Gary Barkalow spent seven years on the men's leadership and speaking team with Ransomed Heart Ministries when God called him to launch full-time into helping others discover their place in the Story. 

Gary's teaching on calling is the best and most helpful I've found.  You can learn more about Gary at his website:  www.thenobleheart.com.

You can also listen to this podcast on iTunes.

Gary's teaching on calling is the best and most helpful I've found.  You can learn more about Gary at his website:  www.thenobleheart.com. 

Here's the link to tomorrow's interview with Gary.

Below is a photo of how the actual ring turned out. 

As I worked with the designer, we decided to turn the sword sideways and have the blade wrap around the ring.  In addition, the musical whole-note is on the back of the ring and not visible in the photo.  I think it turned out really well.

The jeweler I worked with, deSignet International,  was fantastic and reasonably priced.  They have a website, but are physically located near Niagra Falls.  Their designers - Harry, Bob, and Reg - were very helpful and talked me through the process.  They were open to my ideas while providing the experience I didn't have to translate my thoughts into reality.  I have no problem recommending them to you.  On their website, you can see lots of designs for men and women, and they enjoy custom work, as they did for me.

Hope this gives you ideas for remembering your own identity.

(Raven’s Ladder is the third book in The Auralia Thread fantasy series)
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The last fifteen pages will blow you away…There are twists and turns you’ll never see coming.

I strongly recommend Raven’s Ladder, and here’s why:

Good fantasy is more than an escape from reality:  it’s an escape into reality.  The alter-world fantasy creates often bears more resemblance to what’s really going on around us than do our dull and naïve perceptions of daily “reality.”   We heedlessly inhabit our own world with little thought beyond paying bills, making sure the kids’ homework is done, or doing our best to make life cooperate.  Overstreet says there’s more.  His novels whisper to us of another Reality without being preachy or cliché; but rather, with nuance and imagination.

In Raven’s Ladder, as in the first two books of the series, I encountered the Keeper – a creature more worthy of my attention than the anemic religious portrayals of benevolence I grew up with.  I also explored the Expanse – a world more textured, delicious, and dangerous than the suburban sameness most of us slog through.  Overstreet is so adept at creating detail that neither bogs down the reader nor taxes the imagination.  His descriptions of creatures and habitat are at the same time other-worldly, while remaining quite accessible. 

Overstreet’s writing is neither too dark nor too naïve.  Raven's Ladder presents us with the unnerving brutality of evil while maintaining the hope of beauty and rescue.  This is a great series and will reward those with eyes to see and ears to hear the rumors of another world.

Jeffrey Overstreet's website

There's certainly validity in assuming calling is general -- that each of us should love and relate from the new reality of Christ-within, wherever we find ourselves.  But I'd suggest that there's more:  Paul had a specific calling to Gentiles; Moses was to rescue Israel from Egyptian tyranny; and Jesus' calling was to reveal the Father.  There was intent and deliberate direction in each of those cases.  Movement with meaning.

There's a reason you have the gifts you do -- they benefit a certain group of people who need exactly what you offer.  There are also contexts that will be more suitable to your passions and skills than others.  For example, the institutional church was not an appropriate context for my gifts.  As a former pastor, I was even told right from the start that I would never find a role in the system where I could bring what I most wanted to.  If only I had known then how true that would be.

God intended something distinct and distinguishing when he introduced you to the world.  You clearly have latitude and a voice in shaping your unfolding story; but it's better to move through life knowing the specific thing (s) you offer.  Christ lives in you, as you:  He has bound himself to your personality, your experiences, and your unique brilliance.  There's nothing general about you. 

“You have so many extraordinary gifts.  How can you expect to live an ordinary life?”   -- Marmie’s counsel to Jo in Little Women.

"Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness; yet, perhaps, as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of." -- Jonathan Swift

The vein of gold is where God focuses his attention:  he is obsessed with what's most alive, radiant, and strong in you.  A vibrant seam of gold.

