Category — Challenging

I’m in the midst of compiling the top ten lessons I learned when I went through my near death experience a few years ago. An important lesson is coming to the question “Who am I making successful – myself or others?”

Jesus repeatedly said, “If you want to find your life you must lose your life.” Looking back I now realize I had it backwards. I spent decades making myself successful, all the while thinking I was becoming a better “leader.” I believe much of our absorption with leadership, in the Church as well as the culture at large, amounts to the justification of selfish desires that fly in the face of Jesus’ words and example.

What can you do today to obey Jesus? In all our lives, God has placed people who feel like anything but successful. Your job and mine is to come alongside those he has assigned to us to offer lift them up.

Maybe some of the leadership books you’ve been reading will come in handy as you promote others into the limelight you used to live in.

At the end of the year some time ago I gave a message on a few year-end reflections I had cloaked around “My Biggest Mistakes of the Year.” To my surprise more listened to that message than any in the previous year. The following year I did the same with fresh, new mistakes. Again, there was an enthusiastic response. I continue to make this a year-end message, but I am now doing an enhanced version online for some of my sites – thus what you are now reading.

On the surface of things, it may seem a little dark to ponder one’s mistakes, but I don’t see it that way, and neither does God. In the Bible, God consistently choose people who were prone to make mistakes yet went on to be stellar examples of lives strongly lived.

Peter, for one, was a mistake maker who went on to great things. His mistakes didn’t impair him from greatness. He took risks that often led to failure but always left a deposit of faith in him. He was able to walk on water when the others were afraid to step out of the security of the boat. He failed after a step or two, but he received an amazing installation of faith just the same.

What you read here are my confessions from this past year. Each of them is an area where I blew it but then made a mid-course correction along the way.

Click here or on the above image to download the PDF.

Risk is our friend. Little happens that is worthwhile that doesn’t involve taking a significant chance – one that might end in failure.

How often do you take a risk? Every time I bring up the topic of risk it seems almost everyone thinks they are big risk takers. Everyone? Really? If that were so the world would be a different place. I’m not talking about an itsy bitsy non-dangerous one that is hardly worth mentioning, but a big and hairy – something that needs to be spelled with a capital “R”?

You say you want to change the world… Maybe you pray that. Maybe you read books that explain how we can change the world. The word “missional” is all the rage these days which is another way to explain how we can change the world, but how many missional people are actually getting dirt under their fingernails in order to change the world versus just reading more books and thinking great thoughts about changing the world. How many actually smell like windshield washing liquid because they have been out squeegeeing cars?

We must work while it is light for darkness is coming when no one can work.

A unique calling from God is upon your life.

It’s easy to think that only special people – those set apart – who are special or have an amazing connection with God. If that’s you, take heart. Most don’t have clarity about their assignment yet that calling is there just the same. God wants to speak clearly about your uniqueness.

He is able to most clearly speak when we stop trying so hard to hear from him. It’s about trying less. God speaks when we look beyond ourselves. Go serve someone and God will speak.

How much practice does it take to become competent in your area of speciality? Beyond that, how much of a focus does it take to become an expert in your area specialization?

In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell makes a compelling case that history repeatedly shows that it takes 10,000 hours of practice for someone in any discipline to become an expert in their field of study. You can apply that truth to any discipline in life and you will come out an expert. Any area of study.

That’s an insight that I find encouraging and hopeful. It’s possible for us to move from average in an area of life where we feel called to excel – and to knuckle down, practice, focus, discipline ourselves – and to come out as dazzling experts in that field. Sure it’s difficult and costly. Not many are willing or perhaps even able to dedicate that many hours of disciplined practice to something, but if you do you will emerge as an amazing person others will seek out as an expert in your field.

What would your life look like if you spent 10,000 hours serving others? Split that up between cleaning toilets, cleaning windshields, giving away bottles of water, giving away bags of microwave popcorn, doing car washes, et al. (you get the idea)… If you did this for 40 hours a week in a systematic way that would be a several year trek – difficult to get there, but not impossible. You’d be the next Mother Teresa. Your inner compass would be permanently reset. I know I’d show up to hear you speak. I’d buy your book and so would plenty of others!