the BEST is AHEAD

If you’ve ever seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite,
then you know who Uncle Rico is.
For those of you poor souls that haven’t yet seen the movie, 
let me quickly bring you up to speed… 

Uncle Rico is a man living in the past… 
someone re-living his high school football “glory days”… 
remembering the way things were… 
wishing they had gone down a different way. 
Uncle Rico is in a rut that prevents him from moving forward… 
a rut that keeps him stuck in the past… 
so much so, that he builds a time machine to physically take him back in time… 
back to how things used to be… and it doesn’t end well.

Well, the voice of “Uncle Rico” has been plaguing my mind in recent days. 

It’s the voice telling me over and over that my best days are behind me… 
that they’ve already occurred and are back somewhere in the past. 
In other words, my best days are NOT out ahead of me. 
It’s an awful voice to hear!

Is it true? Is what I’ve already done, really the best I have to offer?
Are my best days behind me? 
OR are they ahead of me? 
Not BACK there but UP there, out in front of me… 
waiting for me to take the next step forward because they haven’t happened yet?
Is it possible that the my best is still yet to come? 

TWO THINGS: 
1. Perhaps you’ve heard a similar voice… an “uncle rico” speaking to you, keeping you stuck, paralyzing you from being fully here, right now in the present… preventing you from taking whatever the next step is right in front of you.
Please hear me: it’s NOT TRUE.
You are here now. 
Today is yours. 
This time is your gift. 
So get busy living, breathing, moving… embracing now, your gift of life. 
We need you to be you, right here, right now…
And we need you to take that next step… 
Your best IS ahead.

2. Many of you know that I have an amazing wife, and that together, we created a pretty awesome youth program called Summit County Youth ( SCY). We have almost finished our transition out of SCY which is bittersweet for sure… but at the same time it is also very, VERY exciting!!! Almost one year ago we embarked on a new journey with the birth of More To Life (MTL). What you might not know is how truly difficult this beginning has been because of all the “voices” in our heads telling us that our best is behind us… loops in our heads telling us that our new dreams aren’t worth pursuing… ruts keeping us stuck from moving forward.

It’s been a battle, and we have done our best not to listen to those voices and will continue to do so.
When we had our first MTL gathering in May 2015, I talked about Year ZERO… a year of “not having it all mapped out” and truly chasing the wind. Well, Year ZERO is almost over, and Year ONE is about to begin… and we are thrilled to tears. 

And honestly, we still don’t have it all mapped out.
And chasing the wind is exhilarating.
And MTL is thriving… and over 90 of you have experienced that with us… 
how awesome!

That said, there are some really exciting steps just up ahead for MTL… again, we don’t have this all mapped out… some steps we know and some we don’t… but sitting idly by and entertaining life-stealing, joy-robbing voices is not an option. 

There is no stepping back. 
We’re moving forward… 
and “Uncle Rico” will just have to deal with it. 

So if you’ve come once or several times or haven’t yet made it to an MTL night, I invite you to come join us for the final two MTL gatherings of Year ZERO on Wednesday, May 11th and Wednesday, May 25th. We’ll celebrate Year ZERO, discuss some next steps, dream about others, talk about the MORE of Life, and even usher in Year ONE… it’s gonna be GOOD so don’t miss it!

Can’t wait!