40 Reflections after 40 Years of Life

Tonight I am going to have a little soccer reunion match followed by a Chipotle birthday party dinner with friends and family...and the other night I randomly scribbled down some of my reflections as I hit this milestone of old or middle age as I turn 40 on Tuesday...here they are unfiltered...most of all I am grateful at this time for Jesus, family, and friends...and all three of them have truly been beyond my wildest dreams and continue to be so in my life...


1. There’s no book you can keep studying and growing to love more deeply except for the Scriptures
2. Going to a major league baseball game with my dad, with my brother, with my friends, with my son is something I could do every day for the rest of my life
3. Summer days at the pool with my kids are the perfect way to spend Chicago summers
4. When you receive an impossible vision and then have the faith to chase it with all your heart, that is when God shows up big time
5. There’s no place better to grow up as a sports nerd than Detroit
6. Sharing an idea with someone else is a joy, a privilege, and often the very best thing I can do for someone else
7. Students are capable of doing life and world changing leadership tasks when adults empower and release them instead of limiting and making them wait to be fully ready to serve God
8. Having a remarkably fun and deeply spiritual and personally caring group of college friends lays a foundation from which one can chase one’s dreams knowing that there are people who will deeply believe in you in all you do
9. Soccer connects the people of the world and draws us together from literally every corner of the planet
10. Being in the mountain peaks of Colorado allows one to see and meet with God in a spot and to have a two-way conversation truly unique to that very spot on the planet
11. Reading the words of others can fill and inspire your own soul to incredible levels of passion for the things that make your heart jump and skip
12. Doing more work compared to spending time with my wife simply isn’t a fair fight…Ingrid wins hands down every time because there is no one who I’d rather be with and who makes me more like God created me to be
13. Spending time talking about life and faith and anything else with another brings joy and pleasure to my soul
14. Being on a lake in MN with family in July is truly a place of joy and peace and contentment
15. The golf course is a remarkable place where you can enjoy great conversation with friends and do an athletic thing in the beauty of creation
16. There is no greater joy for a teacher and mentor than when your former students do things you could never dream up or accomplish yourself
17. The marriage of two Christ followers who love each other deeply is something you never get tired of being a part of
18. God has given me the deepest of friendships with those a generation ahead of me, my peers, and those more than a decade or two behind me in years, as age is blown away by the realities of Christ’s presence in both of our lives
19. SportsCenter has been one of the most important inventions of my lifetime
20. Life where one only has relationships with people just like oneself is stale and growth-inhibiting
21. Being discipled at an early age is a blessing of immeasurable value
22. There’s always more to learn every single day
23. Having siblings you love being with makes life much richer and holidays highlights of the calendar year
24. Life on this side of eternity will not be everything we want it to be
25. Investing your resources in the development and salvation of a life, a family, a community, a nation is the best investment you can ever make
26. We are blessed to be a blessing to those who need to be blessed
27. To those whom much is given an awful lot is required and expected
28. Africa is a continent that is filled with amazing people, remarkable potential, unreal beauty, unbearable suffering, needs that can and must be met, and a spirit that you won’t find anywhere else in the world
29. I think I’ve traveled enough miles in a 15-passenger van to circle the globe 3 different times
30. Studying the life and ministry and words of Jesus inspires me to live in such a way that I try to emulate each and every thing that He did
31. The generation of students I have gotten to know will not leave the earth the same as they found it…they will make it better and more like God intends it to be like
32. Listening to podcasts while running is a truly sacred time in my life
33. The least in our world have made my life so much richer than it was when I wasn’t in relationship with the poor and oppressed in the globe
34. Brokenness humbles you and causes you to be shaped into the person and carry the character God longs for us to become
35. Being a dad of a girl is the greatest privilege and most remarkable life calling I have ever experienced
36. The support and example of Christ following parents who celebrate the use of my gifts and passions in my life has been and continues to be the thing that has enabled me to pursue God’s best for my life
37. Being a Christian means that I am called to bring the hope and life of Jesus into the culture and lives of those all around me and that being a minister of the Gospel means that I must announce and physically bring the reality of the Kingdom of God to this earth in this day and age
38. Writing is therapeutic and joy giving to my spirit and soul
39. The power of friendships and the blessing of real community are what have made my life truly something even better than what I could have dreamt of or believed possible
40. After the first 40 years, I can’t wait to see what the next 40 will bring