Tag: god

Now What?

You’ve been forgiven. Now what? Grace isn’t the end of the road; it’s the reason to start living!

A short, rich, deeply disliked man climbs a tree to see Jesus.

Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector. He’s not only a sellout, but he’s the man other sellouts worked for. He’s wealthy off his own people’s backs, and everybody knows it. He’s too short to see over the crowd, and nobody’s about to let him through, so he does something that costs a grown man his dignity. He runs ahead and climbs a sycamore tree like a kid.

Surprisingly, Jesus stops under the tree, looks up, and invites himself to dinner. Zacchaeus, come down. I’m staying at your house today.

Of all the houses in Jericho, Jesus picks this one.

Watch what happens inside that man. Nobody lectures him. Nobody hands him a list of reforms. He’s just received — welcomed, wanted, eaten with — by the one person whose opinion he’d have thought was most against him. Something breaks in Zacchaeus, and he stands up and says:

“Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Luke 19:8 (NIV)

Nobody made him do that—no sermon on generosity, no demand, no condition attached to the dinner. Grace showed up, and a changed life came pouring out. A man who spent his whole life taking suddenly can’t give it away fast enough.

❊

Last week we met the tax collector who went home justified. This week, we meet a man who shows us what grace looks like.

The question everyone of us should ask after experiencing grace is: okay—now what? If I can’t earn it, and it’s already mine, then what do I do? Do I coast? Does anything I do even matter anymore?

Zacchaeus answers it with his checkbook before lunch is over.

Grace doesn’t make a man lazy. It makes him generous. You don’t obey to get love—you obey because you finally have it.

This is what many can’t quite believe: a man will actually do more good, not less, when you stop making him earn his standing. We assume if you tell a man he’s fully accepted no matter what, he’ll go slack. The opposite happens. The man who’s trying to earn his way does the minimum and resents it. The man who knows he’s already loved can’t stop giving, because the giving isn’t a payment anymore — it’s a thank-you.

Paul puts the whole Christian life in that exact order.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1 (NIV)

In view of God’s mercy. A free man does everything looking back over his shoulder at the mercy Jesus has given. He doesn’t reach forward for mercy he hopes to earn. The whole movement of the Christian life runs on gratitude, not fear.

❊

So let’s talk about this. This is where the second half of a man’s life either comes alive or stays stuck.

Many men hear “you’re saved by grace, not works” and quietly file it as, “So my effort doesn’t matter.” And they go passive. They coast into the back half of life spiritually retired — just showing up.

Here’s the other half. You were set free for something. The same grace that took the weight off your back put a purpose back in your hands. You don’t have to earn your standing, which means for the first time in your life, you’re free to pour yourself out without keeping score. Free to be generous. Free to serve your wife, your kids, your church, the younger man two steps behind you because grace has to go somewhere. It overflows. It always overflows.

You’re not retired. You’ve been released.

Think about Zacchaeus for one more second. The most alive that man had ever been wasn’t the day he got rich. It was the day he started giving it away. The selfish life left him up a tree, alone, disliked, watching real life pass by in the street below. The poured-out life finally seemed like living.

That’s what’s on the table for your second half—not coasting, not earning. A man so sure of what he’s been given that he spends the rest of his days glad to give it away.

❊

Pick one thing this week that you do purely out of gratitude—with nothing in it for you, no credit, no scoreboard. Give something away. Serve somebody who can’t pay you back. Go two steps beyond what’s required for your wife, a kid, or a neighbor, because you’ve been given more than you could ever repay, and it has to go somewhere. Don’t announce it. Just let grace move through you and out your hands, as it did through Zacchaeus before the meal was even finished.

The question for the week: If I really believed my standing with God was already settled, what would I be free to do today that fear has kept me from?

You’ve been released. Don’t coast. Run. Find out what a free man does.

The selfish life leaves a man up a tree. The poured-out life is the one that finally feels like living. Go pour something out this week.

And if you’re ready to stop coasting and build a second half that really counts, I’d love to have you in the next Rebound group. You can join at reboundlifecoaching.com.

— Ron

What You’re Holding is Holding You

Jesus asks every man to give up one thing, and it’s always the thing costing him his life.

A man runs up to Jesus and falls on his knees in the road.

He’s not begging for healing or asking to be set free from something. He’s just the opposite. He’s the success story. Young, wealthy, respected, religiously serious. The kind of man every father in the village held up as the one to emulate. He’s done everything right, and he knows it, yet something is missing. So he runs, drops to the ground, and asks the question that has haunted his whole life: What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Mark records the detail.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor… Then come, follow me.” Mark 10:21 (NIV)

“Jesus looked at him and loved him.” This isn’t a cold demand from a distant God. This is love looking a man dead in the eye and telling him the one thing no one else had the nerve to say.

You know how the story ends. The man’s face falls. And he walks away sad, because he had great wealth.

He is the only person in all the Gospels who comes to Jesus sincerely, is personally invited to follow—and says no. And Jesus lets him go. He loved him and let him walk away. Jesus didn’t chase him or soften the terms. Just watched the man he loved choose the thing that was killing him.

❊

Here’s what we often get wrong.

We hear “sell everything,” and we assume, “That’s about money, and I’m not rich, so this one’s not for me.” And we miss the point.

