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Tense truth: We are individually accountable to God for what we have done with the death and resurrection of His Son and with the life He has given us. However, we are completely dependent on a community of relationships, and cannot survive or thrive in isolation. Our community won’t be there when we stand before the Lord, but they must be connected to us until we get there.
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From the genius of David Hayward comes this funny/sad characterization of a lot of people I have known (and one or two I have been).
No coincidence that David posted this on the same day I made this statement: There is not enough of you available to live all your life. You’re a fool to try…
Ever see a sequoia tree? Fantastic piece of God’s creation. An awesome living structure that can reach as high as 300 feet.
Ever see a sequoia tree standing by itself?
Chances are, you won’t. Strange thing, this tree – to be so tall, it has a very shallow root system. If it stood alone, it couldn’t make it; when the wind grew strong, it wouldn’t take it. So the sequoias build a network of root systems and together they flourish, side by side.
You and I were designed to function like the sequoia tree. [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on October 28, 2008
in Ability,Allocating Your Resources,Consumers,Enlarging Your Capacity,Insight,Life Currency,LV Alter-egos,LV Cycle,Money,Pleasers,Time
Here’s a little exercise we actually take worship service time to practice occasionally. Follow the instructions carefully (yes, I mean I want you to actually do this):
- Take a deep breath
- Let out half of it.
- Hold
- Smile
- Repeat the following out loud, in a calm soothing voice:
“No.”
Repeat this exercise regularly, just for practice, and as needed in live game situations.
Not, “No because…”
Not, “Maybe later…”
Not, “Let me pray about it…”
Certainly not, “See if you can find somebody else, and if you can’t, I’ll see what I can do.”
Learning to graciously, kindly refuse is one of eight steps to building or rebuilding margin in your life. Margin has to do with creating gaps – cushions of time, money, energy, or spiritual strength that act as living shock absorbers for those who have them.
Imagine how it could revolutionize your attitude, relationships, productivity, and health if the next time somebody says, “Got a minute?” you actually do! [click to continue…]
We pass a word around our office that my associate once used to describe me, and it stuck: Crispy.
He used it a few years ago when he and our office manager decided they’d seen enough of me in the state I was in and informed me that I was taking my wife on an R & R trip to the mountains. My reservations had been made, and they weren’t taking “no” for an answer.
I hope to God you have somebody who looks out for you like that. I wasn’t aware of how emotionally and physically fried I was. The sad truth about stress, crispiness, and burnout is that often others see their effects on us before we do.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve been crispy, and it probably won’t be the last. But there’s a further step that can be devastating. Burnout, in a clinical sense, means you have completely exhausted every form of energy necessary to continue. More than just losing interest (“I’m sort of burned out on jazz these days”), I’m talking about those times people go to their wells and find them completely dry. Times when people shock those who know them best by walking away from relationships, careers, or wisdom.
“Stress makes people stupid,” a management consultant once told Daniel Goldman. Burnout reveals it to the world.
So how do people get in such a state – past stress, past crispy, all the way to emotionally nuked? Let me suggest three quick and easy recipes for complete emotional, mental, or spiritual exhaustion: [click to continue…]
Somewhere in the back story of the drama that is your life, you are rehearsing a Cinderella story. One that transforms you from zero to hero, from reject to regal. You imagined it as a kid in ways that were unique to you. This dream may have been fed by caring parents, or it may have been an escape from the harshness of your world.
Simply put, you dreamed of glory.
Not vainglory, mind you. Something more. An image that said you mattered. Belonged. Were wonderfully adequate for the role you’d been chosen – for your quest.
Then came the collision. Dreams were broadsided by disappointments. You never quite figured out how to translate that high school stardom into a career or a destiny. Or worse, you actually found your place in the world, but stared in the mirror at a fraud. Maybe you got what (or who) you’d always wanted, and you bombed. Maybe you just settled into paying the bills and keeping house, and woke up a generation later wondering what happened.
Sometimes I think our greatest fear or vulnerability isn’t the evil we’re all capable of. What we most dread or most grieve is that we’re just so ordinary. [click to continue…]
Another saint doing battle with the powers of darkness
“Arose.”
