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WHEN GOD WRITES YOUR LIFE STORY

Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

THE ENDLESS FRONTIER

awakening the inner pioneer

We have a God who delights in impossibilities and who asks, "Is anything too hard for Me?" Andrew Murray

What happened to our little-kid passion for achieving the impossible? When did we stop shooting for impossible goals and start aiming for realistic targets instead? As little kids, we dream of a bigger-than-life existence. But eventually we grow up. We lose our "oomph" to keep aiming high. We settle for everyday mediocrity. We stop trying to be heroic and finally accept being average.

Eric Ludy : The Bionic Man

When I was seven years old, I was the Six Million Dollar Man. No joke! I was none other than Steve Austin: Bionic Man. Heartthrob and human machine.

For those of you who didn't have the privilege of growing up in the bionic era of the 1970s, Col. Steve Austin was the ultimate rendition of coolness and technology rolled into one. Equipped with a pair of nuclear-powered legs, one bionic arm, and a bionic eye, Steve Austin could perform incredible feats of strength and speed-usually filmed in slow motion with distinctive high-tech sound effects-while battling foreign spies, nefarious megalomaniacs, extraterrestrial villains, andin my favorite episode, a bionic Bigfoot!

And I, little Eric Ludy, had the amazing talent of transforming my puny seven-year-old body into a superhuman bionic machine whenever I felt the urge. I was the original Bionic Man.

Then my buddy Donny had the gall to declare that he was Steve Austin, too.

"I'm Steve Austin!" Donny would shout, pointing to his Six Million Dollar Man T-shirt as definitive proof.

"No, I'm Steve Austin!" I argued as I ran in slow motion to Donny's mom's garden and lifted a ten-pound rock while imitating the famous bionic man machine noises.

The obvious truth that we couldn't bring ourselves to accept was that neither of us was anything like Steve Austin. The Six Million Dollar Man could leap over fifteen-foot electrified fences in a single bound, toss a boulder like it was a football, and read the bottom line on the eye chart from three miles away. Donny and I could barely jump high enough to reach the lowest branch on his parents' weeping willow. We could scarcely muster up enough strength to carry a laundry basket full of clothes down the hall, and both of us were flunking eye tests by the first grade.

Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly believed that I was the one and only Steve Austin on Maple Lane. Donny was merely an imposter. And yet he remained convinced that he was the real deal and that I was the imposter.

"You're not the Bionic Man!" I yelled. "You can't jump more than three feet!"

"Well, you can't even lift Drool off the ground!" Donny shouted back, referring to his one-eyed mutt that really did drool.

Donny's mom chose that moment to interject a sobering piece of information into the pandemonium: "Boys, I hate to break it to you, but neither of you is the Bionic Man!"

Eventually, I traded my bionic sound effects for Superman Underoos that transformed me into the red-caped wonder. I went through a phase where I became the Hulk, decapitating my sister's Raggedy Ann doll in one of my displays of phenomenal strength. And finally, to top off my youthful career as a superhero, I became Luke Skywalker, rescuing Princess Leia with my powerful lightsaber (actually a toilet plunger).

Dreaming the Impossible

Yes, this was all just little-kid make-believe. Most of us reminisce on our days of childish wonder and innocence with a sigh and a chuckle. But we also look back upon our wee selves and shake our heads, wondering what ever possessed us to pursue such heroism, such grandeur, such amazing displays of superhuman activity? What caused us to try to become something so far beyond who we really were?

As little kids, we gravitate towards the impossible like moths to a flame. While the older and "wiser" among us are caged in by their knowledge and maturity, little kids are free to dream impossible dreams and pursue impossible lives.

In our little-kid passion, we want to wear the tennis shoes with the blue swoosh stitched into the side so we can jump over tall buildings. We insist on eating the cereal that will enable us to run faster than a speeding locomotive. And we know which brand of bread will enable us to lift cars off the ground like Superman or repel bullets like Wonder Woman.

So what happened to our little-kid passion for achieving the impossible? When did we stop shooting for impossible goals and start aiming for realistic targets instead? As little kids, we dream of a bigger-than-life existence. But eventually we grow up. We lose our "oomph" to keep aiming high. We settle for everyday mediocrity. We stop trying to be heroic and finally accept being average.

