Earn My Trust

by Andy Wood on August 26, 2009

in 100 Words

SalesmanIf you want to tell me something you know,

But you can’t tell me everything you know,

Then tell me first what has cost you greatly.

Tell me what you’ve paid a high price to understand.

Until then, everything else is trivia.

A pitch.

A con, where the joke’s on you.

But when I understand the life message forged from your scars,

Or find the hill you’d choose to die on…

When I see the passion you practice,

Then I’ll gladly hear the message you preach.

In fact, I’ll listen to anything you have to say.

You’ll have my trust.

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Forrest Gump Goes to Church

by Andy Wood on August 23, 2009

in Esteem, Life Currency, Love

Forrest gump 2“I’m not a smart man – but I know what love is.”
-Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump 

Attending a Christian worship service is a very different kind of experience for many different kinds of people.  For me on most weekends, it’s Game Day.  All hands on deck.  Because of the responsibilities I have, it’s something of a 90-minute rehearsal taking place in my brain – rehearsing sermon points, announcements, and service order points that will unfold in a matter of seconds – all under the theme, “What comes next?”

This weekend was no different in that regard.  We had three services with lots of moving parts, and I was tracking with all of them. And yet for reasons I have yet to understand, I was surprised to find my heart stirred by special faces in distant places.  I found myself so aware – so drawn – so surprised by love – at one point during one of the offertories, all I could do is sit there and weep. 

In short, I was beautifully startled by the people who attended the services in my West Texas church this weekend. [click to continue…]

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How to Build Your Own Life Maximizer

by Andy Wood on August 21, 2009

in Five LV Laws, Following Your Passion, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Increase, Time

PlannerIn a previous post I mentioned how I experienced a mini-revolution when somebody suggested that the simplest and most powerful form of goal-setting is simply making a list of things I want to BE, DO, and HAVE.  I went to town!  And wasn’t content just to itemize some things.  I wanted to learn from them.  I wanted to learn how to redesign my life before God so that when opportunities arose, like Joshua, I could take quick action.

For me, that meant creating a tool that would help channel my thinking and my actions in the right direction.  I began thinking of it as my own personalized planner.  I learned from Steven Covey about intentionally planning for the important, though not necessarily urgent, things.  I learned from Anthony Robbins about thinking about the states of mind/heart I wanted to experience each day.  I learned from the life of Joseph that if I cultivated faithfulness in the daily spaces and dark places, that one day the prison doors would open and Pharaoh would come calling.

So, beginning with the end of the day in mind, I asked myself,

“Self, at the end of the perfect day for me, what can I say that I have done”?

Here is what “God put in my heart to do” (Nehemiah 2:18).  Your answer to the question, of course, would be your own.  [click to continue…]

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Buyback: Be a Life Redeemer!

by Andy Wood on August 19, 2009

in Consumers, Executing Your Plan, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Time, Waiting

backwards clock“So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever happened to Green Stamps?  They’re an indelible memory of my childhood.  In case you missed it, the Sperry & Hutchinson Company, began offering stamps to retailers back in 1896. Grocery stores, gas stations and the like bought the stamps from S&H and gave them as bonuses with every purchase, based on the amount you bought.  In their heyday, 80 percent of U.S. households collected some kind of stamp.

My sister and I grew up licking green stamps and pasting them in books.  When the A&P bag began filling up with completed books, we started getting excited.  We’d peer at the two pages of toys in the S&H catalogue, surrounded by page after page of sheets, clocks, toasters, and other boring things.  (Truth be told, you could get virtually anything with stamps; a school in Erie, Pennsylvania, exchanged 5.4 million stamps for two gorillas for the local zoo.)

Anyway, when we had collected enough to make the trade, we’d go off to the Redemption Center.  Technically, we’d already “bought” the stuff.  We were presenting evidence of our purchase (the stamps) in order to redeem – to buy back – our merchandise.

This is not about Green Stamps, but about redeeming.  About buying back something that already belongs to you – namely your opportunities and your time.  [click to continue…]

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Sand Castles and Dandelions

by Andy Wood on August 18, 2009

in Esteem, Life Currency, Love, Words

A famous writer once described a beach scene where two children, a boy and a girl, were building an elaborate sand castle near the water’s edge.  It had gates and towers and moats and internal passages.  Just when they nearly finished the project, a huge wave tumbled in and knocked the whole thing down.  Instead of bursting into tears because of losing their hard work, the girl and boy ran up the shore from the water, laughing and holding hands, and started work on another castle.

It seems so instinctive to children.  Take the most wonder-filled moments the day has to offer – a castle made of sand, or a dandelion just waiting to be carried by the wind – and look for someone to share it with in love.  But time and age have a way of turning our hearts if we let them.  Castle-building becomes the higher priority, and dandelions become annoying weeds.

Here is the author’s takeaway:

All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand… Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up.  When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.

sand castlesLike anybody else who’s been around a while, I have my share of regrets.  One of them has been the tendency to walk away from relationships when it was time to “move up the beach and build the next castle.”  Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to have some people in my life who wouldn’t take “Good-bye” as the last word, and that’s a good thing.  Had it been left up to me, that relationship would have faded away.  I’m working on changing that.

In the previous post, I mentioned that even in an isolated prison, the Apostle Paul found a way to stay close to the people he loved.  In particular, he was a master at using words.  All throughout his life and ministry, this man knew just what to say or write to draw people to him, and to Christ.

Maybe we can learn some things from Paul’s example.  Once you know who’s in your heart (or who you’d like to have there), here are some ways to keep them close: [click to continue…]

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Who’s In Your Heart?

by Andy Wood on August 14, 2009

in Enlarging Your Capacity, Esteem, Life Currency, Love, LV Cycle

Write Letter“I have you in my heart.”

