Man of Impact – Speaking from Your Core by Jim Morud

There was a long and lanky guy on my high school freshman baseball team whose agility just couldn’t keep pace with his growth spurt. Rick stood about 6’6” and he seemed to be growing about six inches a week. He could snag a high throw from out of the clouds, but if a grounder came at him, he’d usually fumble it. Back then, I was a little guy with a big mouth, and so I poked fun at him. Rick was a big, easy target for a witty guy like me.

At our 20-year high school reunion, I was asked to give a benediction. I was the token minister in our class. By then, I had come to faith in Christ and my life was radically different. My nasty tongue had been tamed.

After offering my blessing, I overheard Rick saying to another classmate, “I can’t believe Jim Morud is a Christian minister.”

Now, why do you suppose he had such a hard time believing that? Do you suppose it had something to do with how I used to joke about him? Years later, he probably still felt the sting of those old cutting words.

HARD THINGS IN COMMON

Thirty years have passed since our 20th reunion. Rick and I are now friends, and we’ve discovered that we had some hard things in common during high school. Each of our mothers died during the summer before our freshman year. And both of us had alcoholic fathers who had constantly berated us. I lived in two foster homes during high school and Rick couch-surfed at his friends’ homes, and he sometimes slept in his car.

We both had wounded hearts. Like a flesh wound, a wounded heart gets infected if it hasn’t healed. Where does the poison from a wounded heart find its release?

The tongue. The contents of our heart spills out from our tongues.

My father repeatedly told me that I’m stupid, I’m no good, and I’ll never amount to anything. Coming from his dad, those words stab at a boy’s heart.

I’ve learned a lot about the power of words – words we speak to others and to ourselves, and also about the power of words we’ve heard with our own ears. The words we speak and the words we hear are mighty – they have the power to hurt and to heal.

LIFE COACHING TOOLS

I work with the Significance Project team of Cru. We want people to discover (or recover) the unique ways that God has formed them to express His likeness. We use life-coaching tools called Significant Woman, Man of Impact, Soaring and Quest. These tools build upon seven foundational principles to help a person see and act upon his or her God-given uniqueness. It’s a simple, step-by-step process of discovery, and the key ingredient in every step is simply words – words that heal.

For example, Foundation principle Number 3 is Energize Your Core Values. Your core is your heart. Your values are the things you hold dear and what makes your heart tick. When you’re not free to function according to your core values, your heart won’t tick quite right. You’ll feel unmotivated, de-energized and maybe even a little ticked off.

That’s how I feel when my heart’s not really into what I’m doing. I feel lifeless and ineffective. And that’s when my old father-wounds start festering again. I hear the echo of my dad’s voice telling me I’m stupid, no good and worthless. I get critical of myself and of others. It’s also when healing words are most helpful to me.

DISCOVERING CORE VALUES

Each of the coaching tools offers self-assessment exercises and a guideline for group interaction. A good number of participants is four to six. Each participant is paired with a “peer coach,” somebody you can share your discoveries (or recoveries) with. This can be done either online or in person. Either way, it’s a great space for giving and receiving encouragement.

Encouragement is one of my strongest core values. I knew this before doing this course, but it was energizing to hear others saying that it’s true of me. Even at age 69, I still need encouragement. I’ve also grown antennae that tune me in when others need it too. I look for ways to be an encourager. That’s when I’m at my best – when the Spirit of Encouragement is flowing from my heart. I feel like I’ve been promoted to being myself. That’s the intended effect of the Significance Project.

I felt badly when I overheard my friend Rick expressing his shock about me being a Christian minister. I remembered ridiculing him after a groundball rolled between his legs. I didn’t know then that he was hurting as badly as I was. Maybe I’d have bitten my biting tongue. But years later, I reconnected with him. I found out that, after baseball, he played slow pitch softball. When his knees finally gave out, he took to coaching. And he was an outstanding coach! His masters level softball team won the national championship – twice! I told him how proud I was of him. That’s when we shared our stories about our moms dying. Until then, he told me he was mad with God and didn’t want to hear anything about Him. But when our stories came together, he started listening to what I had to say about Him. He now calls me his brother from another mother.

As unlikely as this once was for me, I’m now an encourager at my core. When Rick thanked me for my encouragement, those were healing words for me to hear. Doing the Man of Impact coaching course has helped me to remember who I am.

If you want to connect more with God and others and discover more about your purpose in life and how uniquely God created you as Jim did, pull together some friends and do Man of Impact or The Significant Woman course. Or use both with a group of couples or mixed group of students etc. If you want to help others like Rick on their journey to meet Christ and discover more about their uniqueness and direction in life do a SOARING (.for women) or QUEST (for men) group. These easy to facilitate courses are available as  printed books (they give you a permanent record) at crustore.org and also as ebooks at Amazon.com. For more information, questions or help starting your own group contact Jim and his team at significance.project@cru.org.

Jim Morud and his wife, Linda, live in Warren, Oregon, where they raised their four children. He has served as a writer for Worldwide Challenge and as a Middle East correspondent. He has also served as pastor for two country churches. He built his own home, and he loves building men in their faith. He currently serves on the Significance Project Team of Cru.