Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Family”
Our Bible verse for today: “Plans fail when there is no counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 15:22 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “We have to help each other figure it out.”
If you talk to any Navy Seal he will tell you that the members of his Seal team are family to him. That’s true of any fighting unit. The situations those team members face are difficult and often life threatening, and therefore they have to be able to depend on each other. And those close family-like relationships often last a lifetime.
In his book “Resilience” former Navy Seal Eric Greitens tells the story of a fellow Seal that he had served with years earlier and with whom he had had a close relationship. In the book Eric called him “Walker” but that was not his real name. The story is that after leaving the Seals and attempting to begin a new life in the regular world, Walker lost his way because he had lost his purpose. When he was a Navy Seal he had a crystal clear purpose for his life. He knew exactly who he was and what his purpose was. But once he left the Seals he was lost – he had no clear purpose and his life spiraled out of control.
He then reached out to his old buddy Eric for help. He just needed someone who understood the situation and who would talk it through with him. Over the course of the next couple of years Eric and Walker exchanged a long series of letters as Eric attempted to guide his buddy as he discovered a new direction for his life. The book “Resilience” is a compilation of those letters and it’s packed full of profound and wise advice.
There are two lessons we can take from Walker’s example. The first is that we need a purpose in life. We all need something in our lives that causes us to want to get out of bed in the morning. It could be anything from a job we love and are eager to get to; or a college degree we are working on and we can’t wait for the next class; or it could be our love for our children and we’re excited about the thought of spending the day with them.
The people who thrive in life are those who have a clear purpose and are passionate about pursing it. But sometimes, like in the case of Walker, we transition into new seasons in life when our old purpose fades away and we have to develop a new one. Those transitions can often be difficult and bumpy, and so we need help. We need counselors.
And that is the second lesson we can take from Walker’s example. We all need trusted advisors in our lives – people who will talk with us about the tough issues and then walk with us through them. This is where family should come in. It could be a spouse or a sibling, it could be members of your church family, or it could be a small group of close friends.
The point is that we all need trusted advisors – counselors who will help us discover answers to the tough questions in life. That’s what family, and family-like groups, do for each other – we help each other to get it figured out.
If you don’t have a small group of trusted advisors who you can turn to about the tough questions in life, I encourage you to get one. We all need help getting it figured out.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 