Featured Post: Mark, I am recalculating route now

This featured post comes from Mark Brown, who is the former CEO of Bible Society New Zealand, as well as the founder of Global Scope Media and Global Scope Ministries.  More info. about him can be found here.

Mark, I am recalculating route now

And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:31-32

I was recently in the US and had a hire car.  Thankfully it has GPS to help keep me on the right path, but I cannot count the number of times the patient GPS voice reported, ‘recalculating route now..’  And thankfully even though I had accidentally taken the exit 10 miles too early, the nice GPS machine was able to get me back on track.  I could almost hear it sigh and quietly mutter under its breath ‘oh not again.. recalculating route now’. The greek behind the word ‘sinners’ talks of one who deviates from the path towards God.  To sin is to get lost, to be distracted, to stray off the path God intends for us.

My GPS is my Bible.  It shows me not only that when I am off route, but it displays to me what I need to do to get back on track.  But what would happen if I had put the GPS machine in the trunk of the car?  I would be in big ‘where am I?’ trouble. In the same way, I need to spend time with my Bible often.  Not just once a day, but often, making it part of my approach to life, being guided along the right path consistently.  Reflecting on passages throughout the day.

And repentance: when I come before Jesus and confess my sin and am washed anew, well that is when God says, Mark, I am recalculating route now, you are back on the path towards me.

Praise God!

Mark Brown

Featured Post: Seven Better Questions You Can Ask in the Midst of Adversity

I'm starting another addition to this blog.  Every so often I will feature a post from someone else's blog that I'm currently following.  This post comes from Michael Hyatt, Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers.  You can find the original post here.

SEVEN BETTER QUESTIONS YOU CAN ASK IN THE MIDST OF ADVERSITY

Ihave several friends who are going through enormous uncertainty right now. Some are out of work. A few others are on the precipice of divorce. Still others have been diagnosed with cancer—one who is pregnant. In these situations, most of us ask, “Why is this happening to me?”

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/Yuri_Arcurs

Years ago, two months after I became the publisher of one of our book divisions, we lost a major author to a competing company. This had a significant negative impact on our bottom line. At first, I was angry. Then I became discouraged. Finally, I realized I was asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking “Why did this happen?” I started asking, “How can this make us better?” Immediately, I sensed a shift in my spirit. It began energizing me. In retrospect, losing the author was one of the best things that could have happened to my division. We grew from the experience in ways that would have never happened otherwise.

I learned a valuable lesson: the answers we get are often determined by the questions we ask. If we ask bad questions, we will get bad answers. If we ask better questions—empowering questions—we will get better answers.

If you are going through a difficult, uncertain time, here are seven better questions you can ask yourself and your team:

1. What if this isn’t the end but a new beginning?
2. What if the answer to my prayer is just over the next hill?
3. What if this is necessary in order for me to be prepared for the next important chapter in my life?
4. What if God knows exactly what I need at this particular time?
5. What if God is speaking to me through means I would not have chosen for a blessing I cannot see?
6. What does this experience make possible?
7. What will I be telling my grandchildren that I learned was so valuable in this season of my life?

How is this related to leadership? As I have written numerous times before, leaders must lead themselves first—even when they don’t feel like it. Sometimes it just starts with a better question.

Book Review: Emotional Intelligence

The subject of this book review is Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, a good book despite its flaws when looked at from a Christian perspective.

My wife introduced me to this book.  She had read it a number of years ago (it was first published in 1995), and one day as she was perusing a collection of second-hand books she found a copy and gave it to me because 1) she knows that I like to read and 2) she loves me.  I found it quite interesting although I had to read it through a filter of sorts, but more on that later.

The basic premise of the book is the our concept of human intelligence is flawed, or at least incomplete. Goleman stressed that we put too much emphasis on the type of intelligence that can be measured with an IQ test.  He places more of an emphasis on what he likes to call emotional intelligence which incorporates certain aspects such as self-discipline and compassion.  The two types of intelligence must go together in order to have a complete picture of the individual.

