Maybe it’s because I had another birthday yesterday, or maybe it’s because that birthday was also Election Day. Maybe it’s because I work with a school whose mission reads, in part, to “cherish character.” But lately I’ve had character on the brain.
Character in leadership.
Character development.
Character habits.
Dr. King envisioned a day when Americans would be judged “solely by the content of their character.” Our answer to that culturally is to try and not judge anybody at all. That is, until the tide of public opinion breaks the dam of political correctness. Or the electorate gets a belly full of whoever the incumbent is. Or the arrogant, narcissistic preacher or politician or boss-person overestimates their awesomeness one time too many.
In spite of our fascination with techniques, charisma, methods, or technology, people of influence still have to deal with the Character Connection.
You have to deal with it when you look in the mirror, when nobody else is looking.
You have to deal with it when you’re on the pedestal, when everybody’s cheering.
You have to do it in the outhouse, when everybody’s jeering, or they have forgotten you.
In spite of our efforts to prove otherwise (and we’ve had some pretty spectacular efforts), character earns the politician the right to legislate and pontificate. Character earns the right for the preacher to articulate truth. Character earns the business leader the right to profit in the marketplace of both money and ideas.
And a loss of character can undermine them all.
There are lots of ideas – good ideas – about what forms and sustains character when it comes to leadership. [click to continue…]
Driver ahead has precious cargo.
He’s creeping along the slow lane with a new mattress and box spring strapped to his little trailer.
Any other day, I’d whiz by without a second thought.
But not today.
My cargo’s precious, too… a top-heavy banana pudding, topped with meringue, perched precariously in the back seat.
So I fall in line and follow… slowly.
Some things were meant for the slow lane, and only fools try to hurry them. [click to continue…]
Into every life there come those moments that cut new paths – awkward, ugly paths – across our landscape. Shadow experiences that block the warmth of the sun’s rays and leave us in a dark spot – or leave dark spots on us.
Most of these shadow moments are fleeting. Just as the sun stays in motion across the sky and recasts the shadows on the ground, life moves on and the light returns to our lives.
But sometimes the Shadow has a life and mind of its own. Sometimes it simply refuses to leave, and we’re left with the scars and the questions and the daytime darkness that threaten to block our sun forever. Sometimes, regardless of the truths we know or the time gone by, it just seems that the Shadow’s always there.
When the Shadow’s always there, if feels as though you have your own personal cloud suspended right over you, while the rest of the world basks in the sunshine. It’s easy to worry that you’re everybody’s else’s downer… when the Shadow’s always there. [click to continue…]
I want to tell you about Wayne.
Wayne is a painter, and he’s doing some painting at my house.
He’s very friendly, has great rates and does fabulous work.
But that’s not what’s remarkable about Wayne.
What’s remarkable is that he loves to paint.
Now I’ve painted for money before.
I don’t love to paint.
I’ve painted for free before.
Verdict is the same.
Wayne? He’s crazy. [click to continue…]
I pray that wherever you are in relation to your dreams – whether putting them to bed or waking them up – crying out for new visions or mourning the death of old ones – I pray that you would endure…
Not just in terms of putting one foot in front of the other (that’s survival), but in terms of first love – the endurance of the heart. Specifically I pray that… [click to continue…]
Somewhere near you there’s a frustrated pastor whose tried-and-true methods for leadership or church growth he has spent much of a lifetime developing aren’t working anymore. He’s too passionate to quit, but too tired to start over.
Somewhere down the road is an organization that once was the hallmark of success because of its ways of doing ministry or business. The strategy it perfected was brilliant and worked when others failed. Until it quit working as effectively.
Somewhere nearby a young man is giving up on everything he knew of the Faith as a boy. Why? Because his boyhood faith doesn’t give him answers to his adult realities and temptations. The problem is, he doesn’t yet have a man-sized faith to take its place.
In all three of these scenarios, as described in the previous post, somebody’s system was breaking down… And God has them right where He wants them. [click to continue…]
One day you’re going to use the same technique for praying that you have seen God respond to time and time again. But your prayer won’t get what you consider a positive response.
One day you’re going to claim that healing, rebuke that sickness, or do whatever you’ve done repeatedly to see the Lord respond in situations like that. But he healing won’t be coming. At least not the way you believed it would come.
One day you’re going to repeat the same steps or process you have used dozens of times before and seen genuine fruit or progress in your personal life or ministry. But this time it’s going to come up a bust.
One day you’re going to turn to your pet theology (excuse me… I mean your belief system), where things have made sense and given you wisdom, insight, and clarity for years. But this time your pet theology will have no answers.
And let me go ahead and cut to the chase – all of this is deliberate, and it’s God’s idea. [click to continue…]
The original premise of LifeVesting is, what would happen if we applied principles of financial investing to all the areas of our lives? Some of the things we have explored in the process are:
- There are four – and only four – things you can spend your time and money on.
- It is possible, like the Bible’s “Proverbs 31 woman,” to position yourself so that you laugh at the future rather than worry about it.
- God has an economy and you can be rich in it.
Nearly ten years after my son proposed the idea, it still intrigues me. Lately I’ve been thinking about some wisdom I got from my friend Kirk the Builder. Kirk works for a major contractor who has built multi-million-dollar facilities all over the country. One day we were having lunch and talking about the biz, and Kirk shared some profound wisdom.
In construction, he said, people can pick any two of three options: good, fast, and cheap. We want all three, but we can’t have all three.
We can have good and fast, but it won’t be cheap.
We can have good and cheap, but it won’t be fast.
We can have fast and cheap, but it won’t be good.
What intrigues me about that is that the principle isn’t limited to bricks-and-sticks construction. [click to continue…]
How was church today?
That’s a pretty common question in my family. With four households all involved in some sort of ministry, all living and attending four different worship venues, it’s not unusual for me to ask.
But it’s also important for me to remember that I’m asking a consumer question.
I’m basically asking somebody in my family to evaluate their experience. To interpret an event. Yes, to tell me what they got out of it or whether they liked the goings-on down at the church house.
Is that wrong? Not necessarily. But it’s a pitifully limited – and limiting – question. [click to continue…]
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.” -Matthew Henry
You’re thinking you must have done something terrible. Or maybe that God’s been playing favorites, and you’re not one of them.
Have you ever noticed that when you’re going through adversity, you seem to be surrounded by people whose lives seem so easy? So effortless?
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to feel offended – actually offended – when you’re plowing through the tough stuff? As if God or life or the world owed you something and hasn’t paid up?
Let’s face it – nobody gets up in the morning yearning for a hard day. Nobody prays for more pain. And yet go to any source of earthly or heavenly wisdom, and you’ll see somebody talking about the pure value of adversity. Let’s just start at the top:
It is good for me that I was afflicted,
That I may learn Your statutes (Psalm 119:71).
Speak for yourself, holy man! This is twenty-first century America, where God owes us an easy life. We’re on his winning team and all that.
Right?
Think again.
Some of the most profound wisdom you can ever attain will come at the other end of affliction, which is a general word for whatever crap you’re going through. If it hurts, it’s affliction. I know, yours is unique and your situation is different. I know – believe me, I know – that your pain is real and you’d do just about anything for some relief.
I also know that if you’re right in the middle of the affliction right now, you may probably want to save this for future reference. Sometimes it’s hard to see the abundant treasure when all you can do is feel the fire of the furnace. But I want to tell you that there truly is beauty, even in your moments of deep pain. Learning from the experience of the psalmist, you can find ways that what looks bad today can lead to extraordinary goodness tomorrow.
What’s so good about affliction? [click to continue…]