Listening leads to Understanding

When you first enter into a new opportunity or assignment, its helpful to realize that you are likely not the smartest guy in the room. That might sound obvious but many times we are tempted to value perception over understanding. So we can easily sabotage, or at least stunt, our growth process by speaking instead of listening. There are really only two options when it comes to growing into what God has called you to do.

Option #1

“I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m listening until I do.”

There is simply no way to avoid ignorance in life. There is going to come a time when you simply don’t know and likely don’t understand. That is not a negative character flaw but rather an indicator that there is more to learn and grow into. The best approach to moments or seasons of ignorance is to turn your life into a listening receptacle. Allow your mouth an opportunity to take a rest while your brain develops. Listening will curb your tendency to “open mouth insert foot” and exponentially decrease your learning curve.

Option #2

“I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m gonna sound like I do.”

In both these scenarios you are completely lost. In the first you are taking Solomon’s advice and displaying wisdom by choosing to quiet yourself (Pr 29:20, Pr 29:11). With the second approach you are just as ignorant but you go a step further and make your ignorance apparent and obvious to everyone around you. What’s more is that you are making your path to knowledge nearly impossible to travel. You keep tripping over your own words and getting no where.

Learn to recognize moments and seasons of ignorance then do something about it. You don’t have to stay that way. If you determine in your heart to grow then it won’t be long before you really do have something worth saying and something worth hearing.

Continued: Ways to Increase Your Value

Continued from the At Work Series: Pt. 1

4.  Take Chances

One of the great things about the apostle Peter was his courage to step out and “just do it.”  At times that got him into trouble due to ignorance.  However, more often than not, when you are willing to step out of the boat in obedience (Matthew 14:28) you will find that you can do things that you never thought possible.  Really what you will find is that you were destined to do and be much more than you could have imagined.  Make a personal commitment to never turn down an opportunity because the task seems too daunting.  When God is setting you up to grow He will never present you with assignments that you feel prepared for.  However, if you have been faithful in the season of preparation (1 Samuel 16:19-23) you can be sure that God is about to do something truly amazing in your life and in the life of others around you.

5.  Invest in Personal Growth

There are very few things more detrimental to momentum than a team that is unambitious and uninterested in personal growth.  Leaders who serve in one season of their life often get mesmerized by positional leadership and begin to coast.  They eventually lose any and all of the influential leadership they once had.  The only way to be of value to your family or organization is to lead and contribute from out front.  That does not mean that you must be in the front position.  But it does mean that there has to be something in you that others need.  It is impossible to nurture and grow that “something” without an undying commitment to personal growth.  Through personal growth God will plant the seeds of promise that will one day nourish the family and generation you serve.

6.  Make People Your Priority

Its hard to argue with the familiar leadership attache, “People are your most valuable asset.”  For the believer, people are God’s greatest creation because he imprinted his very image in each one (Genesis 1:27).  It is easy to get wrapped up in what you “feel called to do” or what you envision.  This is an important focus, yet it should never come at the cost of losing sight of people.  When goal and outcome are your only focus you will crush, ignore and marginalize any person that stands in your way.  Often times these “people obstacles” are actually tests and shaping moments God is using to adjust your direction. When you focus your attention on people you begin to see as God sees and will be better positioned to know and understand how best to see the vision through to completion.

Ways to Increase Your Value

At Work Series: Ways to Increase Your Value

No matter where your assignment might be, you have a responsibility to faithfully increase your value to the people around you.  Not in order that you could receive praise and glory, but to (1) serve others with your life and (2) that others might see the God in you and honor Him.  We were created to grow in influence and value, we were created for contribution.  It is supernaturally satisfying to know that you have been a vessel used to better another life or carry on a Godly vision.  It could be your corporation, 9 to 5 job, church or simply your family.  In all these things we can increase our value and turn up our contribution by focusing on these areas.

