Pioneers

“O you youths, Western youths,

So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,

Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?

Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?

We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!”

Walt Whitman

 

Pioneers-Do you what God intended when He intended you?

I was meeting with my son and his business partner for a strategic offsite.  (They run an extraordinary timber frame business called Oakwrites.  Check out this 360 degree picture of some of their work.)  I wanted to initiate our time together by reading Whitman’s “Pioneer O Pioneer” and talking about the pioneer spirit my son was birthed from.

I told him several key things about his pioneer heritage:

  • His mom’s family was one of 23 families from he Canary Islands sent by the King of Spain to colonize San Antonio in the late 1600’s.]
  • His great great grandparents on my side emigrated from Germany and helped settle Nordheim, TX in the 1800’s.
  • His grandparents moved from there to Floresville, TX, purchased land and started a family grocery that existed for more than 50 years.
  • His grandfather left a large company and secure position to start his own company.
  • His father left a successful 25 year career in investment banking to coach businesses of all sizes.
  • He left college and is part of a start-up business that has found their Blue Ocean strategy of reclaiming oak trees that have suffered oak wilt and turning them into beautiful things before they are harvested and burned.

Ironically, he was largely unaware of most of that history, but was pretty floored by what he heard.  For he had someone pray about a pioneer spirit in him while he was in Spain at an international mission’s academy and had largely forgotten it until this moment.

The reality is that none of us arrive at this place without intention or a journey.  When you excavate your own life as well as the prior generations, they carry powerful clues.  In our SummitTrek LifePlan process we help everyone see how God has been intending and speaking through your story, experiences, hopes and dreams.  The evidence is all there waiting to be unearthed and acknowledged.

A more clear, fulfilling, and powerful life awaits on the other side.  If you desire clarity and an understanding of the best way forward for your organization or your family, it must begin with first finding the same for your own life.

  • Do you know who you are?
  • Do you know why you are here?
  • Do you know what God intended when He intended you?
  • Are you ready to find out?  (Sign up for our next LifePlan retreat)