How to live a life of valor

Navy Seals

Navy Seals are some of the most respected men in the world. It is only since the death of Osama Bin Laden and the movie Act of Valor that the Seals have received main stream media covereage. I was fortunate enough to learn about them and their training before the media coverage. Our strength and conditioning coach showed us a series of videos that described the in-depth the training and discipline the Seals go through. They are the a leader in every sense of the word. It takes an extreme amount of discipline, self confidence, trust, and loyalty to become a navy seal.

Act of Valor

Recently with the success of the movie Act of Valor characteristics of navy seals has become more transparent to society. Many of the values that drive the seal program are paralleled with the values of Christians. It takes an immense amount of discipline and trust to be a man of God. Two former Navy Seals Clint Bruce and Jeff Bramstedt helped put together a video to show men the parallels of the seals and what it takes to be a Christian. They also present a challenge for Christian men to step up and be a man of God.

Make Your Code

I really encourage Christian men to watch this video and pay attention to the "Your own Code" section. It describes the characteristics it takes for both Christians and Seals. (Loyalty, Courage, Self Control, Honesty, Sacrifice, Discipline, and Integrity) and a few Ways to "Live your Code".

http://www.lifeofvalor.com/

This "program" or the idea of making a code for your Christian path is a vital part in growing in God and your faith.


Navy Seal Code:
“I serve with honor on and off the battlefield, the ability to control my emotions and my actions regardless of circumstances sets me apart from others. Uncompromising integrity is my standard, my character and honor are steadfast, my word is my bond.”

What has God done for you?

At a recent FCA meeting I was asked a question by a junior high student that I have been giving some thought. The student asked me "how has being saved helped you in on the court", this question made me think about another question many people have, "What has God done for me". Aside from the obvious answer EVERYTHING, being saved and getting involved in his word has shaped me into a completely different person.

One thing I want to clarify about this post is our path to know Christ and become closer with Him should NEVER be about "What can God do for me?", or "What will I get out of this?”. Accepting Christ as our savior and knowing God sent his son to die for all of our sins should be a direct motivation to do everything for him, not what he should do for us now that we have "accepted" him.

1 Theselonians 4:1
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, Just as you are doing, that you do so more and more,

With that being said, the changes that we make for Him by studying His word directly effect the person we are. We are able to see things in a different light and appreciate things through a mindset based around Him. So asking what God has done for me is based off of how the Gospel has shaped me to react to things in my life.

Perception

Everything that I have achieved, received, or dealt with is based off of my perception of what God has done for me since I have been saved. I have been able to deal with almost all of my hardships and arising obstacles in my life with a new sense of meaning. In the past I would see adversity and wonder why is this happening to me, "I'm a good person", now I face this same situation and know that God has a purpose for this, that in the end this adversity will draw me closer to him. Each time he presents an obstacle in my life I try and tackle it as a step in faith. If I know and believe this, then I also know that God will provide me with the tools to handle this task and come out a "better" Christian.

Romans 5: 3-4
3 More than that, we rejoice in our suffereings, knowing that suffereing produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

On the court

Back to the original question of "how has being saved helped me on the court?” When things don't go my way on the court or different circumstances arise dealing with basketball I don't put as much stock into why is this happening to me, or feeling like it's the end of the world because of these circumstances. Let's say I don’t get as much playing time as I expected or feel I should get more, I look at that and realize it's not my time or God has a different purpose for me. God has placed me in a position in college where lots of people look up to me and see me as a leader or a representation of our community and college. I am able to use this platform to spread the Grace of God. Many of you reading this blog may only know about it because you know me as a college athlete. So for any of you young Christian athletes, know that if things don't go your way on the court or field that God has a purpose for this and that His timing is perfect.

In closing, know that when situations arise, tackle all of them knowing that God has placed them in your life to draw you closer to Him and to glorify Him. If your approach is backed by that belief then you will see all the glory that God has provided.

Jeff Bethke, The man behind Why I hate religion but love Jesus

Check it out!
If you haven't seen the video "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus" you are missing out. Jeff Bethke a 22 year old former student of Pacific University used his poetic talents and created a video that displays his beliefs of God and how religion today is ignoring what Jesus actually stands for. The video that Bethke and his friends thought would get maybe a couple thousand views, hit more than 1 million in just 24 hours. In less than a month it hit 15 million views and Bethke who was just another christian trying to glorify God in a way he knew how, was now a celebrity. 

If you haven't seen the video, I urge you to watch it. I've watched it over a dozen times and each time I am able to pick out something new and eye opening. 

Who is Jeff Bethke?