Sounds charming, doesn’t it?  The stuff of Hallmark cards and chick flicks, BFFs and boyfriends.

What if I were to tell you that the person who said this wrote it from a prison cell?  That he (yes, he) was a time-hardened traveler who never could take “no” for an answer?  That he once was a religious terrorist and murderer?  A 63-or-so-year-old man who had argued his way in and out of trouble so many times, many of his closest associates had hit the road?

And yet from prison he wrote to a group of VIPs – friends who had been sources of great joy to him.  And this is what he said: [click to continue…]

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Joseph Had No Kingdom

by Andy Wood on August 12, 2009

in Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Pleasers, Principle of Increase, Waiting

(Reconciling Your Dreams with God’s Plan)

conflictOnce upon a time, a young man had a dream – a prophetic dream.  He dreamed that he had two homes, his own boat, and would travel internationally and be a blessing to many people.  This could only mean one thing!  Obviously God was calling him into the business world, where he would make a lot of money and use his wealth to make the world a better place. 

After seeking some counsel and getting confirmation that he was headed in the right direction, he changed his college major to business and prepared for a life of benevolent wealth management.

 Then he met her.  [click to continue…]

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Cartoons, Dreams, and Old Friends

by Andy Wood on August 10, 2009

in Life Currency, Love, LV Cycle, Waiting

old friendsIn a previous administration, a lady in our church came back from a trip and brought me a page-per-day calendar.  On each page was a funny cartoon about life in Church World.  I loved it!  Whoever the cartoonist is, he knows church people. 

Whenever I found a cartoon that was particularly funny to me, I tried to share with somebody else I thought could appreciate it as much as I did.  One day I found just such a cartoon.  I laughed out loud, and it reminded me of someone.  But it took me a minute to realize who the cartoon made me think of.  Then like a lightning bolt it hit me:  the name and face of an old friend.  The things the cartoon made fun of were things that he and I used to laugh a lot about.  It made me think of him so much, I almost sent it to him . . . in a blank envelope. 

Within seconds my laughter had turned to a peaceful sadness.  The cartoon was still funny, but the situation it reminded me of wasn’t.  The last time I had contact with my old friend, I had disappointed him very badly.  I didn’t mean to hurt him, and he knew that.  He wasn’t bitter at me. I still called him my friend, although I hadn’t been much of a friend to him.  But circumstances beyond our control had prevented us from healing and rebuilding what once was a wonderful, close friendship.  It was very sad, and at times very painful.

That night I dreamed of him – I’m sure because of the cartoon.  [click to continue…]

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The Perfect Form and the Perfect Storm

by Andy Wood on August 7, 2009

in Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, Principle of Legacy, Turning Points

Seven or eight years ago, I was taking a shuttle from the Founders Inn Hotel on the edge of Regent University down to the shoreline in Virginia Beach.  It was just the driver and me, and to make conversation, I asked him, “Do you know where London Bridge Baptist Church is?”

“Sure,” he said.  It’s not far from here.  You know somebody there?

“No.  But I went there on my very first mission trip.”

“Why would anybody,” he wanted to know, “come to Virginia Beach on a mission trip?”

That night I didn’t know how to answer him – this man who lives in the shadow of Pat Robertson and CBN, Rock Church, and a host of other citadels of Evangelicalism.  Today I think I do.  It was the Perfect Form.

The Proposition

“Mission ‘73” it was called.  I caught a glimpse of an announcement in our church bulletin.  A youth choir mission trip to Virginia Beach, VA, for students who had completed the ninth grade or older.  Hey, I loved to travel and barely made the age cutoff, so I was sold!  I was still a spiritual newbie, and didn’t really know very many people.  But I was undeterred.

Mark Stone, the pastor of London Bridge at the time, was an old friend of my pastor.  We would go to this crossroads of vacationers, military personnel, and growing suburbanites and conduct Backyard Bible Clubs, help lead out in a church revival, and witness along the Boardwalk and beach along the Atlantic.

The Cast

I was among the youngest – and spiritually greenest –of the 64 or so to go on this adventure.  I was surrounded by people who were older, more established, and way more sure of themselves.  I certainly can’t remember them all, but the list included: [click to continue…]

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Soaring Above Your Prison

by Andy Wood on August 5, 2009

in Five LV Laws, Principle of Freedom

prison prayerApril-something 2002.  It was one of the most surreal, prophetic dreams I’ve ever had.  I dreamed I was in prison.  Not sure what the crime was; I just remember being in a cell there.  The only thing remarkable about that was that instead of the typical concrete and steel, this cell had a nice waxed tile floor and bright lights. 

 For some reason, they let me out on a weekend pass, but eventually I had to go back.  I remember dreading the return, and trying to avoid it.  But I did wind up back in my tile‑floored cell. There in the cell, alone, my thoughts turned to Watchman Nee, the Chinese pastor/teacher who was imprisoned by the communist regime for his faith.  All those years he spent in prison.  How did he do it?  How could he experience God’s presence there in the prison?

It was then I actually saw him.  In my dream I saw Watchman Nee, prostrate on the floor of his prison cell.  As I watched, he was transformed before my eyes into a puppy – a black Labrador Retriever puppy.  Then he changed into a silver chalice.  Taller, thinner.  Rising up.  From that he changed into a giraffe.  He had risen above his prison cell and was feeding in the tops of the trees.

Four Images of Transformation

Just like that, the dream was over. I was left with four crystal-clear images – a prostrate man, a black lab puppy, a silver chalice, and a giraffe.  A transformation from prison to freedom, though the outward circumstances never changed. A deliberately-staged process, flowing from the floor to the heavens.  What did it mean? [click to continue…]

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