I woke up this morning thinking about a new men’s group I am in.

A number of years ago a handful of guys that I hung out with all decided it was time to begin living with intentionality. We were all kind of just floating.

Through a process of ruthless personal inventory, values identification, purposeful processing and visioning, I made some significant life changes. I developed a plan and decided to craft a life rather than just look back and find that I had lived one by accident.

From my time and hard work with these dudes came a personal mission, core values, and an understanding of God’s plan for that “season” of my life. I can hardly express the personal power that came from the things God had revealed to me during that time.

Distance

The things that mattered ten years ago have changed in many instances. Today I’m some distance down the road from that place ten years back. Looking back now it’s safe to say that there isn’t a bats chance in Sheol that I would have become the man that I am apart from the time I spent in that group.

I had a personal hope and dream to live my life in a way that achieved blessings from God, the respect of my wife and admiration of my children. Anything that looks like that in my life has largely come as a result of walking consistent with those stated core values.

Direction

Next May marks a big emotional step as I wave goodbye to my thirties. So here I am, husband, father of four, church planter, child of God and about to open the door on my 40’s. All ready, I am beginning to wonder what the future will look like.

The one thing that the past ten years has taught me is that I can decide what I will aim at. I may not have control over a lot of things in this life, but I can choose to seek God and His direction. I do get to decide if I want to live consistent with my core values (assuming I know what they are) and I can craft a life rather then just live one.

Determination

So, I have found a new determination to reassess and retool my personal purpose and my core values. I want to spend considerable time in these next few months evaluating what God has for me…but I also decided not to do it alone.

As I’ve been reflecting on this past decade, it really was (to a large degree) the power of the group that helped me clarify so many things. I loved the accountability and the passion as we all were working together.

It’s time to do it again

Last week five other guys in their twenties and one dude who is just seventeen all decided to spend the next four months with me doing some hard personal work and seeking God for the track He would have us each run on.

I have no idea what this will be like for these other guys but I am sure of one thing...all ready I am having a blast because I know that living by design has been far superior to any alternative I could have imagined.