Fire Up Your Life: Living with Nothing to Prove, Nothing to Hide, and Nothing to Lose - Softcover
If your days have become treadmills of tedium, Fire Up Your Life! is your road map to life at its most satisfying. With a passion born from experience, Ken Davis shares the vital Bible-centered principles that have transformed his own life. By living with nothing to prove, nothing to hide, and nothing to lose, you can experience "gusto living" the way God intends, regardless of circumstances. You'll discover: - How to live above the crippling influences of guilt and failure - How to develop a life-mission that will structure and energize your personal goals - Why the Bible's moral principles produce the freedom and joy our culture promises but can't deliver - How God communicates his will -- and how to realign yourself with it when you've missed it -- With humor and seasoned wisdom, Fire Up Your Life! will inspire you to jump off the treadmill and live with fresh boldness, unencumbered by wounds of the past or fear of the future.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Ken Davis provides a unique mixture of side-splitting humor and inspiration that never fails to delight and enrich audiences of all ages. Davis’s daily radio program, Lighten Up! is broadcast on over 500 stations nationwide.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
INTRODUCTION
Dave Veerman, a vice president with the Livingstone Group in Chicago, was living at one time in Covington, Louisiana. He’d been training hard for a marathon that would be run across one of the world’s longest bridges, which spans Lake Pontchartrain. When race day came, Dave thought he was in pretty good shape—but a strong wind blowing directly in the face of the runners put his endurance to the test.
Fifteen miles into the twenty-six-mile race, Dave was exhausted. Every part of his body hurt. His morale was very low—and it got lower when women pushing baby carriages began passing him as though he were standing still. He felt as if he’d had a blowout in both tennis shoes, but he stumbled on. Every step was a major effort. Dave lost track of time and distance until finally he began to hear the cheers of the crowd at the finish line. He knew he was close.
Then he saw his wife and family. His wife was standing out in the road with a camcorder, recording his big finish. “Suddenly,” Dave said, “I felt that rush of adrenaline. After all, I couldn’t let my family see me finishing weakly. With about a hundred yards to go, I straightened up, shrugged off my exhaustion, and sprinted the rest of the way to the finish line!”
After Dave had rested, he and his family sat down at home to watch the video. Dave watched himself stagger into view, looking like a dying man dragging himself across the desert. He saw himself look up, saw that brief glint that shone in his eye as he realized that his picture was being taken—and then he saw himself continue on toward the finish line with the same shuffling gait, looking like an old man making his way to the bathroom in a pair of loose slippers at midnight! Although Dave had thought that he was sprinting to the finish line, in reality nothing had changed.
I laughed till I was sick when Dave told me that story. But every day that same scene is played out, with an infinite number of variations, in the lives of millions of men and women—and in life it’s not so funny. The world is full of men and women who want all the excitement and joy that life has to offer. They’ve been running the race of life for years, but they feel tired and frustrated, trapped in bodies and hearts that will no longer respond. Occasionally they stumble across some motivation, perhaps a possession or position that they think will finally allow them to sprint again—only to discover later that nothing has changed. They want to run, they try to run, for a day or two they even think they’re running, but in reality they’re still stumbling in the terrible slow motion of a bad dream. Time is passing them by.
It isn’t supposed to be this way. Even though it is difficult, the race that God has set before us was meant to be run with joy and excitement. But something happened along the way.
Ken and Barbara (no, not Ken and Barbie) are vivacious and involved. Their lovely-but-not-ostentatious home is the center of entertainment and fellowship for the people in their church. Looking at them, you’d tend to describe them as the ultimate couple living the ultimate life. But in a small-group Bible study, both confess that something’s missing. One night Ken asked the group a question that stimulated discussion for weeks: “How do you get the most out of life?”
Ken asked the right question. It’s one of the most important questions in life. And millions of people are asking it.
In response, I prepared and delivered a message entitled “You Only Go Around Once!” In that message, I was trying to help men and women recover some of the gusto that God intended for their lives. I was amazed at the response. That message touched people’s lives like no other I had ever delivered. Many who were deeply dissatisfied with the quality of their lives found hope in the simple truths I shared.
But there’s a problem with being used by God to deliver a life-changing message. While I was delivering it, I had to listen to it, too. It’s not a comfortable thing to be convicted by the truth you’re presenting to other people. I’ve spent much of my life trying to prove, with achievement and recognition, my worth—trying to hold at bay the gnawing belief that I really wasn’t worth much. I was forced to acknowledge hidden doubts, sins, and fears. I became aware that I had been clinging desperately to the security of things—things that I didn’t want to lose, despite my own deep sense that I was missing life’s full potential.
Faced with these undeniable truths about myself, I began to apply my own message to my own life. I had been telling others that the Bible teaches us to live with nothing to prove, nothing to hide, and nothing to lose. Learning to live as if I really believed that to be true opened my eyes to the wonderful grace of God—a grace that frees me from the bondage of proving my worth, from the shame of hiding my sins, and from the futility of holding on to what will eventually turn to dust.
