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It's amazing what we can do if we have someone who believes in us.

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When I speak of bloodstained allies, I'm speaking of men and women with a common purpose who

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also have common pain.

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So they have a relationship based on a past experience and a present existence that has

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drawn them together into a common bond and a common mission together.

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It's kind of interesting some of the research that's out there, recent scientific research

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at the University of Virginia.

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I like this research because I can relate to it in so many ways as a leader, but also

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as an athlete.

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So let me read a little bit of the study.

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Recent scientific research at the University of Virginia shows that people see their realities

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differently when they have other people with them and alongside them looking at the same

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objective.

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In one group, they asked a mountain climber who would be hiking alone how long it would

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take him to scale this particular summit that he was looking at.

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So in the study, he's at the base of this high mountain and he's looking at summiting

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that and they ask him how long will it take you.

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Then they took another group of climbers who were asked the exact same question, but with

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another climber beside them who would be hiking together with them.

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So there's one group, you're going to hike alone.

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They ask each individual hiker how long will it take you to summit this peak.

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They get a number.

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They get how many hours it's going to be.

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And then the next group is two guys or two women, it was men and women, who come and

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they are asked the same question about summiting the exact same peak.

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Everything's the same, except when they ask the question, it's two of them together.

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Here's what's interesting.

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In over 75% of the cases, the climbers who were asked the question who would have a fellow

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climber with them when they were asked the question predicted up to 40% faster time to

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scale the exact same mountain.

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So something about having a relationship, having someone beside you increased your faith,

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increased one's hope and vision for what they could do.

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And it just goes to show all of us in our design by God that the Lord has put people

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in our life.

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And when there's others in our life that encourage us, when there's others in our life that build

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us up, it is amazing what we can do.

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It's amazing what we can do if we have someone who believes in us.

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So imagine several people in your life that believe in you, the difference that it can make.

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And some of you have been through disaster after disaster.

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Some of you have been through so much pain in your life.

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And God is calling you now to not do this alone.

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Don't walk with God alone.

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You need bloodstained allies.

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You need other men in your life.

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You need other women in your life.

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We're going to be talking about that in the next few episodes about how to find that,

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what kind of qualities those people are.

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But here's the deal.

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And I mean, I'll tell you, I've met a lot of men and a lot of women that have been through

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tremendous failures in their life, deep valleys.

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But because they have kids now or because they're married now or because of people who

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are dependent on them, they're making decisions based on that.

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In other words, it moves them forward because of the sense of responsibility that goes with

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that.

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So again, isolation is the number one tactic of Satan.

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And I'm going to tell you that community is one of the number one strategies of God for

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building strong men and women.

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Sean Accor wrote a book called Big Potential.

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And I love Sean Accor.

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I've read several of his books.

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He is a professor at Harvard.

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At least he was a professor at Harvard in what is becoming known as positive psychology.

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And what positive psychology is, is the study of positivity, the study of happiness and

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how we find happiness and how we become more positive people.

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But he wrote a book called Big Potential.

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Love this book.

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And let me read a quote from him.

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Sean Accor writes, I believe that there's one main reason why we are seeing.

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Elevated rates of anxiety in our schools and unhappiness in the world.

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A crucial mistake that every major religious tradition and ancient philosopher warned us

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against is we've been trying to pursue happiness and success by ourselves in isolation and

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in competition.

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We've been told that success is a zero-sum game and if someone else gets happier you

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feel worse in comparison.

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We've also been told that happiness is a private, personal choice and that you can't change

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other people.

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This leads us to feel disconnected at work, hyper-comparison on social media and never

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feel like we ever have enough.

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This is what I call small potential.

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I believe we have to do all this alone.

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We have been taught to strip others out of our formula for success and happiness.

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When you choose to be more grateful and positive though, that makes other people around you

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more grateful and positive as well.

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This creates a virtuous cycle.

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The only way to achieve our big potential is to transform the pursuit of happiness and

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success from a solitary one to an interconnected one.

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I love that and I would encourage you to read Big Potential.

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The Happiness Advantage was the book before that also by Sean Accord.

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The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential are excellent books on interconnection.

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The importance of the positivity psychologically and spiritually that occurs when we have deep

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friendships and a deep relationship with others in our life.

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Eugene Peterson, another author that I follow and I've read probably a dozen of his books,

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former Presbyterian pastor, he's since passed away.

