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Virtue of Truth

Would you prefer to speak the truth to someone for their benefit of a situation?  Or employ craftiness to set the outcome of a situation to your benefit?

Their is no virtue in using a cunning approach with people to manipulate a situation, sale, or decision in your favor.  Anyone whose been on the losing side of a scam, half-truth, or political faction can witness there is no virtue in these tactics.  

However, there is virtue in speaking the truth as best we know it to others.  It's actually love to tell someone the truth even when its outcome can cause you jeopardy.  

Can you recall a situation where someone took advantage of you and held the truth back?  Now, can you think of a situation where someone told you the truth about a matter to your benefit and not their own?  Certainly the person who told you the truth loves you or your mission more than themselves.

I can assure you that God is a witness to truth spoken through love to others.  It's a great sign of courage to speak the truth when the truth may put you at risk.  

Ephesians 4, verses 14 and 15 read, "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ."

If you want this virtue in your life, meditate on these verses and pray to God for guidance.  It will change your life for the better, in a big way!

 

 

 

Team Character

Organizations create incentives to attract new talent and urge their employees to work harder.  Each generation has their favorite incentives from health care and pensions to gourmet coffee and elective medical procedures.  Incentives push people to do more and extend beyond their comfort zone.  The carrot at the end of the stick.

Incentives may help you to bring in top talent, for sure.  But using incentives to push your organization may not be that helpful in dynamic environments.  

The figure below illustrates how the leadership culture and motivators impact organizational character.  In today's dynamic environment our organizations should be agile and adaptive, and incentives as a motivator will fall short of creating the right character on your team.

People who work towards an inner purpose are an incredible source of strength, energy, and prosperity in an organization.  These are superstars who set the bar and don't need incentives to work harder.  These people are rewarded, not incentivized.  

You can choose to be this type of person.  Their is no special ability to becoming a purpose-driven person.  You just need to decide to not be led along by incentives and other peoples agendas and lists, but instead be led by your heart.

If you do want to take this step, read Proverbs 20:5.  It reads, "The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out."  God is the one with insight to draw out the deep purposes in your heart.  He placed them there.  Read this verse again and ask God to help you sort out the purposes in your heart.  I promise you will not regret this decision.

How to Get Rich

The key to getting rich is hard work.  

I'm so glad the key to becoming rich isn't good luck, expert talent, or a family inheritance. 

"Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth." -Proverbs 10:4

But it's tough to work hard doing things you don't like and frustrating to chase elusive riches.  

If your struggling and frustrated with your work and success, stop doing things and start listening.  Listen during the quiet times of your day for things you should be working hard on and forget about the wealth.  The wealth will come when you're obedient to that quiet voice each day.

 

 

Free People

We talk about Freedom very often in the United States.  Americans know the cost of freedom is high and requires people willing to pay the price to defend it.  Freedom is so valuable that America is under constant attack on every side for our freedom.  So what are we defending? 

Is the purpose of freedom to live under the constant stress of dissension?  Freedom must hold more value than our opinions!

What if we stopped using our freedom to express our own opinions and ambitions, and instead used our freedom to help each other?

 

Teams

My career in the military and corporate cultures has placed me in many, many teams.  Some function better than others and some were more productive than others.  Our society is struggling with teams today and it isn't because a lack of talent.  We are the most educated and well resourced group of people to ever walk the Earth.  God is still giving gifts to people just as he did to our founding fathers.  So what's the problem?  With all our well educated, well read, and trained professionals why can't we function on teams?

Our independent culture opposes team culture.  Independent people navigate the terrain of life using a different compass.  If the compass on a team points North, the compass for personal ambition points South.  

People on great teams, either willingly or coerced, share their gifts and talents with the rest of the team.  Everyone contributes their points to the bucket with their teams' name.  What a great sacrifice to share a rare gift with others.  But this is what great teams have - talented people sharing their gifts with others working towards a goal, as a team.  Is there a more humble act than to share your very best with others?

Here is what a culture of personal ambition looks like:

• Hostilities.  Hostility characterizes the culture and attitude of the organization as unpleasant, unfriendly, and containing unresolved disagreements.
• Strife.  Strife can include violence, bullying, and deep running disagreements.
• Jealousy.  Jealousy is a type of anger someone has towards another because of their success.
• Selfish Rivalries.  Rivalry moves inside the organization to defeat the successes of others.
• Dissensions.  Dissensions occur when people place greater value on their personal opinion over others' viewpoints and team goals.
• Factions.  Factions attract people with similar opinions into inwardly focused groups.  

It should be fairly obvious to anyone reading this that our American culture has created a real mess in our organizations.  From our Churches to our Capitol, personal ambition has mucked up our lives and is impacting our prosperity.  Does anyone share their gifts with others to meet a common goal anymore?

We cannot view the patterns of this world as a roadmap for success.  Remember, the world is seeking personal ambition and their maps are oriented on the South Pole.  To break this cycle, we must renew our minds and consider God's will for us.  God didn't create us to claw our way to the top.  He gave us gifts and talents to share with other to fulfill His will.  