The Israeli Special Forces have some of the most elite counter-terrorist units in the world, and most difficult to get into.  In his book, The Brotherhood of Warriors, Aaron Cohen describes the Israeli Special Forces philosophy for placing individual soldiers in specific operations:

In their tireless search for individual strengths, the Israeli Special Forces are diametrically opposed to the U.S. NavySEALS and British SAS models, with their famous emphasis on instilling mulitdimentional, broad-based skills in all Special Forces operators.  In Israel, they don't try to mold everybody into all-purpose supercommandos or Hebrew-speaking versions of James Bond.  Almost from the outset at [Counter-Terrorism] School, the instructors start making talent-driven decisions to determine who should fulfill which missions.  Certain guys were physically suited to playing a woman or an old man; others delivered the Palestinian dialect so convincingly they could engage in more interactive undercover roles without ever tipping their hand;  guys with superior marksmanship or driving skills worked the perimeter without donning a fake beard or opening their mouths to speak Arabic...

Cohen ends with this: 

The Special Forces philosophy became: Cultivate individual strengths, look for natural talent.  Don't waste time and resources forcing a square peg into a round hole."

What unique set of strengths do you bring to the mission.  Can you look back over your story to see how God has been trying to call those strengths out?

Coats of arms and family crests have long been used to express identity -- what a family, clan, or person stands for.  As I've been looking back over my story and doing research for my next book on personal identity, I've decided to create a visual metaphor that captures the new name (s) God has given to me.

Remember, he often re-names his loved ones because he wants to restore something in us, and he wants to affirm what we offer the world.  Further, God is often attempting to heal a wound when he speaks a new name to us, and affirm what we mean to him.

Here's the symbolism in each of my personal crest's parts below:  I designed this to reflect my unique story:

The sword of Aragorn - In the Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is the wanderer-warrior and heir to the throne.  "Aragorn" is a name God bestowed upon me to help me understand my story, reveal a strength I doubted, and to heal some wounds.

A gold musical whole-note in the middle of the sword's handle guard.  "You are my 'Bruce Hornsby' is another piece of the identity puzzle.  I'm a writer, but also have been a musician for four decades.  Again, God wants to heal a wound here, as well as affirm what he wants me to bring to the world. 

Three interlocking rings:  the Royal Fellowship, the Trinity, that welcomes me to fight with them, and ultimately rule with them  (Yep, the bible actually says that we will rule with him.)

The roman numerals CXLIV -- translated is "144."  This number stands for Psalm 144:1 -- "Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."  Whether I'm sitting at the piano or at the computer keyboard, war is being waged -- beauty against desolation, meaning against futility, heart against religiousity.

The larger circle surrounding the sword:  the fellowship of those who have gone before. 

There are a number of things you can do with a personal crest. 

• First, you can ask a graphic designer to create one for you that reflects your deep heart, your renaming.
• Second, the crest can be printed, matted, or as in my case, a ring can be engraved with your crest on it.  I found a jeweler who is creating a ring based upon my design and should be receiving mine in the next couple weeks.

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What would your personal crest look like?

He gives us our new names so that we may be healed. 

When I heard my new name, it felt like I was making it up.  The skeptic would say that because I wanted to hear it, I fabricated it in order to make myself feel better.  That certainly could happen -- if you leave God out of my story.

It happened when I was watching Tolkein's Lord of the Rings - the Return of the King for a second time.  God whispered something like, "You have a strength like Aragorn's."  Aragorn is the warrior-wanderer who would one day assume the throne as the true heir to the kingdom.   (Again, all this will sound self-serving unless we understand what God is up to.)   By the way, God renamed people all the time in Scripture:  'Abram' to 'Abraham,' 'Saul' to 'Paul,' 'Simon' to 'Peter.'  He hasn't stopped renaming people.

Why call me, 'Aragorn?"  I'd heard God whisper that name to me before.  The answer is that all men doubt their strength.  But in my case, there was more:  I had been a young pastor who challenged the unquestioned authority of those in positions of power.  I stepped out of my "proper role" to dispute the status quo.  Older and more tenured men in leadership saw it as insubordination and threat.  I was tossed out on my ear and kicked out of the pastorate. 

Congregation members who knew what was really happening voluntarily wrote letters on my behalf to the district leadership and to the bishop.  They fell on deaf ears.  The system wasn't designed to hear opinions other than its own.

Here's the parallel:  Aragorn faced a similar challenge with established leadership.  You may remember the scene in which King Theodin has just been released from the grasp of Worm Tongue's poisonous lying.  Under this spell of deception, Theodin had no mind of his own.  He was easily deceived.  The light in his eyes had gone out, his skin pasty and prematurely aged.  Then Gandalf banishes Worm Tongue and his foul counsel from the great hall, and King Theodin becomes himself again.