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He wrote The Message, a translation of the Bible that's very, very popular.

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Anyway, he writes this, Eugene Peterson writes,

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Friendship is a much underestimated aspect of spirituality.

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It's every bit as significant as prayer and fasting.

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Like the sacraments of communion, baptism, friendship takes what's common in human experience

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and turns it into something holy.

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So he's speaking of the spirituality of friendship.

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I'm calling it bloodstained allies.

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It's the spirituality of friendship through difficulty and hardship.

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Now from my perspective, I don't believe you really develop a deep friendship, covenantal

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friendship.

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A bloodstained ally, unless you've been through hard times together.

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So if the relationship is completely just built around positive things, wonderful things,

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nothing wrong with that.

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I'm not saying go create problems for yourself, but I'm just saying that I'm talking about

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something deeper than just somebody you go fly fishing with or somebody that you ride

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motorcycles with.

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As important as that is, and I think that's the beginning of a covenantal friendship and

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it's also the beginning of being bloodstained allies.

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But bloodstained allies are those that you have a mutual pain together or you're going

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through something or they're going through something in which you can identify with them

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and that you can love them through that.

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So bloodstained allies are kind of those men and women in our life where you have nothing

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to lose.

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You have nothing to gain other than empathy.

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We need empathy in our lives and these are people who bring that kind of empathy into

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our life.

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And in my case, the men in my life came because they knew me from a stage.

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So they were at the church that I was at and so they appreciated my teaching, but we didn't

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really have any kind of a close relationship before that and there was no need for it in

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my life.

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At least.

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But now that I was at this place of desperation and depression and struggle, and as they began

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to listen to me around that fire pit, that began to birth something within them where

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they could identify with something that I said.

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And so what began as kind of a one-way communication, me sharing my heart, became two-way because

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of my vulnerability and from my life to them, it gave them permission to be vulnerable with

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their lives.

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And so we need vulnerability.

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We need people that we can share our heart with.

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And when we have that, it makes us stronger.

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We come away from that kind of connection with, I think, a new sense of courage.

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So I'm not talking about personal counseling.

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This is not really about relationships.

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where someone listens and then they tell you what to do,

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or they just listen and they just listen.

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Now this is, Bustained Allies are other men,

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other women in our life who, they listen,

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they understand what you're going through,

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but then they share about stuff that they've gone through.

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So it's mutual sharing, and it's also mutual listening.

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So in the word, the rubric of this would be,

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in my opinion, vulnerability and authenticity.

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It's that vulnerability, that getting away from the BS

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of the religious talk and gotta be perfect.

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It's saying, I feel, I'm completely lost, I feel broken.

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I, you know, I thought about taking my life.

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Those kind of, I'm talking about deep level stuff here, man,

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that we all go through.

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When we share that, the other person's not gonna go,

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what?

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You know, it's more like, yeah, I know what you mean, man.

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I know that feeling of desperation in my life too.

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What you're doing is you're creating this virtuous cycle

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of vulnerability, but also these are allies.

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So these are men and women that have a passion for the Lord.

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They have a passion for God.

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It's not just a pity party,

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but it's actually a purpose party.

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It's getting back to the purpose.

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And that's why I think it's important

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that there is a common theme of seeking first

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the kingdom of God in a relationship like that.

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So even in the Cave of Adulim with David

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that I talked about in the last episode,

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you know, they rallied around David.

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They didn't just come together and, you know, everybody,

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okay, we're gonna have now community time

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where we're gonna share how much money we owe to everybody

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and how we need to wear camo more

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so we don't get caught by the sheriff.

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I mean, it wasn't that.

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It was they were coming together

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with a mutual understanding that David should be king,

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that David's our leader.

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And so these are men and women that come together

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and say, Jesus is king.

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Jesus is our leader.

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And we're gonna help each other.

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We're gonna have empathy for each other

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so that we can become the missional disciples

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that God's called us to be.

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That's a huge part of these studies.

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Now, these are secular studies by Shawna Core at Harvard,

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as well as the University of Virginia study.

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But what they're showing is that there is this human element

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of being created in the image of God

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that was built into us by God to be able to need

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and to pursue other people in our life that make us better,

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that make us more courageous, and that make us more strong.

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In the next episode,

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I'm gonna talk about some of the qualities

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to look for in a bloodstained ally.

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♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

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♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