After watching the video, some of you may be sitting there thinking Bethke must be another extremist, your wrong! Or, if you are like I was at first and think he must be someone who was brought up around the word his whole life and if "more pure" than yourself, you would also be wrong! Bethke's story is similar to mine and many others. He was another college athlete that got caught up in the desires of the body and messed up a lot of opportunities Christ had put before him. 

Here is a video of Bethke speaking to a group of FCA members about his path to Christ. After hearing his testimony I had so much more respect for him, and being in a similar situation I immediately needed to find out more. This video is a great example of someone that turned their life around and showed everyone its never too bad, or too late to be saved by Christ. 

The Aftermath

As you can imagine, not everyone agreed with Bethke and his views on religion, or even Jesus. Since 84% of the world is involved in some form of religion and 33% of them believe Christ is their savior, this inferiorated a lot of people. Dozens of parodies and response videos have littered the web. Many lashed out at Bethke while others praised him. He was one of the first to really get noticed for his view of separating Jesus from religion, all because of the internet. Bethke is now wanted by many stations to appear on their show and discuss his video and the overnight fame he received. 

There were many parodies made to Bethke's video, here is one from a catholic priest  explaining how he loves Christ and religion.

Greater Good Christian Clothing

Since i’ve started this blog I have been contemplating how I can incorporate my passion of graphic design with christian issues in college. A friend of mine in one of my graphic design classes started a christian clothing company for one of his previous projects. If you would like to check it out, here is a link to their website that will show you a few of their products, Great Commission Clothing. Moving on, from the time I was able to dribble a ball and draw I have wanted to design shoes for Nike. I have always had a gift for designing graphics for products and clothing related advertising. Along with incorporating design, I have been trying to figure out a way I can give back to Prairie Lakes Church. PLC has had a major impact in my life by providing a place to worship and grow in my faith. Being a poor college student I don’t have much time or money to give back. I came up with the idea to fulfill both my need to design and give back. I am going to start a christian clothing brand similar to Great Commission, only this one is going to be done on my own time and a majority of the profits will go to Prairie Lakes Church or a charity of their desire. 

I decided on the name Greater Good for many reasons. I had a huge list of possible brand names but I settled on Greater Good because I think it relates not only to the idea of its proceeds going to a better cause but also as a Christian you are always trying to make the best decisions for God (the greater good). For those of you who aren’t interested in design you can just skip this next part. Visually I have come up with a few logo designs that are based off of the GG. I think the GG gives an aesthetic curvature that creates a balanced yet manipulative logo. My shirts wont be focused on just the logo, I intend to do extremely symbolic designs and current trends (such as #, >, and other social media influences). I will be posting a few of the rough drafts of the logo design and also a few ideas for my first shirt. I want my shirts to by influenced by the customer so I think voting on a handful of verses from the bible and then choosing one to put on a shirt will be one of my first shirts. 

I will try my best to make my shirts appealing to various ages and of course available for both men and women. If any of you reading have ideas for a christian shirt that you think others would be interested in, please contact me via email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or leave a comment on the blog. I am open to all ideas and will do my best to consider all options. I will keep the status of the company up-to-date on here, Facebook, and Twitter. Once I have sufficient info on shirts and donation information I will start its own Facebook page. 

Here is a very generic and rough sketch of the Greater Good Logo

Being accepted for believing in God, but getting rejected for following Him

I want to talk about an issue that a majority of college students face. This is the issue of “believing in God”. One thing I have learned in my four years as student is that the cool thing to do, the thing that most students want to be “guilty” of is believing in God. In general if you don’t believe in God, you are seen by society as a unacceptable. But, if you choose to believe in God and live your life for him, you are looked at completely different by the majority of those “believers”. 

