The Tension Between Good Enough & Great

There's something that drives me nuts.

It's the frustration I feel when I pour myself into a project or a message thinking it's going to be great only to walk away feeling like it fell far short of "great" & landed somewhere closer to "good". When it does, it usually makes a huge "Thud!"

Grrrrr.

I have to be honest... I am sometimes (usually) tempted to try to ignore my frustration & just sit there in the "good" area. But then I start remembering Scriptures like, "Whatever you do, do it with all your might," & "Do everything as unto the Lord." (Do you tell your conscience to shut up, too?)

That's when I find myself in a battle--sometimes mental, sometimes verbal, and never loud enough for anyone else to hear me. (Well... Almost never... Sort of...)

Anyway...

I find myself in an all-out war with this humongous, Jabba-the-Hut-like beast that just wants to suck the life out of everything around it, including me, my passion, & my vision!

You may have seen this thing in your life, too: it just wallows in pathetic mediocrity, babbling some incoherent, gurgling sound. It becomes eerily chant-like & the scary part is that it has that same can't-get-it-out-of-my-head catchiness as the theme song for Sesame Street. (Sunny day... Keeping the... Clouds away... Gotcha!)

But, if you listen closely, you can almost make out something in the gurgling...

"Gooooooooood eeeeeeeeee nouuuuuuuuuuu ghhhhhhhh."
"Gooooooooood eeeeeeeeee nouuuuuuuuuuu ghhhhhhhh."
"Gooooooooood eeeeeeeeee nouuuuuuuuuuu ghhhhhhhh."

Like a drug, this mantra pulls you in to a euphoric state of comfortable numbness (thanks for the words, Pink Floyd). But like any lie, it doesn't tell you what it really means...

"I'm going to kill you... I'm going to kill you... I'm going to kill you..."

If you hear that, then you know for sure that you are right in the middle of a battle between life and death! That's why the beast moans that "good enough" garbage... It could never sucker you in if it told you what it really means.

There's only one way out of it's clutches: you have to reject death & choose life... You have to reject "good" & choose "great"!

It's a flesh vs. Spirit thing... It's a man vs. God thing... It's a by-might-&-power vs. by-My-Spirit thing.

You won't be satisfied with less because God doesn't deserve any less.

Therein lies the tension... Can you feel it?

God Met Me WHERE?!

I got up at 4am, left the house at 4:30am, & drove 4 1/2 hours to meet with some of our fellowship's state & national leaders.

I expected that I would learn some great practical lessons & glean some invaluable wisdom from these great men of God.

What I didn't expect was for God to meet me there!

I have been wrestling for a while now with several issues... Each of which are significant to me, but the sum total of their weight is overwhelming! I have been seeking God's wisdom & direction for quite some time.

Even on the drive that morning, I was wrestling with these giants and wondering (still) what the heck to do. They turned over & over in my mind in the same, sick sequence with my stomach turning over & over with them.

As I rolled up to the meeting place, I pushed my thoughts aside & gathered my things. I walked into the meeting room & found a seat, ready to hear what our speaker had to say.

As he began to speak, my heart leaped & my jaw dropped... I couldn't believe what I was hearing!! He was addressing every one of the issues I've been wrestling with, topic by topic. He couldn't have been more accurate if I'd handed him a list!! One by one, God used him to turn questions into answers & uncertainty into clear direction.

The overwhelming nausea I'd been feeling for so long gave way to overwhelming joy... The kind of joy that just makes you want to cry. I stayed that way for the rest of the day, thanking God for His goodness to me.

I returned home that evening different than when I left, amazed at my God who knows where to find me, where to meet me, and how to change me forever. He is SO AWESOME!!

Another Milestone... Thanks!

I signed on to write a post tonight & noticed that we've crossed the 200-reader mark.

Wow... Thanks!

I confess that I have no idea who the vast majority of you are, and even less of an idea why you're reading my more-or-less-random ramblings. But, I hope you are enjoying the things I share from my heart. Even more than that, I hope that God is using these thoughts to bless you, encourage you, & challenge you.

I once heard Graham Cooke say that each of us has a "life story in Christ"... a personal testimony chiseled out of a lifetime of personal experiences with God whereby we become especially and intimately familiar with a particular aspect of His character & nature. Graham Cooke said his life story is this: "God is the kindest person I have ever met."

My life story is this: "God is always faithful," & I hope that you sense His never-ending faithfulness to me in each & every one of my posts.

Jesus is amazing, & I hope He is pleased with my labors for Him!

You be you & let God be God

We've been talking for several weeks about the way God works in the deep, inner places of our lives that no one else knows about.

Until today, we've been looking at the "us" side of the equation... How God forces us to look at ourselves, how He knows our faults & failures, & how He leads us to places of despair when we need it in order to become who He's created us to be.

But today, we shifted our focus from the "us" side to the "Him" side.

For some reason, we seem to have this idea that God depends on our performance in order to move His Kingdom forward. But that's just not true! Yes, He calls us to obedience & to walk in the Spirit, but not we put ourselves in unnecessary bondage when we think we make or break God's plan. C'mon... He's God!

The reality is that God does not move because of us, He moves in spite of us!

When we understand this reality, it sets us free to be used for His glory! We stop trying to be the Holy Spirit & just let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit. That sounds a little silly, but it's deep... Think about it!

The 1st Church of Disney: If you're a jerk, you don't work!

Another lesson I learned about church from our Disney trip was this: Their staff ("cast members") are VERY good with people!!

To be honest, this was the most amazing thing I saw when I was there!

Not one time did I see a cast member show any frustration as they spoke with a guest... No matter how difficult the situation or how ugly the guest was.

Stop for a moment & think about just how amazing that is...

It's obvious to me that Disney places a HUGE priority on how to deal with people. They either find & hire people with very cool dispositions or they find teachable people & train them how to deal with people. I suspect it's the latter... How many people are naturally like that in your world?

What if we invested the same kind of time & effort to train our "cast members" in church? What if we made our guests' visit to our church as unforgettable as your first trip to Disney? What if we valued people-skills so much that our policy declared, "If you're a jerk, you don't work."

I'm just sayin'...