LifeVesting

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You’ll want to read this story… because it’s yours in some way.

Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

What do you do when you’ve done everything you know to do?  What do you do when your tried-and-true system, which has worked before, doesn’t work this time?  How do you respond when God makes a promise and you’ve seen it fulfilled – but this time it doesn’t seem to be “working?”

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

They’ll laugh when they read this, but I sometimes call Kaye and Mark, whom I love very much, Barbie and Ken.  From a distance, they have a storybook life that looks like an 8×10 glossy.  Kaye was a Baylor Beauty; Mark was a quarterback/safety for Frank Broyles’ University of Arkansas football teams. They married, settled in Little Rock, and had four beautiful children.

Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Mark and Kaye weren’t just church wallflowers.  Read the rest of this entry »

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I have a friend who’s living in-between.  He once had a position of ministry and fulfilled calling, and believes he’ll have another one again.  In between, he waits – preparing for the day of the Second House.

I have another friend who was blindsided by an unwanted divorce.  He has suffered the loss of a family, a vision, and a sense of being at home.  Still, he waits – convinced that he will see, in some measure, the day of the Second House.

I can relate to both, but for different reasons.  More than 10 years ago, I began a Second-House journey of my own – explainable only by the stunning grace of God.  I have watched in awe as dreams I had given up on, callings I had once felt, and opportunities I once squandered began to be fulfilled.  More than a God of second chances (which He is), He has shown me that He is a God of second seasons, second lives, sometimes second families, and even second callings.

He’s the God of the Second House. Read the rest of this entry »

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(Note:  I make no claims to be a prophet, so I write this with a bit of fear and trembling.  But I believe a day of restoration and change is coming to a significant number people worldwide.  Pardon the timing, but it has little-to-nothing to do with the upcoming elections.  I haven’t had a stirring in my spirit on this level in more than 10 years.  For reasons I’ll explain next week, all I know to call it is the day of the Second House.  Make no mistake about it – these are heady, often stressful times.  Things that can be shaken will be, so that the things that can’t be shaken will remain.  But those who hear God’s call, trust God’s heart, and courageously obey God’s direction will enter into a season, like Israel, when their latter glory will be greater than the former.  This post and the next one will serve as an introduction to that.)

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It was January 3, 1993 – more than 15 years ago – and it remains the greatest comeback in NFL history.  At halftime the Buffalo Bills, their starting quarterback injured, trailed the Houston Oilers with mighty quarterback Warren Moon by a score of 35-3 in an American Conference playoff game.  Backup Frank Reich led the team to a stunning upset.  The score:  41-38.

Most of us aren’t football players, professional or otherwise.  But we all experience adversity when, like the Bills, our backs are pressed against the wall.  Sometimes we’re beyond distress; we’re beaten.  These times of adversity almost always involve losses of some kind:

• money (how ‘bout them markets?)
• friendships
• joy
• health
• dreams
• family

LifeVesting?  Designing your future?  Ha!  To quote the pained psalmist in slavery, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Psalm 137:4). Read the rest of this entry »

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The LifeVesting Cycle

1.  Allocate your resources.

2.  Explore the possibilities.

3.  Follow your passion.

4.  Execute your plan.

5.  Protect your investment.

6.  Enlarge your capacity.

7.  Wait

It’s one of my biggest fears.

I’m standing face-to-face with the God of heaven to account for my life.

My sin is covered, but God is looking at what I did with the life He gave me.  And he holds up a thumb and index finger, one inch apart.

“Andy,” He says, “you were this close, to seeing it happen, and you quit.  The blessing you were looking for was just around the corner.”  No wonder he’ll wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Many a wonderful idea started well, but never came to fruition because somebody pulled the plug too soon, and refused to wait.

Just for the record and the sake of full disclosure, I hate waiting.  I hate being told that waiting is the solution to any problem or situation I’m facing.  I believe traffic lights will be in hell, and I hate waiting at them – particularly when nobody’s coming from the direction of the green light.  I hate waiting in line and loathe waiting on hold while listening to a computer on the telephone (which will also be in hell).

That said, and my flesh notwithstanding, there is no substitute for time.  And the larger the investment, the longer the wait.  It takes 40 days to make a squash, and 40 years to make an oak tree.  How long do you suppose it takes to make a man or woman of God?  I heard of a recent controversial study that suggests it takes 26.5 years to make an adult in the U.S.  Makes sense to me.  Jewish tradition held that it took 30 years to make a rabbi.  (Yes, that’s why Jesus waited.) Read the rest of this entry »

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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. Read the rest of this entry »

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A man goes on a long journey, so the story goes.  He gives different amounts of money to three managers - amounts ranging in today’s currency from around $300,000 to upwards of $5 million.  This ain’t chump change.

One day, the man returns, and asks the three managers a pretty simple question:  How much value did you add to what I gave you?

Two of the managers had done similar things with the money.  They started making trades.  Making the money work for more money.  They took some risks, added some work and ideas of their own, and increased the value of the initial stake.

Behind door number three, however, was a guy who buried his stake in the back yard.  He did nothing with what he had been given.  Assuming that somehow the landowner would be impressed, he beamed with pride as he returned the original stake.

