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I have a friend who doesn’t do change well. I have another who aches for it. Strangely enough, they both find themselves routinely responding in the same ways.
Both are fiercely loyal, probably to a fault. They will cling to relationships, to institutions, even to ideas long past what most people would consider healthy or normal.
Both are very deliberate in the ways they go about making decisions – to the point that life sometimes barges in and makes the decision for them.
Both have dreams that seem to escape them while they wait for the circumstances to improve… which they never seem to do.
Interestingly enough, both are people of great faith. These are not casual Christians. They are heart-deep in a pursuit of God’s best for their lives.
They also have their differences. One pushes himself to grow, to stretch, to improve – only to find out the ladder he was climbing was leaning against a bombed out building. The other refuses to consider that if she keeps doing the same things, she’s likely to get the same results.
One will analyze a situation to death without ever taking action, then analyze what happened when the action took him. The other will react to situations on the basis of emotions, but typically they’re feelings of fear or regret.
Meanwhile, the winds of change just keep on howling. To one it feels like a blowing rain. To the other it feels like a mocking tormentor. [click to continue…]
This is a season of Death-By-To-Do-List. The quiet pause, lethargy, and feeding frenzy of the holidays are followed by the jump-started, resolution-driven frenzy of the New Year. So this morning I started my journaling by listing one or two things I still haven’t done this week. And the one or two became six or seven.
“I swear, I’ll die by checklist overload,” I wrote.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s missing in our life planning. It’s so easy to get lost in the whirlwind of the frenetic or even the focus of the goal-directed that we neglect some of the most significant parts of the plan.
Like waiting.
I’m all about making mission statements that lead to goals lists that lead to action steps toward making those goals and mission a reality. I get it. I completely understand that if you aren’t taking massive action in the direction of your dreams you are probably kissing some of them good-bye.
How do you respond, however, when the dream or passion is completely authentic, but there is literally nothing you can do about it today – at least in outward to-do-list fashion? How do you keep the important, important, when it’s not front-and-center in your appointment book? [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.
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…]
Then there’s Marvin Burchall.
Two years ago, Marvin is on the job in his native Burmuda, waiting tables at a resort. And from his perspective, that’s all he was doing. His job.
Lynn Bak saw it a bit differently. She saw an outgoing, approachable young man whose impeccable service and attention to detail revealed a professionalism way beyond his 23 years.
Lynn Bak is paid to know these kinds of things. She coordinates the School of International Education in Bermuda for Endicott College, whose main campus is in metropolitan Boston. She travels to the Elbow Beach Bermuda resort every three weeks or so. And a couple of years ago, she got to know Marvin. You won’t believe what happened next.
[click to continue…]
My wife’s car had a flat tire today. There was no question what to do. We called Flores Tire. I’d like to tell you why.
When babies are born, God gives them a voice and lungs to sound the alarm when they have a need. The only word they know is “Whaaaaa,” but it works pretty well.
When babies go to college, only the vocabulary changes. [click to continue…]
I have a friend who doesn’t do change well. I have another who aches for it. Strangely enough, they both find themselves routinely responding in the same ways.