It was never about the money. It was about the one thing. Jesus looked at this man and pointed to the one thing that had grown into his real god, the thing he trusted instead of God, the thing he couldn’t live without. For this man, it was money. For you it might be something else entirely.

Jesus doesn’t ask every man to sell everything. But he does ask every man to hand over the one thing he’s holding onto instead of God.

Following Jesus will cost you exactly one thing. It’s the one thing you’ve been trusting to save you instead of him.

And that’s why it feels like you’re dying. Because that one thing — the career, the reputation, the control, the comfort, the grudge, the secret, the image you’ve spent forty years building — it doesn’t feel like an idol. It feels like you. Handing it over feels like losing yourself.

Jesus never pretended otherwise. He didn’t hide the cost in the fine print. He held it up in broad daylight.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Mark 8:34–35 (NIV)

❊

Here’s the life-changing good news.

The thing Jesus asks you to give up is the thing that was already killing you.

That man’s wealth wasn’t making him alive. He ran to Jesus in the first place because it wasn’t enough. Something was still missing, and he knew it. The very thing he couldn’t let go of was what had left him on his knees in the road, asking a stranger how to really live. Jesus wasn’t trying to take something good from him. He was trying to pry his fingers off the thing that was strangling him.

He’s not asking you to lose your life. He’s asking you to let go of what was costing you your life—so He can give you a real one.

You think He’s asking you to trade a real life for a religious one. To give up the good stuff for duty and rules. That’s exactly what the rich young man thought, and that’s why he walked away.

The truth is the reverse. You’re trading the thing that was quietly killing you for the only life that was ever real. You lose your life to find it. Every man who has actually done it says the same thing on the other side: I thought I was giving something up. I had no idea what I was getting.

The cost is real. I won’t insult you by pretending it isn’t. It will feel like you’re dying. But it’s the death of what was already taking you under. On the other side of it is the man you were made to be, and a life you cannot currently imagine from where you’re standing.

❊

Here’s what I’d ask you to consider this week.

You already know your one thing. The second you read “whatever you’ve been trusting instead of God,” something specific came up. It’s the thing you’d fight hardest to keep. The thing you trust to make you okay more than you trust God. Don’t argue it away. Tell the truth.

You don’t have to let go of it this week. That may be years of work. This week, do the one thing the rich young man wouldn’t: stay in the conversation. Don’t walk away sad. Bring the thing to Jesus and say, “I think this is my one thing. I don’t know how to hand it over yet. But I’m not leaving.”

What am I holding onto instead of God — and what has it already cost me to keep it?

He’s looking at you the way He looked at that man in the road. With love. And telling you the one true thing. The only question is whether you’ll stay in the road long enough to find out what’s on the other side of letting go.

Don’t walk away sad. Whatever he’s asking you to release, he’s only trying to free your hands for something better.

— Ron

I Am With You

Some of the most important leadership in the world isn’t out front. It’s the man beside you who won’t let you go alone.

The most powerful four words one man can say to another

THIS WEEK

Last week, we considered Barnabas and the importance of believing in someone. This week, I want to introduce you to a man who remains unnamed in the Bible, yet whose leadership might be the kind we need most. He is simply called Jonathan’s armor-bearer.

Israel’s army is pinned down, outnumbered, and demoralized. Jonathan, King Saul’s son, gets a daring idea. He looks across a rocky pass at an entire enemy garrison and decides that perhaps God wants the two of them to confront it. Just the two of them. Against a garrison.

It’s the kind of idea that could get them killed. Jonathan turns to his armor-bearer, this unnamed man in history—to see what he thinks.

“‘Do all that you have in mind,’ his armor-bearer said. ‘Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.’”—1 Samuel 14:7 (NIV)

“I am with you heart and soul.”

He didn’t say, “Let me think about it.” He didn’t respond, “That’s insane; we’ll die.” He didn’t hedge, ask for a plan, or calculate the odds of survival.

He said: wherever you’re going, I’m going. Whatever your decision is, I’m in. All the way. Heart and soul.

Together, they climbed up that pass, and God routed the entire garrison through them. Just two men. The enemy’s line panicked and broke, marking the turning point of the entire battle, and it all began with one man saying to another, “I’m with you.”

Some of the most important leadership in the world isn’t out front. It’s the man beside you who won’t let you go alone.

We’ve been conditioned to picture leadership as always being at the forefront. The visionary. The one with the plan, the platform, the voice. And while that’s one type, there’s another kind that Scripture honors just as much. The world has a much greater shortage of it. It’s the person who stands beside someone facing a challenging call and says, “I’m with you. You’re not doing this alone.”

Think about who in your life is currently trying to climb some challenging pass.

– A friend starting over after a job loss.

– A younger man in your church stepping into something larger than he feels prepared for.

– Your pastor, who may be feeling more exhausted and alone than anyone realizes.

– Your own grown son, struggling with heavy burdens while pretending he’s fine.

Most of them don’t need you to fix things. They don’t need your five-point plan. What they need is what that armor-bearer offered Jonathan—a companion who simply says, “I’m with you. Whatever this is, you don’t have to carry it alone.”

You will never know how many men are just one, “I’m with you” away from finding their courage.

Here’s the challenge: Being the person beside someone means you might not get credit. History didn’t even record the armor-bearer’s name. He understood that if the story were ever told, Jonathan’s name would be the one remembered, not his.

