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Welcome back, my weary warriors. Time to check in. I know it's been a week for me. How did the week go for you? I took an ice bath twice in one day. I thought I needed it. I didn't think. I know I needed it. The problem is now I sound like Barry White. Just like the odd version thereof. You're welcome, I guess. Let's go with it. Is it possible, though, that our parents were right when they said that we either had to dress appropriately or we'd catch a cold? I don't know. Well, time will tell. Maybe it's just allergies. My brain tried to go into squirrel mode at least a couple times this week. I had to almost yell at myself to take some time to do some of my Wim Hof breathing. It's kind of like purposeful hyperventilation, but again, it's just one of those things that works for me. They always say, take what sticks, leave what doesn't. What works for me won't necessarily work for you. But it's worth investigating. how last week we talked about putting your oxygen mask on first so we could help others? Yeah, I suck at that. Big time. The good news is that I was able to, through the process, talk myself into just, okay, take a step, do your breathing, you'll be better, you'll be able to help other people then a lot more. Well, and here we are, week four, going strong. Today we're going to dive headfirst into the hard. Like, everything else has been easy, right? We're going to talk about struggle, identity, why God never promised an easy road, but he did promise it would be worth it. But before we get into that, let's set the stage here a little bit. So in John three twenty-seven thirty it tells us something very powerful about purpose. So John the Baptist, he knew exactly who he was. He said, I am not the Christ, but rather, I have been sent before him. He understood his role, his mission. He didn't try to be somebody he wasn't. He was the setup guy. Get everybody excited for the main act. And when Jesus showed up, John gracefully bowed out. He literally says, I must, excuse me, he must increase, I must decrease. That's John 3.30. Kudos to you, Mr. Humble. That kind of clarity makes life easier, right? When we know our purpose. We know exactly what to do. But what happens when we lose that? When our identity is wrapped up in something that gets taken away? Maybe even when our ego gets intertwined in that same career identity. When what we think we know gets thrown to the side with neither our consent nor our concern. We see it all the time, right? First responders, military, People, we dedicate our lives to something bigger than ourselves. When a life of service to others comes to an end, we are suddenly faced with the need to service ourselves. Say that. Stop it. Don't go there. Get your head out of the gutter. But really, we are so steadfast in the idea that we have to put ourselves last so that others can rise above what they are dealing with. And now what? That uniform has come off for some of us. And when that part of our life ends, we often struggle. I'm struggling. You know, a lot of you are too. If your job is who you are, then who are you without it, right? That's where faith comes in. John knew his purpose because it was given to him from heaven. We have to remember that our identity isn't in what we do. It's in who we are, in Christ. He made us just like him. And God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Genesis 127, right in the beginning. But, I think that maybe that's where the problem lies. We'll circle back to that here in just a sec.

 

Life knocks us down, but we get up again. Pretty sure that was a song from the 90s. Go ahead and hum it. You're welcome for that in your head now. Again, we know, we know that life knocks us down. We know this. We are in this. And it's hard. Doesn't always make sense in the moment. Jesus told Nicodemus in John three the wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. So Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He was a member of the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin. Think of him as kind of like the Pope now-ish, kind of. So even he, this guy of God, a spiritual leader, somebody who was supposed to know God, was completely thrown by this. What I'm trying to say is if he struggled to understand God's plan, and I'm pretty sure it's okay if he do too. But

00:01:05 Shawn Smith: here's the twist. The pain, the uncertainty, the feeling of dangling in the wind. The not knowing where it comes from or where it's going part, it all has a purpose. Often that purpose feels awful in the moment, but the end result, that's what matters. Jesus never promised it would be He just promised it would be worth it. Now I have a theory about all this. It's a little outside the box, but just stick with me. So in Proverbs four uh, fourteen and fifteen it says, do not enter the path of the wicked or walk in the way of those who are evil. Avoid it. Do not go on it. Turn away from it and go on. Well, how the heck do we do that? I mean, our whole lives seems to be that. Some of the days, if not most of the days. It's easier said than done. And it's not just for first responders.

00:02:02 Shawn Smith: It's military too. I mean, all of us that are in a life of service, that's hard. There's a lot of darkness. We have to live in that darkness and we have to live in the light at the same time. And that's why it's so hard. I don't know if anybody remembers Lieutenant Dave Grossman's idea of sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. He wrote a whole bunch of books. If you don't know or haven't read any of his stuff, go check him out. A lot of great, great stuff in there. So again, sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. People get scared when the sheepdog has to act like a wolf to protect the sheep, right? I mean, snarling teeth, fur, But then again, we also have to be like the sheep too, right? When the uniform comes off, especially for the last time, That's where the struggle begins. Light in the darkness. Darkness in the light. But why is that so hard?

