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My friend Kevin, who is also an elder in our church, is a professional idea generator. He drives a “Dream Taxi,” whose mission in life is to help individuals, couples, ministries, and organizations achieve their goals with excellence and bucketloads of creativity.
While I can’t hold a candle to his idea-generating genius, I thought I’d take a stab at it.
In the previous post, I looked at the first stage of the LifeVesting cycle, Allocate your Resources.
Here’s the second:
2. Consider the possibilities.
Back to the farming analogy, take a look at this familiar verse:
“He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed,
Shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:6).
Interesting promise. Especially when you understand that first-century agriculture was done in a way that we would consider backwards. In those days, the farmer would cast his seed first, then plow it in and cultivate the ground. Not very efficient by today’s standards, but the spiritual image is compelling. Once the farmer had a vision of what he wanted to harvest, he was prepared to start casting the seed. He didn’t do a lot of computerized soil samples. He didn’t analyze it to death. He walked to and fro, looking for opportunities to cast!
This stage of the cycle asks you to consider the kind of results you want to have by doing what our farmer did here. [click to continue…]
I live in an area in which cotton farming is a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Care to hazard a guess about how much time the farmers here spend stripping or picking cotton?
About two weeks.
Everything that determines their futures for another year comes down to a two-week process. And yet, it’s what they do during the other 50 weeks of the year that will make or break the success of their harvest.
It’s all about the cycle, and where they are on it.
You may not be a farmer, but you were created to be a harvester of sorts. God created you with the capacity to envision a better future and a rewarding eternal state. But in most worthwhile pursuits, you don’t have the luxury of microwaving your results in a matter of minutes. While his medals were earned in a matter of seconds, Michael Phelps didn’t jump into a pool for the first time in June. His victories were the crowning achievement of his training cycle.
We, too, experience life in a variety of cycles. The seasons, economic cycles, and generational cycles come to mind. LifeVesting is no different. Each of the Laws of LifeVesting operate on cycles of continuous movement.
Don’t think of these as a locked-in sequence of steps; life is wonderfully much messier than that. Instead, think of the LifeVesting cycle as a flow of activity, moving from one stage to another. Over the next few days, I’d like to explore these with you. [click to continue…]
You're closer to death than ever.
Jeff, a very gracious and thoughtful reader, made the following comment on my post about the LifeVesting Principle of Abundance:
I have been seeking God’s truth for a while now and many of the things you said here coincide with what has been revealed to me. Except one- that we have one life. I’m not here to dispute anyone else’s faith or beliefs. Whatever one person feels about God is probably necessary for that person’s spiritual growth. However, i just feel compelled to say that one thing that I have come to understand is that we have many lives. Again, if you truly believe we have “one shot”, then I am not here to judge your faith. I just think that those who read this should at least explore the possibility of reincarnation. I think that the idea that God would give us one chance is contradictory to his nature, and his plan.
Jeff’s ideas and request (that we should at least explore the possibility of reincarnation) actually speaks to a fifth principle of LifeVesting – the principle of Eternity. For the sake of review, The first four “Laws of LifeVesting” are as follows (they’re built around the acrostic, Get A.L.I.F.E.):
Abundance: I live in an abundant universe, created by an abundant God, who wants me to have an abundant life.
Legacy: I have the power to influence and bless others long after my life on earth is over.
Increase: I will receive an increase on my life choices in proportion to my willingness to invest and wait.
Freedom: I will be served by the people and things I invest in and serve.
The Principle of Eternity says: I have the opportunity to affect the quality of eternity by the choices I make.
I would be interested to know your thoughts about Jeff’s comments; here are mine. [click to continue…]
Hey, wanna have some fun – part mindless, part meaningful? Check out wordle. A wordle is a decorative word tag that is built on whatever text you may supply. It randomly creates a tag cloud, but allows you the opportunity to change into a wonderful variety of fonts and color schemes, including a pallette that allows you to design your own color scheme. I just made this one from the Sermon on the Mount (NIV, if you MUST know). Click on the image for a much better look.
Since I had the text from their wedding ceremonies, I made a unique Wordle for all three of my kids, and some of the others brides and grooms I’ve done weddings for. Printed on a good printer, it makes a nice (cheap) and completely unique gift. (Here’s the one from Carrie and Kyle’s ceremony:)
In order to save it, I use ScreenHunter, a great free tool for taking a picture of whatever’s on your screen.
The deep, spiritual side of me likes the way the words can be uniquely rearranged based on the number of uses in the text. Gives me something to meditate on. The ADD side of me gives me something to do when I should be taking out the trash, grading papers, or something more, uh, useful. Enjoy!
John W. Drakeford
Dr. John Drakeford had an open-door policy. Yes, the counseling icon, who pioneered a Christ-centered approach to psychology and counseling, had a rule that whenever his office door was open, any student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary could walk in.
But that’s not the open door policy to which I refer.
Dr. Drakeford also had this thing about the door to his classroom. He saw to it that it remained open at all times, propped so by a chair. Without fail, when a student arrived a bit late to class, he/she would grab that available chair, and the classroom door would swing shut.
