When my son – who just turned 11 – was a baby, he used to keep me distracted.

I remember one time I was sitting in our tiny living room trying to finish something “important.”

Laptop open, head full of ideas. I was chasing “purpose” (if I could make the quotation marks bigger I would), and it was full steam ahead.

That’s when baby JT kicked me in the face.

He was climbing on me, slapping the keyboard, and bouncing on the couch. I kept trying to focus so I could just finish one thing before the day got away.

But I was already too late.

He didn’t need me in an hour. He needed me right then.

So I closed the laptop.

We wrestled, laughed, and spent the morning together. I don’t remember what I was working on. But I remember that moment.

It was one of the most productive days of my life – not because of what I got done, but because of what I didn’t miss.

That’s the thing about perspective. You don’t lose it all at once. You drift.

You start thinking your future is the most important thing in the room. That what you’re building for them matters more than being with them.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

There’s a story about a professor who stood in front of his class with a jar.

He filled it with golf balls and asked if it was full. They said yes.

Then he poured in pebbles, which filled the spaces between the balls. Again, full.

Then sand, which filled in every crack.

He told them: the golf balls are the big stuff—family, health, faith, people you love. The pebbles are things that matter—your job, your house. The sand is everything else.

If you put the sand in first, there’s no room for the rest.

That moment on the couch reminded me of what goes in the jar first.

Most people don’t waste time, money, or opportunities on purpose.

They usually just don’t realize how valuable they are.

We naturally think impact comes from big plans and important goals.

But it’s usually the unnoticed moments—a distracted look, a sharp word, a missed chance to engage—that shape the people closest to us.

We overestimate the weight of our intentions and underestimate the power of our presence.

Because you only steward what you truly cherish. And you only cherish what you see as valuable.

A few things worth cherishing:

1. Cherish your insecurities. Insecurity isn’t weakness—it’s insight. It simply shows what you care about and where you long to grow. When you hide it, it becomes shame. When you share it, it becomes connection. Vulnerability is the doorway to trust.

2. Cherish your frustration. Frustration is a mile marker—it points to what matters and where unity is needed. It’s not the enemy; it’s a signpost. The goal isn’t to eliminate it, but to walk through it with purpose. Avoid it, and you’ll drift. Embrace it, and you’ll grow.

3. Cherish the present. The present is the only place you can actually affect change. Everything else—past regret, future fantasy—is an illusion. Who you want to become isn’t found in tomorrow. It’s in the next word, the next moment, the next small step you choose right now.

You don’t need more time.

You just need to value the time you already have.

And when you start to cherish it, you’ll steward it well.

What does it really mean to be a man?

Examples are getting harder to come by.

I can tell you it’s rarely done well, but here’s what I’ve noticed in the men who’ve done it right:

A real man shows honor.

He builds others up instead of tearing them down. In fact, he hates tearing people down.

He speaks well of people, even when it doesn’t make sense.

He isn’t threatened by someone else’s strength or their weakness. He embraces both.

A real man serves.

He forsakes self-preservation.

He shows up when it’s inconvenient.

He thinks of himself less, not less of himself.

He protects and provides first and foremost.

He doesn’t virtue signal and he’s okay if people don’t like him for it.

A real man is courageous. Not because he’s strong, but because he still shows up when he isn’t.

He confronts his past instead of avoiding it.

He cries.

He faces discomfort instead of looking for an escape.

A real man is honest about his imperfections.

He doesn’t hide weakness. He relishes in his own growth opportunities.

He gives grace. Lots of it.

He values wholeness over perfection. And he knows the difference intimately.

Most importantly, he knows his place, he bows his head, and he bends his knee to his Creator.

This is what manhood should look like.

Let’s pray we never lose our examples.

There’s a widely-accepted lie in our culture that we sort of blindly embrace.

It’s like Santa Clause for adults.

The lie we all willingly believe in is the lie of control.

The signs of this lie are everywhere:

• Anger from frustration
• Fear, anxiety, and worry
• Stress and sickness
• Selfishness and disunity

These are all byproducts of a mind that is set on control but can never find it.

We decide that our ideal – our “Eden” – is something we can create.

But God (and the laws of the universe) plan otherwise.

Here’s where the disconnect comes from:

We’ve been programmed by modern advancements to believe that everything around us is under our control.

With one glance at the device in my pocket, I can instantly know what the weather will be like for the next 10 days or more.

I can instantly get a virtual tour of the Eiffel Tower anytime I want. 

I can speak with anyone, anywhere on this planet, instantly whenever I decide to.

No other generation in history has had the level of access and control that we have today.

Every other generation had to become very comfortable with uncertainty. 

Before the industrial revolution, families depended on whether cycles to bring them crops. Survival itself depended on elements that were outside of their control.

They:

• ate what was available
• did activities that were available
• wore what was available
• worked at jobs that were available
• used the products and services that were available

…and they learned to deal with circumstances as they came.

But now we have options for everything. 

Jobs, food, clothes, friends, church, entertainment – we have endless choices.

And a major side effect of a culture filled with options is the misconception that certainty is just within reach.

But it’s an illusion.

The best plans can instantly change. 