If you're interested in truly changing your life and the lives of those around you, carefully consider asking God to renew your mind and to offer the special gifts and talents He has given you to help others meet a team goal.  

You can read more about your purpose, gifts, and talents in Galatians 5 and Romans 12.

 

 

Normal Supernatural

God gives supernatural abilities to very normal people to know things, heal people, discern truth, and other gifts to help us.   Normal, flawed, mistake-ridden, and sinful people receive these supernatural gifts regardless of behavior, education, or status.

We dismiss the insights and contributions of familiar people carrying these supernatural gifts.  But everyday God is giving answers to benefit our lives through normal people all around us.  This is why Jesus said, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." -John 4:10

Pray today and ask God to help you to notice these supernatural people in your life.  

Kill the Bear

Impatience brings out the bear in our personalities.  It's that commanding and impetuous personality that erupts when we're stressed and anxious.

Kill it.  The bear isn't instinct or Kingdom, and we don't need it.

What if we chose instead to stand on level ground and be mindful that God is unfailing and trustworthy?  What if we realized the bear never produces the results we want?  -Psalm 26 (NIV)

If you're battered with anxiety pray today that God teach you his faithfulness.  Stay patient and mindful of God to teach you.

 

God Hates This:

People who stir up conflict in the community (Proverbs 6:19).

The world around us has been, is, and will be driven by envy and selfish ambition to stir up conflict in our world, nation, cities and neighborhoods.  God hates it.  God hates it on every scale from stirring up disagreement with your neighbor to the atrocities in Syria.  

What's the response then?  We are surrounded by conflict on all sides and at all levels and we are witnessing everyday people of low-power and high-power conjure responses.  The wisdom now is to fight fire with fire, not be 'milquetoast'.  This is wrong.  It is folly. This response is driven by the same envy and selfish ambition that created the conflict.

The response has to come from humility.  Humility produces good deeds that are pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  

So don't just become another log on the fire by picking a side in this conflict.  Choose to approach the world with humility and you'll change it.

 

Eye of the Tiger

When I was a kid we would sing Eye of the Tiger over, and over, and over.  It was an anthem for many young men in my generation.  The problem was that once the song ended, we lost the Eye.  It was only when the song was playing that we could relate to the dedication, hard work and focus of Rocky Balboa.

Like many other young men in my generation and in my town, we had no desire.  No fire in our belly.  Nothing was for us so we were for nothing.  My grandfather told me to get a trade and talked about his days in the Navy.  Then one weekend a friend of mine came back from the Marines with a new Ford Mustang.  So I thought, "Hey, join the Marines, learn a trade, and get a Mustang."  Except the Marine recruiter was at lunch so I joined the Navy.  

I meandered into the Navy at age 18 and had never experienced the Eye of the Tiger in any meaningful way until I hit boot camp.  During an introductory in-brief to the jobs available in the Navy, a Sailor gave a brief about Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal.  I thought I had heard all the jobs in the world until this brief.  The first time I heard the acronym "EOD" I received the Eye of the Tiger.  It was all I could think about and I spent the next 6 months skipping lunches to work out and excelling at every inspection to get my orders to EOD School.  But a Master Chief noticed my dedication and cancelled my order to send me to Submarine School.  I succeeded in getting picked up for the most elite Navy in the world, but that wasn't my target.  I spent the next 4 years, 6 months and 26 days onboard two different submarines before I was released to EOD School.  

During this time I did whatever it took to get into EOD School.  There were times I waivered but my resolve never broke.  Through opposition and a lot of hard work I graduated EOD School and spent 20 years in the Navy EOD Community.  I deployed to several conflicts and wars and gave it all I had to be successful.  It was never work.

I am not telling this story to brag - not at all.  I'm sharing this because I believe every young man and woman on earth has something inside them right now that once awakened will produce the Eye of the Tiger, a relentless focus and source of energy.  

It's easy to get lost in our heart about what we want to do in our life.  Then, our head gets involved with logic and rational approaches to success.  We look for patterns and "career paths" to help us navigate with our heads something that was never intended for our brains to sort out.

The Bible sais in Proverbs 20:5, "The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out."  The one who has insight is God, and God will draw the purposes out of your heart.  Once your heart is engaged in your purpose there isn't a force on earth, in heaven, or hell that can stop it.  

If you're struggling with the purposes in your heart.  If you're head is making things complicated.  Stop today.  Sit down.  Release this to God.  Give it over to him and ask him to draw the purpose out of your heart that he planted there when you were in your mothers womb.  You won't regret it.

Why we wait

When God speaks to us it isn't just to us, but to creation.  What he promises us is part of a larger plan.  His plan unfolds day by day through doors that open, and doors that close.  

If you're frustrated in waiting, pray today that God show you where he was when a door opened for you.  Ask him to show you doors he closed for you.  And ask him to show you how far you've come in his plan.