Unka Glen

What are you so afraid of? Money worries. School worries. Job worries. Relationship worries. Hello? Can I get an amen on relationship worries? You’ve got your own plans for how you want things to be, and God forbid that your small, tiny, sad little plans don’t work out. Oh the horror! You’ll settle for small dreams, because heck, that way you don’t ever get your hopes up.

I’m telling you: GET YOUR HOPES UP.

Small disasters are what God uses to make way for big blessings. Since I got really serious about following the Lord, my circumstances have constantly looked like total destruction might be looming on the horizon. Meanwhile, years later, no destruction. God taught me fearlessness by putting me in one insane situation after another, with His loving hands snatching away every danger, just before it took me out. I know what that dude was talking about, when he said “perfect love casts out all fear.”

And what is it that I’m supposed to be afraid of? No weapon formed against me will prosper, I am more than a conqueror, heck, this world isn’t even my home. What can you take from me that I haven’t already given to God? It was all junk anyway, you should see the blessings God gave me in return: peace, love, wisdom… and He’s gone ahead of me to prepare a place for me.

Read the other hecks here.

You sinned. Wow. What a shock! You stumbled, you fumbled, you backslid, you sideslid, you blew it. Okay fine, whatever, but answer me this: why are you so dang surprised? It’s like you had your hopes up, and they suddenly got disappointed. For some reason you thought all this stuff was behind you. You started going to church and reading your Bible, and you figured your sinnin’ days were over. Or at least THAT sin was over.

Oh, you poor sweet silly little lamb. The whole idea of this new life you’re living is to change from the inside-out. But you got all “holy” on us, and jumped the gun, and started changing all kinds of stuff… you did it your way, under your own strength, and on your own agenda. And who, by the way, were you trying to impress with all that? I mean, to be fair, we all did the same thing early in our walk, but dang, how can you be surprised that you’ve messed up that mess of a plan?

The worst part is, you act like God will be as shocked as you when He finds out you messed up. I’ll bet you confess these mistakes with a tone of “here I go again, you won’t believe what I did this time”. Let me assure you of this: God saw it coming. Heck, we all saw it coming. You’re the only one that’s surprised! You’re a sinner just like the rest of us. Sin is your default setting. When the Bible talks about your “sin nature”, that’s God’s way of saying that sinning comes natural to you. It’s like God is saying you need something SUPER-natural to overcome it. Like you need His power to do the things He wants you to do. Like we have to depend on Him or something. Are we getting the picture here? Hmm? Okay then.

Read the other hecks here.

You’ve heard of grace, right? I mean, you know that grace is all about how you had no way to be saved except through undeserved forgiveness, which God gave to you, right? Because, bless your heart, you go at it like grace is “Plan B”. First, let me try to be totally straight, and if that doesn’t work, then I’ll have to unfortunately rely on grace. What the… No!

You are not earning your spot, you are not on the verge of throwing something dazzling and impressive out there. Grace is how you get by, grace is the air you breathe, grace is the ground beneath your feet. And what, for the love of all that is holy, do have against that? If you hit the lottery would you give it back and say that you’d rather earn it? No you would not, you’d grab those hot little dollars in your mitts and run off like your hair was on fire and your butt was catching, lest they change their minds.

The game of “can I behave good enough for God to accept me” is officially over. That ended about two thousand years ago. It was in all the papers. You aren’t God’s stepchild, because there is no such thing. You aren’t getting to Heaven on Plan B, you’re getting to Heaven on the “I-was-a-big-fat-sinner-and-Jesus-had-to-die-for-me-or-I-wouldn’t-even-be-here plan, just like all the rest of us.

Your sins are paid for. So now what are you gonna do? Pretend that they aren’t paid for? So you can pretend that God wants you to act perfect after you just got done bein’ a full-on sinner? That just straight-up sucks. Here’s a better plan: be thankful for His grace, so thankful that it’s a joy to follow Him in anything He asks of you. Right? Okay, dang.