1. Solve Problems

   There are issues big and small, everyday, that need an answer.  Like Daniel, in Daniel chapter 2, we have a distinct advantage as believers because we are conduits of The Truth, The Answer to humanity.  If there is a problem, God has the insight and solution necessary to overcome.  Our natural tendency is not to become a problem solver.  Some people are are simply PROBLEM POINTERS.  They are excellent at stating the obvious and communicating what is wrong and needs repair.  This paradigm is often the result of an unwillingness to take responsibility or take a chance in being used by God.  It is much safer to stand on the shore and point than it is to step out and trust that God might use you to bring resolution.  If it all falls apart it will be on your shoulders.  This scares off most followers who are content to let someone else take the risk.   A valuable leader in an organization will step up to the plate every time.  They are not blissfully ignorant but rather inwardly trusting that God has created them “for such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)

2. Translate the Company Vision

   Possibly the most valuable member(s) of a team is the person that can accurately capture what is in the heart of the leader and translate that into directives and ideas that come to life.  These people make it their life study to excavate the jewels that are hidden for them inside the heart of the vision they follow.  It is not easy and it demands great sacrifice.  There is not a lot of glitz and glory to a miners job.  You often find yourself head to toe covered in dirt while others are outside the cave basking in the sun.  But the work of a vision excavator will not go unrewarded.  There will soon come a time when real progress is necessary.  The leaders with the answers will be those like the sons of Issachar who have dedicated themselves to the vision and at the right time will “understand the season and know what to do.” (1 Chronicles 12:32)

3. Take Responsibility

   Valuable leaders on a team consider themselves personally responsible for the outcome.  Departmentalizing your responsibilities is the easy way out.  Saying, “That’s not my department” does not add value to you or your team.  In “Inside the Magic Kingdom : Seven Keys to Disney’s Success” Tom Connellan narrates an encounter where a Disney World employee walks by a tour guided group of business leaders in the Magic Kingdom theme park.  The employee is seen stopping every few steps to gather trash thrown to the ground.  The group is later confronted by this same individual in a keynote session on leadership.  The individual was one of the executives on Disney’s creative teams.

   Considering yourself a steward of all things will increase your value in your organization.  These valuable leaders get no satisfaction from losing, even if they were not personally responsible for leading the charge.  Do everything within your power to make sure your leadership and organization are positioned for the most significant impact possible.  This will not only increase your value to the team but will also bring maturity and strength to your personal life.

   Continued…

Practicing Submission: Battling Rights

What is the litmus test for choosing right?  Is it character, integrity, purity, honor?  All these are notable qualities that should be guiding lights in our lives as Christians, but ultimately they cannot be the final filter for choosing “right.”

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations —  “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using — according to the commandments and doctrines of men?  These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:0-23) NKJV

The problem with honorable and “good” is that they can just as easily serve the purposes of religion rather than serve the purposes of God.  There have been many times when I could have made a choice that would have seemed “right” to a lot of people I loved and respected.  I could have made the decision and only God and I would have known it was a compromise…A Compromise of Submission.  By all natural accounts I had the right to take the opportunity in front of me and pursue my dream.  But if we are going to live a life of surrender then we must start by giving up our “Rights.”

Ask Yourself…

1. What has God been trying to teach me, shape into me, in my current situation?  Have I yielded to those lessons?
2. In the light of God’s desires for my life, is this the wise thing to do? (Read Andy Stanley The Best Question Ever)
3. Will this choice give me short-term relief or long-term fulfillment?
4. Am I truly willing to give up what I wanted in exchange for what God commanded?

Practicing Submission

To suddenly not care whether your voice is heard, your dreams are realized or your desires are acknowledged is completely foreign to western culture.  We have seen many technological and historical advances by way of our pioneer/”John Wayne” approach to life.  No doubt western thought has taken a hold of the power positions in this world.  And with each passing generation the thought of self-sacrifice and laying one’s life down fades into the history books and biographies of men and women dead and gone.

The loss of the surrendered life has wreaked havoc on our societies.  Everything from fatherless homes to pagan nationalism to corporate greed can be traced back to men unwilling to be broken, unwilling to surrender to anything other than self-gratification.  Generations of men became cold and hardened because they were never touched by the power and freedom of a heart submitted completely to God.