Character is the bridge that provides the point of trust that links leaders with followers.
Category Archives: Personal Growth
Why My Book Launch Will Fail — And That’s OK
How Do You Define Success When Walking by Faith?
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I don’t know about you, but I hate to fail. I hate it with a passion. The feeling that I have fallen short of the goal – even a goal I’ve set in my own mind – has to be one of the worst feelings ever.
It happens every time I set aside a day for yard work. I conjure up a long list of things to accomplish. But no matter how much I actually accomplish in the day, it’s never enough. The list is always longer than the day.
Solomon put it this way: “Just as Death and Destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied.” (Prov. 27:20)
Yep. That would be me. Never satisfied.
Sometimes the Truth Hurts
Can I be brutally candid with you about the launch of my new book? I think it will fail to meet my expectations. Here’s why.
What Writing a Book Taught Me
6 Lessons I Learned from Writing a Book about Faith
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I had always dreamed of writing a book. I know, some of you are thinking, I have that same dream while others are thinking, Who needs yet another book?
I empathize with both of you, actually. Now that I’ve written several books, both by myself and with others, the process isn’t nearly as mysterious as it once was. But it is not an easy task — at least not to write something someone will find worth reading.
Along this journey to write A Story Worth Telling: Your Field Guide to Living an Authentic Life, I examined every passage of Scripture referencing faith, belief, or trust. You name it, I’ve probably dismantled it.
And then to tackle such a topic that people much smarter than me have written about for centuries — well, it was a bit intimidating at times.
But the greater challenge was managing my time.
What Everybody Ought to Know About Faith
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One thing I’ve learned on this journey to live a story worth telling is that living by faith is more of a process than an event. Even the most passionate Christ-follower is tempted to settle, to find a safe place where faith doesn’t seem quite so necessary for survival.
The good news is this: God will not let His children settle. For when we settle, we cease to trust. When we cease to trust, we fail to please God.
We Were Made for Adventure
God’s first instruction to us at Creation was to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. It was a command to keep moving forward alongside Him, to always be seeking the next adventure. He repeated the command to Noah and his family after The Great Flood.
And yet what do we see within a few generations but an effort to settle down instead of stepping up. In a place that came to be called Babel, they said: “Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4)
Even though the rest of the world lay unexplored, they chose to settle. They pulled back in fear instead of stepping out with courageous faith. They chose to consolidate their own power so they wouldn’t need to trust in God. Or so they thought.
To All Those Who Want Their Story to Matter
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Someday, you will tell your story. You may tell it here and now in this life or there and then in your next season of existence, after you have “shuffled off this mortal coil.” But it’s going to happen. The question is: will your story be worth telling?
Whether or not your story will be a good one will depend on one thing – your faith.
I don’t mean your commitment to organized religion or your ability to describe a conversion experience in vivid detail. We Christians are good at assuming our story will be good because we once said a prayer to secure a spot in heaven someday. I’m not talking about fire insurance.
I’m talking about faith – doing what you believe to be true, often in spite of what you see, sense, or feel. Faith is what writes your story and determines whether it will be a story worth telling.
Why You Need Not Fear Being Afraid
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My friend Dan Nichols recently wrote a post identifying fear as the greatest threat to leadership. It got me thinking. I agree that fear keeps many people from living a story worth telling, but it doesn’t have to if we make fear our friend.
None of us enjoy feeling that our story might not turn out the way we want it to. Fear is what we feel when we sense we’ve lost control, when we’re uncertain about what might happen next. When we don’t know how things are going to turn out, we feel fears icy grip tighten around our soul.
But fear is not all bad. In fact, out of our control is what we should be feeling — it is the reality in which we live. When circumstances bring us face-to-face with this reality, we have a choice: let our fear control us, or see it as an opportunity to live a more authentic life.
The Greatest Risk You Face Right Now
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What if the greatest risk you face isn’t what you think?
If we listed our current top five fears (or does concerns sound like more acceptable Christianeze?), I suspect most of us would have lists like this:
- Will I have enough money?
- Will that relationship work out?
- Will I find healing for this physical body I’m stuck with?
- Will the right people like and accept me?
- Will anyone find out that I’m actually an idiot?
Well, maybe some of us don’t worry about that last one as much as we should. But the reality is this: all but one of those fears is already in the process of fading away. The Apostle Paul said it best:
The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18
For FaithWalkers, only relationships will last beyond our brief tour of this earth. And even those often come and go throughout our brief stay. How many of us lived our high school and college years consumed with what our peers thought of us – only to seldom, if ever, see them once we passed that season of life?
8 Tips to Keep Your Faith Fit
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Do you work out? I do. Well, at least since the first of the year, I do. We all know regular physical workouts keep us physically fit and give us the sustainable energy we need to succeed.
But what about exercising our faith in God?
On my last visit to Guam, I chatted with my friend Pastor Albert Alquero of Abundant Life Church. He and his wife Judy are fellow FaithWalkers who followed God all the way to Guam many years ago. As we chatted, I shared how I didn’t want my faith to settle. I wanted to keep walking by faith after seeing God move so mightily in our lives over the last few years. I had reached a comfortable place and that had me worried. I was concerned my faith would become fat and lazy once again.
Albert nodded, understanding my concern and agreeing on the need to keep our faith fit. But after a brief pause, he asked what both of us were thinking, “So how do we do that?”
5 Reasons We Are Quick to Imitate Others
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We cannot be authentic if we’re trying to imitate someone else. Sounds simple enough, right?
And yet our default position in life seems set to following others in order to live a story worth telling.
There’s a place for leadership – and a place for following – to a point. But if we are ever going to discover how God has wired us to succeed, we’ll need to step away from following in order to become the person God wired us to be.