Weather patterns get interrupted, family members get sick, jobs cease to exist, and our worlds of comfort and predictability can be stripped away in an instant (consider 2020 for reference).

When you realize certainty is an illusion, life gets simpler.

Control, and the desire for certainty, is a form of self-captivity. You’re only stuck because you’re looking for something to hold onto.

Imagine being stuck inside a jail cell because you won’t let go of the bars.

But freedom comes from release – letting go of the need for certainty.

And when you let go, you start to realize that what you were holding onto so desperately was a self-created captivity.

Driven people with character are dangerous.

Those people are the ones who create a better world.

Both are key – drive and character.

One without the other is like separating sodium from chlorine in sodium chloride, also known as salt.

These two become salt only when they’re together.

When separated, both sodium and chlorine are dangerous and volatile.

If the formula for salt is sodium (Na) + chlorine (Cl), then the formula for building driven people of character – the “salt” of the earth, is this:

Urgency (to solve an important problem) + Patience (the willingness to work and wait for progress) = Driven People of Character.

I call it “patient urgency”.

You must have both urgency and patience.

Just like sodium and chlorine are harmful on their own, so too are urgency and patience.

Urgency without patience kills character.

Patience without urgency kills drive.

When they come together, though, you get a rare mixture that both preserves and improves everything it touches.

One day a psychology professor stepped in front of her class, filled a glass full of water, and raised it where everyone could see.

The professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Students shouted out answers ranging from eight ounces to a couple pounds. 

The professor then replied, “From my perspective, the absolute weight of this glass doesn’t matter. It all depends on how long I hold it.”

“If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly light.”

“If I hold it for an hour straight, its weight might make my arm ache a little.”

“If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will cramp up and go numb, forcing me to drop the glass to the floor.”

“In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

Stresses and worries in life are very much like that glass of water. 

When carried for short periods of time, they have relatively no effect. 

But the longer you ruminate, focus on them, and try to hold them without balance and rest, the more they hurt you. 

At first, you begin to ache a little, but after a while, that same amount of relatively small weight can make you feel completely numb and paralyzed – incapable of doing anything else until you drop them.

You can carry a lot more than you think – but only when you do it a little at a time. 

Most people aren’t held back by a lack of knowledge, opportunity, health, wealth, or wellbeing.

The single barrier blocking most of us is fear.

Fear tells you:

• keep everything under control
• be safe
• don’t be too vulnerable
• limit risk
• don’t dream
• don’t trust
• don’t get your hopes up

It stunts our ability to grow, lead, and impact the people around us.

And it’s very subtle. It comes from past hurts and it waits beneath the surface for years.

We get hurt, then we isolate, then we hold onto the pain because it feels like something we deserved.

Unknowingly, we feed fear.

But at the root of fear is something much sneakier – the need for control.

See, the fruit of fear is easy to spot:

• Anger
• Stress
• Worry
• Feelings of insignificance
• So on and so forth

But you’ll notice that these pop up whenever things feel out of control.

Control feels safe, so we learn to chase it. 

When we realize we can’t have it – because we can never truly have full control of anything in life – the body goes into fight or flight.

This is the essence of anxiety.

It’s caused by unthrottled and mismanaged thoughts about situations that are outside of our control.

This is also the cycle of fear. 

What we do with the desire for control is what will determine whether or not fear grows inside of us.

We can do one of two things:

1. Be willing to sit with the discomfort of what’s uncontrollable without trying to fix it (which is REALLY difficult)
2. Run in circles chasing a solution until our brains go haywire with stress, anxiety, and panic

Unresolved pain will always lead us to option B.

A person with an open wound has to give up control to a doctor to get healed. 

Hiding the wound until it gets infected would cause unnecessary pain, anger, fear, and irrational behavior.

Fighting for control usually leads to the opposite of what you want.

Release is simple, yet counter-intuitive:

Practice release in the small, mundane things, and start storing up positive outcomes.

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart…” (Luke 6:45)

Memories drive behavior.

Give your brain micro-experiences of releasing control throughout your day, and start storing up positive outcomes (not all will be positive, so more reps are better).

With a memory bank of positive outcomes, releasing control will feel less and less like a death sentence.

And over time, you’ll see that life and healing go hand in hand with release.

When pushed to decide, humans lean towards acceptance.

Lack of acceptance is scary – it’s terrifying.

Acceptance usually equals survival, so it makes sense.

It feels safe and comfortable because it gives us the perception of control.

If I’m accepted, I have less things to worry about being outside of my sphere of influence.

If I’m not accepted, it feels like I have people against me, which feels like chaos.

Because acceptance is so comfortable, it can quickly become the thing we’re willing to sacrifice everything for.

And what you sacrifice to, you worship.

So if you’re going to give something up, just make sure it’s on the right altar.

Platforms are polarizing:

Some desire them, some despise them.

Which one is right?

If a platform is simply a structure intended to elevate a person or idea for the purpose of increased attention…

…then the platform itself might not be the problem.

The most important question is: who or what is on the platform?

We need more people building platforms (see Matthew 5:16 & Proverbs 22:1) and less putting themselves on top of them (see Matthew 23:12 & Acts 12:23).