Jehovah, take my fears and replace them with your ancient truth. Take my fears and replace them with your ancient plan. Take my fears and help me replace them with abiding in the ancient mission and purpose you have given me.
When my eyes get fixed on what seems urgent, on what seems pressing, on what must be done; let me remember you are present, you are working.
You are the beginning and the end. This is your universe. All time is really yours.
There is more going on than meets the eye.
We have been written into an ancient story, an ancient plan.
You [son and daughter] are worth more than silver or gold.
The Creator bought you back at the highest cost.
You have royal blood.
That is who you are.
“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment .”(C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters Illustrated. p. 231)
Let us strive for much better.
Consider others as better than ourselves.
Practice self-forgetting.
Pursue The Creator.
Life and our culture have a way of making alignment to our created purpose confusing. In life we are, as one ancient author described it, “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”* From birth we are assaulted by lies about who we are. Sometimes it is our family, sometimes it is our classmates, sometimes our neighbors, or sometimes our co-workers. For sure it is also the constant throbbing message from the culture telling us we are not enough. These lies can settle deep into our psyche. They may be telling us we need to be skinnier, that we can’t compete intellectually, that we aren’t good enough to do what we enjoy, or that are our very core there is something wrong in us that makes us irreversibly defective. When these lies take root it makes believing the truth about who the Creator made us to be seem ridiculous. Embracing the lies leads us to a life of frustration, fear and anxiety.
Unwinding the lies and embracing the truth is within our grasp. It takes persistence, diligence, and daily perseverance. It also takes doing something different. The lies are embedded in us because we have meditated on them. We have reinforced them. To change we have to begin the deconstruction process. Start by making a commitment to everyday doing what it takes to discover, uproot, and replace the lies.
As you being to practice these things regularly you will get new ideas about who you are. Let them settle in. Push back against the lies as they rear their dishonest heads. Embrace the new truths the Creator is teaching you about who you really are. Look for new opportunities to push into. New friendships, new social circles, new hobbies, new work. Give yourself the permission to try even if one of the new things you do does not work out.
The truth of life is that you have a purpose. You were given talents, abilities, interests and passions because your Creator wants you to have them. He wants you to use them. Make a commitment to move toward undoing anything that is casting a shadow over your glorious potential and move in the direction of alignment with your God given mission.
*Matthew 9:36 NIV
I pray a lot. One of the reasons I pray is that I face problems that require solutions that I do not possess.
The other day I noticed I was feeling a small tinge of hopelessness as I prayed. At that particular moment I was addressing an issue that I had been praying about for a long time. I moved on to praying about another problem that too, seemed ominous and difficult. In the midst of my appeal I realized I was believing that my prayers might be weaker than the situations I was petitioning for. I was straining and pleading to be heard and was hoping for God to do something overt and powerful but somewhere deep inside I was perceiving God as distant.
The source of my sense of weakness? My view of God had drifted to a god who was nice and caring but not a god who could or would step in with force and make things right. My conceptualization of God had slipped into the Christian bookstore, marketing version of “The Almighty”. That version is a god whose words and images are displayed nicely on gift mugs and plaques. Whose thoughts and truths are sold in book after book after book with nice covers, on everything from marriage, to raising kids, to running a business, to prayer. The Christian bookstore god seems far away. Hard to know. Maybe too far off or passive to deal with my issues.
I have real problems that require a living God to answer. I need the God described in ancient Hebrew and Greek texts that answers when people call. The God who wants to step in and be known. I need a Consuming Fire. I need a jealous God. I need the God who rides on a white horse and brandishes a double edge sword. I need the God who trains hands for war. I need the God who casts out the Accuser. I need the God who made the sun stand still. I need the God whom the demons know and shake with fear of. I need the God who healed the lady with a bleeding disorder. I need a God who isn’t safe, who no one can see and live.
I’ve known this God and I’ve seen him act.