00:03:03 Shawn Smith: Why can't we just switch back and forth like flipping the kitchen light on them? I believe it's because we were never meant to deal with this. Again, think outside the box with me for just a second. God said we were made in his image, right? Originally, we were meant to live here in a literal heaven on earth, walking with God, not separated from him. But then came the fall. Fruit, the tree, the exile from Eden, our own bad choice changed the plan. We weren't built for this broken world. Anxiety, PTSD, trauma, none of that was part of the original design. But here we are trying to navigate it, doing the best we can amongst the crud and crap of everyday living. We're adapting with God's help, but it still feels unnatural. The good news, he hasn't given up on us. He sent his one and only son to be condemned,

00:04:03 Shawn Smith: to be tortured, to be killed for us. He sees you. He sees me. And much like a parent watching their child struggle, I believe he hates to see us suffer. But he also knows the ending. He's leading us through the mud, through the chaos, to something much, much greater. So as hard as it gets, we have to hold the faith. And honestly, if walking this hardest road means I get to know him better, I'll keep walking every day. With that in mind, I'd like to offer a small prayer here. Father God, this sucks right now. It really does. There are so many of us, including myself, that are hurting. I myself am lost most of the days. Ones I'm not, I begin questioning pretty much everything. Please help me. Help me to keep the perspective that you know, that you know who I am better than I do right now. And that your love in the endgame is what really matters. Not anything right here, right now. Not easy. Just worth it, right? In your name I pray. Amen.

 

We've been getting pretty deep here the last couple of weeks. This only being week four of a podcast, we're still trying to find our voice, right? I mean, we know that sometimes God has to teach us through the deep pain, through that profound insight. But other times, he's going to teach us through a domestic call involving drunk rabbits and a pickup truck. Yeah, it's one of those calls. So, for example, one evening, I'll never forget, my partner and I got dispatched to a domestic just south of town. This is Sydney, Montana, out in the Bakken oil field boom area. Uh, Williston, North Dakota, just west of that, into the Montevideo side. So again, just south of town, domestic, unusual, happens, drunk people in a trailer, la-dee-da. Now, when I pulled up, and this is by Bakken Oilfield standards, so keep that in mind, this place was basically the Hamptons. I mean, it's permanent trailer home, running water, a toilet you don't get frostbite from, and a garage that didn't look like a meth lab backdrop. So, of course I get there first, and woman comes running out, clearly upset, and also unfortunately familiar. It's never a good sign when you're a cop. Never a good sign when you're showing up and you know anybody on the scene. Doesn't matter if you're a cop, paramedic, whatever, right? Turns out, she wasn't just familiar, I knew her. See, a few days earlier, I'd seen her at the sheriff's office. You know, that early 20s, trying to turn my life around type energy. She had just interviewed for a deputy position. We chatted. She told me, I think that went well, but I've got a past. And I remember thinking, don't we all? I felt for her. I had left a past to come out to Montana to try and start something new. She was trying. Struggling, sure, but trying. And I said a silent, okay, God, no coincidences here. They gave her some sound, don't screw this up, advice as we departed. Now fast forward, I don't know, I think it was a couple days, maybe a week or so later. Same girl, now in raccoon mascara tears, was staring at me in the radiant glow of my old Crown Victorious headlights. I just interviewed for the job with you guys. This is not gonna look good. You don't say there, Dingleberry. Of course I didn't say that. I wanted to. But I didn't. I withheld. So she tells me that her kinda sorta in love with him ex came home with another woman to their trailer. Which was a little bold of him, not gonna lie. So I look over and sure enough, The other two stars of this love triangle, and I can't, I can't make this up. They're in the backseat of the truck having a Discovery Channel moment. Like, it was, ugh. Tried to keep things calm. Asked the usual, do you want to stay here? Which we all know in law enforcement, that's code for please God. Leave before you get arrested for murdering somebody. Of course, things escalated. The others, the ones in the backseat of the truck, the pants came off. Not once, but twice. Yes. Twice. And that was despite me yelling at them a lot. Now really, there was only so much I could do at this point. My partner hadn't arrived just yet. And believe it or not, coitus, even in Montana, was not a jailable effect. Pounce a ticket, yeah, probably. Jail, eh. And again, I'm by myself. I am not going to force any issues, let alone try and break that up. Ew. Ma'am, gonna have to ask you to put your pants back on. Yes again. So sorry. I tried using my firmest, most professional voice, but of course internally I was screaming, Why is this my life? My partner, of course, just walked up at that exact moment and he lost it immediately. He was laughing so hard I'm pretty sure I'd have to start EMS. And honestly, I wasn't mad. I wasn't mad at him. I wasn't mad at them. I just wasn't anything. In that moment, you either laugh, cry, light a candle, start a prayer circle, something. Eventually, I got things semi-under control. We separated everybody, including the truck seat rabbits. Made sure no one was bleeding. We walked away with one more bizarre story for the book. I'm pretty sure God is ghostwriting. And here's the thing. At the time, all I saw was the chaos. Just another messed up situation on a very long string of But looking back now, I can see God's hand was totally in it. Not just in the lessons like patience, humility, the limits of my gag reflex, but he was there in the humor too. My partner that day, the one that almost needed CPR, he turned into a lifelong friend, somebody I can still call today, thirteen years later at the drop of a hat, just to talk about nothing. Because maybe God doesn't just carry us through the hard times. Maybe sometimes he gives us just enough ridiculousness to remind us we're still alive. To give us that perspective that yes, we are all messed up. Most definitely not as much as others at times. But we're all messed up in some way, right? He also says that there's still joy to be found even in broken people, broken relationships. And a deeply unfortunate truck bed acrobatics. I often wonder what happened to that couple. I wonder what their perspective was. Did they see me as the buzzkill to their sideshow or, I don't know, did they force through it? Were they able to push past this? Are they now Mr. and Mrs. Dr. who knows who living in the suburbs with two and a half kids in some form of $1,000 doodle? I have no idea. The odds definitely weren't in their favor, but it is possible. Because I know one thing for sure, God is in all of our stories. And he does his best to separate and sort out our messes. But it takes time. And it takes a couple of bad choices to get us to realize that we are meant for so much more than what we give ourselves. See, Montana wasn't just healing and trustful. It was learning to laughing. To laugh at my madness, to laugh at their madness, to laugh at myself, And yeah, especially at drunk rabbits in love. If God can use that night to shape something good in me, He really can use it anyway.

