Wonderfully Weird: Seven Strange Ways to Define a Life of Wonder

By Drake Hunter

Like your thumbprint, all people are unique and wonderfully made. Every person has a great deal to offer in this Wonderfully Weird life. But little will happen the way it should unless we embark on a weird adventure that will lead us to our very best uniqueness. As a Christian this should involve, first, a strange inner investigation of how we have been made on the inside, the Wonderfully Weird Image of God within, and then develop a unique life plan centered on the certainties uncovered in that investigation. One of the strongest temptations in life, as we look around us, is to become so busy and absorbed by possessions we forget to develop our Wonderfully Weird self and life we have been created to live. Our journey must start from within. and our life road map must be suitable for us, targets that resonate within our hearts, guiding us to our deepest needs. And as we shoot for these goals, we should always use our unique gifts for the good of others as well as ourselves. For only in this way will we reach our Wonderfully Weird potential for which we were created.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973671152

Drake Hunter

Author Drake Hunter challenges you to use his simple and practical outline to discover your Wonderfully Weird life. Drake writes from his everyday life experience, military background, and 30 years in Christian ministry. His passion is to help people live their very best Wonderfully Weird life through developing a Wonderfully Weird plan that uniquely fits them.

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Copyright © 2019 Drake Hunter.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-7116-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-7117-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-7115-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019911592

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/1/2019

For Joshua, Jeremiah, and Lillian (Lilly-Pad):

For all things are possible—even a ‘Wonderfully Weird’ Life.

Life Does Not Have to Be Perfect to Be Wonderful!

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I – Discovering Your Wonderfully Weird Worth

Chapter 1

Understanding Your Makeup – Wonderfully Weird Preferences

Chapter 2

Knowing Your Reason for Life – Wonderfully Weird Purpose

Chapter 3

Anchoring Your Urges to Your Possibilities – Wonderfully Weird Passions

Chapter 4

Recognizing Your Calling – Wonderfully Weird Positions

Part II – Your Wonderfully Weird Life Plan

Chapter 5

Learning to Make Decisions – Wonderfully Weird Priorities

Chapter 6

Preparing Yourself for Life – Wonderfully Weird Preparation

Chapter 7

Partaking in a Life that Works – Wonderfully Weird Participation

Conclusion

A Wonderfully Weird Life

Appendix I

The Image of God

Appendix II

The Wonderfully Weird Assessment

Appendix III

The Lion, Ox, Eagle, and Man Strengths

Selected Bibliography

Preface

For as long as you can recall, you have overheard that a wonderful life exists. In fact, you may not think lifelong fulfillment is even real; you might even believe it’s weird to think this way. You have desired this wonderfully weird joy most of your life and perhaps even desire it for others. You have felt enjoyment’s weirdness and experienced it in others. You know when this wonderfully weird attitude is present and have suffered when it seems a million miles away. You know that it’s real—that it exists in some wonderfully weird way.

However, we often do not understand the essential cravings, drives, and urges that uniquely motivate us and direct us to this wonderfully weird life. Also, we often fail to recognize that we must do our part by planning for a life of happiness rather than a life that just happens. We must create a wonderfully weird life plan based on our wonderfully weird inborn strengths, which guide us not to temporary satisfaction but to a permanent wonderfully weird happiness that very few in life experience.

In this book, we will look at your wonderfully weird desires and how to use them to construct a wonderfully weird life plan that fits you, rather than the typical plan everybody else has for you. Your wonderfully weird plan will help you stay committed, get you ready to live a wonderfully weird life, aim your life goals toward your unique traits, give you the ability to pull the trigger to launch your life plan into reality, and set targets that will motivate you to your very best. Your wonderfully weird plan will bring you results that you have not been able to obtain. It will resolve the not-so-weird problems that seem to have turned into patterns over the years and appear to have no answers to your own happiness. Your wonderfully weird plan will empower your talents, cravings, abilities, and character to bring you results that you know you should be getting but seldom do.

You will learn seven wonderfully weird ways or steps that will direct and motivate you beyond your wonderfully weird dreams:

1. You must understand your wonderfully weird preferences.

2. You must know your wonderfully weird purpose.

3. You must link your strengths to your wonderfully weird passions.

4. You must recognize your wonderfully weird positions.

5. You must decide to make a wonderfully weird life a priority.

6. You must prepare yourself for a wonderfully weird life.

7. You must partake in this wonderfully weird life.

You will know and understand how these wonderfully weird ways or steps, together, rise above normal ways of living and how they use your wonderfully weird traits to direct and motivate you to your very best wonderfully weird life. And the fun part will be finding that all of us do have the ability to experience this wonderfully weird fulfillment in this wonderfully weird life and that the journey itself is of great value to you and the other wonderfully weird people in life. So join me on this journey, as we look at how to reach your greatest weirdness in this life and beyond. You are wonderfully weird!

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all my wonderfully weird friends, family, and personal ministry regulars. You know who you are, and you have added to me much. I have been fortunate to eyewitness your growth and have been eternally moved by your intentionality, attention, and attitude toward a wonderfully weird life.

As always, a special thank-you goes to Dr. Ray W. Lincoln for believing in me and encouraging me to believe that All things are possible. I’m internally and eternally grateful for your generosity, decency, effort, and wisdom. Your wisdom continues to blow my mind!

To my partner in life, my wife, Sherrie. A very, very special thank-you for your kindness and involvement in all my work, and for your unconditional love and nonstop support. You are simply wonderful!

