The Chaos I Walked Into
I walked into an ICU unit expecting a quiet pastoral visit. What I found was absolute chaos.
The man I came to see was on a gurney, head tilted down, blood pressure plummeting. Doctors and nurses surrounded him, shouting orders, machines beeping frantically. They were doing everything they could to keep him alive.
Ten feet away, his mother-in-law was on her knees, hands raised, praying in tongues at the top of her lungs. His wife stood over her, trying to calm her, crying and praying herself.
Another ten feet away, his father was yelling, dropping F-bombs, screaming at the doctors to do something. The man’s other family members were trying to calm him down while he raged.
I stood there with my jaw on the ground, not knowing where to start. Who was I there to help? What could I possibly do in the middle of this crisis?
That moment became a metaphor for the next 40 years of my life as a pastor. And it’s why I eventually created The Vitality Journey.
Forty Years of Arriving Too Late
For over four decades, I showed up to tragedy.
I sat in living rooms where wives confronted husbands about affairs, the husband walking into an ambush he never saw coming. I counseled abuse survivors as they confronted their abusers. I held the hands of people in complete financial ruin, watching their lives fall apart. I sat with mothers whose sons had taken their own lives. I visited men whose wives had just been murdered.
I witnessed the entire spectrum of the human condition at its most vulnerable, most broken, most desperate.
And I cared deeply. At my core, I’m a humanist. I believe profoundly in people. As a Christian humanist, I see people through the eyes of Jesus. Every person I sat with, no matter how shattered their life appeared, I saw as sacred. Capable of living an extraordinary life.
But here’s what broke me after 40 years: I was always arriving too late.
The ICU crisis. The affair confrontation. The financial collapse. The suicide. By the time I showed up, the damage was done. I was there to help people pick up the pieces, to sit in the wreckage with them, to speak hope into impossibly dark situations.
But I was never there early enough to help them avoid the wreckage in the first place.
After 40 years of sitting at the feet of tragedy, I realized something had to change. I couldn’t keep rescuing babies. I needed to go upstream.
The Upstream Question That Changes Everything
Author Dan Heath wrote a book called Upstream that captures this perfectly. He said: “So often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires, we deal with emergencies, we handle one problem after another. But we never get around to fixing the systems that caused the problems.”
That’s what The Vitality Journey is about. It’s my attempt, after 40 years of responding to crises, to help people go upstream. To look at the systems of their lives and ask: How did I get here? What patterns, habits, and behaviors created this situation? How do I give attention to the areas of my life that need it before everything falls apart?
The ICU story wasn’t just about a man dying of cancer. It was a metaphor for every life falling apart, every system breaking down, every crisis that could have been prevented if someone had gone upstream earlier.
Physical health ignored until the ICU. Relational health neglected until the affair. Financial health dismissed until bankruptcy. Emotional health avoided until depression makes it impossible to get out of bed.
We keep responding to emergencies instead of fixing the systems creating them.
Why I Finally Stepped Away
After 40 years, I stepped away from pastoral ministry. Not because I stopped caring. But because my heart couldn’t take it anymore.
Every time I sat with someone in crisis, my heart broke. When you care deeply about people, witnessing their pain over and over takes a toll. The murdered wife. The suicide. The abuse. The financial ruin. The marriages destroyed.
I couldn’t keep showing up to tragedy without doing something to get ahead of it.
That’s why The Vitality Journey exists. It’s not just another wellness framework or self-help program. It’s an upstream strategy for living a life of vitality before the bottom falls out.
The Three Truths That Underpin Everything
There are three things, attributed to Jesus and the Apostle Paul, that summarize how I see people and why this work matters so much to me.
First, Jesus said: “I have come that they might have an extraordinary life.”
Not just a surviving life. Not just a getting-by life. An extraordinary life.
That’s what drives me when I see a human being struggling. They’re not a lost cause. They’re not beyond hope. They’re a sacred person capable of living extraordinarily well.
Second, Jesus told his followers: “You’re going to do greater things than I ever did.”
Think about that. The potential in a human being is so extraordinary that Jesus himself said his followers would surpass his works.
That’s not arrogance. That’s recognition of the immense capacity built into every person. You are capable of greater things than you can imagine. That potential exists in you right now, even if you’re in the middle of your own ICU moment.
Third, the Apostle Paul wrote: “You are God’s masterpiece, created to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do.”
