Wilderness Adventures

Whether or not you believe in God, the wilderness is a tough place to be. We’ve all had times in our lives in which they feel alone and confused; unsure of what exactly is going on or what we should do next. Now, you might be saying, “Hey, I love camping, or “survival sports,” or trekking through the desert. The wilderness is where I go to get away from it all and relax.” I understand your point, but the thing that makes “getting away from it all” relaxing is the fact that you are going back to it all. You have a home or a place in the world to which you are going to return. That’s what makes the wilderness a thrilling adventure, rather than a time that tests your soul. When you are unsure about when, or if, you will ever get out of the wilderness, it becomes a test of survival, rather than a vacation.

A personal wilderness can be a time where your life is ruled by an addiction; it can be the time between jobs; it can be a time of illness—yours or somebody you care about; it can be the time following a significant personal loss; it can also be times of grieving, depression, or hopelessness. Sometimes it is just a “mid-life crisis” where everything just seems tasteless, colorless, and unsatisfying. Surviving in an abusive relationship is a terrifying wilderness in which your sense of self-worth is eroded and destroyed. Each wilderness is in the eye of the beholder, but we all go through them. These times are tough for everybody because we don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here, we aren’t sure what we are supposed to learn, and we don’t seem to have much control. For the believer in God, however, there is an added stressor: we can feel abandoned. Believers often feel angry at God, betrayed by God, or frustrated with God during their times in the wilderness. Unbelievers may be angry at an impersonal fate or karma, but believers can take it personally. I have come to understand that it is personal, but not in the negative sense.

As I look back on my times in the wilderness, I can see that those seasons of life are where my faith in God grew the most. The wilderness is where my relationship with God grows more intimate. I was reminded of this as I read in Exodus about God freeing Israel from captivity in Egypt. The slaves were now free, but God led them into a wilderness where they were forced to unlearn those slave thinking patterns and to learn new ways of relating to God as free people. They were in an unfamiliar, scary place. They didn’t know how long they were going to be there, but God said to them, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.” (Exodus 19:4)

The wilderness is where God brings us so we can meet Him and know Him. If you don’t believe in God, this wilderness experience is His way of introducing Himself. If you are a believer, your wilderness is meant to deepen your relationship with the God who redeemed you. Don’t be afraid. You can trust Him.

You Can’t Eat Just One

I was watching television and I wasn’t hungry at all. I wasn’t hungry until my wife walked in with a bag of potato chips and offered me one. I suddenly wanted some of that salty goodness. I had one chip…then I had two…and then I had three. Before I knew it I had eaten half the bag. I went from not being hungry at all to overindulging in a matter of minutes. That is the way it is with things that are bad for you. Once you have a little, you want a lot. I don’t know why the same principle doesn’t seem to work very often with things that are good for you. I can eat one piece of broccoli, but I can’t eat just one cookie or just one chip.

Developing good habits takes dedication and persistence. Developing bad habits often takes just one moment of weakness. Living a fulfilling and productive life takes discipline. Empty, unsatisfying, and counterproductive seasons in people’s lives are often characterized by undisciplined behavior and immediate gratification of selfish desires.

If you want to succeed you will do well to study the best practices of other people and organizations that have succeeded in your field of endeavor. If you want to live an abundant Christian life, it takes more than a one-time profession. It takes dedication, enduring obedience, and a commitment to the disciplines Christ lays out in scripture: prayer, study, fellowship, service, worship, and sacrifice of self, just to name a few.

Christ tells us to put off the old self, which means laying aside sinful behavior, and He tells us to put on the new self, which means adopting God-honoring behavior (Ephesians 4:20-29 and Colossians 3:1-17).

Practicing sin creates in us an appetite for it. The best way to end sinful behavior is to avoid that first chip. “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its desires.” Romans 13:14

Communicating Change

See if this sounds familiar: your immediate supervisor walks into the team meeting he or she has called. They look at the group of you and then they announce there is going to be some type of change. Some policy or procedure has been changed and it is going to affect all of you. The manager tries to distance him or herself from the change by starting with, “Here’s what the boss wants…” If any questions are raised about why we are changing this or that, the manager responds with, “Look, this is just what the boss wants, so we’re going to have to get used to it.” Maybe this sounds familiar because you are a manager and you’ve taken this approach when communicating change to your team.

