Tag: needverse

218 – Assume Is a Compound Word

Questions about God, heartbreak in romance and family, disappointment in a new school or job—many of our problems go back to our dissatisfaction because of things we assumed.

Humans are assumption machines. We even assume about assumption—that we don’t assume as much as we do. Communication breakdown, verbal abuse, Satir’s “blamer mode”—these also begin with assumptions made about what another person assumes. When we stop assuming, even for a micromoment, it is as if we enter a light-filled zen void of “nothingness”. We assume because we are uncomfortable with the silence associated with “not having an opinion”. Calming your nerves, being less reactive, shutting your motormouth at “quiet time”, being that oasis of calm in other people’s storms—that all stems from comfort with silence—and silence is devoid of assumption.

If you want to calm your insides, learn to not assume. Assumption is, itself, a way to distract from the silence.

If you aren’t always ready with your sword, what will happen? Will you survive? Dropping your guard feels dangerous. “Not knowing” the answer to every question feels like you’re not prepared when, actually, it prepares you to receive, learn, understand, and perhaps even contribute. It’s hard to do surgery with shaking hands.

So, drop the busyness and the caffeinated distractions; begin with your assuming. God is much easier to not be angry with when we drop all of our made-up assumptions about Him. Relationships go much more smoothly when we begin with the assumption that other people are not so stupid that we don’t need to take the time to understand them.

One of the biggest problems in tech support—operator error—is clinically proven to occur less frequently among people who don’t throw away the instructions before reading them. (Not actually clinically proven, but let’s just ‘assume’ that it doesn’t need to be.)

Good theology leaves assumption at the door. The ultimate theological question is not what we assume about God, but what God sees in us. Pain will advise us when we make assumptions of our own. One of the best commands God ever gave Israel was to be still and know, not to be noisy and assume.

215 – Speak the Truth in Your Heart

Acknowledging the truth can be one of the most difficult things a person can do. We gladly admit what truths we have already admitted. But, one seeing that oneself was wrong has high stakes! We may have stock to sell—or buy. By being wrong, we may need to carry the mental weight of knowing that our own choices caused the loss of thousands, millions, or billions of dollars—dollars which we happen to need right now.

When people live a long life in denial, but then are confronted with the ugly, hideous, enormous truth that grew huge by feeding on neglect, they can meltdown, physically collapsing to the floor, crushed by the mental weight of so much truth that they kept avoiding.

Denial is no way to live. The sooner you confront a truth, the sooner it won’t be able to sweep away your mental capacity to understand it. Don’t let truth swell like a tsunami against you. Speak the truth in your heart quickly, the moment you can find it. Not facing pressure from unadmitted truth, you will stand through storms said to be impossible.

God searches throughout Earth, looking for anyone who accepts the truth. He considers people who are honest with themselves as treasure worth hunting for.

No one can face a challenge without accurate information. Accuracy about our situations is vital. God does not want us to fail in misery. In order to thrive, we need truth. Victory itself will stop anyone who rejects reality. Accordingly, God will not allow you to even begin down any path leading to the greater rewards until you accept whatever truths have every presented themselves to you. God wants you to go down those paths. The question is whether you are willing to scrutinize your own ideas enough to see and maintain awareness about your surroundings as they actually are.

Truth brings light and hope. Truth sets us free. Truth includes that God forgives and redeems and has the highest of hopes for everyone’s future. The price of truth means recognizing one’s own laundry list. But, the price is worth its cost. Anyone addicted to truth can tell you what doors truth can unlock.

214 – Leaders Carry

A good leader carries the burdens of whomever he is responsible for. For Jesus, this meant carrying the punishment for our sin—carrying the Cross to his death. For Deborah as an Old Testament judge, it meant listening to the problems of the people and settling their disputes. For Esther, it meant risking her own life to request an audience with the king of the civilized world. For Noah, it meant building an ark to carry the animals and his family. Good leaders carry.

