- Revised

I recently made the determination to do more writing. I have set a modest goal of one chapter or article (approximately) every two weeks. Some of this will include revising things I have written in the past, including re-working sermons and lectures. Here is the first one I've done, which I used during Father's Day weekend of this year.

Update: September 9th. New Man Magazine published this. Here is the link to it on their website: http://www.newmanmag.com/e-magazine/091008/story2.php.

For 18 years I walked with my father. I have vivid memories of walking with him along the beaches of the Oregon coast, the mountains of the Cascade Range, and countless shores of streams, lakes and rivers searching for the best fishing holes. He also walked beside me as I grew up – taking me through serendipitous rites of passage that could only be seen in retrospect.

I remember being four years old and my dad giving me my first bicycle – I felt so grown up. It had a banana seat, tassels on the tips of the handle bars, a chain guard and a kick stand. My world grew bigger with the arrival of that bicycle. In second grade the stakes grew higher when my Father gave me a Daisy single pump BB gun. It was not the most responsible thing for him to do, so he also gave me a life-threatening speech and lessons on how to use it. It was a BIG responsibility. I had been entrusted with something dangerous. At sixteen, I remember my father allowing me to go on my first “road trip” to an out-of-town concert. I felt like I had arrived – the personification of maturity. For a moment, I forgot the fact that the car I was driving was a wood-paneled Ford Pinto wagon.

You may recall the moments in your life when you suddenly realized that you had changed. You had grown up, and it surprised even you. This epiphany may have occurred at your graduation party, or the day your father walked you down the aisle, or the day you became a manager, or the day you retired. Sometimes we wish we could go back to the earlier times, but these landmarks are demarcations; points of no return.

If we were fortunate enough to grow up with a father who was present in our lives, his daily influence stopped when we left home around the age of eighteen. We set off alone with the feeling that it was up to us to make things happen on our own. Others may have been left without a father’s influence at a much younger age – due to tragedy or other factors that were outside of our control. I left my home two days after high school graduation, destined for college in Los Angeles, California. In most respects, I was a naïve kid from a small town, driven by a sense of adventure, calling, and reckless freedom.

Even today, on the outside we may appear to be grown up; but on the inside of our souls, we have room to grow in greater ways than we can imagine. No matter how good or bad, absent or present, our earthly fathers were, when it comes down to it, we are all still unfinished men and women. The absence of our fathers, which is a painful reality for a large percentage of us, may have accentuated this condition.

God desires to be the true Father who will enable us to experience unbroken growth.

God is here, now, as we experience new rights of passage and new transitions. He is present and desires to lead us through this season as only a perfect Father can. Some of us are looking for help in being a better father. Some of us need help as we face career changes, family changes and unexpected challenges.

Philippians 1:6 promises, “Being confident of this, He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” His work in us is a process that stretches into eternity.

What does He desire to do in this season of your life? How does He want to heal the past? Can you allow Him to expand and deepen your life at this present juncture?

Romans 8:14-15
“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

You have received adoption. This means you have been adopted as a son or as a daughter, which is a total break from the old family. You are becoming a part of a new family with all its rights, privileges and responsibilities. Being led now means that God’s current, present leadership in your life puts you in a relationship with Him that is best described as that of a son/daughter.

Trusting God with the leadership of our lives is a process where we allow Him to be the perfect Father to us. We let Him guide us, heal us and help us to not get stuck in a holding pattern of stifled personal growth. The role of the Father is that of guiding His children through the process of growth through the transitions of life.

In an instant culture, we must remember that He starts with a seed when He makes a great tree. He starts with two cells when He forms a human being. That human being grows up with dreams. The dreams grow and change as that person grows up, but His influence is meant to be a daily reality.

Being adopted by the Father is the starting point. There are times when we need to be restored to the Father, like the prodigal son. For all of us, God is inviting us to walk with the Father. To allow Him to be the perfect Father: One who is present, who is healing the past and who is leading us into our future.

Winners and Losers

Comments I shared following Jason Gray at Eastside Foursquare Church. I will post the audio later this week.

Like most people, I’ve devoted my entire life to trying to not be a loser. We love winners. Ten gold medals isn’t too much for one person. And someone once said “Second place is the first loser.” This is an impossible way to live.

When it comes right down to it, is there some truth in saying that we all are losers, at some point in the game and in certain aspects of our lives?
How many athletes retire as “winners”? Very few. They usually hang on a little too long and retire after a bitter defeat. I won a lot of races, but I lost a whole lot more than I won.
How many CEO’s retire “successfully”? Very few. Most CEO’s leave their companies when they are either bought out or forced out.

There is a problem with winning as well:
The only way to win is to cause others to lose. Ambrose Bierce once observed, "Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows."

Addressing this very issue the Harvard Business Review, recently included an article entitled, "Is Success Sin?" Maybe losing isn’t so bad after all. Perhaps experiencing loss, failure and defeat isn’t as bad as we think it is. In fact, what is most important, is how we respond to defeat.

Jason has addressed an important issue. Let’s be real.

Let us aptly and humbly recognize that we are “losers”, but we are following a winner. We draft behind Him. He pulls us onto a podium that we are not worthy of. He re-defines success.

Paul understood this. He understood that his struggles and his weaknesses were the very places that God wanted to do His greatest work.

2 Corinthians 11:30, 12:9-10

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

The Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect (complete) in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me…For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Will you find His strength in the face of your own weaknesses?
Are you aware of the places where you are the weakest?
I am not the most articulate person. I am not the greatest orator. I am not the greatest motivator. I am not the greatest visionary. I am not the perfect husband or the perfect father. Jesus is the greatest motivator. He is the greatest visionary. He is the greatest leader. He is my strength where I am weak.

What’s your ticket to the victor’s stand? It’s right here – symbolized by a piece of bread and a cup of juice.

When we share in communion we are celebrating a defeat that paved the way for a surprise victory that transforms our defeats and struggles.

John 6:35, 40, 47
“I am the bread of life. He who come to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.”

Humpback Mountain

Last night I set out for the summit of Humpback Mountain, off of I-90 at exit 47. I was joining of group of hikers for the weekly Thursday night summit dash. This is a rarely hiked peak that includs a mossy trail through old growth forest that makesa direct route up a ridge line (no switch backs). Route finding was not an issue, and the sunset at the top was spectacular. I even witnessed a distant rescue going on at Granite Mountain (just north of us) where a helicopter was airlifting a hiker who apparently broke his leg (I'm glad that was all it was). The only bummer was that my camera was missing its memory card, so although I carried a camera and took photos, I have none of my own to show. These photos were taken by another member of the group. http://www.flickr.com/photos/atmyapple/sets/72157607126139976/

Jesus Is My Friend

I hope you can laugh at this amazing display of creativity. Christian music has fortunately progressed since this was recorded.