 

We just watched for the first time, you know, the kids just watched for the first time, um, A League of Their Own. And in there, Tom Hanks' character, uh, I think Jimmy Dugan is the name. he's the coach in it. And he says it's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everybody would do it. The hard is what makes it great. If there's something to be said in that, Jesus didn't take the easy way out. He took the hard way. And I would argue the hardest way possible. The only way that led to redemption for all of us. And in our own lives, the struggles, the setbacks, the moments that make us want to quit, those are the very things God will use to shape us into something great. It's like Jesus used his time and life here to shape something wonderful for us. Not just now, but forever. So if you're in a hard season, don't run from it. Lean into it. It's gonna suck, but find purpose in it. And when things get really ridiculous, laugh. Just laugh. Because sometimes that's the best survival tool God gives us. That's it for today. Another week gone by. Already started writing next week so we'll see how that goes. I just, I'm making this stuff up as I go, guys. I'm not a professional podcaster. I'm not a professional writer. I am just a guy trying to keep myself occupied and out of trouble with my life, so. This isn't going to be perfect. Just pray for me. I'll pray for you. I do ask, though, that if this episode spoke to you, share it with somebody who needs to hear it. Remember to breathe. Remember to put your own oxygen mask on first and remember to not do two ice baths in one day during the early spring days in Minnesota. We're supposed to get another flippin' snowstorm. It's like sixty degrees right now, and it was supposed to be rain this weekend, but now they're saying, eh, ice, two to five, maybe ten inches of snow, maybe a hurricane. Let's just see what happens. Wait five minutes. Okay, I'm going to leave you with one question though and this is actually going to be your homework for next week. What if what's in front of you ends up being so much more than what's behind you? Food for thought. Hey, don't forget to hit that subscribe button wherever you're at, whatever you're listening to. I do have a webpage now. It's missionredeemed.org. Look for us on Facebook. There's some tidbits on there about how you can make life just a little bit easier. So thanks again, guys. I really appreciate you listening. Take care. God bless.