Failing to succeed...

The best results in life revolve around failures- our failures. Sure it's nice to succeed, but continual success doesn't lead to a rich and fulfilling life. That is only achieved through failure, or more specifically, dealing with failure in a proper mindset.
Continued success robs us of appreciation, and diminishes the value of our success. Failure, on the other hand, makes us all the more aware of the beauty of our accomplishments once we finally do succeed. And appreciation is a necessary ingredient to a rich and fulfilled life.  Our greatest success stories are often founded on lives that experienced bitter failure, but it wasn't the failure that is important to note, but that each time our heroes picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and tried again. And when they finally did succeed their success was all the more rich and rewarding because of what they went through to obtain it. Here's just a few examples:
There was once a man who went to war with the rank of Captain. He left the war with the rank of private. He then went into business, but his business failed. He studied law, but failed there too, criticized for being too impractical and temperamental. He turned to politics, but was defeated in his first attempt at the legislature, then was defeated in his first attempt at Congress, was defeated in his bid to be commissioner of the General Land Office, He was then defeated in his Senatorial bid, and next defeated in attempt to win the vice-presidency, then defeated in a senatorial bid again. He wrote to a friend, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face earth." Who was this man? Our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln.
Another popular hero once commented, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot... and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. That's why I succeed." - Michael Jordan
Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before inventing the incandescent light bulb. A reporter asked him how it felt to fail a thousand times and he replied, "I didn't fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with a thousand steps." Confucius said,"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." Charles Kettering said, "Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. One fails toward success."
Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before succeeding. He view on failure? "Failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." F.W. Woolworth, R.H. Macy, Albert Einstein, Louis Pasteur, all faced repeated failures in life, only to achieve great things. Eric Hoffer writes, "Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay." How true is that! We need to remember those trials to fully appreciate the richness of our success. Failing correctly is paramount to success.
So when life gets you down, when you feel like a complete and utter failure, remember those who've gone before, who've set the bar on failure to heights we will probably never reach, and take heart. Failing is often the main prerequisite to success. As Robert F. Kennedy wrote, "Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly." Fail today- tomorrow may just be your heyday...
Food for thought...

Vulnerability and Mercy...

Vulnerability and mercy. I wonder if we really understand the attributes of these two traits. The Bible talks of God's mercy, and also of Jesus's vulnerability. Yet they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Mercy flows from a position strength. God is a god of mercy because he operates from a position of strength. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, and can't operate from anywhere except strength. He is the Uncreated, and we are His created, and no matter how big or strong, or smart we think we are we can never match His strength or wisdom.
Jesus, on the other hand, lived vulnerability. Being vulnerable is living from a position of weakness. Yet, the dichotomy is that Jesus, the Son of the Almighty God, with all the attributes of God, set aside his deity and donned the the cloak of humanity, the cloak of vulnerability.  Jesus chose to make himself vulnerable, and he instructed us, as his followers, to do the same.
Vulnerability means purposely exposing ourselves, our weaknesses, to allow others to know us in our weakness, for it is in our weakness that we can find strength. It sounds like a conundrum, but in reality it is the secret to living a Christ-centered life. In or own strength our basic carnal instinct is to hide our weaknesses and deal with our world from our strengths. The problem with that approach is that there is always someone stronger, or smarter, or bigger than us, and they aren't afraid to knock us down a few pegs. The Law of the jungle, the instinct born of sin.
Vulnerability, however, says to the world to look at us, to see we are transparent and authentic, we are flawed and open about it. It asks the world to be accepting of us for who we are, not who we want or pretend to be. We must trust that our weaknesses won't be embraced and used against us. We must trust.
Being open and vulnerable can be the hardest thing for us to do, for our base instinct is to protect ourselves, not leave ourselves open to potential hurt. And yet when we do open ourselves, when we choose to follow Jesus' example, we are opening ourselves to God's mercy, to his forgiveness, and His love. And when we allow ourselves to be open and authentic before God, when we make ourselves vulnerable to Him, it allows God to flow and work through us. Satan, and evil, may have power on this earth for a time, but when we humble ourselves before God we have the authority, His authority, to conquer whatever befalls our path. Understand, we are still weak and flawed creatures, but we command the power of the Uncreated through His Holy Spirit He has promised to everyone who believes.
A general in the army is just one man. Alone he cannot win a war, or even fight a battle against a stronger, larger foe with any hope of winning. He is neither big enough, nor strong enough. But the one thing he does have is authority. He can command and soldiers to fight his battles. It is not through his strength that the battle is won, but through his authority. Likewise, God gives us the authority to command his power.
Vulnerability and mercy. Mercy through vulnerability. Strength through weakness.
Food for thought...

Children's Books I question...

As I am now a grandfather, soon to be four times over, I thought I should collect a few children's books for when I have visits from the grand-kids. Sure, I could get Bambi, Snow White, Jungle Book, and the other regular Disney stuff, but I wanted to be different so I've scoured the used book stalls for those unique or different ones. I'm thinking perhaps these titles are not the best for the grand-kids...

The Boy Who Died From Eating All His Vegetables
Fun 4-Letter Words to Know and Share
A Toddler's Guide to Hitchhiking
Dad's New Wife Robert
The Popup Book of Human Anatomy
Why Can't Mr. Fork and Mrs. Electrical Outlet Be Friends?
Pop Goes the Hamster- And Other Fun Microwave Games
Strangers Have The Best Candy
Your Nightmares Are Real
and, Daddy Drinks Because You Cry...

Perhaps those tried and true Disney stories are best after all...
Food for thought...

Church Politics...