First, what are some of the ways that people show they believe in Christ? I bet if you look at your Facebook about 90-95% of your friends will have that they are christians as their religious views, but only about 50% of them will actually know what this means and only about a quarter of them actually live their lives as true christians. Another way people show that they are believers is by tattoos. I can’t tell you how many people I have seen that have a cross or a bible verse tattooed on their body. When most of these people don’t even know the true meaning of the cross. Now, I,m not saying tattoos of either of these are bad. Im just asking what is your purpose for putting this on your body if you don’t even know the true meaning of the cross. I must confess that this is exactly how I was. When I got my first tattoo I didn’t want to get a cross because I knew I wasn’t the most “religious” person out there, and I didn’t want to be seen as a hypocrite. Instead, I went with a celtic trinity symbol that was less popular and much more complex with meaning. Looking back on my decision I can’t help but to laugh,not only was I a hypocrite but the fact that I got something on my body that symbolically is far more complex than that of the cross makes me a perfect example of a “christian”. The trinity for those of you that do not know is a symbol of God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit and will never be completely understood by ANY christian. Now I don’t necessarily think that it’s bad that so many people have a tattoo that relates to Jesus because even though people may not be true believers it still raises the awareness and discussion of him. Unfortunately, many of the times that these symbols are seen on people, they are seen doing things that a true believer shouldn’t. For example I can’t tell you how many times i’ve seen a cross or a verse on someone who is out at sterling pool (a pool located at one of UNI’s apartment complexes) getting completely wasted. Once again, I know this because I used to be that person. I thought that having a God related tattoo on my body showed everyone that I was a christian, but my actions showed everyone that all I wanted to do was be social and see if I could out drink the person next to me. I also understand that nobody is perfect and that even believers still go out and make bad decisions. The process of growing in your faith and making steps to become Christ like is a long and extremely challenging process. I still have desires at times to go out with my friends like I used to. If people weren’t faced with desires that they know aren’t the best for them or others then there would be no point for the cross. 

Now that I have discussed the exploitation of God, I want to talk about the challenges that I and many other young believers face. One challenge that I have been struggling with is transitioning from my “old life” of blindness to a life of salvation, while maintaining old friendships. I have been an extrovert my entire life which in return means I have made lots of friends along the way. Many of my friends have been there for me through thick and thin, they would do anything for me as would I. Unfortunately most of my friends aren’t believers and I rarely get to see them because of my hectic life of basketball and classes. The few times I get a chance to be with them, they are only doing one thing, drinking. If I or any of them have free time it usually comes on the weekends, and what else do college students do on the weekend other than drink and go out, right? Because of these circumstances I have had to sacrifice time spent with them and in return I have lost a lot of the bonds with them. It has come to the point where I wonder, what happens when I get married, will any of my friends want to be my groomsmen? Will all these years of turning down invites to hang out make my friends make them think that I’m doing it  because I believe I’m too good for them? I don’t despise or look at any of them in a negative way, but because of my beliefs I don’t feel right putting myself in those situations all the time. For a long time I struggled with this and I felt like I was alone. My girlfriend had grown up a believer and therefore she was able to filter through people and find ones that influenced her faith in a positive way. What was I supposed to do? Who could I vent this too? My girlfriend is one of the most influential people in my life and provides a great voice of reason to help me sort all of my problems, but like I said she grew up differently and has been an introvert her whole life so she doesn’t have the same need for friends in her life that I do. I was feeling so lost and alone, I kept praying that God would help me discover where to go from here. Then my prayers were answered. I was in church one Sunday and pastor Fuller was giving a sermon on aloneness. He began by telling us the story of how he was saved. How in college he played football and struggled with drinking and many of the same habits that I have struggled with. He had this empty void in his soul that he knew he needed filling, and finally he was saved. From that point on he began to lose the friends that were close to him. His roommate noticed this change and began to feel uncomfortable around him. So, here he is put in a position where he fills an empty space in his soul, but now he is losing all his friends, all of his support. This continued until one day he was walking back from the library and just cried out to God and said “You never told me that when I surrendered myself to you that I would lose all my friends and be all alone.” He then heard clear as he can hear you or me God tell him “I Am Enough”. This hit me like a brick wall. If I surrender myself to Christ and trust in him with all the decisions I make, then I will have the strength to know I can make the hard step of faith and he will guide me and protect me in the process. Hearing pastor Fuller tell me that he had made the same decisions that I had and was just as alone as me at one point in his life gave me a huge sense of relief. I knew this was a sign from God that I was on the right path. I know now that it wont be an easy process, and that I will still fail but I am able to face these problems with a new sense of direction. I know that if my friends are truly my friends they will see that the changes I’m making are the best decisions for me and they will be there for me in the end. 

For those of you that are struggling with many of the same problems that I am or have a tough time dealing with stereotype that it is unacceptable to be a follower of Christ in college, you are not in the wrong. God is on your side and is placing these challenges in your life for a reason. Each time you are faced with a situation where temptation or the feeling of being unaccepted is in front of you and you make the decision to do it God’s way, he sees this step in faith and will bless your obedience. GOD IS ENOUGH!

My testimony and how I came to know the Lord.

It started all 22 years ago when I was brought into this world. I was baptized in the catholic church, surrounded by God and people that loved me. From this point I would be brought up in a family centered around Catholicism. My parents who both grew up in devout catholic households had decided to instill this religion in our family. So St. Patricks church located just 2 blocks from our house, became the place where we learned about God. There was a problem, we hated church, and really hated going to our Wednesday night CCD, and to this day I don't know the purpose of. If I had to compare it, I would say it is some sort of "bible study" for catholics, it helps them learn about the catholic religion and the rules you must abide by. 