Bad move.

You know this, of course, as a story that Jesus told.  But some of the most important words are some of the first:  “The kingdom of heaven is like this,” Jesus said.

So, while a lot of us imagine judgment as us standing before God while he counts the cusswords and dirty little thoughts we had, Jesus presents a different idea here.  We will give an account to God for how much more value we have added to the gifts He’s given us.  This is the LifeVesting principle of Increase:

I will receive an increase on my life choices in proportion to my willingness to invest and wait.

Read the rest of this entry »

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God has established an ordered world based on eternal principles found in his word.  I’m not talking about so-called “principles” that preachers invent to make people feel good, then try to attach a random Bible verse to in order to sound legit to the church crowd.  I mean truths, grounded in His character, that apply to many different situations.  That’s the difference between a rule and a principle.  “Don’t commit murder” is a rule.  “Value life” is a principle.

That said, to the degree that we align our lives with God’s principles, we experience the fullness of God’s purpose in creating us in the first place.  And the root from which every other principle springs is that everything begins with, and culminates in, the glory of God.  You and I were created for his glory – to express His image, extend His life, and execute His will.  And in order to fulfill that purpose, we were given the awesome gift of one lifetime.

That’s it.  No Plan B.  No second chances as a toad or platypus.  You get one shot, with no guarantees of how long exactly that will be. But with that one lifetime, you receive the opportunity to produce consequences affecting your future, in both time and eternity.

LifeVesting is about understanding the possibilities and taking action in the direction of the compelling future and eternal reward that can be yours.  It revolves around five biblical principles.  You can find them expressed in a variety of images – agriculture, business, family relationships, even fishing.  But the principles are consistent, regardless of the metaphor.  Today I’d like to briefly explain the first one.

Read the rest of this entry »

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When vision becomes a cliché (President Bush-the-first once famously referred to it in an off-the-cuff remark as “the vision thing”), it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When yesterday’s vision no longer aligns with today’s brutal facts or tomorrow’s possibilities, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When vision becomes first and foremost an act of congratulating ourselves for what we or our predecessors have accomplished, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When “vision” becomes the mandates of mountaintop or ivory-tower elitists who have no clue what life in the cubicle, the pew, the kitchen or the stew is like, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When vision becomes the stuff of detached, bored, or mechanical position holders, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When vision is no longer met with resistance from the mediocre majority or the limits of human ability or imagination, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When “vision” is presumed to emerge from the latest committee meeting, conference, book or fad, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When vision no longer bridges the gap between what is and what should be, it’s time for a new vision – or a new leader.

When “vision” is here today and gone tomorrow, it time for a new (true) vision – or a new leader capable of seeing beyond his/her own attention deficit.

When “vision” no longer needs the God who holds the future in order to create the future, it’s time for a new (true) vision – or a new leader.

Exceptional leaders are first led themselves.  By their vision - and by the source of their vision.

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“Bruce likes to terrify himself.”  So began a story years ago in Success magazine.

One day Bruce led some friends 9,000 feet up Mount Hood, and decided to show them how much fun it would be to slide down part of the way.  While zipping down an ice field at 30 miles an hour, Bruce suddenly realized he had forgotten to remove his crampons – the spikes that attach to hiking boots.  His feet were useless as brakes.

Uh oh.

Bruce had the presence of mind to realize that jabbing the spikes at the ice whizzing past him wouldn’t work either – that would risk breaking his ankles and hurtling off the side of the mountain.  So as the edge of the cliff came rapidly into view, Bruce flopped over on his stomach and jabbed repeatedly, frantically, with his ice axe.  He finally came to a halt about 50 feet from the edge of the cliff. He later said that the thing that kept running through his mind as he got closer and closer to the edge was, “Boy, this is a stupid way to die.”

Uh huh.

Oh, and just a thought – if it’s a stupid way to die, then maybe it’s a stupid way to live.  But hey, that’s just me.

I don’t know if Bruce ever went ice surfing again.  And for all I know, he may be the ultimate LifeVestor.  But on this day, he was a gambler. 

Read the rest of this entry »

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“You wanna see what the room looks like?” Geoffrey asked.  “The room” was the hotel room where my son was staying.  Geoffrey was his best man and is his best friend.

I was a bit out of the loop.  I thought I was going to be looking at a brochure of the Houston Marriott or something.  What Geoffrey brought instead was a camera.

Off and on during this wedding day I had wondered what the heck Joel was up to.  Why was he running behind?  Why wasn’t he at the church when I thought he was supposed to be?  Why were people calling, looking for him?  What was so important?

I had showed up at the church about 4:45 – 15 minutes late myself.  He was nowhere to be found.  Getting the car washed, Geoffrey said. 

Car washed!  Photographer was waiting, people were wondering, and he?  He was washing.

Now, some five hours later, that clean car has just left the building with the newlyweds on board.  And Geoffrey is scrolling through the pictures on his camera.  These weren’t publicity pics.  They were the results of a groom’s labor to prepare a place – a special place – for his bride.  I’ll spare you the details, but there were candles, rose petals, a picnic basket, and much more, I’m sure.

Read the rest of this entry »

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