You spend a lot of time thinking about your future spouse. A lot. Whoever this person is, they are not the wind beneath your wings, and they don’t complete you. If God is in your life, you are utterly complete in Him, right now. If He isn’t in your life, then you can’t be complete.

When I met my wife, I made it clear: I don’t need you, I want you. I’m with you because God broke my heart for you, all the way. I also made it utterly clear to her that God came first, and that she came second. Period. And that if she ever tried to come between me and God, this relationship would be over before she could finish her jealous little rant. My wife, to her eternal credit, said, “yeah, well, same goes for you, bub!” Anyone who feels jealous of your relationship with God, is not in a place to have a healthy relationship with you, or God.

I made it abundantly clear to my future wife, that I would spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to be a better husband, and that by God’s power, no man on earth would come close to treating her better than I would. These promises have been kept, but can I tell you how many THOUSANDS of hours of conversation it took to fulfill these promises? Don’t yearn for marriage unless you’re ready to live by this reality: okay marriages are a lot of work, good marriages are more work that you might imagine, great Christian marriages take everything you’ve got.

So why not deal with as much of your baggage as you can, right now? Here’s just a few things that can royally screw up a marriage: low self-esteem, self pity, senseless drama, weird family entanglements, bad housekeeping, bad money habits, sexual hangups, body image issues, and mystery mood swings. If you’re waiting for your future spouse to fix this stuff in you, then you caint get no wronger. Imagine what your spouse will think when it comes to light that you were letting these issues run slack, despite their potential to damage your future marriage. You’re better than that! Be aggressive to deal with these things now, let nothing harm this amazing team that God is building to be a force for the Kingdom.  …read the entire What the Heck series here

I don’t feel sorry for you. I don’t pity you… you aren’t pitiful. You’re a child of the King, and just because you can’t see it sometimes, make no mistake, I can still see it just fine, thank you very much. I’ve got sympathy, understanding, and patience… rivers of it flowing from God himself (when I make sure to get it from Him). But I simply don’t see you as a victim. Being a victim is about something that happened in the past. But I’ve asked God to show me your future (oh, and how amazing it is), so I can treat you as if you’re already that person now, and help you find your way to that, starting from where you are now.

It flatters the ego to see ourselves as the tragic hero, bravely fighting against all odds to maintain sanity in an insane world (cue the violins!). But I’m afraid that just ain’t how it works. We’ve all got our challenges, the difference is whether we face our circumstances with cowardice or courage. If you are courageously moving forward and making a mess of that, but hanging in there, then we shouldn’t pity you, we should celebrate you. If you’re wallowing in cowardice, well, whadda ya want us to do, throw you a dang parade? Joshua 1:9 says “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

I know how scary it feels to leave the familiarity of a jacked up life, to step out into the unknown of a potentially glorious life you can hardly imagine is waiting… but you, beloved, are no coward.

read the entire What the Heck series here

You are amazing. Period. End of story. God put something amazing inside you and dang it, I can see it, so why can’t you? And don’t give me that sour look when I say you’re amazing. You may be really attached to thinking that you suck, but when you start hinting that the people who believe in you are idiots for believing in you, well then buttercup, it’s time to pump your dang brakes. Big time. What you read here is what the Lord put on my heart. I’m not handing out compliments and pep talks, I’m just telling you how it is.

You worry a lot about not being amazing, and hoping that you could be amazing, but what would you do with it if ya had it, that’s what I wanna know? Would you just sit there being amazing while the rest of us just checked you out? What the heck is that?

Here’s a crazy idea: imagine you were all about helping other people find their amazingness (shut up, that’s a word). Dig it, that’s how Unka Glen got to be amazin’. Yeah that’s right, I just gave ya the secret sauce! So now whadda ya gonna do with it? The Bible says we are God’s workmanship, and that He made us for deeds that He has already set aside for us to do. You are a work of art designed to fulfill a grand purpose. In what universe are you not amazing? Now give us a smile, or so help me, I’ll pull this thing over.