He did it anyway because he cared more about his friend and the work God was doing than about being recognized for it. That’s what second-half leadership looks like. After spending the first half chasing recognition, you have nothing left to prove, making you ideally positioned to support someone else and focus on them.

DO THIS ONE THING

Come alongside one man this week.

Think of a man in your life who is facing a difficult climb—a struggle, a calling, or a heavy season he may not be open about. This week, reach out to him. Let him know, “I’m with you. You’re not carrying this alone.” Then show up, check in, and be there again next week. Don’t wait to be asked. Men in tough situations rarely ask for help. Be the armor-bearer. Go up the pass beside him.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”—Proverbs 17:17 (NIV)

Born for times of adversity. Some of the men around you are facing their adversity right now. In a sense, you were born for this. Be the one who shows up when things get tough.

You’ve endured enough of your own difficult seasons to understand the impact one steady person can make. Now, you have the opportunity to be that person for someone else.

Who in your life is struggling with something significant right now that you could support? What is stopping you from telling them, “I’m with you” this week?

That’s the essence of the armor-bearer. He didn’t solve any problems; he simply refused to let his friend face challenges alone. Never underestimate the value of your presence to a man in distress.

THE REBOUND: FREE 30-MINUTE CONVERSATION

Sometimes, you may find yourself in the position of needing an armor-bearer.

As you read this, you might realize that you are the one climbing the pass alone, without anyone saying, “I’m with you.” That’s more common than you might think, especially for those who are usually the strong ones for others. else. Let’s talk. Sometimes a man just needs one other man in his corner.

Book your free Rebound Call →

— Ron

Build Something New

God doesn’t hand you back the marriage you had. He builds a new one, right in the place where the old one ran dry.

You can’t get back what you had when you were twenty-five. What you can build now is better.

THIS WEEK

We’ve walked a long way together, men.

Four weeks ago I asked you to really look at your wife. Then to go first — to move toward her without keeping score. Last week I asked you to say the hard thing you’d been holding for years.

If you’ve done even one of those, I want you to hear something before we go any further:

You’ve done more for your marriage in a month than most men do in a decade.

You showed up. You did the hard, quiet work that no one claps for. That matters more than you know.

And now you’re asking a good question — maybe the best one yet.

What now?

· · ·

A lot of men get here and try to go backward.

They want the marriage they had when they were twenty-five. The spark. The ease. The way it felt before the mortgage and the carpools and the long stretch of years that wore the shine off.

I’ll be honest with you. You’re not going to get that back.

And here’s the grace in it — you don’t want to.

“What you had when you were twenty-five was built on almost nothing. What you can build now is built on everything.”

Think about what you actually have now that you didn’t have then.

You have history. You’ve watched each other fail, and you stayed. That’s not a small thing.

You have proof. She’s seen you at your worst. You’ve seen her at hers. And here you both still are.

You have time — maybe for the first time in decades, there’s actually room in the week.

And you have the one thing you couldn’t have had when you were twenty-five: you finally know what matters. Back then you only thought you did.

The marriage waiting for you in the second half is deeper than the one you started with. It’s just not automatic. Deep things never are. They get built.

· · ·

And here’s the best news in this whole letter. It’s not even mine — it’s God’s, and He said it to people who thought they’d lost everything.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” — Isaiah 43:18–19 (NIV)

Forget the former things. Stop trying to rebuild what used to be. That’s not what God is doing, and it’s not what He’s asking you to do either.

I am doing a new thing. Not the old marriage patched up. Something that has never existed before.

And look at where He does it. In the wilderness. In the wasteland. Right in the ground that looked dead. That looked finished.

“God doesn’t hand you back the marriage you had. He builds a new one, right in the place where the old one ran dry.”

That’s better than restoration. Restoration would give you back what you had — and what you had wasn’t enough. That’s how you ended up reading these letters in the first place.

God isn’t in the business of patching. He’s in the business of making new. And He does it in exactly the place you’d least expect — the worn-out, dried-up ground of a long marriage that lost its way.

· · ·

Here’s what building actually looks like, because it’s simpler than you think.

It’s not a vacation. It’s not one big romantic gesture. Those are moments, and moments don’t build anything that lasts.

Building means you make something together that wasn’t there before. Something ongoing. Something that needs both of you to show up, week after week.

For some of you, that’s a simple weekly rhythm — a regular walk or a morning coffee with no phones.

For some it’s a shared work — serving somewhere together, or walking alongside a younger couple who’s right in the middle of what the two of you already survived.

For some it’s just learning something new, side by side, where neither of you is the expert, and you both get to be beginners again.

It honestly doesn’t matter which one you pick. What matters is that it’s shared, it’s ongoing, and neither of you can do it alone.

That’s what rebuilds a marriage. Not a feeling you wait around for. A small, steady thing you build together until the feeling comes home on its own.

DO THIS THIS WEEK

This week, ask her one question — and do one thing.

Sit down with your wife this week and ask her this: “What’s one thing we could build together that we’ve never done before?” Then close your mouth and listen. Don’t arrive with the answer already picked. Let her dream out loud with you. Once you’ve landed on something — a Saturday walk, a couple you serve, a class you take together — start it this week. Not next month. This week, however small the first step is. Put it on the calendar before you go to bed tonight. The structure is what holds a marriage steady while the feelings find their way back.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls, one can help the other up.” — Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 (NIV)

A good return for their labor. Hear that. A marriage in the second half isn’t a feeling you stumble back into. It’s labor — and it pays.