But Theodin is reluctant to expose his people to war.  The younger, inexperienced Aragorn challenges him:  "Open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not."  Theodin is taken aback by what he thinks is Aragorn's brash arrogance -- but the would-be heir to the throne is simply speaking what needed to be said.  And Aragorn's unwelcomed counsel ended up moving the elder King to rescue his people from a dark army approaching their doorstep.

"Jim.  You have a strength like Aragorn." 
So my wounds began to heal as God spoke the name meant for me:  the pain of rejection (being thrown out of 'ministry'), as well as the doubting:  "Was I justified in what I did?  Was I the one who was wrong?"   And through the new name I hear, "No Jim.  That was your strength coming through.  It cost you, but they don't write your story.  I do."

Over the last 6 years, on several occassions, God continues unwrapping more layers of meaning to "Aragorn."  And so the healing continues. 

Have you begun to hear your secret name?

• For example, if you were born before WWII and think it's your duty to serve Christ -- because after all,  he's forgiven you and you owe him your sacrifice -- then your convictions may have more to do with you being part of the "Builder" generation where duty and sacrifice were values.  You may have a difficult time understanding the radical nature of grace.

• On the other end of the spectrum, if you believe Jesus allows multiple ways to God and that his grace allows for a variety of paths, this may have more to do with postmodernity's infiltration into your consciousness  -- particularly the decades of the freethinking 60's and 70's. Within the church in recent decades, there has been a resurgence of unconstrained and unfettered thought, in part arising out of post-modern ideas of 'freedom':  "Don't you dare tell me how to think, or what conclusions I should draw.  Jesus permits 'all things' now."
  

This shaping happens to everyone.  Me?  I'm a 'Tweener' born in the gap between the Baby Boomers and the Busters.  I don't belong anywhere - yet inherit values from both.

Now, I'm way oversimplifying the complexities here.  There are more factors that influence our thoughts -- for example, our experiences and our wounds will color our thoughts about God.  On the other hand, some of our convictions are clearly revealed to us by God and are true to his self-revelation.  

But...it ought to at least move us to identity our assumptions and their sources.  After all, we are interested in what is real and true, aren't we?

7. I grow more like Christ only because I am accepted by God.  
False (53.1%)   True (46.9%)

Answer:  False.  This is also surprising to many. 

Acceptance alone will not restore a person.  Only restoration restores.  We are indeed fully accepted by God; yet we needed something more -- a new life and power to love well.  Otherwise, what you have is a fully-accepted dead person:  much like pardonning and accepting a corpse.  The corpse needs life.

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Were you surprised, even troubled, by any of the answers?  Do you agree with them?

The answers to the quiz may be quite surprising to some - even for those who have been walking in grace for years.

The quiz is short - only seven true/false questions.

I'll be revealing the answers this weekend here on the blog.

Click here to take quiz.

Your heart can be trusted now because it is no longer 'deceitfully wicked.'  If you follow Christ, it would be wrong to mistrust your heart:  It would be at cross-purposes with what God is doing in your life to constantly hold your desires under suspicion.

I recently asked a group of men to raise their hands if they thought that trusting their hearts was the right thing to do.  About a third of the hands went up.  The majority thought that holding their heart under suspicion was the biblical thing to do.  As we unpacked the truth of their new hearts, given to them when they said 'yes' to Jesus, we exposed the debilitating assumptions they were taught about their hearts.

I explained that within the new heart Jesus gave them came new and noble desires -- and that dismissing those desires as selfish or inherently wicked would prevent them from doing certain things like:

• discovering their unique calling
• loving God and loving each other

But not all desires are created equal
There are, of course, competing desires that can be whispered to us, but those desires are not ours.  They are either whispered by the Enemy, or our culture, or our 'flesh' (which is no longer us, not our real self);  but those desires are not our desires.  False desires are like thorns lodged in the skin -- they are embedded in our bodies, but not of our bodies.  The thorns cry out for our attention, but our health lies in the vitality already present in our bodies.  Our concern must focus on what's most alive and already present within us.  That's where God focuses his energy.

Ask God to reveal the desires of your heart. 
Stay with the process.  It's what he's up to in your life.  Trusting your heart is biblical.