Discovery Men's Retreat

I just returned from a Friday night/Saturday morning retreat with the Discovery Church in San Diego, CA.,

What an incredible weekend. What an expression of grace, forgiveness, and love.

To hear the story of Ted & Gayle Haggard was amazing. To live the forgiveness and love that was shared by the men & friends of Discovery Church was even better.

Here are just a few quotes from the weekend:

“When you displace responsibility & blame, you make that entity your lord.” Ted Haggard

Victimization is a double-edged sword.

1. “I’m not worthy.“ (My worth is determined by the value of that which is used to buy me - 1 Pet. 1)


2. And/or ”I’m okay, but you’re not okay.“

Psalm 1

        There is no way to be healed outside of the tree of life - only being good (according to the tree of the knowledge of good & evil) does not lead to healing but to a focus on performance, not grace and the self, not Christ.

Gayle made a statement at the beginning of her interview during the Sunday morning worship service that went something like this:

”Before the crisis, our marriage was stronger than I could remember. Ted was clinging to me more than ever and we were closer than ever before.“

I thought that to be a real challenge to the men of our day. We men think that clinging to our wives is a sign or act of weakness and that we grow weaker as we become more vulnerable to our wives. ”Au contraire!“ It is really just the opposite. And in Ted & Gayle’s situation, I believe that it was that intimacy that Christ developed in them that kept them together through their crisis.

”Sobriety is the control of an area of my life that, left uncontrolled, would be my destruction.“ Ted Haggard

And a thought to chew on for a while; it comes out of Rev. 21:8 - it is the cowardly who are thrown into the Lake of Fire first. Isn’t that interesting?

God's crooked ways are straighter than our straight ways

I had a conversation with Dave Pollard this morning during breakfast at the Discovery Men’s retreat. He shared with me a story about a missionary who served in Brazil for 20 years.

This young man was called by God to Muslim ministry. He studied & learned Arabic and prepared for his move to a Muslim country. As he pursued one option after another, each door was closed.

He ended up going to Brazil to train Brazilians to go to Muslim countries because Brazilians are more accepted in Muslim countries than Americans - and he spent 20 years doing that!

As a result, he probably impacted more Muslims than he would/could have if he had gone to a Muslim country on his own.

The “crooked way” of God led to a greater fruit-bearing than man’s “straight way.”

“God’s (seemingly) crooked ways are straighter than our straightest ways.”