You’ve already spent twenty-five years laboring for a career, a house, a family. You know how to work for something. Spend the next stretch laboring for her, and with her, and watch what it gives back.

If the two of you built one thing together this year — one thing that needed both of you — what would it be?

Ask her. Then build it.

It really is that simple. It’s just not always easy — because simple things ask you to actually do them, week after week, when nothing dramatic is happening. That steady showing up is the work. And God meets a man right in the middle of it.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

You’ve started the work. Let’s finish it together.

Four weeks of letters can point the way. Eight weeks of real work can change the road you’re on. Weeks 4 and 5 of the Rebound program go straight at coming home and pursuing her again — with a clear framework, the journal in your hands, and a man who has taken this exact road beside you. If these letters prompted something, that’s the next step.

Learn about the Rebound program →

— Ron

Embrace Your Second Half: A Path to Purpose

What do you want people to say about how you spent the second half?

Not what you accomplished. Not your bucket list. But what kind of man did you become?

Your best years aren’t behind you. They’re what you’ve been getting ready for.

THIS WEEK

Eight weeks.

That’s how long we’ve been at this newsletter together. Thank you for staying with me. You read the hard letters. You sat with the questions most men avoid. You kept showing up.

But I must be honest with you about something.

Reading about the rebound is not the rebound.

The men I’ve watched change are the ones who stopped reading and started doing. They took one thing they’d been thinking about and made it real.

“Renewal that stays inside always fades. Fire that doesn’t burn outward burns out.”

So this week, let’s talk about what comes after you’re through reading.

· · ·

I ask every man I work with the same question. Nobody has ever answered it quickly.

What do you want people to say about how you spent the second half?

Not what you accomplished. Not your bucket list. But what kind of man did you become?

Most men get quiet when I ask. It’s not because they don’t care. Nobody ever asked them before. The whole first half went to what everyone else needed.

The second half is where you get to answer.

“You don’t earn the right to a meaningful life. You decide to live one.”

That decision is available today. Not when things slow down. Not when you feel ready — because ready doesn’t come first. It comes after.

· · ·

Here’s what I’ve noticed about the men who step into the second half with purpose.

It’s rarely dramatic. It usually doesn’t look like a bigger stage or a louder voice.

It looks like the grandfather who shows up — the way he couldn’t for his own kids, because back then he was too busy building.

It looks like the mentor who finally has something worth giving, because he’s been through enough to know what matters.

It looks like the husband who stopped performing and started being there.

It looks like a man using what his suffering taught him to help somebody younger who’s right in the middle of it.

That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole thing.

And it’s available to you. Wherever you’ve been, however far you feel from where you thought you’d end up.

“Your road here wasn’t wasted. It gave you something to say. And someone out there needs to hear it.”

You carry more than you know.

· · ·

Let me close the way I close the Rebound journal.

Eight weeks ago, you were the man in the driveway. Not sure if you wanted to go inside.

You went in anyway.

You stayed with these letters. You sat with the hard questions. You took the second half seriously.

So here’s what I want to ask of you.

Don’t just read this and move on. Do one thing this week. Have one honest conversation. Make one decision you’ve been putting off. Take one step toward the thing you know you’re supposed to do.

It doesn’t have to be big, but it must be intentional.

Your best years aren’t behind you. They’re what you’ve been getting ready for.

Go find out what that means.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” — Matthew 25:21 (NIV)

The master doesn’t say well done, you feel better. He doesn’t say well done, you read the right books.

He says well done to a man who took what he had and did something with it.

That’s the standard. Faithfulness with what’s in front of you, in the time you’ve got left. That’s what the second half is for.

THREE WAYS TO KEEP GOING

KEEP READING

Stay with The Rebound Letter.

This closes the first arc. The letter keeps coming every Thursday — new ground, same honest conversation. If something’s been moving in you, the best thing you can do is stay.

GO DEEPER

The Rebound 8-Week Program.

If eight weeks of letters meant something, eight weeks of real work will change something. One hour a week, the journal as your guide, and a man who’s walked the same road.

Learn about the Rebound program →

START A CONVERSATION

Book a free 30-minute call.

Not sure if the program is for you? Start here. No pitch. Just two men and an honest conversation about where you are.

Book your free Rebound Call →

— Ron

Who Are You When the Title is Gone?

Somewhere in the second half of life, most men run into the same moment.

The career ends. The kids leave. The role they have held for twenty years changes or disappears. And standing in what used to be a full life, they realize they don’t quite know how to answer a question they have never really had to answer before.

Who am I now?

This is the most important question that the second half of life poses.

THIS WEEK

Before anything else this week, here’s what I want to say: You’re not behind, and you’re not too late. Whatever you’re feeling about the season you’re in right now—whether it’s uncertainty, quiet, or wondering if the best moments are already past—know this from someone who’s been where you are: they’re not behind you, they’re ahead. The question you’re holding on to isn’t a sign that something’s gone wrong; it’s the most important question your life has ever asked. So let’s sit with it for a while.

· · ·

Somewhere in the second half of life, most men run into the same moment.

The career ends. The kids leave. The role they have held for twenty years changes or disappears. And standing in what used to be a full life, they realize they don’t quite know how to answer a question they have never really had to answer before.

Who am I now?