There can be a couple of reasons a manager or supervisor might take this approach. First, the manager might not have been given any explanation by their boss. This decision might have “come down from the mountain” and placed the manager in the awkward position of not knowing the philosophy behind the change. He feels put-upon, so he communicates his frustration by letting his team know this is as much a surprise to him as it is to them.

The second reason for this approach might be that the manager knows the change will either be unpopular with the work-force or cause them to have to make lots of changes to the way they do things. In either case, the manager tries to make herself out to be one of the “victims” of the change, so she doesn’t catch any heat for the decision. Making the people above you look like the bad-guys has always been a popular management style.

Avoid the “This is the way it is going to be from now on, and I don’t know why” approach at all costs. Before you communicate change to your people, take the time to understand the philosophy behind the change. If you weren’t part of the decision making process, then contact somebody who was and find out the “whys and wherefores.” If you were part of the decision making process, then own the change. Be able to explain to your people the philosophy behind the change.

Modeling this type of ownership will make you look like a leader, rather than just a courier. Conveying to your people the necessity or advantage of change will help them buy into the philosophy and they may even go above and beyond the call since they feel like stake-holders instead of slaves. They may even feel free to give helpful suggestions to further streamline the process.

Leaders don’t just pass along information; they enhance the culture in which they lead. “For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” ~ Jesus (John 13:15)

Doing the Impossible

It is terrible to feel powerless or hopeless. Few things are as frustrating as being in a situation where you feel like you don’t have any control or any options. It is hard for people when life seems to happen to us. We are created with the desire to participate and to have an effect. When we are passive observers we feel tense and anxious. But there is often a difference between feeling powerless and being powerless. Sometimes that hopeless feeling comes from failing to take a comprehensive inventory of your resources or from being too fearful to use them.

I think of our brave Navy SEALS who just completed a successful rescue operation in Somalia. This same SEAL unit found and killed Osama Bin Laden. The SEALs never know what they are going to be asked to do next, but they are confident they can accomplish the mission, no matter how difficult it may be. Why are they so confident? They are confident because they know exactly what they are capable of. This self-understanding comes through experience and training. The Navy SEALS also know exactly what resources they have at their disposal: equipment, technology, information, and manpower. They know themselves, they know their equipment, and they know their teammates. This makes them adaptable, confident, and fearless.

God told Moses to do a very difficult thing (Exodus 3-4). He told Moses to confront Pharaoh and ultimately lead Israel out of Egyptian slavery. Moses was afraid Pharaoh wouldn’t listen to him. He was afraid the Israelites wouldn’t listen to him. He was also afraid Israel wouldn’t believe God had called him to lead them. Moses wasn’t afraid God’s power wasn’t sufficient; he was afraid he wasn’t sufficient. That’s when God asked Moses an interesting question. God asked, “What is that in your hand?”

It turns out Moses was holding a staff. In the excitement, he had probably forgotten about the stick he was leaning on. God used that staff to demonstrate His power and to make sure Moses’ fears weren’t realized. God also used Moses’ brother, Aaron, and a few other people to support him at key times in his ministry. In fact, God had used the first eighty years of Moses’ life to train him and to position him to be effective. God gave Moses all the experience, relationships, and equipment he needed to succeed. God is doing the same thing for you.

If you are feeling helpless or overwhelmed, take a personal inventory. When faced with a challenge, the worst thing to do is to do nothing. Don’t be afraid to lean on other people. Don’t be afraid to put your considerable abilities into play. Don’t forget to pray. God wouldn’t have allowed you to get here if he hadn’t also equipped you to endure and succeed. Feeling helpless or overwhelmed? Hey, what’s that in your hand?

The Great Unknown

Sometimes I catch myself wishing I knew how things were going to turn out. In times of uncertainty or great challenge, I often long to know the beginning from the end. I think this same desire is ultimately what derailed Adam and Eve. They loved and trusted God, but they figured they could navigate their lives better if they only knew some of the things God had chosen not to reveal to them. They thought the knowledge of good and evil would help them, but it proved too much for them (Genesis 3). Turns out God hid certain knowledge from them for their own protection.

God doesn’t allow us to know everything the future holds, but He doesn’t hide it all from us, either. Scripture is filled with prophecy, which describes future events. It is also filled with God’s promises, which describe the blessings that come with obedience and the consequences that come with disobedience. God gives us everything we need in order to know Him, know our purpose, and to know the next “right” thing to do.

