Archives For

“I will…:” Go and do the same.

April 23, 2013 — Leave a comment

100people_1024110th of an 11 part series

So I’m not sure what to say about this that I haven’t already said. Whatever lens through which you interpret what it means to follow Jesus there is one particular exchange that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for disagreement. You can read about it in Matthew 22.

There’s a bottom line to following Jesus laid out Himself. When asked what the single, most critical of all of God’s commandments was, Jesus said that it was to love God with everything you are. He was quick to add that the second most important commandment was equally important (some translations have Jesus saying that the second is like the first): love your neighbor.

Jesus is pretty clear here. Loving God and loving your neighbor go together. They feed each other. Somehow loving the people around me is like loving God. Just who is our neighbor? When Jesus was asked that very question He replied with a story:

Jesus replied with a story:

“A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.

“By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.

“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.

The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Luke 10:30-37 (NLT)

Think about what Jesus is saying. Answering the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus is really saying two things.

First, a neighbor is someone who extends mercy to others. These are the people we are to love. Now before you start saying, “Oh! Well then whoever doesn’t give out mercy I don’t need to worry about.” Not so fast.

Jesus said, “Yep! That’s your neighbor. That’s the kind of person you should love. Now go and do the same.” If you see someone who isn’t holding up their end of the bargain in extending mercy that doesn’t give you a pass to not love them. You need to extend mercy…give grace…give love.

When you see someone extending mercy, celebrate it. Give that person a high five.

When you see someone who isn’t quite getting it right, love them through it.

The instructions are simple. The execution is hard.

Thanks to Nate Pyle at “From One Degree to Another” for the pic. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. 

In Christianity, Love, Reflection, Relationships, Uncategorized , , ,
permalink Leave a comment

“I will…” : KABOOM!

April 22, 2013 — Leave a comment

gil-head-explode-again

9th of an 11 part series

We do a lot of personality assessments on the staff where I work. No matter how you look at it, I am what Myers-Briggs calls an ENFP. Among other things, I’m described as extremely intuitive and perceptive, energetic, future-oriented and creative.

If you look at lists of possible careers someone with my personality type would gravitate toward, “writer” always shows up. I recently took a look at a roster of “celebrity ENFPs” and noticed that most of them were writers and other creatives, including my personal hero Walt Disney (I also found it interesting that several third world dictators shared my personality type, but that’s for another post).

At the start of the year I made a commitment to write daily. Whether it’s in the form of a blog post, a journal entry or some clever (at least in my own mind) tweet or status update, I’m absolutely committed to taking the thoughts that are endlessly rattling around in my head and shaping them into something that might be comprehensible.

Of course I have a dream of writing a great screenplay or book or some other work fit for publishing. But more than anything I write because I must.

It’s either that or have my head explode all over the room. I don’t think anyone wants that.

image courtesy of High Five to That.

In Blogging, Creativity, Reflection, Writing , ,
permalink

“I will…” The Liberal Conservative, Radically Accepting, Jesus-following Way

April 18, 2013 — 1 Comment

8th of an 11 part series

A large part of my life involves serving on the staff of my local church. There is an ocean of great faith communities around the world. Each one has a unique expression of their beliefs that sets them apart from all others. One particular distinctive of City Church is that we are radically accepting of whoever chooses to come through our doors. This makes for a particularly eclectic group of people. If you were to stand in front of our audience during any given service and look across the faces staring back at you, you would see a pretty fair representation of our city. This is not an easy thing to accomplish.

The thing about radical acceptance is that you either give it to everyone or you give it to no one. The moment I decide that I will extend radical acceptance to one person but withhold it from someone else, what I’m extending is neither radical nor accepting. It becomes conditional and subjective according to my own likes and dislikes.

I’d love to say that being a part of my church’s staff has magically erased my personal biases. It hasn’t. But, I hope I’m moving in the right direction.

My friend John told me once that the more conservative one is in their understanding of what the Bible teaches the more liberally we treat and accept those around us. Now that’s radical.

These days I’m spending more time getting to understand God and the Bible than I ever have before. What I see on the pages of Scripture keeps driving me back to the reality that I have been radically accepted by God. Because this is true I have no room to exclude anyone else.