I know that moment. I lived it. That feeling is disorienting in a way that’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been through it. It’s not grief exactly. It’s more like standing in a room where all the furniture has been moved, and you’re not sure which direction is which anymore.

But here’s what I’ve learned — and what I’ve watched happen in man after man who has done this work honestly:

“The title was never who you were. It was the most visible thing you were doing. You were always more than that.”

The second half of life is where you finally get to find out what that means.

· · ·

In my experience, the answer to “Who am I?” tends to come from three places.

It starts with the things that made you lose track of time—not the ones you were supposed to love because of your role, but the ones that pulled you in long before that role even existed and never truly let go. The conversations that fueled you instead of draining you. The moments when you glanced at the clock and realized two hours had flown by, feeling like only twenty minutes. Those moments aren’t random—they’re revealing something about who you really are.

The second thing lies in what your suffering has taught you. Anyone who has faced burnout, failure, loss, or aimlessness knows things that someone who hasn’t simply can’t understand. That hard-earned knowledge isn’t a consolation prize for the struggle—it’s a credential. It’s the exact language someone younger and nearby is longing to hear from someone who has already walked the path they’re on.

The third is in what makes you genuinely angry. Not irritated — the deep anger that rises when something you care about is being neglected or broken. That anger is not a flaw. It is a compass. It points at the things you care about enough to fight for, which is about as close to a definition of calling as I have ever found.

“Your gifts are what you are good at. Your calling is what you are for. They overlap — but they are not the same thing.”

Most men in the second half have spent their whole lives deploying their gifts in service of someone else’s vision. What the second half is asking is a different question: what were those gifts always building toward? What was the suffering equipping you for? What has the anger been trying to tell you all along?

Those are worth wrestling with. Write them down this week if you can. The answers won’t be perfect. But they will be real. And real is what we’re after.

· · ·

I said you’re not behind, and I want to linger on that for a moment because I believe it’s something most men in this season need to hear the most, yet find the hardest to believe.

Moses was eighty when he stood before Pharaoh. The most significant work of his life began at an age when most men in his culture were considered finished. Abraham was seventy-five when God called him out of everything familiar and into a promise he couldn’t see the end of. Anna was eighty-four when she recognized the infant Jesus in the temple — and the text says she spoke about him to everyone who was looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. She had not stopped looking. She had not given up.

These are not inspirational footnotes. They are the pattern of how God works.

The man who has been through the fire — who has failed and come back, who has been humbled by his own limits, who has watched things fall apart and found God present in the ruins — that man has something to offer that no amount of talent in a younger man can manufacture. He has wisdom. He has scars. He has the capacity, if he is willing to risk it, for a quality of love and mentorship the world is genuinely short of right now.

“The second half is the deployment. Everything the first half built in you — including the hard things, maybe especially the hard things — was preparation for this.”

You don’t have to have it figured out today. You just have to be willing to ask the question honestly and stay with it long enough to hear the real answer.

Who are you when the title is gone?

You are who God made you to be. You just haven’t had the space to meet that person yet.

This is the space.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

The word translated as ” handiwork here is poiema in the original Greek — the root of our word poem. You are not a production unit. You are not the sum of your output. You are something God crafted with intention, with a specific shape, for a purpose that was prepared before you arrived.

The good works are still waiting. They are not behind you. They are ahead of you — in the season you are in right now, in the man you are still becoming.

If you actually believed the best of what you have to give is still ahead, what would you do differently tomorrow morning?

It is not the end of your story. Not even close. What you’re describing — the disappearing feeling — is real. And it is also the exact threshold you have to walk through to find out what was underneath the role all along. If you want to talk about where you are, just hit reply. That conversation is exactly what The Rebound exists for.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

This is the work Rebound was built for.

Week 3 of the Rebound program is called Identity Reconstruction — because the question this issue raises is too important to sit with alone. If this letter puts words to something you’ve been carrying, the program is where we work through it together.

Learn about the Rebound program →

Three Things that Really Helped Me

A man who falls alone stays down longer. A man with a brother nearby gets up faster — not because the brother fixes anything, but because the brother is there, in the actual moment, saying I’ve got you instead of here’s what you should do.

THIS WEEK

I have an entire shelf of books that focus on how a man can rebuild his life after experiencing burnout and drifting. These books explore the journey of returning to God, reconnecting with his marriage, and rediscovering himself in the second half of life. Many of them offer structured approaches, such as the seven habits, the five disciplines, or the twelve steps, to achieve a renewed spiritual life.

Some of it is good. I’ve recommended a few of those books myself.

But if I’m honest, most of those lists weren’t what helped me. They were good ideas I read and quickly forgot.

This week, I want to share what helped me rebuild. Not the polished version, but the true one.

There were three things. That’s it. No twelve-step plan. Three things that were simple enough to do, and true enough to matter.

· · ·

The first one was small, and it changed everything. I stopped performing.

For years, I presented a version of myself to others that was capable and steady—the guy who seemed to have it all together and didn’t face the same problems as others. Maintaining that image took more energy than I ever acknowledged, even to myself.

What broke it open wasn’t a retreat or a sermon. It was one conversation. I sat across from a friend I trusted, and instead of giving him the version of my life that sounded fine, I told him the actual thing. The thing I was usually embarrassed to talk about.

I remember how it felt afterward. Lighter. Not because anything was solved that day. Lighter because for the first time in years, I wasn’t carrying it by myself.