One of the most problematic issues that faces the Church today is church politics. Church politics, in its simplest definition, boils down to the practice of putting what we think is most important ahead of what God says is most important. In my time I've been associated with churches of all ages; churches that were new, freshly planted, churches that were matured and sometime set in their ways, churches that were growing, and churches that were stagnant. I've had the opportunity to observe this phenomenon of “church politics” from many angles.

When a church is newly planted, and in the early pains of its infancy and early growth there is almost always a unity of vision of what the church wants to be and what direction it’s headed. Yet as the church grows larger almost inevitably the unity of vision is lost. Leadership becomes fragmented in their direction as people begin to try and implement their own vision of where the church should go, without the unity of the leaders or the people. A major reason for this fragmentation is ego. Let me share a personal experience:

For a number of years in my recent past I had regularly attended a local Community church, a “seeker” church, if you will, with the desire and direction of making a welcoming environment for people seeking to fill that void in their heart. It was dynamic, it was growing, and it was exciting. I served in that church in several ministries. As we grew I began to notice this “church politics” growing, as there seemed to be a growing power struggle among leadership, perhaps desire for recognition. In one of the ministries I served a problem arose between the Elder in charge and one of the volunteer leaders. I thought the best way to handle it was to make the elder aware and discuss the situation before feelings got hurt and things got out of hand. I was expressly warned by my team leaders not to do so, or I “might get run out of church” like several others. Still, I sent him a note and we met.

During our meeting, this Elder, a “pillar” of the church, got angry and accused me of lying, of creating a mess that I needed to clean up. He claimed he’d talked to the parties and they disavowed any knowledge of any problem, that I was a liar, that I was a trouble-maker. So I turned on my computer, I opened my e-mails from the two parties, and I let him read for himself that everything I said was true. What was his response? I made a mess and I needed to clean it up. Not any acceptance of the fact that I spoke truth, that my concern was for the ministry and perhaps he should address his shortcomings in the situation. No apology was forth coming for calling me a liar, no sorrow for the pain and hurt feelings his words and actions had caused. Why not? - Because his ego wouldn’t allow him to acknowledge his wrong-doing. There’s no place for our ego when we’re serving God.

Another issue stemming from church politics is loss of vision. The community church that I recently attended had an early vision of reaching out to those seeking to fill that void that one has when not in community with Jesus Christ. The services were welcoming and open for anyone who wanted to experience Christian worship. Yet today, though the “vision” is still to reach out to “seekers” it has become lost in the “production” of each service. The emphasis is no longer on the act of worship; the emphasis is on the seeker. The whole reason for the church is for Christians to meet in corporate worship, and it is the worship that draws the seekers. When they come in and find others who are broken, who are flawed, but who live in joy and peace they want that, they seek to know more. But once the focus becomes the seeker the power of the worship experience is quenched. Corporate worship is the worship of God, not numbers of people you can get in to fill the seats…

I believe that a church needs to maintain a unity of spirit to remain vibrant and growing. A church needs to constantly recommit its vision and focus to the Lord. How can they best do this? How can churches avoid the pitfalls of church politics? First, change leadership regularly. Get new people in to serve. Church after church that I've observed has had the same people run for church offices year after year. It’s no wonder that egos build, that power struggles arise! Churches should have term limits. We see the same problem in our government- men who serve term after term, grow in power and “prestige” until they become a legend in their own mind. Limit the term, limit the power, and ultimately limit the damage that church politics can cause. The problem won’t be gone completely, for we are still flawed and broken human beings. But if there’s a problem in leadership term limits is a definite cure, for time will remove it if we don’t.

Last, I think churches need to focus less on size, on how many people they can pack in on any given weekend, and more on worship (the reason to gather corporately) for size ultimately becomes a pride issue. Sure, everyone wants to grow, but there comes a point where size hinders worship. My daughter pointed out to me that Jesus preached to thousands- but Jesus didn't preach to thousands every weekend, every service. No, when he needed recharging he met with his disciples, or withdrew alone to pray. Also, it’s worth pointing out, that despite listening to many wonderfully talented preachers and speakers in my days not one of them was the Son of God. Sometimes size begins to hinder worship. It becomes a production instead of a worship, and then the focus is lost. The early churches were “house churches”, meeting in the homes of the early Christians. By their very nature they couldn't be “large”- when they outgrew a home they split into several homes. Intimacy and unity had to be trademarks of the early church, for the very size made it so. Perhaps we need more of that model church…

Food for thought…

Forgiveness...

All my life I've been taught or told about the importance of forgiving those who've wronged me. I've even blogged on "Forgive and Forget? I think not..." (Oct 6th, 2010), on the importance of forgiving others but not necessarily forgetting what happened so you can avoid the same pitfall again. Not that the trespass should be brought up again, for it should be treated like a death, buried and gone, but not forgotten. 

But forgiveness is not just an act of kindness, or mercy, toward the one who's wronged, though there is indeed  a therapeutic reward for the one who is forgiven. But the true value for the one who's wronged and chooses to forgive is internal. The act of forgiving releases the forgiver from a growing root of bitterness, and not releasing another's wrong through forgiveness will create bitterness. Feeling wronged can lead to feelings of animosity, indignation, and often even self-righteousness. All of these are dangerous and allowed to simmer leads to self destruction. But forgiveness frees us from all these; the release allows us freedom to move on, to go forward with our lives, and to continue to grow. Failure to forgive stunts personal growth and keeps us in a holding pattern of negative emotion. And there's nothing so powerful, or destructive, than negative emotion. So let it go; forgive and do yourself a far bigger favor than even the one you've forgiven...

Food for thought...