Do you?

In Reflection, Relationships , , ,
permalink

“I will…”: What’s next?

April 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

Question-Mark7th of an 11 part series

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” Albert Einstein

“Judge a person by their questions rather than their answers.” Voltaire

In school I loved going to the library. What would start out as a legitimate effort to accomplish an assignment for class would turn into a festival of research on nothing in particular. It would usually begin with reading an article and then I would get to the bibliography or a footnote - something - that would send me on a rabbit trail or two…or ten.

I love discovery, new information, research. Ending the day knowing something I didn’t know before is one of the hallmarks of a great day. This is also how I approach the people I come across.

There is no greater source of knowledge than people. The moment that I think there is someone from whom I cannot learn anything is the moment I stop learning. Everyone has a unique perspective on news, faith, love, work, relationships, politics and life. Everyone is shaped by circumstances that only they have experienced. Everyone has something to broaden my understanding of the world around me.

My friend Mark said once that we need to continuously broaden the bandwidth from which we receive information. One way I do that is by remaining curious. Curious about people, places, things…the world.

My hope is that the last words of my mouth when my life here is done will be the same that I ask each morning:

“I wonder what’s next?”

In Reflection, Uncategorized , ,
permalink

“I will…”: The Wisdom of the Mysto

April 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

erectorsets6th of an 11 part series

A personality assessment that many of those I work with have taken says that I “prefer to apologise for exceeding [my] authority rather than getting permission in the first place.” What can I say? Guilty as charged.

To be fair, I will, more often than not, honor the boundaries I’ve been given. It’s in those moments that obstacles come before me that I begin to wrestle with this personality quirk. Where some see a barrier to their goals as something to break through, I tend to see them as something to go around…or under…or over…or even use as part of the solution. There is this thing about me that prefers looking at creative solutions to obstacles. Many times creatively tackling a bottleneck can lead to finding solutions in places one might not otherwise discover.

One of my favorite stories is when the Disney Imagineers were designing Soarin’. They were stuck. They just could not figure out how they were going to make this work. Hours and hours of thinking and meeting had not developed into a viable solution. It wasn’t until after one Imagineer started playing with his child’s Erector set that he was able to construct a model for how the attraction would eventually work.

This is one of the reasons that I see everyone that crosses my path as someone that I can learn from. The moment I think “oh, this person (or organization or _____) can’t teach me something is the moment that I stop learning. The moment I stop learning is the moment I begin to limit my ability to find creative solutions to obstacles.

That is not acceptable.

In Creativity, Reflection , , ,
permalink

Fight Fear and Make Art

April 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

image_1365874081600843

My life has been rich with amazing and creative people. Some I have known for years and others are new friendships that are just beginning to form. Starting today some of these very special people will be guests on my blog. Today begins with a post from my good friend, singer/songwriter/artist/poet Chris Taylor. The drawing you see to the left is a Chris Taylor original.

I am sweetly jaded, post bitterly faded, Jesus freesus, knowledge means nothing without empathy and humility, most people refuse to see, nothing means nothing to me, nothing excites me… Even spiritually but I want it to be… More than casually, I want to be set free… To regain the ME of me… To see eternally – but can it ever be? I will never know because the afterglow of worship is gone and I know the wrong of wrong enough to fill a song and one day I will be surprised, realized that God don’t live in the sky or even in our own eyes – but somewhere mystified… Somewhere doctors operate but can’t find… Somewhere that would blow our minds… Cause us all to rewind our lives and start again…. We would be God’s friend if we only knew… Nothing we could ever do… To gain his grace, to see his face or balance spirit and flesh just to live in faith. Because our darkest sin can’t be erased until we find that everyone is blind no matter how much knowledge we have in our mind… And the shadow of the cross covers everyone of us but some and maybe most are too busy to see or even want to be free but you didn’t hear any of this from me.

164434_10151539191546885_1805435799_nChris Taylor is an American singer-songwriter, visual artist and illustrator based in San Antonio, Texas.  He is the former lead singer of the band Love Coma and has been a solo performer since 1997. Taylor’s 2000 album, Worthless Pursuit of Things on the Earth, was nominated as Rock Album of the Year for the 2001 Dove Awards. He just released his new album, Postcards From The End of Time in April 2013 and is creating art in San Antonio, TX. Check out his website at www.christaylorworld.com. Follow him on Twitter @realchristaylor.