“The thing that lives only in silence has power over you. The moment you say it out loud to one other person, that power starts to break.”

That single conversation didn’t fix my life. But it was the hinge on which everything else turned.

· · ·

The second thing was finding one man who could say “me too” instead of giving advice.

I didn’t expect this when I started. The most helpful support I received wasn’t from a counselor using a specific framework—although I recognize that counseling has its value. What made the biggest difference was a man who had experienced the same things I was going through and could simply say, “Me too.”

Advice can often feel overwhelming when you’re facing something difficult. Everyone seems to have their own theories to share. But what I really needed wasn’t another theory. I wanted someone who had genuinely experienced this kind of darkness and emerged on the other side. I needed someone who could calmly assure me, without any guarantees, that there is indeed a way through to the other side.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. — Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 (NIV)

A man who falls alone stays down longer. A man with a brother nearby gets up faster — not because the brother fixes anything, but because the brother is there, in the actual moment, saying I’ve got you instead of here’s what you should do.

I didn’t go looking for a mentor. I just found one man who’d been through something like what I was going through, and I let him know me. That relationship did more for me than anything I ever read.

· · ·

The third thing is harder to explain, so let me try.

For years, I read the Bible the way a preacher reads the Bible. Every passage, some part of my brain was already asking how it would preach. Where the illustration was. What are the three points?

I had turned the Bible into material for something I delivered on Sundays.

What helped was learning to read a passage and let it speak to me. Not mine it for material. Not manage it. Just sit with it.

“The road back wasn’t more discipline. It was the strange, uncomfortable practice of needing God again, instead of just managing my relationship with him.”

I still catch myself slipping back into the old habit more than I’d like. But every time I catch it and choose differently, something in me settles that nothing else touches.

· · ·

That’s it. Three things: I stopped performing, found a friend who said “me too,” and allowed the Bible to be honest with me again, instead of just being useful.

None of it is complicated. It’s really one decision, made three different ways — stop managing your life from a distance, and actually let yourself be in it.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. — Galatians 6:2 (NIV)

Not carry your own burden well. Not manage it quietly so nobody has to see it. Carry each other’s.

The question for this week: Who is actually carrying anything of yours right now? And if the honest answer is nobody — what’s the smallest step you could take this week to change that?

THE REBOUND · FREE 30-MINUTE CONVERSATION

If you read this and realized you don’t have a man who can say ‘me too’ — I’d like to be that conversation, even if just for thirty minutes. No pitch. Just two men talking honestly about where you are.

Book your free Rebound Call →

— Ron

What God Does with Broken Men

The thing that happened to you — the failure, the loss, the transition, the season that felt like exile — is not disqualifying you. It is equipping you.

There is a pattern in Scripture nobody told you about. It will change how you read the season you are in.

In recent posts, I have been candid about the reality facing many men in the latter half of life—feeling depleted, adrift, operating on empty, and trying to build on a foundation that was never meant to support the weight they place on it.

This honesty is important. It continues to matter.

However, this week I want to share something different. I believe this new perspective can change how you view the current season of your life—whether it feels like stagnation, loss, failure, or simply the quiet drift of a life that seems to have lost its direction.

Here it is, as plainly as I know how to say it:

“God has never used a man without first breaking him.”

Not just occasionally or in some cases, but every time. In every significant story within the biblical narrative, there is a period of hiddenness between the calling and the assignment. This season may feel like being forgotten from the inside.

You are not forgotten; you are being formed.

The Pattern Scripture Keeps Repeating

Think about Moses for a moment.

He grew up in Pharaoh’s house. He has a position, education, and what looks like a clear path to doing something significant for his people. Then, in one impulsive moment, he kills an Egyptian soldier and flees into the desert. The dream dies. He ends up in Midian — tending sheep, married to a shepherd’s daughter, completely invisible to the world he was supposed to change.

For forty years.

Not forty days. Forty years.

And then, on an ordinary day in that wilderness, a bush catches fire and doesn’t burn up. And God speaks. And Moses — the fugitive, the man whose best years seemed to be behind him — becomes the instrument of the most dramatic act of national liberation in human history.

The forty years were not a detour; they were the necessary curriculum. The man who entered Midian as a prince emerged as a shepherd. Ultimately, what God needed to guide people through the wilderness wasn’t a prince; it was a shepherd.

The breaking made him exactly right for what came next.

· · ·

David is another one.

He was anointed king as a teenager — oil poured on his head, the prophet of God speaking the word over him. And then almost immediately, everything goes sideways. He spends the next decade running for his life from the man he was chosen to replace. Caves. Deserts. A band of broken men following him through the wilderness. The promise of God has no visible path to its fulfillment.

Years of that. Years.

But here’s what happened in those years. David learned things about God — about being sustained when everything is stripped away, about finding the presence of God in places where no sane person would look for it — that he never could have learned on a throne. The Psalms came from that wilderness. The songs that have carried broken people for three thousand years came from a man who was living inside the breaking when he wrote them.

His suffering became his language, and that language has spoken to the human condition ever since.

· · ·

Peter denies Jesus three times on the worst night in human history. He doesn’t just distance himself — he curses and swears he never knew the man. And then Jesus is crucified, and Peter goes back to fishing. Back to the lake. Back to the nets. Back to life before, as if the three years never happened.

