Chasing God Trying to be Better Men

As we were having our Spiritual Warriors Unite men’s gathering last month one of the guys said something simple, but yet profound. I am not even sure if he was aware of what he said. 

“All we are is a bunch of guys chasing God trying to be better men.”

Sometimes I am not sure if we are chasing God or if He is chasing us. In my own personal journey I believe God has always been there, I just made a choice not to pursue him, which led to a lot of emptiness and unfulfillment.

I believe deep down in our souls every man wants to be a better man. The sad thing is we pursue what we think makes us a better man. Which is power, money, achievement, performance and control.

All of those things only lead to quiet desperation. We think it will make us happy, but ultimately it leads us to searching for more. It leaves us searching for God. Or at least it did in my case.

It’s a journey we all have to go on. We have to go through some pain and suffering to get to that point. My wake up call was a devastating divorce.

The transformational journey I am on now is moving from a man who used to live in quiet desperation on a daily basis to a man who is living a life of purpose feeling fully alive.

For those of you who think this is a linear line upward, you are sadly mistaken.

If we aren’t getting knocked down from time to time we really aren’t on this journey of living fully alive at all.

The new shift for me is understanding that failure is part of the journey. Perfectionism is an illusion. The key is to learn from our mistakes. It’s part of the growth experience.

If everything was exactly the way we wanted it in our lives there would be no need for God. In fact we would make ourselves out to be a god which so many men do. Talk about a path to destruction and loneliness.

My journey out of quiet desperation is leading me to a life of trust, surrender and vulnerability. All things that I have never been very good at, but God is patiently teaching me.

Always trying to perform, strive and seek approval is exhausting. It has taken me many years to recognize that. I slip back in to those patterns all too easily. But each time I do I recognize it quicker and move out of it faster.

Living from a place of trust, surrender and vulnerability allows me to be my true-self. To take off my body armor and be me. To be unashamed of who I am and all of the life experiences that I have had. The good, the bad and the ugly.

For some reason I have been saying this mantra over and over in my head, “It’s all OK.”

God is showing me that it is all OK. Whether God is chasing after us or we are chasing after him, I don’t think it really matters.

What really matters is that we see ourselves the way God sees us and that is what will make us better men.

Troy Ismir, MS

Fitness Minister/Spiritual Warrior

Founder and Creator of Barbells & Brothers