TheCandidate

I was born with clubfeet and underwent five operations before I was six years old. Some of my earliest memories involve hospitals, casts, crutches, and watching golfers through a hospital window. I didn’t know then that I would eventually become one of those golfers—or that “play the ball where it lies” would become pretty good advice for life.

Before I was born, my mother unknowingly took a pill intended to abort me. It caused serious complications, but it did not end my life. I survived the abortion. I suppose persistence became part of my story before I even entered the world.

Humor has always been part of how I survive, connect, and tell the truth. Sometimes laughter gets through a door that seriousness has been pounding on for years. I can laugh at myself because God has already seen the entire unedited version of me and has not fallen off His throne.

I am a man of strong convictions. If I believe something, you usually won’t need to hire a private investigator to discover it. My mouth has occasionally arrived at a destination several minutes before wisdom caught up. The Marine Corps helped me recognize this tendency, although I cannot honestly say it completely cured me.

I see possibilities quickly. Sometimes I can see the finished building while everyone else is still asking whether we own the land. This can be helpful. It can also make the people around me reach for a seat belt.

If you have forgotten your worth, I may help you remember it. If adversity has convinced you that God abandoned you, I may help you see that what looked like punishment could have been preparation. If religion has given you information about God without helping you know Him, I will invite you to taste the food instead of merely memorizing the menu.

I believe we were never meant to spend our lives auditioning for the Father’s love. We live from His acceptance, not toward it. That truth changed how I understand my childhood, my failures, my relationships, my business life, and every difficult step that brought me here.

My enthusiasm can become intensity. When I see something clearly, I sometimes forget that other people may need time to see it—or may see it differently. I can offer an answer before I have finished hearing the question. Occasionally, I have been known to solve problems people had not yet decided they possessed.

I want to help, but helping can become fixing, and fixing is not always loving. Sometimes a person doesn’t need my explanation. They need me to sit beside them without trying to rebuild their entire life before lunch.

My conviction can also sound like certainty, even when I am still exploring a possibility. I must continually distinguish between what Scripture says, what I believe God has shown me, and what I may simply be seeing through the lens of my own experiences. Those things can be connected, but they are not automatically identical.

I have learned that sincerity does not make me infallible. Being misunderstood does not always mean I am right. And criticism of something I created is not rejection of the person God created me to be. I am still practicing all three of those lessons, sometimes with more enthusiasm than success.

I do not want you to agree with everything I say simply because I say it passionately. Ask questions. Test the ideas. Examine Scripture. Listen for God yourself. If something in these pages helps you remember who you are, keep it. If something makes you wrestle, then wrestle honestly. God is not frightened by sincere questions.

“At my best, I will help you see meaning where you once saw only pain. At my worst, I may explain that meaning so energetically that you wish I came with a mute button.”

I am learning to listen as deeply as I speak, verify as carefully as I believe, and give other people the same freedom I want for myself. I do not want to lose the fire God placed in me. I simply want that fire to warm people without taking all the oxygen out of the room.

I am not presenting myself as a theologian with every answer. I am a man who has lived, fallen, laughed, questioned, succeeded, failed, remembered, and kept walking. The miracle was never merely that I learned to walk. The miracle was where all those imperfect steps were leading me.

If my story helps you recognize something in your own, then perhaps we were meant to walk a little of this road together.