The next few years played a critical part in where I'm at today. I spent these years going to church and CCD trying my hardest to understand what they were trying to teach me. I desperately wanted to understand what my friends and family understood. But now I ask myself, did they really understand it? As 5th grade approached my two older sisters came to a point where they no longer had to attend CCD. So I played the guilt trip on my parents and also got out of it. I was blessed with parents that didn't force a religion on us, they wanted us to have the freedom to discover God in our own way. As most of my friends continued towards their confirmation, I was happy I didn't have to go to those dreadful Wednesday night classes and wake up for church on Sunday to sit, kneel, stand, and repeat what the priest was saying. I want to make one thing clear before I continue. I don't hate or dislike catholics, until about a year ago I considered myself to be one. I talk about it the way I do because it was something I wanted so desperately to confide in, but I couldn't understand what I was being told. I spend ten years in the catholic church and couldn't tell you the difference between God and Jesus. I was blind to the gospel and the grace of God. I thought we all went to church because it was what "good" families did. Our neighbors did it, so if we didn't want to be looked down upon, we should go too. 


In junior high I became involved in sports. The busy schedule I had gave me an excuse to miss church on the weekends. Our family slowly stopped going to church every Sunday. Church then became a thing we would go to on holidays. It is interesting, the whole time I distanced myself from God and the church I still considered myself a christian. But I knew deep down something wasn't right, something was missing from my life. I was blessed with such amazing family, friends, and talents others dreamed of, yet I didn't know the man that made all that possible. 


High school passed and college came. I was now a student athlete and living on my own. I was finally an adult and in control of my own life. I worked hard on the basketball floor and even harder in the classroom. I had good morals and manners, but I also spent a lot of time staying up late and socializing with my friends on the weekends. I thought this was okay because I stayed on top of my school work and worked hard in basketball. This became something I would look forward to every weekend. I thought since I didn't do it as much as other students that I was justified. After all isn't that what college is all about? This all changed when I met Hannah. I met Hannah the beginning  of my junior year. We started to talk and soon we were dating. I popped the big question (will you go out with me?) on a Saturday night, and the next day she told me I was going to church with her. Immediately I became uncomfortable and was questioning what I had gotten myself into. So being the obedient boyfriend I am I followed her to church thinking this was going to be an hour of yet another confusing message of confusion and nonsense. What I experienced was something totally different. From the time I walked into Prairie Lakes Church I was welcomed with open arms. I was in awe when I left. In just an hour I had learned more about the Lord than I did in 21 years. I felt as if everything pastor Fuller was saying, was meant for me. It was meant to give me a new beginning.


I continued to go to church with Hannah. Not only did I look forward to Sundays but I started to implement what I was learning in my every day life. Three months later I was saved. What does this mean to be saved? I struggled with this for a really long time, even now I am a bit skeptical. My definition of being saved is knowing that God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for you. Knowing that all your sins have been forgiven by the grace of God and accepting the fact you aren't strong enough to do everything on your own. Without this you would spend eternity in hell. Heaven was no longer a place that I had to work my way into. Jesus had given me a gift a eternal life by bearing all my sin and dying for me. The thought of this is so overwhelming that many people run from it. I didn't, I embraced it and decided that the rest of my life I would live my life for God. Many people believe that since they don't understand everything about God or the bible that they are either unworthy or cannot be saved. Let me tell you something, nobody deserves what Jesus did for us, that is why we call it grace. All you have to do is let God into your lives, take a little step to discover him and he will show you things that you could never imagine. This doesn't mean you won't face any struggles the rest of your life, in fact you will encounter more, but through faith you will be able to overcome them. 


I continued to let God grow in me and allow myself to be saved. I began to grow closer to my family and found out more about myself then I had my entire life. I had a different mindset when approaching adversity. I began to see problems and obstacles in my life as a step to prove my faith. With each step I took I became more aware of all the things I was blessed with. 


Looking back at this past year I can see all the places in my life that God has had a hand in. Things that used to depress and discourage me, don't carry the same weight anymore. I am able to take all those negative things in my life and turn them into positive learning experiences. I have made more friendships and seen the true beauty in people that I was once blind to. For anyone that feels lost and alone, or feels like theirs no way God would love them for what they've done, I'm here to tell you your wrong! God loves each one of us for exactly who we are and its never to late to discover his glory.