You can accomplish every task set before you, live your life as a model of get-it-doneness, and die with a clean desk… and a completely unfulfilled life.
It’s possible to check off every box on your to-do list today, yet go to sleep tonight completely joyless… only to do it all over again tomorrow.
You may be the one everybody calls for help with prioritizing, streamlining, simplifying and ordering, only for your phone to grow cold when it’s hang-out time.
I think I may have found the problem… and the solution.
Get out of time management.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit too strong. Let me try again… Don’t just manage your time. Lead it.
I showed up at the gym yesterday, ready to tangle again with Jacobs Ladder, its newest chamber of horrors, among other things. Just as I hit the sidewalk, I passed an older couple getting out of their car. “Older” as in mid-to-late sixties, I suppose.
There was something different about him. Maybe it was that he moved with a straighter, more invigorated gait than other men his age. Maybe it was the intentionally-tight silver buzz haircut. Maybe it was the black Army t-shirt he wore – something similar to the one pictured here.
“Stop,” said that little voice inside my head. (You have one too… you may want to pay more attention.)
A bit out of character for me in places like this, I paused to ask: “Are you a veteran?”
His already-alert face lit up as he helped his wife to the curb. “Yes, I am,” he smiled. [click to continue…]
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It’s one of the secrets of everything that motivates you – in fact, your deep, abiding happiness depends on it. Yet it’s so hidden, so behind-the-scenes, that if I were to ask you to list your strongest longings, I’m almost certain this wouldn’t make the list.
But it’s there. It’s powerful. And your response to it may well be the difference between addicted and sober.
In the previous post I introduced you to The Law of the Nail. A corollary to the Law of the Hammer (“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”), the Law of the Nail says,
If you are a nail, and especially if you’ve been pounded a time or two, everything (and everybody) looks like a hammer.
That’s even true when you’re a light bulb, not a hammer. Just watch the video:
Everybody gets banged up by people or by life sooner or later. But sometimes we are faced with situations in which we must work with, lead, or love people who, in nail terminology, are really bent up.
Because you are on the same planet, much less in the same building or room, they don’t trust you. Doesn’t matter whether you have earned their mistrust or not. They perceive, speak, and reason through their woundedness. And as far as they’re concerned, you’re just another hammer, waiting for your chance to pound away at them.
So what do you do with these people? Make their fears come true? Write them off? Get offended? Ignore them?
I’d like to suggest that you have an opportunity to both get the job done (whatever “the job” is) and be an instrument of healing. Here are some ideas: [click to continue…]
Ever hear of the Law of the Hammer? Also called The Law of the Instrument, it has been attributed to both Abraham Maslow and Abraham Kaplan (neither of whom were carpenters, I don’t think).
The Law of the Hammer is based on the idea that people tend to look for cure-alls or over-use familiar tools, especially in dealing with people. It says, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”
Wise. In other words, diversify your toolbox.
I’m not a carpenter either, and six months of bending nails in 1979-80 can attest to that. But I’ve spent a lot of my life building, working with, leading, and being an instrument of healing to people. And I have observed a corollary to the Law of the Hammer that is important to remember in dealing with people. I call it The Law of the Nail:
If you are a nail, and especially if you’ve been pounded a time or two, everything (and everybody) looks like a hammer.
I’ve been on all sides of that. I’ve been the nail. Banged the nail. Straightened out bent nails. Sat in on more than my share of Nails Anonymous meetings (including pastors’ prayer meetings). I’ve hired nails to go to work for me without realizing how pounded they had been. And I have learned, sometimes the hard way, that living in a broken world means working with and leading broken or bruised people. So at the risk of pounding the metaphor too much (sorry), here are some ideas for finding healing if you are the nail, or in the next post, working with and leading the nails in your organization or workplace. [click to continue…]
Last week I was having a “what do I do” conversation with a youth pastor in another city. Seems he found himself at an impasse with his boss – the senior pastor of the church – over what leadership was supposed to look like. His take on it: the “leader” isn’t leading anybody. Not him, not the others involved in the problem. Nobody.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a frustrated children’s pastor about a supervisor who was repeatedly letting important details fall through the cracks. It got so bad, the entire church leadership team was hindered in getting their work done.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve counseled or consulted with employees or constituents – inside and outside Church World – who are crying out for visionary, heart-based leadership. All they get instead are insecure emperors, oilers of the machinery, or absent-minded trips down memory lane.
Whenever I hear yet another story of position holders who are failing the people they’re supposed to be leading, I have two knee-jerk reactions. First, I want to take up the constituents’ offense. I want to bark and growl and roll my eyes and look incredulously and fuss and fume. Second, I wonder if anybody could issue the same complaint about me if they were completely honest.
Just for laughs, why don’t we stick out necks out and try on an idea. Leadership failures aren’t the result of somebody setting out to ruin an organization or to make your life or work miserable. (Hey, I said “try it on”… if it doesn’t fit, we can fuss and fume some more later.) Assuming that’s true, then, where do we go wrong? How do leaders begin to suck the life out of people or organizations? Here are 10 things to watch for: [click to continue…]
So you want to design a life, not just make a living? You want to experience the sensation of victory, or spiritual power? You want to build something, not just take up space on the planet? You want to say you’ve run your race, won your prize, fulfilled your calling or purpose?
If that doesn’t describe you, don’t waste your time reading any further. Go back to the Food Network or CNN or something.
But if that does describe you, and you believe you were put on this earth to do more than recycle gases and other organic stuff, read on.
In any meaningful endeavor, but particularly in one that involves the fulfillment of a spiritual vision, people (and leaders in particular) are faced with three inescapable questions.
1. Do your actions demonstrate a commitment to that which is most important?
2. Will you continue to move forward, even when surrounded by a hostile or apathetic majority?
3. Where will you look for the internal power to finish the job?[click to continue…]
In spite of all her lamentable weaknesses, appalling failures and indefensible shortcomings, the Church is the mightiest force for civilization and enlightened social consciousness in the world today. The only force in the world that is contesting Satan’s total rule in human affairs is the church of the living God. -Paul Billheimer
What does it take to rouse a sleeping giant?
Whatever it takes, I think now is the time.
One of the biggest clichés and repeated experiences in history is that of unrealized potential. It’s one of the reasons I believe heaven will be a place in which God wipes every tear from our eyes. When we see what was in light of what could have been – with our lives, and with our corporate potential – we will have no alternative but to weep.
For years, as a global body, the Western church has been asleep at the wheel or, worse, awakened to fight the wrong battles, the wrong enemy, or with the wrong weapons of warfare. We’ve made an art form of “trivial pursuit,” and the world is worse off because of it.
The first Century Church didn’t keep up with its time, didn’t spend its energy keeping up with its time. The first Century Church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not the runner up. – Erwin McManus
If you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, I’m referring to you. I’m referring to me. But the news isn’t all bad. We serve a God who is wonderfully capable of waking sleeping giants. He did it on a national scale, both with His own nation and at times even with foreign, pagan countries. And I believe He’s doing it today. [click to continue…]
You can accomplish every task set before you, live your life as a model of get-it-doneness, and die with a clean desk… and a completely unfulfilled life.
Last week I was having a “what do I do” conversation with a youth pastor in another city. Seems he found himself at an impasse with his boss – the senior pastor of the church – over what leadership was supposed to look like. His take on it: the “leader” isn’t leading anybody. Not him, not the others involved in the problem. Nobody.
