The Roar Within

Over the past month, I’ve been focusing on personal growth and didn’t feel inspired to blog. Instead, I recorded quite a bit, and to my surprise, my voice isn’t as bad as I thought! Now, I feel ready to launch my 10-minute podcast. It’s amazing how life opens up when you face a long-held fear—the world just seems to expand. Last week, I discovered Brent Henderson’s book, “The Roar Within: Unleashing the Powerful Truth of Who You Really Are.” Although it’s aimed at empowering men to live with purpose, courage, and confidence, his message resonated deeply with me. Here are some passages that moved me beyond words.

“Oh, the power revealed the first time the lion cub roared—and understood who he really was.“

A lion’s roar isn’t something it earns from its father or from how many kills it achieves. That roar is something a lion is born with. It’s imputed. The roar is given to the lion by the One who created it.

This book is about helping you find your roar, your one true voice, the real you God placed in you the moment you truly believed. Not the flesh and bones walking around afraid, insecure, and full of worry and doubt, but the you from whom, when you live from that place, the enemy tucks tail and runs.

We are embarking on a journey—a safari to help men answer the Big Question: Am I enough? When you understand who you really are, you can live life to the full, the way that God intended.

In John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart, he states that all men need three key elements in their lives: “a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.”

When I first read the book in 2001, that message grabbed hold of me like nothing I’d ever heard. It wasn’t churchy, it wasn’t girly; it awakened the masculine in me the way that building forts, playing army or cowboys and Indians, and exploring the mountainside behind my house as a young boy had done. Most men I talk to who have read Wild at Heart say they felt the same way I did finally, a message for men that wasn’t feminized, watered down, or politically correct—that gave men permission to be men.

While attending a Wild at Heart men’s conference in Colorado in 2004, I had a conversation with John Eldredge about purpose. I felt embarrassed as I shared, “John, I’m here because I’ve lost my heart. I’m forty-four years old, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. I’ve always done what I thought everyone else thought I should be doing, but that pursuit has left me feeling like I’m just trying to please other people. I’ve lost the truest part of who I really am and what makes me come alive.” I remember the next thing he said to me, because it moved me to my core in a way that nothing ever had before. He told me to stop asking myself what the world needed but instead ask myself what made me come alive, because what the world needs is men who have come alive.

When I was flying home from that conference, God spoke to me on the plane and told me that I would be his “warrior poet.” What did that mean? What was I supposed to do? How long would it take? That title would change my life forever, but it would be almost ten more years before I would not only understand it but believe it.

Men ask the really deep questions when they are alone. Why am I here? Who am I really? What is my purpose in this life? Will I make a difference? My thoughts ran those circles as I sat alone for many hours on the deck of that Alaskan commercial fishing boat, keeping watch on the nets as massive schools of salmon made their way from the open ocean back to the streams where they were formed. They were headed there for one purpose: to give life to the next generation.

There’s an old Russian proverb: “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.” When I heard it, it was like a punch in the gut, because that was me for many years. I’d chased so many rabbits—all of them good things—but I was almost no further along in getting my questions answered than when I’d begun chasing them many years before. Why? Because I had never been able to identify that one thing. I’d been living my life for the opinions of others. Once again, John’s words pursued me: “Ask yourself what makes you come alive.”

John had challenged me to ask and answer the Big Question. What makes me come alive?

What was it that made me come alive like a lion on the prowl? I discovered it was fighting for the hearts of men, writing about the adventures God had planned for me to draw men to Himself! I knew, because it roared inside me so loudly that I couldn’t not do it. I was made to be His warrior poet!

Do you want to know God? Do you want to come alive? Do you want to know your purpose? Do you want to know your true name? Then you have to discover the roar within!

THE BIG QUESTION:

What is that one thing that you just can’t not do—the one thing that makes you feel truly alive?

Book Recommendation:

The Roar Within: Unleashing the Powerful Truth of Who You Really Are.by Brent Henderson.

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