Every single human being is a masterpiece. Not just the successful ones. Not just the people who have it together. Every. Single. One.
You are a masterpiece. Even if your life feels like chaos right now. Even if you’re surrounded by beeping machines and screaming relatives and prayers in tongues. Even if you’re the one on the gurney with your blood pressure dropping.
You are still a masterpiece, created for good works that were prepared before you were even born.
What Going Upstream Actually Looks Like
Going upstream doesn’t mean you’ll never face crises. Life is hard. Tragedy happens. Cancer strikes. Relationships fail. People die.
But going upstream means you’re not creating your own crises through neglect, through ignoring the systems breaking down in your life, through putting out fires instead of addressing what’s starting them.
Going upstream means asking:
- What patterns in my physical health are leading toward crisis?
- What relational systems are slowly poisoning my connections?
- What financial habits are setting me up for disaster?
- What emotional neglect is building toward collapse?
- What behavioral chaos is preventing me from living well?
- What vocational misalignment is draining my sense of purpose?
The Vitality Journey addresses all six of these dimensions systematically. Not because you can fix everything at once, but because you need to know which river has babies floating down it. You need to know where to go upstream first.
From Tragedy Response to Upstream Strategy
I spent 40 years responding to tragedy. Now I’m trying to prevent it.
Not by eliminating all pain from life, that’s impossible. But by helping people build systems that create vitality instead of chaos. By helping them assess where they actually are, dream about where they want to be, set realistic goals, and establish habits that move them upstream.
If you’re reading this and you feel like you’re in your own ICU moment, I want you to know something: you’re not beyond hope. You’re not a lost cause. You are sacred. You are capable of an extraordinary life. You are a masterpiece.
But you can’t keep doing what you’ve been doing. You can’t keep putting out fires without addressing what’s starting them. You can’t keep rescuing babies without going upstream to fix the system sending them down the river.
It’s time to go upstream. It’s time to assess the systems in your life, to give attention to the areas that need it, to build a life of vitality before the next crisis hits.
That’s what The Vitality Journey is for. Not to make you perfect. Not to eliminate all struggle. But to help you live extraordinarily well, with energy, purpose, and the capacity to handle whatever life throws at you.
Ready to go upstream? Explore personal coaching and The Vitality Journey framework at destiny-works.com.
Watch the full episode here: On YouTube or listen on Spotify
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Full Transcript
Dave: So I walk into this ICU unit, intensive care unit here, a local hospital. I was a pastor and I was visiting a parishioner, was visiting someone who attended our church. And I also knew he was in serious physical condition. He was struggling with cancer. And so much so that he was in the ICU unit and they’re keeping an eye on him. So I walk in and usually when you walk into a unit like that, there’s a desk and you have to sometimes have to check in before you can walk in. Well, I walk in and there’s nobody there. But I heard a commotion and kind of in the back of the ICU unit. I walk in, this is just mind numbing. I see all the nurses and a couple of doctors surrounding this guy. I knew right away it was him. This is the man that I came to see, and he was on a gurney and his head was tilted down.
Dimitri: Wait, so he’s face down on the gurney?
Dave: No, he’s face up, but they’ve got his head down because his blood pressure dropped so far. I found out later. They were trying to keep him alive. So they’re doing all they could to keep him alive. No one even saw me come in. So there was commotion, there was beeping, all the machines and the doctors giving orders. They’re just trying to keep the guy alive. And I’m standing there with my jaw on the ground. But that wasn’t all that was going on. So about 10 feet away, his, I think it was his mother-in-law, is on her knees with her hands in the air in a loud voice. She’s praying in tongues.
Dimitri: Wait, hold on. So is this all in the same room?
Dave: No, this is right 10 feet away, right? I mean, she was right outside where the room where they’re working on him. It was kind of an open area. So she’s praying in tongues, this unknown language that some people have this, they say they have a gift to be able to speak in that way. It’s a very interesting thing, but she’s really loud. And her daughter, this man’s wife, is standing over this woman trying to calm her, and she’s talking to her, and she’s praying. So that’s going on.
Dimitri: Hold on, hold on, hold on. So I got to make sure I’m keeping, let me put it in there. So, so far we have doctors, nurses, all help is screaming, yelling, beeping.
Dave: Yeah.