Some of the things that keep most writers from starting that novel and keep most people from taking on monumental challenges is the enormity of the work to be done and the fear of the unknown. They can’t see how it will all work out, so they don’t start. But anyone who has completed an overwhelmingly large task will tell you that the key is to break the big thing down into manageable steps and to take those steps one at a time. If you are going to be a concert pianist you start by learning scales. If you want to write a novel, you start by writing one or two pages a day and you let the end unfold as you go. Pretty soon the “unknown” you feared becomes the enticement that keeps you going. You can’t wait to see what happens next, so you keep moving forward and progressing.

So it is with life. If I had known everything the future holds, I wouldn’t have had the courage to start down some of the roads that have been the most difficult for me, but from which I have learned and grown the most. Have the courage to do the next right thing and let our Great God take care of the great unknown.

Character Matters

Character matters to me. I’m not saying I have perfect character, or that I expect perfect character from others. Nobody except Christ has perfect character. All of us have done wrong things, thought wrong things, worked from impure motives, and all of us will do wrong things in the future. Good character is manifest when people own up to their mistakes and shortcomings and work to mitigate or eliminate those behaviors in the future. As I watch the current political debates and see candidates confronted with their past marital infidelities, I’m hearing one of two disturbing and consistent messages. They seem to be saying either, “I didn’t do anything wrong” or “Those issues are personal and have no bearing on my ability to lead this country.”

You cannot separate good character and good leadership. The more a person works on developing his or her character, the better leader they become. Leaders need to be open, honest, and transparent. We need to be honest about our mistakes, own up to them, learn from them, and move forward after we turn from them. That is how we best mentor those whom we are grooming to be the future leaders in our organization, family, or church. Since they aren’t going to be perfect, either, we must show them by example how to turn things around after we make mistakes and poor choices.

God makes solid character a prerequisite for leadership in His church (1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:5-16) so we are foolish to think skill in leadership trumps character in leadership within our organization or at our country’s helm. When the chips are down and the potential costs are high, wise decisions flow from strong character. Let’s demand integrity from our leaders. Character matters.

Time Well Spent

Yesterday was a long one. I spend the entire day teaching a domestic violence crisis intervention class to a room full of police officers. It was a good group, but cops can be a tough audience sometimes. You better know your stuff. They are trained to evaluate, not only the validity of the information they are being given, but also the reliability of the person dispensing it. You don’t have to be a cop to get their respect, but you do have to be sharp and genuine. They can smell bull-poop a mile away. It is the same when you are teaching any group of professionals. Professionals respect professionals. I love teaching in a professional environment, but maintaining that level of intensity for eight hours leaves me feeling spent. I have to confess that the last thing I felt like doing was teaching a bible study, but that is where I was headed. I prayed for strength, wisdom, and energy as I drove to our small-group meeting.

I had planned and prepared a bible lesson for the meeting, but God had other plans. Our group met and we spent some time sharing with each other some of the things going on in our lives and writing down prayer requests. As we talked, it seemed like God was leading us to simply be there with and for each other. We had all had stressful days and it was good to be together as brothers and sisters in-Christ. We ended up spending our entire time praying together and praying for each other. We also prayed for other members of our church as God led. I didn’t get to teach the lesson I’d planned, but it didn’t matter. The Holy Spirit had guided us to where we needed to be and God’s peace had settled in our hearts. We all commented how great it had been to spend time together talking with our Father.

Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that Christianity isn’t about all the things I can do for God, rather it is about all the time I can spend with God. He tells us to pray without ceasing, not because He wants to keep giving us orders, but because He loves to be with us. We have plenty of work to do for the kingdom, but make sure to spend most of your time with the King. You won’t regret it.

Opinions and Belly Buttons

As the saying goes, “Opinions are like belly-buttons. Everybody has one.” That has always been true, but we are living in an age where people can make their opinions known to the entire world through various media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, talk-radio, and a wide array of free blog platforms are only a few of the vehicles available by which people can get their opinions into the public square.

Some people are getting rich by simply voicing their opinions. The information market is booming, but not all opinion is truth. The consumers of these opinions must be very discerning. Proverbs 18:2 says, “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”

We who share our opinions with the world have an obligation to learn continually as we communicate our opinions. Every opinion is based upon a perceived set of facts, so we have an obligation to check our facts before we put our opinions out there. As opinions flow, so do internet hoaxes. Words can edify, infuriate, deflate, elate, educate, motivate, incriminate, or incite to action. Words can be tools or they can be weapons. We who wield them should be good stewards of the privilege we enjoy. We are honor bound to voice our opinions with boldness and conviction, but we are also honor bound to make sure our platform is sound and to consider the possible outcomes. Speak boldly, speak well, and speak the truth!

