I found myself in the Valley of Achor (Hosea 2:14-15).

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.  And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.  And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.  — Hosea 2:14-15 

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that the Hebrew word “achor” means “trouble.”

I think there are a lot of us in this place of “trouble”, especially in today’s economy of scarcity. A lot of us are in debt, maybe unemployed or underemployed, working out family issues, or struggling through personal inadequacies or flaws in our own character. 

So, probably like you are doing now in your life, I was praying for a change. In fact, at the time I was talking with a friend of mine who had the means to hire me away from this season of trouble. 

What I didn’t know at the time was that this Valley of Achor was the pathway to God’s next assignment in my life.

Out of the Valley of Discouragement

However, my friend with means is also a wise man. When he made the offer to me on that Friday afternoon before Christmas in 2007, he suggested we pray about it over the weekend. I thought, how could a generous salary (30% more than I had ever earned) and importantly, relief from the Valley not be God’s will? 

As I clicked “send” on my reply email to my friend, agreeing that we pray over the weekend about this opportunity, I knew immediately this was not God’s will. 

In fact, over the weekend I could hardly pray about it—mostly I just negotiated and argued with the Lord (“Are you sure, Lord?” “Really? But this is such a great opportunity!”). On Monday, just as my friend had also heard from God, we agreed that this was not the right time for me to come work with him. 

God had spoken—tenderly and clearly. I had heard. It was time to obey—“to answer, as in the days of [my] youth.”

The Birth of a Vision

As I returned to work from Christmas vacation, I was handed a new assignment: To shape a new strategy for engaging new constituents at the non-profit where I worked.  My supervisor was still difficult. Not a lot had changed in my circumstances–except now I had been handed a big challenge, a new “God-assignment.” It appeared to be my “door of hope.”

Over the next six weeks, through prayer, study, lots of discussion with the executive leadership team, and pilot-testing, I presented the strategy to my senior vice president. It was new, creative, insightful, and risky. It had all the marks of a God-vision. His wisdom. His leading. It went way beyond what I could’ve come up with my own “might and cunning”. It was indeed my “door of hope.”

Lesson From the Valley of Achor

I learned important lessons through my wilderness experience. Here are four specific truths that God drove deep into my heart through this season of dryness and difficulty:  I learned specifically that… 

The Valley of Achor is–

– God’s chosen place for you at this time. Look again at the verse above. God says, “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness.” If you find yourself in a wilderness today, in a dry, lonely, and dark valley, trust that not only does God know you are there, He led you there. He is with you in the valley.

– The place where God speaks to you. It is just as chosen as the days of fruitfulness. Just as chosen as the season of peace. Just as God-directed as the times of rejoicing. In fact, it may be the one place where we are able to hear His tender voice the clearest. Long for it. Listen for it.

– The place where you find hope. Sometimes that door of hope is a new work assignment. But other times it is a life-changing experience that leads to freedom, or intimacy with God, or transformation of who we are. But undoubtedly, it is the place from which springs HOPE.

– A place where God trains us to trust Him. In the valley we learn to walk with Him in the darkness, to discern His voice, and to understand that life’s seasons include these Valley of Achor experiences. Why do I know this? Because I have had two more “Valley of Achor” experiences since this one in 2007.  And as I look back over the 30 years that I have personally known the Lord, I see many “Valley of Achor” experiences.

Today I am learning to listen for God’s tender voice and look for the “door of hope.”  I am learning that there is perhaps no greater gift in life than to hear God’s voice and experience His hope in this place of need. If today you find yourself in the Valley of Achor, my prayer for you is that you see God’s sovereign leading and listen for His tender voice.

In fact, if there are ways that we can pray for you in your “Valley of Achor” experience, please email us at The 210 Project and we would be honored to lift you up before God at this time in your life. 

Christy had just completed a second stay at a nearby drug rehabilitation center for treatment of an addiction to OxyContin. To offer a bit of context, in Eastern Kentucky, the average age at which children first get high on prescription drugs is 11, according to Operation UNITE, a nonprofit agency that fights drug abuse in that region. Officials have said that many factors can be blamed: easy access to drugs, a lack of activities for young people and, in Eastern Kentucky, a culture that has made prescription drug abuse the norm.

Christy, a single mom, had just rocked my own personal “norm” by calmly explaining to me that when (not if) her young daughter became addicted to drugs and needed a drug rehabilitation center of her own – it was her hope that she could go to the same facility where she had just been admitted.  Wow.  Had I heard her correctly?  I remember thinking with a heavy heart that “something is way broken here.”  In that moment, national statistics about inter-generational drug addiction patterns suddenly made a whole lot of sense to me.