Dimitri: And we know, we know an emergency, you know, when someone is coded, right? That’s already the response. And right outside that room, that space, someone’s praying, right? Talking in tongues very loudly. And someone’s on top of that person. The other person trying to calm her down and she’s praying.
Dave: Now 10 feet away from them is, is, his father who is yelling and dropping F bombs and yelling at the doctors to do something. So they got that chaos going on and his wife is standing beside him and trying to calm him down and she’s crying. That’s what I walk in on.
Dimitri: Where do you start?
Dave: Well, I didn’t know where to start. Obviously I’m not going to go over to the guy because I mean, I have nothing to do with them. Doctors got to do that. But who do I call them? Who am I there to see? Who am I trying to help out? So it was chaos. Now I tell you that story because it’s also a metaphor. What was going on there was a physical struggle. But I’ve also, I could tell you stories about sitting in a living room, a family room. A woman had called and asked me to come over. She was going to have a conflict conversation with her husband. I’m sitting there waiting for him. He walks in the door and she confronts him on an affair he’s having.
Dimitri: So he walked in today?
Dave: Walked into it. I didn’t know what was coming. He didn’t know what was coming.
Dimitri: That’s rough.
Dave: So I could also talk about how many people who were abused confronting their abusers, people that I’ve had to sit with who are in financial ruin, relationships falling apart, finances falling apart, emotions, people so depressed they can’t move.
Dimitri: You witnessed the entire spectrum of the human condition.
Dave: So my point is that ICU unit situation that I walked in on was a metaphor for all the, for over 40 years, it was dealing with struggle, pain, the aftermath of tragedy. And look, I did it because I was a pastor. I enjoyed caring for people, but this, what we’re sitting here talking about right now about vitality is my way of trying to get ahead of the tragedy, get ahead of the mess.
Dimitri: Right. And, oh, go ahead, I’m sorry.
Dave: Well, what I was going to say is Dan Heath, he’s an author. He’s written an interesting quote. He’s got a book called Upstream. This is what he said. He said, so often in life, we get stuck in a cycle of response. We put out fires, we deal with emergencies, we handle one problem after another. But then he said, but we never get around to fixing the systems that caused the problems. So this, the vitality journey here, is my attempt after 40 some years of sitting at the feet of tragedy, let’s go upstream. And let’s talk about the systems of our life. How do we get here? How do we get here? And how do we give attention to these areas of our life that need attention? And so that we can live a life of vitality.
Dimitri: Goodness. And let me ask you, I mean, as a witness to all of that and as a witness to all that, how do you feel? I mean, you’re seeing people at their worst, right? You’re observing the most vulnerable aspects of them. How do you cope and manage? I like, what is it after that and you go home and how does, what is your night?
Dave: Well, yeah, I just, and for 40, honestly, it was probably what was, you know, after 40 years of serving as a pastor in local congregations, it’s probably contributed to me saying, you know what? I think I’m going to step away from that. So it was there, but at the same time, my heart broke because at my heart, at the core of who I am, I care deeply for people and it breaks my heart. And so many times my heart was broken sitting with a man whose wife was just murdered or a mother whose son was, you know, I showed up, or a wife I showed up, he found out she is, her husband had taken his own life. My heart broke time after time after time because at my heart I’m kind of a humanist in that I believe deeply in people. And I also am a Christian humanist and I see people through the eyes of Jesus. Okay? So that’s who I am.
Dimitri: You’re able to see, recognize and help others hopefully see past their behaviors, their patterns, their habits.
Dave: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, there three things that Jesus, three little things that, well, two things that was attributed to Jesus and one thing was attributed to one of his followers that they said that really kind of summarize how I feel about people. And it’s the underpinning of this podcast. One thing that Jesus said was, I have come that they, people, might have an extraordinary life. And I’ve clung to that realizing that’s what drives me when I see a human being who’s struggling or anyone, they’re a sacred person who can live an extraordinary life. Second thing, Jesus said that I think blew my mind, he said to his followers, and I think this applies for everyone, he said, by the way, you’re going to do greater things than I ever did. So the potential in a human being is extraordinary.
Dimitri: The potential for them what? To do greater things than Jesus ever did?
Dave: Right. Right. And then the third thing was not attributed to Jesus, but one of his followers, Paul, who said this, he said, you are God’s masterpiece, created to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do. Every single human being is a masterpiece.