Introduction

Have you ever done anything wonderfully weird? In March 2019, Sherrie and I did something wonderfully weird: we made it to our thirty-second year of marriage and decided to go on a Caribbean Princess Cruise. There I had a bit of time to reflect on some other wonderfully weird things Sherrie and I had done over the past thirty-two years together. One that was most significant came to mind: our wonderfully weird trip to Cozumel, Mexico, for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

I recall the first day wasn’t that weird; it was the second day when things got interesting. On that day we decided to go on a snorkeling adventure trip in the Caribbean Sea. To begin our wonderfully weird trip, our guide led us to a coral reef about two miles from our resort on the beach. We absolutely loved it, even though it was a bit weird for us to do! It was like swimming in an enormous saltwater fish tank. It was wonderfully weird.

Once Sherrie and I were in the water snorkeling, we decided to do a wonderfully weird thing; we decided to venture off on our own to see all the wonderfully weird fish and enjoy a wonderfully weird time together. It was spellbinding—peaceful, beautiful, and wonderfully weird all at the same time. As we snorkeled around the reef, we were captivated by the wonderfully weird life swimming just a few feet below. We saw weird-colored fish, crazy-looking plants, and the reef itself—alive with wonderful weirdness. It was truly a wonderfully weird experience, an experience of a lifetime.

After being entranced by this wonderfully weird world for some time, I lifted my head out of the water and looked around. I was shocked at the distance we had drifted in such a short time. Fixed in a riptide, a very weird thing happened, we drifted nearly a mile from where we began. Weird, right? My heart began pounding, and I fell into near panic seeing we were so far away from our beginning point. I immediately felt and started having weird thoughts. How did we get so far away? Where are we? Where’s our guide? Can I swim faster than Sherrie if a shark starts pursuing us? (Just kidding on that last one.)

Fortunately, looking behind me, I saw our guide only a few hundred feet away, patiently waiting for us to return. With Sherrie at my side, I anxiously swam back and enjoyed the rest of our wonderfully weird journey—with our guide squarely in my sight. Once back on the boat and back in our hotel, I reflected on this wonderfully weird experience.

All too often our lives are just like this experience. We start out with a wonderfully weird dream in mind, and then, without consciously intending to do so, we end up in an entirely different place than we expected. After some time, we decide to lift our head and notice the wonderfully weird dreams and visions we once imagined are astonishingly far away; they are only a passing memory in our not-so-weird past.

The truth is, most people settle for a mundane life and end up living an uninteresting and unfulfilled life; they travel the safe road, and life just happens. But if you want to live a life worth living, a wonderfully weird and fulfilled life, unlike most—it requires wonderfully weird effort and personal courage on your part. It requires living on purpose, paying attention to life, and having an attitude of kindness (to self and others) and curiosity. If you want to have a life worth living, you need to fight against the mundane or routine of life, so you can experience the wonderfully weird life everyone has been made to live. The question is Are you willing to be weird enough to make it happen?

To begin, let’s do something wonderfully weird. Let’s explore what your idea of happiness is.

Most people I encounter do not want a life that just happens or is just normal—you know, just being another Brick in the Wall. Most people, at their very core, want a life that is lived to the fullest or a wonderfully weird life lived out based on their wonderfully weird strengths, beliefs, and character. This often raises a few questions: What does this kind of wonderfully weird life look like? How does one actually live that kind of life? How do we keep ourselves from the normalcy of this life? These are the questions that will be answered as we journey through this book.

A life lived to the fullest—or what I call a wonderfully weird life—is one that embraces divine beauty, goodness, truth, and unity; that drives a wonderfully weird life forward through wonderfully weird values, purpose, dreams, mission, tasks, and activities to create a meaningful and wonderful experiences that add to the whole of life. However, what happens when life falls into isolation, smugness, or misery, and the purpose of life seems far away? What happens when life feels less like life and more like drudgery? What happens when the love experienced early in life has turned into bitterness and hate? And most important, what happens when hope seems too far off?

This book has been written to help those who feel as if life is just too tiresome and humdrum. It has been written for those who desperately want to figure out their wonderfully weird life, who want to embrace a wonderfully weird life worth living—a life full of wonderfully weird freedom, security, independence, and growth, a life of wonderfully weird happiness. It is designed to help people discover their wonderful weirdness and their wonderfully weird role in life, reaching their greatest wonderfully weird potential. It explores how people can discover their wonderfully weird self-image and self-worth and develop a wonderfully weird life plan using their wonderfully weird inborn, factory-installed, hardwired, God-given strengths. My hope is that this book will keep people from merely living in life’s normalcy and craft a wonderfully weird plan for living life in its fullest wonderfully weird expression—a wonderfully weird life.

The first realization anyone must come to along this journey is this: No two people are alike. We are all wonderfully weird! Just like your wonderfully weird thumbprint, your inner design is just as wonderfully weird. Ever been part of a discussion, listened to a message, or read a self-improvement book that passionately shares that all people are the same—you know, normal—and all a person must do is follow certain life steps to find fulfillment? They say this as if there is only one pathway to happiness or fulfillment for everyone.

The truth is the exact opposite. Since the beginning of time, people have embraced the wonderfully weird life of the individual. Only recently, in the last hundred and fifty years or so, has this understanding been in question. From the writings of the Bible, to Hippocrates’s observation, through Carl Jung’s research, Isabel Meyers type-watching, David Keirsey’s questioning, and Ray Lincoln’s spiritual insight, this belief has been recognized and validated over and over again.

The fact of the matter is that while we are all a part of humankind, we