Can you imagine carrying that? The specific weight of having failed the one person you most wanted to be loyal to, at the exact moment it mattered most?

There’s a beach, a charcoal fire, and Jesus—risen and alive—doesn’t begin with an accusation. Instead, he starts with breakfast. Then, gently, he asks three times, “Do you love me?” Each question corresponds to one of Peter’s denials. It’s not to reproach him, but to restore him.

The man who preached at Pentecost and saw three thousand people come to faith in a single afternoon was the same man who had failed in the most public way imaginable six weeks earlier. The brokenness didn’t disqualify him. It prepared him. A man who knows what it is to be restored from the inside is exactly the right man to lead a movement of people who need to know that restoration is real.

· · ·

Paul — before he was Paul, when he was still Saul — held the coats while Stephen was stoned. He spent years hunting down the early church with a warrant and a fury. Then he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, and the entire foundation of his life collapses in an instant. He goes blind. He fasts for three days. And then he disappears into Arabia for three years.

Three years of silence. Nobody hears from him. No letters. No churches planted. No sermons recorded.

We don’t know exactly what happened in Arabia. We know that the man who emerged from it went on to write half the New Testament and plant the gospel across the known world. Whatever the three years were, they were necessary. The formation that happened in the hiddenness produced something that the earlier version of him couldn’t have carried.

What This Means for You

I’ve spent a lot of time with men who are in the hidden season. Men who feel like they are in the wilderness between what was and what’s supposed to be next. Men who can’t see the path forward, who wonder if they missed their window, who carry the weight of past failure or current stagnation, and quietly assume that the best of their life is behind them.

Hold on to this promise:

“The hidden season is not the end of your story. It is the part before the part that matters most.”

The thing that happened to you — the failure, the loss, the transition, the season that felt like exile — is not disqualifying you. It is equipping you. Not despite the breaking, but through it. Exactly the way it worked for Moses, David, Peter, and Paul.

Your road to this point is not wasted. It is the specific, hard-won knowledge that only comes from living through what you have lived through. And somewhere, someone younger is in the middle of exactly what you have been through — and they need what you know.

The only way that knowledge gets from you to them is if you stop treating this season like a sentence and start treating it like a school.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”— Isaiah 43:18–19 (NIV)

Do you not perceive it?

That question is not rhetorical. It is an invitation to look at the season you have been enduring and ask a different question than the one you’ve been asking. Not why is this happening to me? But what is being built in me that couldn’t be built any other way?

The question worth sitting with this week: What has this season given you that you could not have received any other way?

You have not missed your window. That is not a conclusion Scripture allows. The men who went through the hidden seasons were not early — they were exactly on time, arriving at their assignment with precisely what the assignment required. The road is longer than you expected. That does not mean you are lost.

If this is landing somewhere real for you, leave a comment. I would genuinely like to hear your story.

THE REBOUND LETTER — FREE · EVERY TUESDAY

Know a man who is in the wilderness right now?

If this issue put words to something you’ve been living, there is almost certainly a guy in your life who is in the same season — and has no framework for what it means. Forward this to him. Sometimes the right letter at the right time is what turns the page.

The Real Reason You Burned Out

It’s not what you think. And the distinction changes everything.

Many people assume that burnout, a drifting marriage, or midlife emptiness is simply a result of overwork. They suggest solutions such as getting more rest, setting better boundaries, taking vacations, seeking help from a good counselor, or practicing self-care.

I held this belief for years and tried many of these approaches. Some provided temporary relief, but none offered a lasting solution.

Ultimately, the issue wasn’t about capacity; it was about identity.

Here’s what I mean.

The Engine Underneath the Exhaustion

Many men who experience burnout are not simply those who work too hard; they are often those who have worked from the wrong mindset for too long.

There is a type of work that flows from one’s identity—a deep understanding of who you are before God that is independent of your output. This kind of work can be challenging and demanding, but it does not drain you. It draws from an account that does not rely on your performance to remain full.

On the other hand, there is a type of work that defines one’s identity—where what you produce becomes the proof of your significance, God’s approval, and your worth. This kind of work is always exhausting because it draws from an account that requires constant replenishment through your output. If you stop producing, that account runs empty, and when it does, you feel empty as well.

Most Christian men I’ve worked with are in the second category. Not because they are faithless. Because the culture they were formed in — church culture, achievement culture, Christian masculinity culture — told them, implicitly and explicitly, that their value was tied to what they produced.

The good husband. The reliable provider. The faithful elder. The man who shows up, delivers the goods, never complains, and keeps the whole thing running.

There is nothing wrong with any of those things. The problem is what happens when they become the foundation of your worth rather than the overflow of it.

The Sequence That Changes Everything

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” — Mark 1:10–11 (NIV)

I want you to notice something easy to read past.

The Father speaks before Jesus has done a single thing.

No sermon. No miracle. No healing, no teaching, no confrontation with the Pharisees. No proof of anything. Jesus has just come up out of the water — and before the ministry begins, before a single act — the Father speaks.

“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Approval before performance. Identity before assignment. Son before servant.

“The Father’s declaration does not say: perform well and then you will be loved. It says: you are loved. Now go.”

Most men I know have this completely reversed. They feel like sons on the days they’ve performed well — as fathers, as husbands, as providers, as leaders. They feel like a disappointment on the days they haven’t.

