Archive for September 2011
I’ve Got An Idea
“That’s a good idea.”
I get that statement a lot in conversations. I can spit out ideas all day long. I started my own company so that I could get paid for it. But when I take inventory of all the ideas I’ve come up with for myself or others, I have to ask myself: How many of those good/great ideas did you or someone actually act on? Just a few. It’s like if we shout enough good ideas, we can actually deceive ourselves into believing that we are actually making a difference.
If you think about it, the Bible is full of lofty ideas. Heal the sick. Open blind eyes. Make disciples of ALL nations. Treat others how you would want to be treated. Test the Lord and see if He’ll not open up the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that blows your mind. If you go to the book of Acts, you’ll see tons of examples of the ideal Christian life. Hey. Why don’t we all sell our possessions and make sure that others have enough?! If you’re paying attention to what we read all the time, you can walk away from the scriptures with this thought: “What a great idea.”
Being the guy who always has ideas, I made a decision that at the end of my life, I didn’t want to be known as a creative guy who had really great ideas, but I wanted to be man led by the Holy Spirit to do really great actions. And I started with the Bible. So… last week I went through my closet and started grabbing a few pair of jeans, sport coats, shirts, and shoes, and I sold them at Plato’s closet. I got $84 and simply gave it to a friend in need. It wasn’t much, but what was a good idea in scripture became a good action in my life.
The above isn’t to gain more spiritual brownie points with you, but it’s to challenge your life with the scriptures. They aren’t there for entertainment value. We can’t sit around and discount scripture due to historical context and a bunch of “ologies”. Bull crap, man. If you see it in there, it’s there for a reason. Reading great ideas gives you “Aha” moments. Acting on them gives you a shot at making a difference and actually living this thing out.
Nose Bleeds
In my mind, there’s only one thing that makes you a leader or not: followers. Whether or not you’re a good leader or not has relative criteria to your followers. But I’ve noticed a common denominator every leader deals with. Every leader has followers… who believe the leader… should lead differently. There’s some obvious dynamics that create this tension. One of those being that in the most highly effective organizations, the #1 leader has hired… leaders. So now we have a bunch of awesome organizations with a leader who leads other leaders, and those leaders are told to lead raise up more leaders, and so on.
Exposing myself to a truckload of leadership resources between reading, podcasting, and conference hopping, I’ve got a front row seat to an influx of statistics and information on spectacular leadership. Every time I hear the statement, “A great leader… will ______________”, it’s like I put that through a filter of Senior Leaders. If I’m honest, I begin to ask myself the question, “Does my Senior Leader do this well?”, and from there I make judgement calls and statements to myself about how I’d do it better. (HA)
The issue I deal with here is that I can sit front row at the church, but when it comes to seeing my Senior Leader’s personal life, I’m in the nose bleeds. I’ve got cheap seats to what He or She is going through on a daily basis. I simply make judgements based off what I see from, what in reality is, a great distance. I’ve spent a lot of time with my Senior Leader lately, and the more we talk, the more I realize how wrong I am. Have you ever heard someone you personally know well talked about in a negative or positive way by someone who barely knew them at all, and they had an absolute misconstrued view of that person altogether? I think we all have. But the question now becomes: How do we know that we’re not the person with the misconstrued view?
Whether it’s a senior leader, or just another peer leader, most of us only have cheap seats to what makes them who they are. And whether we like it or not, God, on purpose, has that leader in your life for this season for a reason. If you don’t trust your leadership, at least trust your God.
What Happens In Vegas…
Hey, you. Thanks for checking out the blog. Seriously. You’ve got a million other things you could be doing, but you decided to take a break from whatever you’re doing to read this. You’re good people. I appreciate you being here.
I had the opportunity to shoot a documentary this past week with some friends in Death Valley, CA. [coming soon to a computer near you.] Part of the package deal of shooting the documentary was also spending a few days in Vegas. Poor me, right? Being in Sin City, naturally, the first thought that comes to mind is: “What happens in Vegas… stays in Vegas.” It speaks to this idea of getting away with… well, anything. I think the infamous motto carries over into our private life too. It’s like what happens in our private world… stays in our private world. We use phrases like, “That’s none of your business.” We’re creeped out by unknown facebook friends that WE confirmed as friends. We have a list of things that we’ll tweet about, and then there’s a list of things that will never make it to our lives’ highlight reel on the internet.
There’s this guy, Gordon MacDonald, who wrote a book in 1984 called Ordering Your Private World. Great book. He teaches great concepts of discipline of your private world that govern your external life. For example, any form of time that you have that goes unmanaged is an opportunity for your greatest weakness to creep in. It’s real good stuff. Read it. Well, in 1987, Gordon cheated on his wife, unfortunately. So let’s get this straight… the guy… who wrote the book on getting your crap together… had a hard time getting his crap together. Ladies and gents… what happens in your private world… does not stay in your private world.
Better information and accountability is not enough to keep you from falling. Knowledge makes us feel better about who we are. Wisdom is putting what you know, what you read, and what you’re learning into practice. Keeping your reputation isn’t enough to keep you from falling. If that’s your motivation for not committing “major” secret sins, you don’t stand a chance. Forget about following rules. Because you’ll figure out a way to get what you want around those rules. The corners that you cut aren’t noticed by anyone around you simply because they’re not paying attention. Those text and emails may seem lightly flirtatious now, but the compound impact of secret sin over a span of years ends in disaster.
The only thing that can keep you from falling is Jesus. And even with Him, we occasionally still fall flat on our faces. And when that happens, you still have Him and His grace there to pick you back up. So the questions for you are these: Who knows what’s really going on with you? Who knows your biggest temptations? And between you and Jesus, how are you handling these areas? Most people who cut corners, usually ignore those areas when they talk to their God. Don’t.