But hold on for a minute.  My conversation with Christy wasn’t the only thing that stuck out to me that night.  Local churches, school teachers and administrators, law enforcement officials, business leaders and parents had come together in that place united in purpose and determined to do something about a problem that threatened to destroy everything good and beautiful about generations of families in the area.  I was amazed by the resolve I saw in those people and the steps they were willing to take to protect their community from this crisis.

Frequently, through our experience of working in hurting communities around the country, we see this kind of passion and a sense of urgency around many societal issues.  When brokenness in our culture becomes the standard – not the exception – it seems to mobilize people into action.  It’s as if God has wired each of us to recognize, as His people, when we’ve lost too much ground to the enemy – and, more, to instinctively understand when it’s time to draw a line in the sand and say “no more; enough.”

This is exactly what I was watching unfold that night in Beattyville.  I was a witness to the power and effectiveness that cooperation and collaboration can have when that line gets drawn.  The people who were stepping forward to take action were those who had been directly affected by drug abuse.  Clearly, their passion for finding a solution to the problem was born from their own life experiences:  families dealing with an affected family member; a teacher concerned about a child in a classroom; a pastor determined to help his congregation; an employer facing a problem with employees.

Has God given you life experiences in which He expects you respond and draw a line?  We believe in the truth of Ephesians 2:10 that God has created each one of us with some important Kingdom tasks in mind.  He has appropriately equipped you and planted within you a desire to make a difference.   Pray that God would reveal your own passion and corresponding assignments.

Find your place and draw your line.

Frank Johnson

This idea, that we must do mission together, in a company of men and women whom we trust and love (we called this the “covenant community” in chapter 9 of The 2:10 Project) is emphasized here:

In addressing my readers as individuals, trying as best I can to single them out and search their hearts before God, I fail to show that it is only as one gives oneself in human relationships, in the home, in friendships, with neighbors, as members of Christian groups and teams–in relationships that go sometime right and sometimes wrong, as all our relationships do–that experiential knowledge of God become real and deep.  For ordinary people, to be a hermit is not the way! 

The buttoned-up Christian “loner” who keeps aloof and reads books like this (or just the Bible!) may pick up true notions of God as well as anyone else may, but only the Christian sharer , who risks being hurt in order to take and give the maximum in fellowship and who sometimes does get hurt as a result, ever knows much of God himself in experiential terms. 

This perspective, so clear in the Psalms (to which, perhaps, my book should be seen as a preamble, or maybe a footnote), is so vital that I am very much at fault for not having made more of it.  But if groups use this study guide, as is intended, that in itself may yet induce the necessary open and mutually committed lifestyle which I failed to mark out in the exposition.  I hope and pray so, anyway.”

Here is the interesting thing about this quote: It was written perhaps 30 years ago as a part of the small group guide to J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. As Packer was writing the small group guide, as this quote shows, it occurred to him that his message about how to know God was missing this important component–community.

We have tried to make The 2:10 Project the ideal tool to experience together in community, whether that is between a husband and wife, among small group members, as a church staff team or group of business leaders, or informal gathering of a few friends.

May God lead each of us into a strong and healthy community of men and women who, though not perfect, are leaning into God’s design for all of life, including the life of the Body of Christ.

There’s actually a good reason why many of us are uncomfortable with promoting the things we are involved in.

Why? Because it’s really noisy out there.

In my work I spend a lot of time looking at trends in culture and media. In a PBS Frontline documentary a number of years ago called Merchants of Cool, researchers noted that young people see as many as 10 million very persuasive, highly targeted media messages by the ago of 18. One advertising executive called them “the new continent” that is being discovered and conquered. The competition for them is bloody, as Madison Avenue companies fight to gain “life time consumers.”

As a result, young people have become at the same time the most sophisticated consumers in history and the most cynical. With good reason. Everyone’s trying to sell them something.

So, you’ll see why I am not a little uncomfortable with the headline: “Why The 2:10 Project Should Be a Part of Your 2012 Year.” Nevertheless, if you’ll me give some latitude here, would you consider how The 2:10 Project might be an important part of your 2012?

