Built. Lost.
Rebuilt.
Have you ever found yourself searching, yet feeling like you fall short every time? That was my reality, because I did not understand the power of living in the middle.
Searching everywhere, arriving nowhere
Growing up I tried to build an identity through sports, chasing significance and belonging I could never quite find. I looked for it in the wrong crowds, the wrong choices. Drugs, relationships, approval. I was searching everywhere and arriving nowhere.
Then on May 11, 2004, everything changed. I knew I needed Jesus first, and I knew there was more for my life than what I had been settling for.
One step of faith
So I made a decision that made no sense to anyone around me. I moved to Sydney, Australia, in search of something deeper. Not a program. Not a position. God Himself, for myself. I went all in, not knowing where it would lead, only knowing I could not stay where I was.
That one step of faith rearranged everything. It is where I met my wife, where we welcomed our first son, and where my calling shifted from something I was chasing into something I was starting to live.
Full on the outside, empty underneath
The years that followed were full. We planted churches in major cities across the United States. I built, I led, I gave everything I had. From the outside it looked like purpose. Underneath, the question of significance was not fully settled in me.
Then came a season I never saw coming. The organization was growing. The influence was real. And I was quietly coming apart. Burned out. Overwhelmed. Running on empty with no language for it and no safety to say it out loud. In that place I made the greatest mistake of my life. One moment. One choice. It cost more than I can explain here and shifted everything. But God, in His relentless grace, refused to waste it.
The crossroads
That forced me into a crossroads none of my training had prepared me for. I stepped into the world of business and sales. I had to translate everything I knew about people, leadership, and building organizations into an entirely new context.
It stretched me. It humbled me. It refined me. And it revealed something I had been missing all along. It was never about my significance. I already had that in Christ.
Building again
Today I am a husband, a father to three boys, and a builder. Still building. Still learning. Still becoming.
Most of real life happens in the middle. Not at the starting line and not at the finish. In the long stretch in between, where the work gets done and character gets formed. That is where I write from, and that is where I have learned the most.
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.Philippians 1:6
Not a footnote.
The foundation.
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.Luke 16:10
This is the verse that shaped my rebuild season more than any other. Not a verse about big stages or wide platforms. A verse about what you do when no one is watching. When the audience is gone. When the title has been stripped. When it is just you and God and the work in front of you.
I have learned that a hard season is not punishment. It is preparation. Faith is what let me face it instead of running from it, and it is the only reason I can tell you honestly from the middle of it: it is survivable. More than survivable. It builds something in you that comfort never could.
- I
Jesus is the way. Full stop.
Not a philosophy. Not a moral framework. Not a religious tradition. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He always has been. He always will be. Everything else I believe is built on that.
- II
He will never leave you nor forsake you
People will fail us. The church will fail us. We will fail others. But Jesus never fails. Not once. Not ever. That is not a bumper sticker. That is the most stabilizing truth I have ever lived.
- III
God does not waste hard seasons
The middle is not where He abandons you. It is where He shapes you. The testing of your faith produces something that comfort never could. He is not done. Not even close.
- IV
Faithful with little first
Before the platform, the audience, the influence, there is the private work. What you do when no one sees determines what you will be when everyone does. Start there. Stay there.
- V
He who began a good work will complete it
Philippians 1:6. A hard season is not the end of the story. God finishes what He starts. Even when you cannot see how it ends from where you are standing, He can. Trust the process He is running.
I will never leave you nor forsake you.Hebrews 13:5