In Reflection, Spirituality , , ,
permalink

“I will…”: I won’t back down

April 11, 2013 — Leave a comment


5th of an 11 part series

I’m in an interesting season of life right now. Ruben, the oldest of my two children, is starting college in the fall. My daughter, Elena, is two years behind him. Somehow the empty nest that once seemed so far away is now around the corner. It has caused me no end of introspection.

One of the core values I’ve determined to live by is to protect my family at all costs. We all want that at some level, but I’ve been asking myself how well I met that expectation not so much from external challenges. I wonder if I did a good enough job at protecting my family from me…from my own flaws and shortcomings.

As I currently make the journey through a recovery program to identify emotional and spiritual issues that have the potential to undermine my shot at God’s best life for me, I’m realizing that I’ve not always hit the mark. I’ve done relational damage to those that mean the most to me and I wonder have I missed my chance to fix it? With the notion of my children moving on to chart their own course in life, leaving my wife and I at home alone with each other, can I reclaim any lost ground?

As I sat in my office one afternoon last week talking with a colleague, I had an unexpected visit. I told my wife about it yesterday and she was equally surprised (albeit pleasantly) by the event. It was my son. He was on his way to work and stopped by the office just to say hello. That singular event made my day and gave me hope that it’s not too late…in fact, it’s never too late.

We have a lifetime to reclaim lost ground and the best place to start is with those whom we love most.

In Family, Reflection, Relationships , ,
permalink

“I will…”: Am I listening?

March 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

200483368-001

4th of an 11 part series

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.” 1 Kings 19.11-12 (NLT)

“Listen to everyone, but be led by no one…except God.” David Saathoff

As a person of faith and specifically as one who follows Jesus, the idea of being led by God is pretty significant…and a little scary. How do I know what He’s telling me? There’s a lot of noise out there. A lot of voices vie for my attention. Which one is His? It’s easy to get distracted in the midst of the chaos of daily life but I’ve found a way to at least move toward isolating what God may be trying to tell me.

As a Christian I believe the Bible may not tell me everything there is to know about God, but it does tell me everything I need to know about God. At the beginning of this year I made a commitment to spend some time every day reading what the Bible has to say to me. It’s the only way I can filter out all of the noise that I don’t need to give attention to…and what I do need to pay attention to.

Whether or not you follow Christ, the Bible has some really good stuff to say and I’d encourage you strongly to spend some time discovering it either for the first time or rediscovering it. A great tool to get at that is the YouVersion Bible app. You can get it at bible.com/app.

I’d love to hear what you think as you dig into it.


In Blogging, Reflection , ,
permalink

Great Leaders are Great Because They …

March 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

If you are essential you are the bottleneck.

via Great Leaders are Great Because They ….

In Uncategorized
permalink

“I will…”: It don’t come easy

February 28, 2013 — Leave a comment

Image

3rd of an 11 part series

Around my circles I’m usually pegged as the relational guy. My Myers-Briggs pegs me as an ENFP. My Insights Discovery says I’m very yellow, the color symbolizing a relational orientation. Because of my concern for the relationships around me people assume that I’m sensitive to others. The reality is that sensitivity does not come naturally to me. The reality is that I can be the biggest butthead if I let it go unchecked.

Being aware of how what I say and do affects the people around me is a discipline. Just because I may give thought to my words and actions more than some doesn’t mean I’m better at it.

I made a commitment at the beginning of this year to do more than just think about it. Looking back on these first two months of 2013 I can think of several occasions when I failed at my commitment, the most recent just this morning with my kids.

Maybe that’s the real point of sensitivity. I’m not going to get it right every time. There will be moments when I will hurt feelings, say something stupid or act in a way that leaves others wondering what the heck I’m thinking. How I respond when I realize what I’ve done is where sensitivity really kicks in. When I realize that I was wrong, how quick am I to make amends?

Think about that. I have to text my kids to say, “I’m sorry.”

In Reflection , ,
permalink