More on this subject here, and here. And previous Hecks: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5

You are beautiful, so just get over yourself, would ya? Dang. You know those surveys where they say: “if you could change just one thing about yourself, what would it be?” The right answer is: nothing. Not because you’re perfect (who is), but because you’d just find something else to fix. Let Unka Glen school you: beauty has nothing to do with perfection. A paper bag has got perfect dimensions, but that don’t make it beautiful, that makes it PLAIN.

Besides, none of that will make any difference to your true love. Let me explain it this way… Like all of you, I’ve picked out my imaginary stripper name. What? Oh, I see, I’m the only one. Sure. Okay, anyway, my stripper name is: “The Vanilla Gorilla”. You may have guessed from this that I’m a furry little man… and you’d be right. Obviously this would make me something of an anomaly in the exotic dancing trade, appealing to a niche demographic at best. So, early in our marriage I told my wife that she could shave me down, and maybe use the clippings to stuff a pillow. But to my surprise, she said no.

She said, “I fell in love with a hairy man, and if you shave off all your hair, it’s not you.” We fall for the whole person, not a collection of body parts. When Solomon wrote of his beloved, he said “You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” Know this: if you’re a furry little man who has a mega-hottie for a wife, that digs your furry little body, you know that God can do amazing things in the eyes of the one who falls for you. Decide today for yourself that you are beautiful, and know that God will give someone eyes to see what you’re working with!

See the entire “What The Heck” series here.

Would you please, one time, give it a rest with the guilt? Dang! Okay, you screwed up. We get it. Don’t act like you invented a whole new kind of sinnin’. You think you done lapsed into a whole new category of unforeseen evilness, and God’s Word no longer applies? Is that it? Please. Unka Glen has done more sinnin’ by accident than you ever did on purpose, and you don’t see me sittin’ around wallowing in guilt, do you? That’s because one day I was endlessly confessing, and God said, “yeah, yeah, I get it, I forgive you, now would you mind if we talk about something else? I have some stuff to say too, ya know.”

Now, I’m talking about guilt, not conviction. Conviction calls you to your higher self, and tells you it’s time to stop playing with counterfeit, cheap, and hollow pleasures. Guilt makes you feel less worthy, and so it drives you AWAY from God. Having said that, can you please explain to me why you’ve actually been using guilt to keep yourself motivated in this walk with the Lord? Whaa? Conviction says accept no substitutes, play no games, and waste no time. Conviction says climb your pimply butt up outta this pit, and don’t stop ‘till you’re up the side of that dang mountain!

1 John 1:9 says, “God is faithful and fair. If we admit that we have sinned, he will forgive us our sins. He will forgive every wrong thing we have done. He will make us pure”. You’ve got to call God a liar to hang on to that guilt, and believe this, you want to hop off that train before it pulls into the station. Let me ask you this: this thing you feel guilty about, are you for sure that this is the absolute top of the list, in terms of things God wants fixed? Heck I’ll bet guilt itself is at the top of that list (see what I did there?)! And I’ll bet the thing you’re agonizing over is really a symptom of a larger thing, and that larger thing needs to get fixed first anyway.

See the entire “What The Heck” series here. …then read this, it reads like we coordinated it, but we didn’t. That’s just how God works, yo.

Have you ever used this line: “I’ll probably never get married”? I mean, really? Let Unka Glen tell you a secret: everybody gets married, mmkay? Yes, about one in a jillion people (to use an exact unit of measurement) never gets married, but that ain’t you, so forget it! You’ve figured out that if you take your relationship with God to a new level, there will be fewer potential mates on that new level. Well, let’s face it, you’re already so awesome, God is gonna have to intervene and work a cool little miracle there. So in the meantime, you (like the rest of us) need some work.