When traveling in a group, a leader should be last to bed and first to wake. Breaks and naps during the day allow this to work, usually while the group is busy with “fun time” or some recreation that requires fewer members of the leadership team. Even Jesus would steal away from time to time for prayer. He even stole a nap in the boat during a storm since he knew all would be well.

When taking a long walk, carry important articles for other people. A leader should go through the physical training to become strong enough to handle a heavier load. When the leader needs help, he asks for it. This cultivates mentoring future leaders. No leader works alone, but every leader should bring strength to the team.

Many burdens have been carried by leaders without the group ever knowing. Never expect an applause or a thanks. Leading is not for those who like award receptions. Victory for the team serves well enough as the leader’s prize. If the team wins a trophy, the leader is most honored to have it hosted by the team or one of its members.

Much of the work of a leader is preemptive and preparatory. Drafting a thorough plan, memorizing the road map, making and remembering the many lists of to-dos and inventory, keeping track of the money—even though someone else serves as treasurer—a leader must know when and how to act. Never rely on an active GPS as a leader; know the map by heart as both a backup plan for when—not if—technology fails, and as a show of competence and proof that the group won’t get lost.

213 – Happiness Is Proactive

Happiness can’t possibly be about “self”. Humans were made for things that involves others—someway, somehow, somewhere, sometime, we only operate at our best when we’re doing something that involves others.

Happiness flows from the Two Great Commands. Even placing God first—not “instead of”, but “first”—efficiently and quite effectively knocks us down to the right level where life isn’t about ourselves, but about others.

Human happiness can’t be passive. It requires creating good things through cooperative effort. “Consumerism” can’t replace happiness. Like a narcotic, the sneakiest form is “happiness consumption”, favoring and rating things on their ability to “make me happy”. Happiness is only happy as much as it is proactive.

That doesn’t mean meddling and nannying to a point of insufferability. Silence is golden because it includes being considerate of others. But, if “love and happiness” mean ignoring needs of others—whether need be for silence or intervention or encouragement or course correction—then “love and happiness” aren’t.

When tragedy strikes, victims need help; go help them. Send money. Stay out of the way. Report the overlooked truth. Stand witness. Find any way to help. Don’t just sit by yourself, looking for a sliver lining to someone else’s tragedy.

Life has many yeahs and many boos and many glasses of water which can be measured by their contents or lack thereof, but your choice to be happy doesn’t end with gratitude and thankfulness; it only begins there. Never lecture others on their need to find their silver linings on their rain clouds, especially if you are a rain cloud. When you must bring rain and lightning, make sure you shine a doorway of sunlight and a make huge rainbow afterward. When you can truly appreciate the silver linings of life’s rain clouds, you have all the reason you need to be sunshine on someone else’s storm, not just a sunshine admirer.

By all means, enjoy stories, art, and beauty that make you happy. Celebrate and share them with friends. But, don’t stop there. Don’t lose your appetite for helping happiness take over the universe. Of all the moments that make us happy, the happiest moments put a smile on someone else’s face.

212 – Deliverance and Provision by the Right to Seize

Sometimes, not always, God delivers and provides for us by means of us stepping up to seize what He has already offered. Noah had to build his ark. Israel had to work after entering the promised land because the manna stopped once they crossed the Jordan. That’s what a “promised land” is—a place where you can work and keep what you worked for, knowing that you worked for your results, “paid” for it with sweat and tears, and didn’t gain by taking from others.

Provision by way of effort is the goal of peace. It’s a world in which our work is neither stolen by theft nor destroyed by war. By being allowed to have our work pay off, we enjoy the pleasure of working through whatever task we have for the day, knowing it will lead somewhere beneficial—knowing that we will be allowed to enjoy the results since they were earned, not bestowed.

David had to bring in the Temple materials to fulfill his dream of God having a House. His son Solomon had to build the Temple using those materials. The Temple didn’t build itself.

Jeremiah had to put the rope around himself when it was let down. Daniel had to initiate and ask in order to eat the Bible’s healthier diet and to interpret the king’s dream so as to avoid death. In Esther, the attack against the Jews was not rescinded, but the Jews were granted legal permission to defend themselves, which resulted in killing their Satanic enemies and taking the wealth of their assailants.