Abba-Father please help me to keep my understanding of you true. Help me to not allow the many ways you get watered down in our culture change how I approach you and how I think about you.
For me, the battle of leading starts in my mind. Why do I call it a battle? Because good leadership means taking the high road, the ethical road, the humble road, the selfless road. It takes courage. Too often, I am inclined to make decisions out of pride, out of fear, out of selfishness, or out of people pleasing. This is the battle for my mind. I have seen many others in leadership roles have similar struggles. Somewhere deep inside insecurities rise up. Often the reaction to the insecurities is to blame someone else for a problem, to be evasive rather than truthful when giving feedback, to minimize bad news rather than take it head on, or simply to avoid dealing with problems all together.
Why do I fight the battle for my mind rather than give in? The organization I work for and the people I work with rely on me to make decisions that are best for the company. They rely on me to confront problems. They rely on me to make choices that move the agency forward. To make make choices that allow us to more effectively accomplish the mission of the agency.
So what I have I found that helps me fight this battle for my mind?
The thing about this battle is that it never ends. Pressures wax and wane. Demands layer on top of each other. Every day, every month, every quarter, ever year brings new threats, new opportunities, and new challenges.
Those of us in leadership must actively engage the conflict between our insecurities and being the person our organization needs us to be.
Today I am leaning on The Creator, so when I lean I won’t fall over.
Organizational leadership. What does it mean…in a practical sense? Some days…
It means giving your best employees a pep talk during a crisis.
It means reassuring staff that you are going to take care of a uneasy situation so that they are safe.
It means showing up in the middle of a mess and working side by side with staff until it is resolved.
It means listening to staff vent their true feelings even if it hurts.
It means getting staff what they need.
It means having hard conversations.
It means making sure the people who are the heart and soul of your organization know they are the heart and soul of the organization.
Its moving the agency, even on tough days, toward the mission.
The Creator uses some of the most difficult people in our lives as teachers. I wouldn’t have the knowledge and understanding I do about organizational leadership if it were not for those individuals over the years who at points in my journey had me at a breaking point. This realization came into focus this past week. I was in a conversation with a colleague. It was a congenial, collaborative conversation about the work we do and the work we want to do to make a difference in the lives of others. I realized during the conversation that we were very aligned. What made the awareness peculiar is that we have not always been aligned. In fact at a few points in our relationship we have been at tremendous odds.
As I thought about those difficult times in our work together I came to a realization that this individual has been one of my greatest teachers. It was instruction that could be characterized as ,”learning the hard way.” As I reflected on our difficult times and how much I had learned a message floated across my mind. The Creator had used him to help me grow up as a leader. I began to think about others who have served as teachers I didn’t ask for or recognize but who have helped me develop as a leader.
A handful of people came to mind. I thought of the lessons I had learned from them. I’ve learned that hiring someone who fits our agency’s mission and values is more important than hiring someone for the skills they possess. I learned that having the right person in the wrong position creates frustration for everyone. I learned that taking care of problems when they are small is really important because problems generally do not go away, they just get bigger and do more damage. I’ve learned the importance of listening to warning signals. I’ve learned its okay to do a 180 degree turn when you need to. I’ve learned to ask for help when I need it. I’ve learned that collaboration builds a stronger organization. I could go on and on.
As I make the list I am thinking of names of people I have worked with in various capacities. Whether our relationship was marked by conflict or agreement I realize that they were in my life to teach me. I think the reason The Creator put them there incognito is because I wouldn’t have chosen them as teachers. I think I would have gravitated to people who would have been safe rather than pushed me into places I didn’t want to go. Sometimes being in those places had me crying out for relief or for a different job. Relief did not always come very quickly and I am still in the same job (thank you God). I feel a little wiser. Part of that wisdom is knowing that more lessons will come. After all, like all of us, I am in a dynamic developmental process and I need teachers.
To say hate is a person, a group or a particular party is to vastly underestimate hate. Hate is stealth. Hate dresses up and goes by other names.