This book introduced me to some new concepts, or at least gave me a name for them and told me how they happen.  The one that I remember the most is the concept of a "emotional hijacking".  An emotional hijacking is when the emotional centers of the brain override the rational/cognitive centers.  You, no doubt, have experienced this in one way or another, such as when you got so angry/sad/excited that you ended up doing and/or saying things that you know cognitively that you should not do and/or say.  A very simple way to put it is that it's like being drunk without the liver damage.

There are a lot of positive aspects to this book, but its main downfall for me is that it comes from a very humanistic approach.  Evolutionary concepts are found throughout the book, mainly connected to how the human brain formed and why it functions the way it does.  He also heavily espouses the idea that people can be changed if given the correct education.

I, obviously, do not have the same world view as Goleman does, but that did not prevent me from learning a lot on how people, myself included, function in regards to our emotions.  So if you are interested in a good read and are able to tolerate the author's perspective, search around and pick up this book.  You'll feel more intelligent when you're done.

The Divine Shepherd

In this chaotic, and often violent, world it's good to know that there is Someone to take care of us.  That is, if we let Him.

As I had mentioned previously, I am reading through the book The Desire of Ages.  The chapter I most recently read is entitled "The Divine Shepherd".  The concept of Jesus being a shepherd is perhaps one of the most common ways in which Jesus is portrayed.  If you go into practically any church or cathedral that has stained glass windows there will be some reference to this concept.  Why is it so popular?  Out of all the word pictures found in the Scriptures, why does this one resonate with people as much as it does?  I would venture to say that it is because of this fact.  We all want Someone to take care of us.

Sure there are many who with much bravado will say that they don't need anybody, that they can take care of themselves.  I will be bold enough to say that those people are simply fooling themselves.  We are in constant need of care, and that is why Jesus referred to us as sheep. Now as I mentioned some months ago, being a sheep is not a popular analogy for many people.  This is mainly due to this false sense of independence that was just as prevalent back then as it is today.  Someone once told me that the parables were often meant to offend people in one way or another.  To a self-made man or woman, this concept would be quite offensive.  We have to be humble and realize our need.

In closing, remember this,

"Because we are the gift of His Father, and the reward of His work, Jesus loves us. He loves us as His children. Reader, He loves you. Heaven itself can bestow nothing greater, nothing better. Therefore trust." -- The Desire of Ages pg. 483

Standing Up

A great thing about the Bible is that you can learn new things from verses you've seen many times before.

I've recently been thinking and studying about temptation (here's why), and I came across a verse that is very familiar to me, perhaps too familiar.  It is 1 Corinthians 10:13.  The part that stood out to me is the last phrase that states " so that you can stand up under it."  Other translations use the word "bear" or "endure", but "standing up" works the best for me.

"Standing up" gives me a lot of positive associations when it comes to temptation.  The verse doesn't say that God will make the temptation magically disappear, but rather He will give us a way out so that we can stand up. To stand up means that the weight of the temptation is still there, but now so is the strength to deal with it.  The temptation is no longer crushing me, and by God's grace I have the power to move forward.

Thank you God for Your grace.

Paradoxical God

I often find it interesting that so many times when we ask God for something that He gives us something completely opposite.

I, like many people, like to ask God for things.  Some think that we shouldn't ask God for anything, but there are many instances in the Bible where God asks us to ask Him for things.  Probably the most well known phrase regarding asking God is the one that states that we don't have because we don't ask (James 4:2), or perhaps the one that states that if we ask, we shall receive (Luke 11:9, 10) is more common to you.  Either way, God wants us to present our requests to Him.

Now most of us know, at least intellectually, that we shouldn't ask for things that are simply for our selfish gratification (i.e. a winning lottery ticket), so we tend to only verbalize the requests that we know we should have (even if in our hearts we still are hoping for that winning number), like patience, kindness, etc.  This brings me to the main topic in that often God gives us the exact opposite of what we ask for.  For example, we ask God for peace, and He gives us stressful situations.  (Now before anyone gets any bright ideas about using reverse psychology on God, you have to remember Who you're dealing with here.)

The key in dealing with these situations is the key in dealing with almost all situations.  We have to trust that God knows what He's doing and that He has our best interests in mind.