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Time Savers, Life Takers
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken You have the watch, we have the time –African proverb Well, Apple has the watch anyway! Mac has taken a bite out of the apple with its heart measuring, health monitoring, run pacing—and, oh yeah, time telling—watch. There’s a whole new world of time savers available in any language from IOS to Android to Windows. And there’s all those other tech time savers like DVRs, online banking, texting, caller ID, and navigational tools, Yes, and Evernote and Dropbox too, both of which have cost me more time trying to figure out how to use than they ever saved me. That’s my problem, I’m…
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Transforming the Heart
Leadership is Broken Because Leaders are Unbroken Nearly three hundred years ago, Jonathan Edwards wrote on of the greatest Christian classics of all time entitled, Religious Affections. By “Affections” Edwards meant the deepest desires and drives of the heart. For Edwards, this is what our faith is about, and, while he doesn’t need me to confirm him, I believe he is absolutely right. I also believe his perspective is missing in today’s thinking. Edwards said, “. . . no one is ever changed, either by doctrine. . . or by preaching or teaching of another, unless the affections are moved by these things. . . . there is…
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WWJD? Why Ask? Just Do It!
Leadership is Broken Because Leaders Are Unbroken WWJD has been around so long it’s become passé. Even people who don’t know or care what Jesus would do know what it stands for. The wristband days are over, but I never understood why the question ever came up in the first place. Why ask a question with such an obvious answer? What would Jesus do? What He did: out of a heart of love teach truth and disciple others. He would do the same thing today that He did when He walked the earth. In fact, that’s exactly what He is doing right now through those who want to do what…
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Not Your Grandmother’s Lumbago
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken With friends like us the cross hardly needs enemies, although it has many. Think of how we distort the cross. Many of us probably heard our grandmothers say, “My lumbago is killing me. It’s my cross. I must bear it.” Right then, before we knew what the cross was, we knew we didn’t want one if it made us feel the way Grandma felt. Or it’s presented to us as some horrible struggle we must endure because we follow Jesus. Now it’s true that the cross can mean rejection and persecution for the cause of Christ, but there’s more to it than that……
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Wall Breakers Anonymous
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Sooner or later all of us hit the wall of inadequacy. There are no exceptions, no escape. There’s only denial, cover up, and futile efforts to break through, get over, get around, or dig under this utterly unexpected roadblock in life. The problem is everything we’ve done before doesn’t work. The barrier may be a career killer or a family struggle or a relationship block, but whatever it is, it matters to us, and we want it to end NOW!But nothing we do makes any difference because this unexpected and unwanted hindrance remains. We try all our tried and true methods, but they…
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A Worth it Heart
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken So what is a worth it heart? What is a heart that gives rise to worth it days that result in worth it years and produce a worth it life? A worth it heart is a heart that has learned to navigate the wall of inadequacy. The wall of inadequacy is that place in life to which Jesus brings all of us to teach us the most foundational principle of life and leadership:You must do what you cannot do with what you do not have for the rest of your lives. Jesus did that with His men when He commanded them to, “Go…
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The Fathers of Christmas
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Names. Ancient names. Foreign names. Strange names. Lists of names. Genealogies. The Bible is full of them. You’d think that God would have something better to do than give us weird lists of difficult names in His eternal word. Matthew’s genealogy found on the first page of the first book of the New Testament. What could be less relevant than a list of often foreign names? Why would God start the record of the good news of eternal life in such a dull way? It may surprise you to discover that there could be no way more relevant way to start the story…
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When Eggs Learn to Fly
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken It’s no news to anyone that C. S. Lewis was a master of metaphors, and I read one recently that really grabbed me. He said it’s truly hard for an egg to learn to fly. To learn to fly, an egg has to become a bird—but it’s not easy for eggs to become birds. After all an egg has to give up everything it is to become a bird. Eggs have to give up their lovely oval appearance; they have to give up their protective shell; they have to see their natural inward self transformed into something that isn’t remotely like them at…
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When God’s Will Isn’t Good Enough
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Some time back Lynna came to me and said, “What do I have to do to make you content?” I was stunned by her question. For one thing I hadn’t realized I was that discontented. For another, I didn’t understand that she had taken on my discontent as a problem for her to solve. I certainly wasn’t discontented with her. She was great. My discontentment was with God. I didn’t like His will for me. It wasn’t what I expected when I responded to His call to serve Him. It wasn’t good enough for me. It pains me to say this. In…
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When the Numbers Stop Working
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken We use numbers to hold our lives together and demonstrate our value in life. Numbers measure time or distance or height or age or the amount of power we have or value, especially the value of our identity: our address, our net worth, our power (an office suite or a penthouse on the 50th floor is a lot more impressive than the 2nd floor), our business success (25 years on the job is more impacting than 5 months). And now we use numbers to tell us how to be happy and (maybe) how to please God. I say maybe about pleasing God because…
