12-4-24

Last night Charlene and I were talking about all of this….how did I get on the

radio? How did it turn into a media company with podcasts and syndication and

written op-eds that get published?......this is crazy, and I’m not going to lie, some

of our discussion centered on the fact that it has not always been easy…..not by

any stretch…..and that reminded me about a life lesson from years ago….. a very

real very memorable very personal story that I’m about to relate to ya’ll…..it’s a

life lesson that I learned years ago when I was in the swamps at Army Ranger

School…..it deals with the “why” of the fact that I am now doing radio……because

the “why” is the most important part…..the “how” is also key, but if you don’t

know the “why” of what you do then nothing ever truly lines up…..

but before I do that let me lay the foundation……So many of you remember

Boomer’s voice being on the air with me all the time……he’s a great friend, and

I’ve known his family for years…..Boomer did an amazing job running the board

and keeping all the tech straight around here….. His folks have been there for us

many times and are some of the people from whom we’ve sought prayer and

counsel more than once…..His Dad even designed the Rightside Radio logo…..so

one night Charlene and I were having dinner at a local BBQ place with his parents

and his Dad asked me for some insight regarding a decision he was in the middle

of….and it reminded me of a personal story….a lesson that I had learned years

ago….but as I related my story to him to get to the point I realized that the

conversation we were having, his question/my answer, was as much for me as it

was for him…..it was the moment that God sort of brought that lesson back to

mind and it hasn’t left me since…..Why do we do what we do? Can we get it

done? What is my calling in the midst?

So here’s the backstory…..in 1991 I got orders to go to Army Ranger School……I

was in my 20’s and full of vinegar…..Ranger School was a dream for me, a true

bucket list item…..I wanted to wear that Ranger Tab on my left shoulder so bad I

could hardly stand it……so as a young Lieutenant I won the right to go and took off

for the Ranger Training Brigade headquarters at Fort Benning, Georgia…..I could

write a book about what to do….and most of it would actually be on what not to

do…..back when I went through the course there were still four phases…..several

weeks at the Benning Phase where they weed you out, wear you out, train in

hand-to-hand combat, small unit tactics, and validate your individual soldier

skills….then came the Mountain phase in north Georgia where I got frostbite on

my toes….then to the swamps in north Florida, where my frostbite turned to

trench foot……and then out to the desert in Utah which was equally crazy…..every

phase had its own specific training and its own epic level challenges…..but what

most folks don’t know is that Ranger School is certainly skill and knowledge

heavy, its an endurance test of the highest order…….but Ranger School is

primarily a leadership course and to graduate you have to have successfully led a

series of missions in the various environments…..to add to my fun and enjoyment

it was winter….January to be exact…..450 entered the course on day one….250

made it past that point…..98 are in my graduation photo….but at one point in the

swamps of Florida I was exhausted to the point of hallucinating but I was in

charge of an ambush patrol….none of my guys could function….dudes would

literally fall asleep standing up while I was briefing the operations order…..nothing

was working and I realized that we were going to fail the mission, I wasn’t even

sure we could start of the mission…..and I thought to myself in the early hours of

that cold wet dawn in the swamps that I was about to fail Ranger school after all

that I had been through……

So I remember distinctly that I was standing there feeling miserable, out of

control, and unsure what else I could do…..and I just talked to God for 3

seconds….literally, it was a 3-second one-sided sort-of kind-of prayer…..I suppose

it could be categorized as a prayer but it was really just me conversing with him,

straight up, no flowery language, no opening lines, no Amen….I remember saying

(out loud I believe) “Well God, if you want me to be a Ranger then I will. And if

you don’t then I’ll go home and be proud of that too.”…..what happened next is

more than I can describe…..it was one of the most profound experiences of my

life…….and when I say that I do not say it lightly……Right after I said that little 3-

second prayer I suddenly had the biggest wave of relief wash over me like I’ve

never felt before or since….it felt like someone poured warm water over my head

because I literally warmed up…in the winter, in the wet swamps…..I felt actual

heat wash down over me starting at the top of my head and working its way

down to my toes……I went from freezing and miserable to warm and relieved…..I

think I even chuckled which probably made some of the guys who were actually

awake think that I had lost it…..but then it didn’t stop there…..because all of a

sudden everything came online…..guys got energy and alertness that they didn’t

have before…..the men rucked up, locked and loaded, and we hit the SP, laid on

the ambush site for a perfectly executed set of actions on the objective….and the

long story short is “yes”….I passed the swamp phase, went on to pass the desert

phase, and Charlene came to Fort Benning and pinned my Ranger Tab to my

arm…..

My point in that story….what I told Boomer’s Dad that night at dinner, and what I

am reminded of once again…..is that I learned at that moment – in that 3 second

talk with God – what it means to “cease striving and know that He is God”…..if he

opened a door then my scratching, clawing, fretting, ducking, and diving is my

making a situation more difficult than it had to be…..sometimes my role in the

opportunities presented by a God that I really believe in is just “To Do”…..Just. To.

Do.

I love the Message paraphrase of the Bible…..sometimes it makes the grand

language of the Word come to life and one of my favorite examples of that is

Ephesians 2:10 which the Message translation says this way:

“He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good

work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”…..think

about that…..”work he has gotten ready for us to do”……

Now I’ll be candid and note that I’m not always good at that….if you haven’t

already noticed I am a type-A personality that doesn’t sit still very well……I’m

prone to say trite things like “sleep is highly overrated”, or “scars are just symbols

of an active lifestyle”……me personally, I’d rather be a sheepdog than a sheep any

day……but there are times when I have to recognize that God’s intent is even

more than what I think it is…..I went to Ranger School to be an Army Ranger…..I

came away as an Army Ranger but with life lessons about my own limitations, my

own abilities, but more than anything my own better appreciation for the fact

that I serve a big God who sometimes swings open a door and says “Just Do”…..

And that my friends is why, at this stage in my life, with every reason not to do so,

I am hosting a daily radio show……not because I sought an opportunity to spend

hours preparing so that I can spend hours talking….not because I thought there

was some cool factor…..but because an opportunity dropped into place and after

much prayer and deliberation I realized that my role was to “Just Do”……

If God wanted me to be a Ranger then I would….and if he didn’t then I would go

home and be proud of that too…..

If God wanted me to be a radio guy then I would….and if he didn’t then I would go

home and be proud of that too…..

My impression is that he’s not done here…..Rightside Radio has already become

Rightside Media……radio has grown into podcasts and more are coming…..one

station became several stations…..written ideas became published op-eds…..and I

don’t really even know where it is all going…….and I really wish it would all be

easy……

But I know that if this is where he has placed me then I will do it, and I will be

proud of that too…….so my role, my mission, my reason for doing it……the

“why”…….is because God gave it to me to do……. my job is “Just To Do”…….

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way