The exhaustion of living that way is not a spiritual failing. It is the completely logical result of building your sense of worth on a foundation that shifts every time your output does.

Until you live as a son first — until the Father’s declaration becomes the thing you stand on rather than the thing you strive toward — you will keep performing for an approval you already have.

And you will keep burning out. Not because you are weak. Because you are building on sand.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! — 1 John 3:1 (NIV)

Our identity is declared, not earned. It is given to us generously and unconditionally, before we have done anything to deserve it.

Consider this thought for the week: If your worth were truly untouchable—if nothing you did today could add to it or subtract from it—how would that change the way you show up?

Your answer reflects the distance between where you are now and where you want to be.

This gap—between understanding something theologically and living it out personally—is something I frequently see in men who come to Rebound. While their theology may be correct, the foundation is often grounded in performance.

The process of rebuilding begins with addressing that gap. If you find yourself in this situation, please feel free to reply. I would like to hear about where you are.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Son before servant. That shift is what Rebound is built around.

The 8-week Rebound program exists to take a man from performance-based identity to son-based identity — not as a theological exercise, but as a lived transformation that holds. This is the hinge on which everything else turns.

Learn about Rebound →

— Ron

The Five Stages of Drift

Most men don’t wake up one day and consciously decide to drift. Instead, this drifting happens gradually—season by season—often in ways that seem completely reasonable as they occur. The true extent of this drift only becomes clear in hindsight.

Most men don’t know they’re drifting until they’re already lost. Here’s a map

After years of coaching men in the second half of life, I’ve noticed something important: Most men don’t wake up one day and consciously decide to drift. Instead, this drifting happens gradually—season by season—often in ways that seem completely reasonable as they occur. The true extent of this drift only becomes clear in hindsight.

I’ve identified a consistent pattern consisting of five stages. While not every man moves through all five stages in the same order, most of the men I’ve worked with can recognize at least three of them immediately and know exactly where they stand.

Think of this framework as a map rather than a judgment.

THE FIVE STAGES

Stage 1 — Gradual Numbness

The first stage is the quietest. Nothing dramatic happens. The man continues to show up, produce, and do all the right things. However, somewhere inside, he feels a shift; the temperature of his passion has dropped. What he once loved now feels like mere work. His prayers seem mechanical, and Sundays feel like a performance rather than a genuine expression of faith.

He notices this change but chooses not to say anything. He tells himself it’s just a season and waits for the feelings to return.

But those feelings don’t come back—because they won’t regain their strength unless the conditions that extinguished them have changed.

Stage 2 — Role Collapse

In stage two, the man’s identity has quietly fused with his role. He doesn’t notice this happening because it happens gradually and because the culture around him rewards it. The harder he works, the more he produces, the more valuable he feels. So he produces more.

The problem surfaces when the role changes — retirement, a career transition, the kids leaving home, a church or company downsizing. When the role goes, the man goes with it. Not dramatically but in the quiet way of a man who suddenly doesn’t know how to answer the question “Who are you?” without referencing what he does.

Stage 3 — Relational Withdrawal

In stage three, the man starts to withdraw. He is present at dinner but not in the room. He shows up at the kids’ events, but his mind is somewhere else. He and his wife become roommates in a home that has become functional rather than intimate.

He tells himself he is tired. He tells himself she understands. He tells himself things will get better when work slows down, when the kids are older, when the next thing resolves.

The next thing never resolves. And she has stopped waiting.

Stage 4 — Spiritual Performance

By stage four, the man’s spiritual life has become merely a performance. He knows the right words; he can lead prayers, provide the correct answers in small group discussions, and preach sermons. However, his inner life is hollow. He has been giving from a well he stopped replenishing years ago.

His prayers feel as if they hit the ceiling, and the Bible reads like information rather than a transformative encounter. He suspects that something is fundamentally wrong, but he fears that if he stops performing, others will notice the emptiness beneath the surface.

So, he continues to perform, and as he does, the emptiness only deepens.

Stage 5 — The Silent Crisis

Stage five is the most dangerous stage—not because anything dramatic is happening, but because everything has gone quiet. He continues to function; he still shows up, produces, and completes the visible tasks. However, something inside him has essentially shut down.

He has stopped questioning the purpose of his life. He no longer expects anything from God and has lost the belief that the second half of his life holds anything worth looking forward to.

The silent crisis is not the end of the story. But it is the last stop before the turn.

THE ANCHOR VERSE

“But when he came to his senses…” — Luke 15:17 (NIV)

The prodigal son doesn’t return home because someone rescues him; he comes home when he realizes the truth of his situation. When the reality of where he is becomes too obvious to ignore, that’s when the change begins.

That moment of clarity—though uncomfortable, disorienting, and necessary—is the goal of every stage of drifting.

Which stage are you in? This is not just a rhetorical question. Identify it honestly—either to yourself or to someone you trust. Acknowledging your situation is the first step toward change.

If one of the stages resonates with you and reflects something you’ve been dealing with in silence, I would genuinely like to hear from you. Feel free to reply; that conversation is exactly what this letter is meant for.

THE REBOUND · 8-WEEK TRANSFORMATION

If you found your stage, there’s a way through.

The Rebound 8-week program is built around the specific work of moving from wherever you are to a rebuilt second half. Each week addresses a different layer of the drift — and builds toward something you haven’t yet seen clearly.

Learn about Rebound →

— Ron