Rare is the week where I don’t talk to at least one person overwhelmed by their situation.  Typically it is in regards to their own life circumstance, but it is a fairly common occurrence to talk to a leader frustrated, confused, or overwhelmed by their organizational challenges as well.  The “reference system” of everything going on around us tends to crowd out any hope or expectation for change and a different future.  When we assess the litany of issues swirling around us, it is nearly impossible to imagine things getting any better.

There is a great story told almost 2,000 years ago, it goes something like this…

“A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.”

Now, most of the folks I run with are doing many of the right things. They are attending religious services, going to small group studies, doing daily intentional things. In their work…

We’re working with two businesses with the intention of combining them. We’re early in the process, but we are off to an extraordinary start. The deeper we enter into the process, the more we realize how uncommon this is for two owners to move from the autocratic outright of sole proprietorship to the joint and several of partnership.

We’re helping them guard their hearts and urging that they protect the preciousness of this process from swine looking to gobble up their enthusiasm…

Every relationship, whether business or personal, needs to matriculate through three key stages:

1. CURIOSITY

2. ENLIGHTENMENT

3. COMMITMENT

First, something has to capture your attention.  Develop some level of curiosity.  And by the way, you are having to compete with 33,000 messages a day assaulting the average person’s attention in order for you to arouse curiosity about you, your company, or your product. 

For this reason, you better have something…

I encountered a man about a half-dozen or so years ago.  Soon after, I purchased a journal to accompany him to one of the men’s retreat I help lead with my Band of Brothers.  Like most men who attend those weekends, he had never journaled before or really kept any account of his faith or relationship with God.  I told him that whether or not he had ever “heard” from the Father, he certainly would on this weekend and that it was imperative that he write down every word that was spoken.

“And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.”  -Donald Miller

This quote, from Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years was a revolution in my life.  It was the headwaters of the river that took me from…

We’re intentional about celebrating birthdays, holidays, accomplishments, and milestones - but how often do we take time to celebrate the people right around us just for being who they are? Encouragement is something that everyone desperately needs, but few of us freely offer without some sort of “reason.”

Well, here is your reason:

Your family needs encouragement.

So do you…

I was at a non-fiction writing conference a few years ago. We had a writing exercise that required we describe the same scenario through a decreasing word count. As the word count shrunk, I just started using bigger words so that I could pack more information into the tinier space. When I read my most condensed statement with all the big words, the exasperated instructor said…

The last thing we need to be worried about in this country at this time in history is abundance, right? We’ve got it pretty good:

• Median household income of $59k when the world average is $9k.

• A national median home price of just under $200k.

• An almost 50 year low of 3.7% jobless rate.

• A national health system making care available for all.

Things are awesome, right?

It doesn’t exactly feel that way, does it?  

One of my favorite scenes from film involves a crackpot, bush-pilot philosopher named Rosie Little. He is flying a scientist named Tyler to the Valley of the Blackstone in northern Alaska. He is trying to figure out what kind of treasure he is really after. When Tyler won’t tell him, Rosie says…

Scripture tells how we are uniquely created and wonderfully made. C.S. Lewis points out that each one of us uniquely offers one particular aspect of the Divine that no one else can. We are told that we are the crown of His creation and were placed here specifically to rule and subdue all that exists. Clearly we are here for a particular reason.

We met a couple during our trip to Colorado.  They’ve recently acquired a guest ranch that has been in existence for decades.  The story about how this all happened is too beautiful and extensive for me to try and share in the 500 words of this post, but I might give that a try on another day.

Among all the inspiring things we talked about during the long afternoon we shared, the career path he took to this vocational stint was particularly interesting.  He had been…

I grew up as a beach rat.  Hanging out at the shore and dunes of a small back bay that was reachable by foot or bike as a young boy and then to a much larger beach and National seashore by car as a teenager.  My time on the shores was largely unfettered and unsupervised.  That led to all kinds of great boyhood stuff early and all kinds of destructive behavior as I aged.

One of the things a coastal community of South Texas didn’t provide for much of was a traditional change of seasons…

The last few organizations I got involved with heard a similar refrain from me…

“I’m not interested in leading or being in charge of anything.”

I am not joining your organization or board. I am not taking an officer position or signing up to chair anything. I mean, I feel like I lead or am in charge in every other arena of my life. Decisions don’t seem to get made and nothing seems to happen unless I am driving it. Can you relate?

That’s a problem right? 

When the religious were trying to overcomplicate things, even confuse things, Jesus really made it clear. Almost as if he were establishing a hierarchy of things. As if he was telling them that all their rules, prohibitions, laws, judgements, tips and techniques are pretty much worthless if you aren’t first accomplishing these two simple (but not easy) things:

Love God.

Love others.

I think the lack of this…the lack of the reciprocal of this…is all our deepest longing.  When the bible talks about all creation groaning for the coming Kingdom and the restoration of all things, I think this is one of the things we are groaning for most deeply.

When we surveyed local leaders, one of the things they mentioned struggling with was maintaining a healthy life/work balance.  The demands of their work not only kept them at the office more than they liked, it tended to follow them home as well.

As a result we spend a lot of time studying Jesus’ way of doing things with the leaders with whom we work.  Despite the incredible mission he came to accomplish and contrary to our Western culture sensibility; he lived a slow, steady…

As a man who felt like life had taught him that he would always be alone, examining life is something that I spent a lot of time doing.  But I wasn’t examining my own, I was just being critical of everyone else’s.  Doing life on my own meant that I was constantly surveying the landscape for anything I could find about others’ lives to criticize as a way to momentarily feel better about my own.

Interestingly enough, I am regularly challenged on most of the measures I have taken to quiet things.  Not by the menacing growl of all those beasts fighting for my attention, but by people who regularly partake in them and seem bothered by the fact that I am not.

I recently wrote about the need for soul care in “Attendance” a few months ago.  It turns out that ordering my life with “soul care” as one of the top priorities has been as disruptive to my life as it has been for others.

Disruptive for good, but disruptive nonetheless.

I am privileged to spend my vocational life in very close alignment with my calling, God’s particular intention for my life.  And while calling is…