If one or more of the following statements describe your life or your view on life–

• If you believe that God placed you on this earth for a purpose that goes beyond just surviving and staying out of trouble…
• If you don’t buy the chicken little view of the world that “the sky is falling,” and sense that you have something very important to contribute to make the world a better place for all of us…
• If you are just crazy enough to believe that you can bring some joy into people’s lives this year, simply by living out who God made you to be…
• If you have a tiny seed of faith to believe that God can help you walk out of the struggles that have held you back for a long time…
• If you have a dream–one that you think God planted in your heart a long time ago, one that is stirring you to live courageously…heroically, even…
• If you desire to embrace what God’s Word says about who you are, Who He is, and what He has purposed for your life….

…then I encourage you to consider joining us on this adventure, called The 2:10 Project, Discover Your Place In God’s Story!

Why should you consider The 2:10 Project in 2012? Because we believe the most important thing that can happen in your life and my life is for us each to hear God’s voice–whether that is for the first time or the hundredth time. Which is exactly what The 2:10 Project is all about.

Marc Fey

Practically, a step toward a solitary person who you see standing awkwardly in the gym—among so many parents, grandparents, and teachers, yet talking with no one—where all of our kids are singing for the annual Christmas Concert.

It’s a phone call to initiate an uncomfortable conversation with the person whose words earlier in the week stung, delivered in a casual, off-handed way, leaving you wondering, “Where did that come from?”

It’s bending over to pick up a piece of trash—the same crumpled up, discarded fast food paper bag I just watched 8 people walk right past, from across the parking lot.

It’s my colleague poring over the Excel spreadsheet because he has a hunch something doesn’t look right, staring at it a long time, until he finally sees the mistake.  And that “catch” is going to save the company tens of thousands of dollars–my smart colleague who also has a lot of initiative.

Initiative is also the motivation behind every new invention, technology improvement, safer way to do something.  It’s not an overstatement to say that initiative is responsible for a lot of the best things we have in life.

I also think initiative is the thing that evens the score with the ground…that cursed ground that we talked about in the last two blogs.  Initiative solves the problems before they come up, it pulls up the weeds and rocks before the seeds go in.  When you and I become people with initiative, there are fewer thorns and thistles in our field.

That’s why Kathy and I–in addition to teaching our kids to think about the quality of their work and the attitude they have when they work–are also emphasizing the importance of them becoming people who take the initiative.  They take the first step.

Toward a lonely person.  Toward resolving a dispute.  Toward a piece of trash blowing along the ground.  Toward solving a problem at the place they work.  Toward a dream they have for making the world safer, more interesting or efficient or productive.

You can also think of initiative as “leading action.”  People with initiative are leaders, whether they see themselves that way or not.

They take the step before anyone else does.

Sometimes they take a step when no one else will.  Maybe never.

But they do.

The 2:10 Project is a book and online activities designed to help a person “discover their place in God’s story.”  It’s for people with initiative–or at least wanting to develop initiative. That’s a good description of me, in fact; I am working to become more and more a person of initiative.

What we are convinced of is this: If you and I take the initiative to seek God, learn about how He has wired us and gifted us, consider how our abilities and skills may benefit others, and take the time to pray, reflect, walk with others purposefully into our calling…then we will be men and women of action.

Probably not overnight.  Likely it will take great effort.  But we will be men and women through whom amazing things happen–outcomes we couldn’t come up with on our own.  God-inspired, God-led, God-resourced results.

We will become men and women who are known as having a very important quality—Initiative.  Men and women who take the first step.

May God give us the faith to take the first step.

Marc Fey

I asked, “What is that?” certain that a 12 year-old should be able to fold a towel better than that.

She said, “What do you mean?  Oh, that.  I am not as particular as you are, Dad.”

(There’s merit to her point, but a subject for another blog.)

Nevertheless, chiding her I imitated the way she had folded the towel, sticking it on top of the pile with my grand gesture– “Tada!”  We laughed.

It raised another discussion about work.  And so I asked her if she remembered the three “big ideas” about work.

“Let’s see,” Annie said, “Quality…Attitude…I can’t remember the third one.”

“That’s better than your brothers ever did,” I replied. “The third one is Initiative–the idea of not having to be told to go do something, but to see what needs to be done and do it…or think up an idea then work to make it become real..that’s initiative, too.”

So, that’s our grid in our home…the three principles that help us approach work from God’s design. And I think it describes the approach we have taken with The 2:10 Project.

Let me explain what I mean.

Quality:  The quality of the work we do matters.  When God created the heavens and the earth, three words described the quality of His handiwork: “It is good.”  When we think about the work we put our hand to, the quality of what we do matters, and our goal should be the same as our Father’s—“it is good.”