Fascinating word. Occurs 173 times in the New American Standard Bible. Nearly always, something interesting, if not transforming, follows.
Jesus uber-arose, as I hope you know. As in, from the dead.
Abraham arose, too, as in from the bed.
Jacob arose, and bugged out of town.
A new king arose in Egypt, and things got ugly for Jacob’s descendents.
Moses arose and went up the mountain.
Balaam arose and got up on his donkey.
Arose is the difference between sleeping and moving. Between sitting and acting.
Arose changes things. [click to continue…]
You were born little, with bigness in your DNA.
You were born naked, longing to be warmed and dressed.
You were born penniless, and learned fairly quickly that this was not good.
Even of you’re a twin or other multiple, you were born completely alone, but wired to be relational.
You were born on purpose. And your purpose may still lie in front of you. (What DO you want to be when you grow up?)
To get from here to there, you will most likely pass through a series of completely lame, boring, and maddeningly time-consuming stages. Yes, you’ll experience a few leaps. For the rest, you’d better get used to celebrating some baby steps.
God called it the Day of Small Things.
The Day of Small Things is the crawl that comes before the walk. The work that comes before the reward. The doing-something-anything that comes before doing something awesome. It’s boot camp and kindergarten, school and internships, and progress-before-perfection. [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…]
This is a picture of a man’s brain. And a Western man’s brain at that. What you would see if you could see it the way we live it, is a vast array of little compartments. Little drawers, all subject to the man-brain rule:
Never open more than one drawer at a time.
Women are generally different (surprise!). Their brain resembles a large, open chest, where everything is integrated into one. Open up her heart or brain, and you’ll find the kids, the husband, the friends, the fictional relationships she has with TV or book characters, money, God, dinner, shopping, home stuff, and whatever else – all wonderfully blended into a single life and heart. That’s why women multi-task so well.
Men? Forget it. It’s not that we can’t…
Well, yeah, it is.
Back to the drawers. Imagine that each of these represents a different component of a man’s heart and brain. There’s a God drawer. A sports drawer. A sex drawer (it’s spring loaded). A kids drawer. A money drawer (usually diametrically opposite the God drawer).
When a man is at his flesh-worst, he compartmentalizes. That’s why a man will tell his wife with a straight face that he loves her (and mean it), while at other times, when another drawer – an illegitimate one – is open, he may act like he isn’t married at all. [click to continue…]
(A spiritual leadership fable.)
Hi, I’m Josh. Pleased to meet you.
Hi, Josh. I’m Andy. So tell me about yourself.
I’m a poker.
A what?
A poker.
You mean, like a poker player?
No. I mean, like a poker in your fireplace.
You’re a poker?
Yep. Poker.
Okay, I’m steppin’ out a little here, Josh. What does a poker do?
Pokes.
(Should’ve seen that coming.) Okaaay. Pokes what?
I poke people.
Seriously?
Yep.
You just walk up to them and poke them with your finger?
Naw, not like that. That’s creepy.
Ya think?
I do for people what a poker does for your fireplace. [click to continue…]
Varsity Drive-In, Atlanta
If you’re ever in Atlanta (we’re here right now for the Catalyst conference) and want to check out the local cuisine, at least once you need to experience the Varsity Drive In. I’m not talking about its suburban cousins in the outlying communities, but the original, located on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus in downtown Atlanta. Founded in 1928, the Varsity is the largest drive-in restaurant in the world. It covers two city blocks, and serves 8,000 hamburgers, over two miles of hot dogs, and a ton (literally) of onion rings every day. It also serves more Coca-cola than any other single outlet in the world.
The Varsity is an eating experience that begins when you walk in the door. It’s like a step back in time. The order counter is massive, and behind it is the most fun and amazing collection of fast-food servers in the industry. More than 20 Varsity employees have worked there over 20 years. (Try to find that at a McDonald’s!) If you want a tiny sense of what it’s like, click here and just listen.
From the minute you get near the counter, you’ll hear that famous Varsity chorus. It sounds like chaos, but it’s actually its own delightful symphony, set to the rhythm of hurried city life. And resounding through the melee is, “What’ll you have, what’ll you have?”
Like any landmark, the Varsity has had its share of famous patrons. But what makes it so special [click to continue…]
