Bigstuph Blog – Thoughts from Steve

I am sitting in the airport in Fort Lauderdale, waiting for my wife (heather), and my son Josh to fly in from Orlando. I just arrived an hour ago when I flew in with Will McGinness from Nashville. I am flying to Haiti for the first time tomorrow morning for a chance to see what Mark and Will are doing with Hands and Feet. This is a ministry started by the guys from Audio Adrenaline that serves orphans in Haiti. They have a children’s village that is changing the world in that region.

For years my wife and I dreamed of the opportunity to come to Haiti and find a ministry that we could partner with that was making an impact. In 1986 my wife’s dad passed away in Haiti when he was serving as a short term missionary. He was rebuilding a roof on a church and fell and tragically died on his trip.

My wife and I are so excited to get a feel for what her amazing dad experienced before he died. He was only 46 years old when he died, but what a life he lived. Hundreds of people were impacted by the life and tragic death of this amazing man. Tomorrow we step foot in a land that has in some ways has become forgotten. What can we do to make an impact? We can tell our story and let God do the rest.

Tomorrow is LONG overdue. Dear God, Bless our efforts to impact your kingdom.

This week I have been on spring break with my family.  My oldest son Taylor is graduating from high school in a couple of months, so we wanted to make this one special.  God has been doing an amazing work in Taylor’s life.  Over the last 8 months or so, God has become real to me in a whole new way.  Ironically the journey that my oldest son is on parallels my faith journey in so many ways.  I am so very proud of my son.    

A year and a half ago, Taylor suffered a severe head injury playing football.  He was the middle line backer for his high school football team.  At 225 lbs, and a 6 foot frame he was built for football.  In November 2007 he suffered 3 concussions in one football game.  His helmet was defective.  He had no air in his “air cushioning”.  

For nearly two months we watched Taylor struggle to differentiate from his right and left, or even complete simple addition or multiplication.  He was slurring his words, and his short term memory was shot.  We had him tested, and the neurlogical psychologist informed us that in 3 of 4 the measurables, Taylor either did not score at all or was below the 10 percentile.  He had the cognitive ability of pre-schooler in some areas. 

Two months later he began to acclimate back to school, but it was extremely difficult for him to get back to “normal”.  He was unable to take the ACT test for college until the fall of 2008.  He was unable to even finish the test in two sections.  In order for him to concentrate he is on Concerta, which allows him to focus, but it makes him almost OCD (based on the amount he has to take), and as a result he was unable to skip over questions he did not know on the ACT.  

The bottom line we were beginning to determine that there could be some lasting effects of his head injury.  It has been very painful to watch an amazingly gifted student athlete unable to proudly proclaim with confidence where they are going to college.  But I would not trade it for the world.  Taylor has found God in a whole new way as a result of this experience.  He now wants to serve God as a missionary in one of the most persecuted regions of the world.  He told me today that he wants to sell his pick-up truck and buy a beater, so he can give the rest away to those in need.    

This 18 year old young man has found God and has inspired me to give EVERYTHING to follow Christ. Pray for Taylor as he finds his calling.  This week, while hanging with the family at the beach, I have seen him reading the Bible 3-4 times a day.  He can not get enough.  God is filling him up for a reason, a purpose, a calling.  Thank you God how you work. 

The cost of following Christ is EVERYTHING.    In Luke 14:33 it says unless you give up EVERYTHING you can not be my disciple. What does that mean?  I want to follow Christ.  I am willing to give you EVERYTHING. 

During my 5 month sabbatical I was “introduced” to Francis Chan, although I can not recall who told me about him.  After watching a handful of videos, I started to listen to his podcast sermons.  The guy was speaking TRUTH from God’s word.  He was wiping away the grey that I had let filter into my life.   When I was 14 years old, I was hospitalized after a water skiing accident.  I was trick skiing and I was “attempting” a helicopter.  This trick was being performed for about 12 or so spectators that were riding in the boat.  My attempt to hit the wake and do a 360 failed and I shattered my right femur.  As a result of the accident I had to be in the hospital for 6 weeks in traction.  The trauma of the accident somehow punctured my right kidney with a quarter size hole.  In order to see the hole in the kidney I had to have an x-ray with iodine.I was severely allergic to the iodine, and my throat closed up and eventually my heart stopped beating.  I was in and out of consciousness for 45 minutes or so.  After it all ended the doctor came in and said “son you were on your deathbed, God must have a purpose for your life, because you should not be here” Shortly after this experience, I began to felt called to shake up the church.  I use to read scripture as a 14 year old and recognize the obvious differences between what scripture says and how I was living my life.  I read scripture in a “black and white” fashion.  This “idealism” for seeing God’s word for what it was slowly went away over the years, and although I have always felt called to “wake up the church” I began to live my life just like everyone else. Until I ran across the sermons and the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  This reading scripture for what it says, rekindled my spirit and desire to learn more and so I was provided the chance to spend sometimes up to 8 hours a day in God’s word.  This went on for weeks, then months.  During this time the word of God became alive again.  More to come… 

As many of you know, I took off for 5 months beginning August 15th 2009.   I took off to find myself again.  Why did God put me on this earth?  What is my purpose?  Why am I here?  I had spent 16 years building a business for what reason?  About four years ago we came up with a cool mission for our Stuph brand.  It was simply this – To leverage our resources to change this world.  It all sounded good, but what does that mean?The purpose of my sabbatical was to simply find out what it meant to leverage our resources to change this world.  About a month into my time off, I decided that in order for me to find my way, I needed to decided which way that would be.   Towards the end of September, I decided that it would be the narrow way.  I had heard that term my entire church life, but I was confident that I was not on the narrow road.  What was different in my life than anyone else?  What was in my life that screamed to the world that I was passionately in love with God?  Not much quite honestly.  Sure I did the right things for the most part, and certainly said the right things most of the time, but I was tired of working so hard to keep my head above the spiritual waters.  There had to be a different way. Sometime in mid October (two months into my sabbatical) some one told me about a guy named Francis Chan.  To this day, I can not remember who told me about this guy – but a few days later I googled Francis Chan and this is what I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_uwWPE6lQ I watched and instantly knew that I liked this guys message.Stay tuned…this story gets really crazy 

I don’t know what I really think about blogging.  I read so many blogs that seem so self serving or self promoting.  I don’t like promoting myself.  Quite honestly I don’t have too much to promote…as it relates to me.  Instead I want this blog to be more of a journal of my journey to walk out my faith.    I am just figuring out where I really am in this journey of faith.  I was raised Methodist, then was taken to various charismatic churches when my mom was “filled with the spirit”.  I ended up going to middle school and high school at a very fundamental Baptist school.  I ended up at a southern Baptist college. I have seen almost everything.  I have been apart of the seeker sensitive movement at different levels.   In 1995, I became a part time youth pastor at a SBC church in central Florida.  Today, I consider myself a mutt.  I have seen authentic faith in every denomination that I have attended.  But for the most part, I have seen more hypocrisy than I have authentic faith. Boy is it easy to find fault in the church!  But what about me?  This is a journal of my faith.  Here is what I realize:

Matthew 7:4-6 (New International Version)

4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 

Now I have to begin the slow process of documenting my faith journey.  No one may ever read this blog, but that does not matter. Today I am a follower of Christ.  It has only been in the last few months that I can honestly claim that I have fully understood what it means to believe…simply put, I must “be living” my faith.

Stay tuned.