For The 2:10 Project, we were blown away by the quality of work of our publisher, Tim Young of Alliance Publishing in Birmingham, Alabama, his designer Vic Wheeler, our general editor Brad Lewis, our copy editor Barry Wise Smith, our photographer, Liz Young, and a host of others who lent their strength & encouragement. Deb and her web-building team worked tirelessly–and brilliantly–to produce very sophisticated online assessment tools. And probably the lion’s share of the load was borne by Rodney Cox whose expertise in assessments and website building was a critical piece to the vision that Frank and Don and I had. They did their work not for man, but “as unto the Lord.”  I think you will agree with us when you see the fully developed website next week.

Attitude:  God is the Ultimate Worker.  Behind all of creation is the character of a generous, open-handed God who “rains upon the righteous and the unrighteous,” causing His creation to flourish. God has designed a world that functions wonderfully and abundantly…creation itself betrays the attitude of a Father who desires to give His children every good and perfect gift.

At the heart of attitude is gratitude or ingratitude. The backdrop to the judgment of another man’s work is ingratitude.  Beneath the grumbling about the co-worker who got the promotion ahead of us is another form of ingratitude, entitlement.  And in the shadow cast by complaining about a job’s crazy difficulties is a kind of blindness to the abundance of God in our lives.

I am grateful that the 2:10 Project team I am a part of is comprised of men and women who are truly grateful to God for His goodness in our lives.

I like the way G.K. Chesterton says it: “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

I think what Chesterton is saying is that perhaps it is through the door of work in which we find happiness.  That our attitude of thankfulness affirms our faith that God is good, and that even if the ground is cursed, we are not.  And therefore, our hearts are full.

In the third of 3 posts on “Thorns & Thistles,” I am going to take a stab at “Initiative”…it ties right in to our 2:10 Challenge that we have for all of you (ourselves included!).

Stay tuned…

Marc Fey and The 2:10 Team

“Excuse me,” I asked, astonished at the question, and laughing at the absurdity of me actually liking to do the laundry.

“You don’t do the laundry because you like doing it?” she clarified.

“Ha! Not even close, Annie. I do it because it needs to be done,” I replied.

“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows furrowed with this new piece of information.

The running joke, now, is that I love doing laundry. Annie will say, “Well, Dad, I would help you, but I know how much you love to do the laundry and I wouldn’t want to take away all that joy you get.” Or, she will say, “Dad, why don’t you let someone else do the laundry for a change?” Annie makes me laugh.

It has given us occasion, too, to talk about the nature of work. We’ve talked about how work is hard, and often takes a lot more energy and time than we had imagined. She’s asked me why some people get to do what they love and others do not. We’ve even talked about the fact that some very hard-working and determined folks cannot find a job.

Thorns and thistles…“By the sweat of your brow,” the Bible says. That’s what we are talking about. The reality that often, our work is hard. Time conspires against us. Problems creep up, miscommunication causes confusion even among the best team. Thorns and thistles.

These are good conversations. I had them with Annie’s older brothers (they’re now 21 and 18 years old) around this time in their lives. Now, Annie’s thinking about these things.

Our 2:10 team have been challenged by some thorns and thistles over the past 6 weeks to get the website assessment experience finally launched. We have an ETA…December 15. Yes, that’s right around the corner, which is why we are asking you to pray for this final step. We are almost there…by the sweat of our brow!

Thanks for standing with us in partnership.

Marc Fey and the 2:10 Team

One evening when Jonathan and Paul were 5 and 3 years old, Kathy asked them (more rhetorically than anything else), “Do you boys know that you’re going to be great men?”

Without missing a beat, Jonathan our oldest replied, “Yeah, Mom, I know. Dad already told me that.” Of course, since that day, the real challenge has been to define what greatness really means. That’s been an every day adventure and learning process.

But to the point: the voice of a father—such as my voice in the lives of our children—is no doubt important. Yet more important is hearing the voice of our Father in heaven. Hearing His voice can also be one of the greatest challenges in life.

This is essentially what the 2:10 Project is all about—helping us to hear and discern the voice of God in our lives. The voice of the Father.

The question about whether or not we hear God’s voice is important because long before we become aware of our calling in God, many voices in our lives shape our view of the world, of ourselves, of others, and of God.

Wittingly or unwittingly, we allow these voices to create the grid for what we believe is true and real. As we work through how these voices shape us, we learn how to discern the voice of the One who calls us. One of the most important evidences of this process is gaining a true perspective for who we are—and importantly, who God has created us to be.

