Prov. 27:20 (NCV) People will never stop dying and being destroyed, and they will never stop wanting more than they have.
What we “chase after” defines us – whether we like it or not. Some of us are more subtle in our chasing – we keep it at the fantasy level – you know, just in the head – never expressed as a vision, or personal goal. But it’s there. Defining us. What a person meditates upon can destroy them or develop them.
The human story is ripe with ambitious men and women – chasing dreams that, in the end, destroyed them, and even societies. Fortunately, there are also stories in the Judeo/Christian record of leaders whose ambition was not me-centered, but God-centered expressing an ambition to encourage, empower, and enhance the lives of others.
What are people of faith to do in the marketplace? "The world's idea that everyone, from childhood up, should be able at all times to succeed in measurable ways, and that it is a great disgrace not to, hangs over the Christian community like a pall of acrid smoke." (J.I. Packer. A Passion for Faithfulness: Wisdom From the Book of Nehemiah, Crossway Books 2000, pg. 206)
Our ambition must be coated with a resolute discipline of our will and built around the core of a humility of our spirit – or, we will end up leading just like those whose purpose for living is wrapped up in survival and not in eternity.
What are you wanting?
Copyright ©2010 by P.Griffith Lindell
Friday, May 21, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Servant-leadership: the Power of Influence
Proverbs 11:28 (MSG) A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree.
The marketplace is filled with people who are building. And building, per se, is good. It’s not the building that’s the problem: it is what one is “devoted to” in that “building” that’s the issue.
Jesus ben Joseph (as, no doubt, he was known in his younger days), this builder, artisan, craftsman from Nazareth, was known for his trade, his work. Among the responsibilities of a Jewish father to his sons were circumcision, and the teaching of a trade – in this case, the potential of a tree (the kind of wood, what could be done with it, what it was best for). Joseph did his job.
More importantly, that teaching included building an understanding of the “Why” of Jewish rites and beliefs. God intended His people to build lives with eternal meaning – not just temporal excellence - and fathers were to pass down to sons that rich heritage of excellence and eternity.
Of course the people with whom he grew up were confused when Jesus the craftsman returned as Jesus the Rabi with a bunch of followers. Where is theological training? He’s an artisan, not a theologian! Jesus, the Christ, came into the world when there existed the same confusion then as today – the scared is over there; the secular is here; and never the twain shall meet. The worship of dead stuff has always been a poor, but widely accepted, substitute for the workshop of the living.
Devoting one’s life to the accumulation of power, prestige, and play–things yield stuff, but not satisfaction: Success, but not significance. Devoting self to the living and eternal should change how we do business: for some of us, power and prestige will follow – not because it’s pursued, but because God wants to show Himself alive in our lives.
The power of our influence will flow out of the prestige of doing business so well that others want to know the how and why.
Upon what are you focused – success (a stump) or significance (a tree)?
Copyright © 2010 by P. Griffith Lindell
The marketplace is filled with people who are building. And building, per se, is good. It’s not the building that’s the problem: it is what one is “devoted to” in that “building” that’s the issue.
Jesus ben Joseph (as, no doubt, he was known in his younger days), this builder, artisan, craftsman from Nazareth, was known for his trade, his work. Among the responsibilities of a Jewish father to his sons were circumcision, and the teaching of a trade – in this case, the potential of a tree (the kind of wood, what could be done with it, what it was best for). Joseph did his job.
More importantly, that teaching included building an understanding of the “Why” of Jewish rites and beliefs. God intended His people to build lives with eternal meaning – not just temporal excellence - and fathers were to pass down to sons that rich heritage of excellence and eternity.
Of course the people with whom he grew up were confused when Jesus the craftsman returned as Jesus the Rabi with a bunch of followers. Where is theological training? He’s an artisan, not a theologian! Jesus, the Christ, came into the world when there existed the same confusion then as today – the scared is over there; the secular is here; and never the twain shall meet. The worship of dead stuff has always been a poor, but widely accepted, substitute for the workshop of the living.
Devoting one’s life to the accumulation of power, prestige, and play–things yield stuff, but not satisfaction: Success, but not significance. Devoting self to the living and eternal should change how we do business: for some of us, power and prestige will follow – not because it’s pursued, but because God wants to show Himself alive in our lives.
The power of our influence will flow out of the prestige of doing business so well that others want to know the how and why.
Upon what are you focused – success (a stump) or significance (a tree)?
Copyright © 2010 by P. Griffith Lindell
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