As we grow up, the world tells us that aiming our lives at the impossible only leads to disappointment. Somewhere along the way, we are persuaded to loosen our grip on our dreams and pitch our tents in the land where everyday humans dwell.

Disable Dreams

Our generation is all too familiar with disabled dreams. The things we long for most in life are the very things we believe cannot be achieved.

Max, a college sophomore from Michigan, has given up on finding fulfillment in life. "I used to think that someday I would wake up with a sense of purpose," Max told me recently, "but now I have just accepted that my life will always feel confusing and pointless."

Krista, a twenty-five-year-old skier, has given up her search for a beautiful love story. "When I was little, I dreamed about falling in love with someone who was my best friend, and having an incredible marriage that lasted a lifetime," she recalled wistfully. "But after seeing so many marriages fall apart, I really think that lasting love is just a myth."

Wyatt, an eighteen-year-old computer gamer, has given up believing that real-life family relationships can be healthy and strong. "I watch reruns of The Cosby Show and think how unrealistic that is," he said. "I mean, every family in the world is a dysfunctional mess. Why pretend things can ever be different?"

When our little-kid passion for the impossible dies, everything worth living for slowly suffocates as well. We give up our hopes of finding a sense of victorious fulfillment and purpose in each day; of making a dynamic difference in this world; of discovering a love that lasts a lifetime; or of enjoying enduring friendships. And most of us give up hope of ever being on intimate terms with God. We scoff at the idea of experiencing a passionate love affair with the King of the Universe that transforms our existence.

Of course, some might argue that giving up on these dreams might be for the best. After all, if you never aim high, you'll never be disappointed with mediocrity. When you aim for the impossible, you are usually misunderstood, ridiculed, and alienated. So why live a life of risk and challenge when a life of security and ease is sitting on your front doorstep? Why choose a way of life that all the sane people on earth have already rejected?

But what if our so-called impossible dreams are not impossible at all?

Cheap Hollywood Imitations

When you look around at Christians today, it's hard to believe that throughout human history Christ-followers have always been the biggest dreamers of impossible dreams. But it's true! Ancient Christians were known for pursuing the inconceivable. Nowadays, Christians seem far more interested in living comfortably, being well respected, and guarding their 401(k) plans than in tackling the impossible. But once upon a time, it was actually Christ-followers who found supernormal pleasure in defying the odds.

From early Rome to communist China, Christ's children have cherished every looks-like-there-is-no-hope circumstance, because it was on those very occasions that God burst forth with awe-inspiring power. If ever it seemed all hope was lost, it meant the almighty God of the Universe was near.

After all, Tom Cruise didn't invent the dazzling smile in defiance of hopeless circumstances. God did. Arnold Schwarzenegger was not the first to exude confidence in a life-and-death conflict. That was God. Russell Crowe's indomitable spirit in the face of extreme danger? Mel Gibson's fearlessness in battle? Yep. God's too! Our God invented the superconquering life. He raised up the original bigger-than-life action heroes.

Throughout the centuries, God has been in the business of building astonishing lives, lives that "by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight."

But somehow, we Christians lost our once-great passion for the impossible. And in so doing we stopped expecting our God to be the God of the impossible.

Nowadays, most of us gravitate away from difficulty. Sitting in a movie theater, we are thrilled when Arnold or Tom ends up in an impossible situation because we trust the movie's director to somehow turn it into a happy ending. But we melt with fear when we find ourselves in an impossible situation in life, because we don't trust God as our life's Director to come through for us and create a triumphant ending. We don't know our God as the God of the Impossible.

But what is a movie without a conflict? Where's the drama without a mountain of impossibility to climb? The very thing that makes for an exciting story is the same thing that makes for a wonderful and amazing life: overcoming the impossible. For life to be fully lived, it must wrestle the impossible and win. For life to be fully lived, the God of the Impossible must be fully trusted with the writing of the script.