Applying those simple biblical principles revolutionized my life. Yes, I still have a long way to go. But God has used these principles to move me in a direction of fulfillment and purpose I have never known before—and from which I will never retreat.
You won’t find a gospel of health and wealth here. I can’t promise you giddy happiness, easy living, or great material success. And what good would it do you if I could? There are millions of people who have all of those things and yet live shallow, unfulfilled lives, just as there are millions of others who have none of those things and yet live vital, purposeful, enviable lives.
Dave Veerman, a vice president with the Livingstone Group in Chicago, was living at one time in Covington, Louisiana. He’d been training hard for a marathon that would be run across one of the world’s longest bridges, which spans Lake Pontchartrain. When race day came, Dave thought he was in pretty good shape—but a strong wind blowing directly in the face of the runners put his endurance to the test.
Fifteen miles into the twenty-six-mile race, Dave was exhausted. Every part of his body hurt. His morale was very low—and it got lower when women pushing baby carriages began passing him as though he were standing still. He felt as if he’d had a blowout in both tennis shoes, but he stumbled on. Every step was a major effort. Dave lost track of time and distance until finally he began to hear the cheers of the crowd at the finish line. He knew he was close.
Then he saw his wife and family. His wife was standing out in the road with a camcorder, recording his big finish. “Suddenly,” Dave said, “I felt that rush of adrenaline. After all, I couldn’t let my family see me finishing weakly. With about a hundred yards to go, I straightened up, shrugged off my exhaustion, and sprinted the rest of the way to the finish line!”
After Dave had rested, he and his family sat down at home to watch the video. Dave watched himself stagger into view, looking like a dying man dragging himself across the desert. He saw himself look up, saw that brief glint that shone in his eye as he realized that his picture was being taken—and then he saw himself continue on toward the finish line with the same shuffling gait, looking like an old man making his way to the bathroom in a pair of loose slippers at midnight! Although Dave had thought that he was sprinting to the finish line, in reality nothing had changed.
I laughed till I was sick when Dave told me that story. But every day that same scene is played out, with an infinite number of variations, in the lives of millions of men and women—and in life it’s not so funny. The world is full of men and women who want all the excitement and joy that life has to offer. They’ve been running the race of life for years, but they feel tired and frustrated, trapped in bodies and hearts that will no longer respond. Occasionally they stumble across some motivation, perhaps a possession or position that they think will finally allow them to sprint again—only to discover later that nothing has changed. They want to run, they try to run, for a day or two they even think they’re running, but in reality they’re still stumbling in the terrible slow motion of a bad dream. Time is passing them by.
It isn’t supposed to be this way. Even though it is difficult, the race that God has set before us was meant to be run with joy and excitement. But something happened along the way.
Ken and Barbara (no, not Ken and Barbie) are vivacious and involved. Their lovely-but-not-ostentatious home is the center of entertainment and fellowship for the people in their church. Looking at them, you’d tend to describe them as the ultimate couple living the ultimate life. But in a small-group Bible study, both confess that something’s missing. One night Ken asked the group a question that stimulated discussion for weeks: “How do you get the most out of life?”
Ken asked the right question. It’s one of the most important questions in life. And millions of people are asking it.
In response, I prepared and delivered a message entitled “You Only Go Around Once!” In that message, I was trying to help men and women recover some of the gusto that God intended for their lives. I was amazed at the response. That message touched people’s lives like no other I had ever delivered. Many who were deeply dissatisfied with the quality of their lives found hope in the simple truths I shared.
But there’s a problem with being used by God to deliver a life-changing message. While I was delivering it, I had to listen to it, too. It’s not a comfortable thing to be convicted by the truth you’re presenting to other people. I’ve spent much of my life trying to prove, with achievement and recognition, my worth—trying to hold at bay the gnawing belief that I really wasn’t worth much. I was forced to acknowledge hidden doubts, sins, and fears. I became aware that I had been clinging desperately to the security of things—things that I didn’t want to lose, despite my own deep sense that I was missing life’s full potential.
Faced with these undeniable truths about myself, I began to apply my own message to my own life. I had been telling others that the Bible teaches us to live with nothing to prove, nothing to hide, and nothing to lose. Learning to live as if I really believed that to be true opened my eyes to the wonderful grace of God—a grace that frees me from the bondage of proving my worth, from the shame of hiding my sins, and from the futility of holding on to what will eventually turn to dust.
Applying those simple biblical principles revolutionized my life. Yes, I still have a long way to go. But God has used these principles to move me in a direction of fulfillment and purpose I have never known before—and from which I will never retreat.
You won’t find a gospel of health and wealth here. I can’t promise you giddy happiness, easy living, or great material success. And what good would it do you if I could? There are millions of people who have all of those things and yet live shallow, unfulfilled lives, just as there are millions of others who have none of those things and yet live vital, purposeful, enviable lives.
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- PublisherZondervan
- Publication date1995
- ISBN 10 0310486610
- ISBN 13 9780310486619
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages224
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