Ask Your Questions

Please share with me some of the questions you have about the bible. I am grateful to God that I get to spend my time around believers and non-believers alike. I am a pastor, but I’m also a writer, a public speaker, a police trainer, and domestic violence prevention consultant. Needless to say, people frequently seek out my opinions on many things. But the most interesting questions I get, by far, are those about the bible.

People who don’t believe the bible still ask me questions about its origins and what it says on certain topics. Believers typically have fewer questions than unbelievers, but their questions are usually more detailed and they usually center on an issue or topic the person is dealing with at the time.

I spend a lot of time writing blogs, writing articles, preparing messages, preparing lectures, preparing seminars, etc. Quite often, I begin my preparations by isolating questions people have about the bible. Answering these questions and helping people apply the answers to their lives is my “creative process.” I strive to teach people scriptural principles, even if I don’t quote them chapter and verse.

I hope you’ll return frequently to this blog post and type a question for me. I don’t pretend to have all, or even many, of the answers, but I’ll do my best. Let me lay down two ground-rules:

1. I am not going to debate eschatology (the study of end-times and Christ’s return). I find that people get into one camp or the other and they like to argue endlessly with people in other camps. I’m not playing that game. Jesus is coming back. That is all that matters.
2. I am not going to debate dispensational verses covenant theology or the particulars of predestination verses free-will. Again, Christians seem to love to argue with each other about these things. If you have an educated opinion on these matters, I doubt you are seeking clarity from me. The bible teaches salvation through Christ alone. How we come to Him is a secondary issue.

Aside from those things, I can’t wait to hear your questions! I hope you’ll share them.

The Pie’s the Limit

It’s election time again. We’re in for months of listening to people argue with each other and attack each other’s intelligence, character, and record. I won’t likely be swayed one way or the other, though. My political views are pretty unshakeable because they are not based on my feelings. They are based upon my core-values and some core principles I hold. I try to evaluate everything I see and hear by those standards. Yesterday I was watching T.V. and somebody in a political ad framed an argument that I’ve heard many times, but never really thought through. The statement spoke to one of my core principles. The ad was obviously sponsored by the left (huge fans of big-government). The spokesperson said something like:

They keep saying government doesn’t create jobs, but the people who are saying that have government jobs! Of course government creates jobs!

I’ve heard members of the right (supposedly huge fans of less taxes and smaller government, though I haven’t seen them act that way lately) claim that government doesn’t create jobs, but I know better. I served many years in the United States Marine Corps and many years on municipal police departments, so I have held government created jobs. The government can, and does, create jobs. What the government doesn’t create is wealth. That is the argument people should be making for limited government. That is one of the principles I believe in: government doesn’t create wealth; the private sector does. If the government limits people’s freedom to generate wealth, then our country will be worth less than it might otherwise be. For instance, if the government starts taxing internet use, as they are trying to do, it will burden the private sector and limit wealth creation, thereby shrinking our Gross National Product.

The government is working with a pie of limited size. They have a budget based upon taxes they collect from those of us who work. We must give them a portion of our income. We have no legal choice. Therefore, their pie-size is based upon how much they can take from us. Every job they “create” requires a piece of that pie, making the economic pie smaller.

Private citizens and private companies, on the other hand, create jobs and wealth. They don’t take from others to make their pie. They provide goods and/or services that people willingly buy. If they don’t make a good product or service, people don’t buy it and the company and the jobs disappear (unless there’s a government bail-out, which is a topic for another time, but which increases our national debt). Those people are then free to start another business, go to work for another business, or to invent a unique way of making a living (entrepeneurialism). The private sector can create brand new products, services, and markets that contribute to our national worth instead of lessening it. The government creates jobs and debt by taking, while private companies create jobs and wealth by making. Wealthy people are not stealing from poor people to get their wealth. They are generating wealth by creating and marketing quality products and services. The wealth they generate is called our country’s Gross National Product (GNP). It is a pie without upper boundaries. It is the sum of all the products and services our private sector creates in a year. Right now our GNP is about 14.6 trillion dollars. The government must take away from that pie in order to fund everything it does.

Government is necessary for many reasons (Romans 13:1-7), but it is not an economic growth engine. This country is great because our government allows people the relative freedom to create wealth and jobs. I vote we keep it that way, and I’ll vote to keep it that way. You can never have too much pie!