God wants to blow our minds with His crazy plot turns and last-minute heroics. Instead, we have settled for ordinary lives written by ordinary human hands-life as a cheap and boring counterfeit of what could be. Our Christian lives sadly play like PBS documentaries on the history of saddle stitching rather than awe-inspiring epic adventures. It seems Hollywood is the only place we find conquering, heroic lives these days.

Real-Life Action Heroes

Even though we know that Hollywood is make-believe, deep down we still want to live real life as large as the movies. As little kids we didn't aspire to be a business executive with two weeks' paid vacation a year, a corner office with a view, and a healthy pension at the age of sixty-five. We wanted to be CIA operatives, Jedi masters, samurai warriors, or at least a Mr. Smith who goes to Washington. And deep down, we still do! We want to be someone who makes a difference-someone who puts a dent in life before we leave it.

Maybe it's my melodramatic tendencies, but I believe that God wants our lives to display a little more cinematic magic and a little less mediocrity. I don't mean the hip attitude and the morally debased climate of Hollywood, but the larger-than-life hero mentality of the silver screen. And I don't mean lives without problems, but rather, lives overcoming problems.

Modern Christians have focused so much on God's loving us in our weakness that we seem to have forgotten that He wants to build each of us into walking, talking, world-changing demonstrations of His amazing grace. God designed us to become true modern-day heroes-men and women who are devoted, courageous, fearless, immovable, and marked with uncompromised integrity.

God is in the business of making heroes: heroes that Hollywood is incapable of imagining. He is in the business of writing amazing scripts for our lives. Not Hollywood scripts, but heavenly scripts that shape us into His real-life action heroes.

Stepping into an Endless Frontier

For some reason, my little-kid quest for the impossible carried over into my young adult years. Throughout high school, though I no longer fancied myself the Bionic Man or the Incredible Hulk, I was absolutely convinced that I possessed a mesmerizing singing voice that rivaled Frank Sinatra's. It wasn't until college that I found out the truth about my vocal talent-or lack thereof.

As I was warbling out one of my patented sappy love songs to an unwitting young lady, my track coach broke the news to me.

"Ludy, you're terrible!" he informed me rudely.

"What do you mean, I'm terrible?" I asked, hoping he was referring to my ability to tie my shoes and not, God forbid, my singing voice.

"When you sing, you sound like Elmer Fudd being given a wedgie!" he stated coldly, not a hint of humor in his voice.

At that moment, my dream of becoming the next lead singer for REO Speedwagon came crashing to the ground. But God had a plan for my voice, even when the rest of the world was shouting, "Shut that guy up!" And it was my musical journey that awakened me to the secret of a God-scripted life.

God took the pen of my life and wrote a chapter entitled, "Someone Please Hurry Up and Teach This Guy How to Sing." And Scott, an ambitious vocal trainer, was the unfortunate soul who took on the job. Scott is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill vocal coach. He is one of the world's very best. It's ironic that I, a musical disaster waiting to happen, would end up being trained by a master like Scott. But for some reason, in a kindhearted display of compassion, Scott took me under his wing.

"Eric, if you want to be great at something, you must devote yourself to it," he told me sternly. "If I am going to work with you, you need to commit to six hours a day of vocal training."

Six hours?! Was he crazy? Who in this world has six hours each day to give to singing? Scott's simple reply was, "Those who are the very best."

Scott used to train Olympians how to increase their oxygen intake up to three times with every breath. He took the athletic approach towards vocal training. "How many miles did you run this week?" Scott would ask at our weekly training sessions. At my reply he would bellow, "Come on, you wimp! You've only just begun to get in shape! Show me your abdominal strength."

I would get down on the floor, and he would count out a ridiculous number of leg lifts and sit-ups. "Come on, you pansy! I work with old ladies who have more ab strength than you!"

In spite of his foot-to-the-rear style of teaching, Scott was truly one of the most lovable men I've ever met. He never let me leave his office without a hug. But as kind as he was, he never gave me a compliment.

Continues...

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Excerpted from WHEN GOD WRITES YOUR LIFE STORY by Eric Ludy Leslie Ludy Copyright © 2004 by Winston and Brooks, Inc.. Excerpted by permission.
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