“Suh, suh!” Dr. Drakeford would say in his beautiful Australian accent. “Could you choose another seat? I like to keep the door propped open in case of fire or something.”
I don’t think anybody else in the room believed that propping two swinging doors open would stop any of us from getting the heck outta’ there if the building was burning down. But who wants to argue with the author of Psychology in Search of the Soul?
One day, right in the middle of one of Drakeford’s fascinating lectures, somebody nabbed the empty chair and took off down the hall. I believe to this day it was a prank. [click to continue…]
Pastors get lots of interesting questions. You be the pastor for a minute and answer this one I once received:
Does God like to have fun? What does God do for fun?
What would you say? To me, it’s a sad commentary on our Christianity when someone even has to ask the first question. But both questions deserve an answer, or at least a thought. Here, for what it’s worth, is mine. Click on the comments link below and share yours.
Does God like to have fun? You bet he does! Have you ever seen a platypus? Or a puppy? Or a picture of me?
Does God like to have fun? Of course! Why else would he put two sisters in the same family, and give one straight blonde hair and the other one curly dark hair? In fact, why else would He create everybody so differently? [click to continue…]
LifeVesting is about creating a compelling future and leaving a legacy long after your life here is done.
How do you want to be remembered? Here are a couple of ways I don’t recommend. One is pretty funny – the other, painfully sad.
The Man Who Got Shot and Arrested for Robbing a Drug Store with a Caulking Gun
The Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram reported on August 15 that a 24-year-old man, John Wilkinson, of Big Spring, walked into a West Texas pharmacy carrying what looked like a gun wrapped in a dark cloth, and demanding Xanax and hydrocodine.
After getting the drugs from the drug store, Wilkinson tried to make his escape, but realized he had locked his keys in his running car in front of the store. So he took off running on foot.
He was shot by police.
He’s not dead, though.
Just under arrest for suspicion of armed robbery after being treated for the gun shot.
Oh, and John’s weapon of choice? A caulking gun.
Not sure what he would have done had the druggist challenged him. I guess he would have waterproof-sealed him to death.
The World’s Most Honest Obit
The following obituary was posted a couple of weeks ago in the Napa/Sonoma Times Herald. It was confirmed to be real here. Brace yourself…. [click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
“Hi, I’m Butch, and I’m an alcoholic.”
He didn’t say it exactly like that the first time I talked to him. But two minutes into my first conversation with Butch Lowrey, I knew he had been visiting my church, he was a recovering alcoholic, and that he liked what I was preaching. Butch introduced me to a spiritual program that had changed his life and stopped his drinking forever. I attended his second A.A. birthday party, and eventually became his sponsor. No doubt about it, though. I learned more from him than he ever learned from me.
“Nothing in God’s world happens by mistake.”
Butch believed that, and said it often. As part of his recovery, there were many other spiritual truths he stood on, and repeated. Truths such as: “If all your problems could solved by money, you don’t have a problem,” and, “You’ve just got to let go and let God.”
He also learned a rare and refreshing kind of honesty. On one occasion he said, “People in [this] county are committed to making everyone else just as miserable as they are.” Later he told me, “Andy, you preach long because you like to hear yourself talk. You’re just on an ego trip.” He was smiling, of course. [click to continue…]
Tense Truth: I must learn to accept the world and its circumstances as it is, not as I would have it. I must also learn to take courageous action to be an agent of change. The wisdom to know the difference is found in the discipline of hearing God’s voice.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Contentment and Change decided to play table tennis one day. I was the ball. Can you relate?
Serve: Be grateful for all you have.
Return: Do something to change the world!
Rest in the Lord. Wait quietly for Him.
Press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ.
Be still.
Get off your butt.
Surrender.
Seize every opportunity.
Be content!
Don’t be complacent!
Don’t be covetous.
Be courageous.
Wow. I’m tired, and I’m not ever keeping score. I’ve never bothered to even count the number of times I’ve zigged (tried to change something) when I should have zagged (been content with the situation). Or vice-versa – when the call was to hit the ground running, I hit the hay. [click to continue…]
“Who is the leader?” Dad wanted to know. His son was watching cartoons, and Erwin McManus was asking him to explain the characters and tell him what was going on.
The boy, with great delight, began to tell all about his cartoon heroes.
Erwin thought he’d ask him a simple question about who the leader was, and his son gave him an astonishing explanation. Pointing to one of the characters, he said, “Well, that’s the leader.”
“How do you know?”
He said, “The leader always stays in the back and only gets involved when everyone else is about to die.”
There you have it: what McManus describes as the Marvel Comics Theory of Leadership (more here).
True, leaders are often perceived that way. But that’s not how leaders emerge, or how they last in the world where characters actually breathe. If you’re looking to:
- Hire/elect/promote a person to a place of leadership,
- Strengthen your own leadership abilities,
- Identify the extent to which you or someone else are actually leading people, or
- “Find the parade and get in front of it,”
then consider leadership from the front. Here, from followers’ perspectives, are seven ways to tell who the leader is.
[click to continue…]
My friend Kevin, who is also an elder in our church, is a professional idea generator. He drives a “Dream Taxi,” whose mission in life is to help individuals, couples, ministries, and organizations achieve their goals with excellence and bucketloads of creativity.