In this coming year, and the years ahead, I am sure that our son will read many wonderful authors. He will learn to think and write and discuss. He’ll gain a broader view of the world. He’ll learn important things about himself and others. This will all be right and good.

As Paul heads off to college, no doubt humoring Kathy and me when we “drop him off”–as though it were the curb of the elementary school ten years ago—I pray that he will be shaped by the voice of his Father, that he would gain a true perspective for he is, and importantly, who God has created him to be.
Most of all, may God’s voice become a faithful presence in his life, so that he would find the psalmist’s prayer to be his own: You trace my journeys and my resting places. You press upon me behind and before (Ps. 139).

As that happens, he will be well on his way to finding his calling. What a beautiful and good thing that will be to behold—true greatness.

In fact, that preoccupation motivated me to get together with a core group of friends from high school earlier this summer–buddies I had played football and basketball with for four years, tromped around the California wilderness with, skied together, floated down the American River, logged the countless hours together in English and math and social studies classes, and, well, done our best to stay out of serious trouble. What is apparent to me–and I heard it behind the conversations we had together, and in the Facebook exchanges as the reunion approaches–is this: we believe our best days are still before us.

That hope may actually be rooted in reality. As we slow down physically (just a little), there’s a lot of research and insightful writing that tells us the years from our late 40′s into our 70′s offer the greatest opportunities to experience significance in our lives. One author who impacted me greatly 15 years ago, Dr. Bobby Clinton, studied the lives of leaders, analyzing how many “finished well” in life, and laying out a process for out to finish well in life. He has described this as “convergence,” a that time when a person’s experiences, gift-mix, talents, temperament, and skills are leveraged for impact–for a productive and fruitful season of life. Clinton describes this as a time when the person’s role “not only frees [him or her] from ministry for which there is no gift, but it also enhances and uses the best [they have] to offer.” He goes on to say soberly, “Not many leaders experience convergence.”

In about 60 days–barring any unforeseen obstacles–the book “The 210 Project: Discover Your Place in God’s Story” will come out. In it, my two colleagues (and friends) Don Ankenbrandt and Frank Johnson, and I lay out a discussion and process to help people move into the center of what they were created to be and do in life. It’s our humble effort to capture in a book and through an online process of assessments and engaging discussions what we have committed the past 20 or so years doing–namely helping people find their place in God’s story. And perhaps most importantly, to help people (including ourselves!) know how to finish well in life.

Which brings to mind a quote I have always loved by Frederick Buechner–particularly its simple yet surprising clarity:

“The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.”

I think Buechner is saying this: You and I have been designed to find meaning, purpose, and significance in walking out the good works that God has already given us to do. What the 210 Project does is to affirm the deep truth that takes some of us a lifetime to discover: we were made to give our lives away. We find joy when we help others at their point of need. We find significance in helping a person who is hungry, or lonely, or hurting, or confused, or imprisoned, or discouraged…you get the picture. We were made to make a difference.

Our part? To walk straight into the adventure of giving our lives away where they are needed most. And to do that with courage and determination, with an openness to change, to be changed, and to see God change the world around us…sometimes even through us. It is the wonder and mystery of Ephesians 2:10 from which the book derives its name, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

So, as I walked the golf course with my high school buddies last month, memories of high school merging with these renewed pictures of who we have all grown up to be, I see the gift each of these men have to offer to others–the gift they offer to me without even knowing it, of who they are, the unique perspective they have on life, and the story their lives tell from what they have experienced. And, I also see the possibility of Buechner’s simple but clarifying statement working out in their lives, as I work it out in my own: to find deep gladness in giving my life away where it’s needed the most.

Clinton, Robert (1988). The Making of a Leader: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of Leadership Development (p. 32). NavPress. Kindle Edition.

But more than a dialectic on calling, The 2:10 Project is a story. Of how God has worked in my life, in Don Ankenbrandt’s life, and in Frank Johnson’s life. And about how He is working in all of our lives.

Frederick Buechner’s insight, commenting on the writing of his own life, comes to mind:

“If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the Church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us, so what I have done both in this book and its predecessors is to listen back over what has happened to me—as I hope my readers may be moved to listen back over what has happened to them—for the sound, above all else, of His voice” (Now and Then, p. 7).

So, why did Don, Frank and I write this book? That in the telling of our own stories we might all be prompted and able to hear God’s voice. It’s what we call in the book “interpreting the parable of our own lives.”

When that happens, we are close to living the purposeful, supernatural, mystery-charged–really remarkable–lives that we all long to live.