Many times, especially after seasons of waiting, little to no results, just enough to survive on, inner strengthening, and shiploads of prayer, the opportunity to rise up lands at our doorstep. Then, we must put away the housecoat, don our shoes, and walk out into the world to work. This moment is not every moment nor can it be made into every moment. Annually, this comes for farmers in the springtime.

Spring comes after the season of winter, when roots have grown deeper and the soil sits as soggy as we feel groggy. At the proper time, go into your field and start working.

211 – Escape the Zero Sum Spiral

Solutions to society’s problems require innovation in order to escape the spiral of a seemingly zero-sum game. Necessity is the mother of invention, but that means we need to be allowed to be in need as well as be allowed to invent. If necessities are always provided then invention’s mother is dead. If invention requires permission from whatever bureaucracy is central, then necessity’s child has been kidnapped.

Being in need carries with it a sense of danger. What if I don’t earn money? Will I end up on the street? The need to survive and the healthy sense of urgency to work was given to us by God—the same God who makes sure to provide for us.

Even in poor countries where poverty is widespread, the problem is not as simple as having a giant Santa Clause shower everyone with food. People need education, government needs internal compliance, and society as a whole must study the work of responsibly maintaining lists. It also helps to prevent wicked men from using ultra-powerful companies to cripple natural resources, but these are all issues separate from the value of a “healthy sense of urgency” that drives us to live productive lives.

Unless we live lives that produce more prosperity than we consume, we won’t be able to help those in need. And, as much as others need food, they also need the permission to have some “healthy need”—at least enough need to foster invention. Never provide people with so many of their basic needs that the “provision” sanitizes the urgency to invent.

Invention, innovation, new ideas, responding to a personal urgent need to adapt yesterday’s resources to the problems that didn’t sprout until this morning—entrepreneurial ingenuity is the only answer to the problem of not having enough wealth to go around. That ingenuity needs an appetite, a little hunger, some desire for more. Sometimes our “healthy sense of urgency” comes from fear of becoming homeless, other times it comes from the strictly-enforced habit of making every day better than the day before.

Once your inner inventor awakens, people will rise up just to cooperate because the mere act of inventing extinguishes the poverty around us.

210 – Lists Are the Reason for Meetings

Meetings are one of the greatest wastes of any organization. The Sunday morning monologue worked well in a world without phone lines, but today a weekly monologue at an indoor amphitheater is a waste since a podcast will do much better. The same is true of companies. “Conference” is different, but shouldn’t be more than once a month. The purpose there is to cultivate widespread excitement over common interests. But, “conferences” are different from “meetings”.

The purpose of having a meeting is to host discussion.

Healthy operations require lists, but humans are born to not understand lists. Learning to understand, create, follow, keep, update, and recognize items on a list is part of growing up in a civilized society—and the learning never stops nor is it ever easy. Good parents teach their children the art of “listing” at an early age just as a good supervisor and mentor helps employees, volunteers, and students see how lists work in the real world.

Even God gave Moses a list, the Ten Commandments. It’s hard to obey all ten as with any moral code. Sometimes remembering is the hard part, sometimes it’s applying, sometimes it’s understanding, but, with morals, most of the time the hardest thing is the willingness to obey. But, remembering that even morals are simply a list of things to do that, if done, will result in a perfect product, the obedience part becomes a little less difficult.

Listing is a lifelong study. That’s why managing lists are best done at group meetings.

Every member of an administration—every employee and volunteer—along with every member of a family—everyone already has two “lists”, sometimes we even write them down. The first list is the “de facto” list, the list of things we actually do. The second list is the “prescribed” list, the list of things we should do. The list to write down first is not the prescribed, but the de facto.

Know what you are doing day to day. Write it down as if you needed to guide yourself over the phone. Talk with others about how to “list” better. Then, you’ll have a better idea of what you should be doing.