The Gospel and Playground Economics
I just read a blog post that Malia Obama, daughter of President Obama, is typically the first one picked when making kickball teams at recess even though she has suspect fielding skills. Funny stuff. I also just read where they cast lots to choose teams in 1 Chronicles 25. They weren’t really choosing teams, but they were choosing the order of the terms of service for the musicians in David’s royal court. The passage notes that the lots fell and no bias was made according to age or experience. It hit me at the end of the chapter that Romamtiezer and his family were the last ones picked. It could have been really disappointing.
It brought back memories of times when I wasn’t picked. I wasn’t picked to be in the gifted class. I wasn’t picked to be on the “A” All-Star basketball teams. I can remember fighting over unfair teams on the playground. There were a lot of tears shed, a lot of angry words said, and a lot of self-victimization. The enemy had a field day.
After Jesus comes on the scene and pronounces the arrival of a new Kingdom, a new economy, he describes that it works like this, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
When you really think about it there are tremendous advantages to being the last one picked. Expectations are low. Little successes are celebrated as milestones. Mistakes are expected. It doesn’t mean we lower our expectations or strive for mediocrity. Instead we have the opportunity to learn from those picked before us. It just means that the yoke is easy, and when the yoke is easy, then work is fun, and when work is fun I believe we are our most productive. I wonder if Romamtiezer and the boys enjoyed their work more than the others?
What about you? Recall any “last one picked” stories? How might Jesus redeem them?
Reflections on: High Altitude Leaders by Warner and Schmincke
Dangerous, unproductive, dysfunctional behavior, termed DUD, can irrevocably damage your organization.
Eight Dangers for Leaders
1. Fear of Death – Don’t let the fear of being let go, losing your job, or someone else losing their job keep you from continuing to climb (great story on a perilous expedition Warner had on K2).
2. Selfishness – This can result in DUD behavior. Whenever someone puts themselves and their prosperity ahead of the team or organization production suffers decreasing by up to 50%. Combat this by inspiring passion through the use of story.
3. Tool Seduction – The best facility, network, parking lot, advertising, lights, cameras, bands does not translate into successful leadership. If somebody uses the lack of tools as a reason for a lack of leadership then they have an adaptation problem. Make adaptability a screening tool when interviewing.
4. Arrogance – Do your employees or you think that you know it all, fail to connect with customer base or fail to recognize competitive threats to the organization? If yes to any of the three, then you have an arrogance problem. Do an exegesis of your congregation and your community needs periodically. Take an occasional poll to determine a series that is 4-6 months away.
5. Lone Heroism – Always be willing to share the load because it’s necessary for succession planning, and improves morale of the team if they share in the success.
6. Cowardice – You must admit you are wrong, or things are going wrong, or things went wrong and why. The fear to do so will cripple organizations
7. Comfort – Change is painful but necessary, and sometimes the change that is necessary causes you to abandon your goal.
8. Gravity – Here the authors say that you have to have a little bit of luck on your side to be able to succeed. In the Church I think we can replace luck with the Will of God. If we are in His Will then who cares if we get burried in an avalanche.
Always seeing something I didn’t see before…Dreaming
I don’t put a whole lot of stock in my dreams, meaning the ones I have when I am sleeping and not the ones I have during my waking hours. I typically don’t remember my dreams, but there have been a few times where my dreams have awoken me in the middle of the night. Some of them were pretty vivid and many of them have dealt with losing someone I loved or being involved in some kind of struggle with evil.
For some reason I have never been inclined to determine the interpretation of any of those dreams. I typically just shrug them off as…well…as a dream. It’s not real so it must not be significant. However, dreaming in the Bible has a whole other perspective. Dreams are given some pretty serious ink in scripture.
One dream I can remember learning in Sunday School and I have read before on more than one occasion is the dream that King Nebuchadnezzar has in Daniel 2, which I read today. It may seem amazing, but the more I study scripture the more I realize how little I really know, but I don’t think I knew that Daniel not only had to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, but he had to tell King Nebi what he had dreamed. Nebuchadnezzar put so much stock into this dream, and most likely was so afraid of what it meant that he wanted to make sure that it’s interpretation was spot on. What better way to do that then to ask all of your “wisemen” to tell you what the dream was? I mean if they had a connection to a supernatural power that could interpret the dream, then telling the “wisemen” what the dream was should not be any task too hard.
Principles I learned today:
1) Life’s greatest challenges produce the greatest opportunities for faith and for earthly rewards. I’m not a health and wealth guy. In fact, my theology of the end times excludes any notion of a rapture prior to any tribulation. My reasoning is simple. If the disciples were killed, then why wouldn’t we be tortured even more. Whether cancer be the one knocking at your door or the commander of the King’s army the challenge that lies ahead will not be easy, will not guarantee freedom from other challenges, but will be an opportunity for God to be glorified, to increase our faith, and quite possibly reap some worldy benefits – especially if the king is involved.
2) Just because you’ve been asked to do the impossible doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do if you ask for help. This is a big one for me because I hate to ask for help. I don’t necessarily fail in asking for God’s help, but I fail miserably at asking for help from friends. I need to humble myself often by asking friends for help.
3) Pay attention to your dreams. I may start journaling my sleeping dreams, but maybe that was the media of the day. Maybe with technology and mass media God is communicating visually and personally through those avenues, but I think I’m going to start with the dreams and see where that takes me.
Principle reinforced
There is always going to be something you didn’t see before when it comes to scripture. So, read it…every day…year around.