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The Parenting Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Among all the books on parenting that are floating around these days, there is one missing. It’s hard to believe that we’ve overlooked anything, but we are lacking one vital title. I’m not sure how the publishers would respond to this, but in this time of self-publishing, they are not as dominant as they once were, which means this book might make it to the market. The title? Parents Who Did Everything Right and Got it Wrong. There, I told you it would be a best seller. Well, maybe not. Unwanted…
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The Self-Imposed Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life Striving to Meet Needs that Should Never be Met Many of my wilderness experiences have been self-imposed. They grew out of drivenness within me, the fruit of selfish ambition, fear, and anger that created unmet needs in my heart… And those needs should never have been met. That means that many of my wilderness experiences could have been avoided if only I had been aware that my drivenness and my ambition—pursued sincerely, I believe, in the name of Jesus—were mixed with the slag self glory. I did not understand that…
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The Island Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life He must have been too hot to touch, that ancient elder of Ephesus, or the Roman authorities probably would have taken him in much sooner than they did… Maybe they were concerned that, since he was so beloved, there would have been a strong reaction in Ephesus, the number two city in the Roman Empire, if they took him into custody. Ephesus was a place where they did not want any unrest. Whatever their reasoning, by the time they exiled him he was in his nineties, perhaps frail and declining in health. His…
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The Grace Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life A Majority of One Among a Minority of the Many Some men are a wilderness in themselves. Full of anger and hatred, they lash out at others like a fire-breathing dragon, setting the entire landscape aflame. Saul of Tarsus was one such man… Apparently a small man based on his comments about himself, he made up for his size with a brilliant mind. Saul grew up in a devout Jewish family among the Gentiles in Tarsus, then part of Syria in the Roman Empire (now modern day Turkey). It appears that his growing…
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Five Time Killers
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Time is like money: invest it well early in life, and you will gain great returns later. Waste time early in life and lose fruit later. Wasted time is never resurrected; invested time never dies. Avoid the five time killers… 1. Anger: anger runs a spectrum from disappointment to murder. None of this is fruitful. Much anger is self-imposed. You’re hemmed in by unchangeable circumstances or God hasn’t given you the gifts to get where you want to go or you grew up in a flawed family, and you respond with burning anger. Anger takes time. Every moment you spend angry is a…
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The End of My World
All of us experience a time where we risk our well-put-together world for something we know God has called us to do. We get challenged far beyond trying to figure out what to make for dinner. And we tell ourselves, “Since it’s from God, it will play out simple, right?” My past few months have contained so much change. I started a new job and my husband began a new project in Sacramento, California. This means we get to spend more time apart than together. It also leaves me in charge here at home. I thought, “No big deal, I can do this,” and felt peace about it. Several…