Nobody ever says, “I’ll probably never be an amazing wife”, because they’d just go out and figure out how to be amazing. Nobody says, “I’ll probably never be a good listener, understanding, unselfish, and sacrificial” because if you feel that way, you’re already on your way to bein’ that. I recently wrote about Angel, my sister in Christ who just passed away, and she once said to me, “In Alcoholics Anonymous they told me that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” “Yeah”, I said. “Well,” she said, “when I truly got ready to serve the Lord with my whole heart, you came right up to me, out of all the people in your ministry, and offered to train me to work for you.” When the time is right, God will make a way.

And, HELLO! God is able. Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Ah yes, but most people aren’t livin’ in that world. They’re living in a strange bizarre little world where God can’t get done whatever I can’t get done. Let me tell you this: I was living in Texas, and a hottie named Jane was living in Michigan, both of us in full time ministry, both single. We met at a ministry conference in Denver, talked a couple of times there, then talked long distance, and after about a month, we decided to get married and move to the same city. We’ve been married for nearly two decades now. When a man who’s been engaged before he’s had his first date, or his first kiss, tells you God can make a way, he’s not tellin’ you what he thinks, he’s tellin’ you what he knows.

See the entire “What The Heck” series here.

Why do you listen to trolls? You know what I’m talking about, those little people online that can’t think of any healthy way of getting attention, those people who can’t be bothered to earn the right to be heard before they open their mouths, those people that give advice where nobody flippin’ asked for it. Let just one of these people say one thing that YOU KNOW is dumb and wrong, and it’ll cancel out a dozen cool things we say about you. What the heck?

All this drama has no meaning, and it doesn’t make your life more meaningful. If they can mess you up that much, you’ve given them power, and made them more meaningful. They are, of course, way wrong to point things out the way they do, but that doesn’t make you right either, by the way. You ain’t the martyr, you’re just the one getting down on your knees to bark back at the junkyard dog. You’re better than that dang it! You’re a child of the King, a unique creation of God Himself, He has a calling for your life that only you can fulfill, and hear me now: this ain’t it.

Jesus talked about how sometimes we will “strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel”. Meaning we will nitpick in one area of our spiritual lives, and in another we’ll buy whatever the devil be sellin’. What kind of dang deal do you have, that you find it hard to accept a good word from us, who know how to be, and who love you with God’s love, but the words of a troll will echo in your ears all day long? That ain’t gettin’ it! Dust your shoulders off, and spray some Lysol to get rid of that troll smell in here. Unka Glen loves ya, and by God don’t go tryin’ to figure out how that might not really be true. I will pull this car over.

See the entire “What The Heck” series here.

You know what bugs me? Christians that are always looking for any little excuse to tear people down. And they won’t just get over themselves and lovingly accept that we’re all imperfect. Thank God you aren’t that way. Except… I’ll bet you sometimes judge yourself like that. (Bam! see what I did there?) You’ll look at a flaw in yourself and obsess over it, but on someone else you’d say, “don’t be mean, the extra weight looks good on her, it fills out her face”. What the heck? What’s your dang deal?

I’ll bet you barely know the awesome things you bring to the table, because you’re so focused on your “flaws”. And Lord help ya if you’re waiting for a member of the opposite sex to come along and fix all this. Grab aholt of yer noggin and pull it outta yer butt cheeks and look around! Self pity is boring, your giftedness (when you frickin’ use it) is exciting! God gave you something special that can change the world. I dunno what it is, dang, do I have to figure everything out? I’m just sayin’, you’ve got it, just figure out how to bring glory to the Kingdom with it.

Let’s say all you can do is bake cookies, well dang, take homemade cookies down to your local 12-step program and tell them you’ve got their back and hang in there, and see if that ain’t a game changer! But ya gotta stop judging on yourself. The apostle Paul said: “I care very little if I am judged by you… I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” So change the things God puts on your conscience, forget the stuff you made up that you think needs to be fixed, and know that it’s about serving God with our gifts, and casting off everything that hinders that. You might just be a simple clay pot, but you’ve got a treasure inside you. So don’t make me pull over.

See the entire “What The Heck” series here.