The Art of Being Bored
Today’s post is a “guest” spot from my lovely wife, Breanna. Breanna is the cofounder of Renovation Church and the love of my life!
Boredom. If you think about it when was the last time that you were truly bored? I mean genuinely and honestly by the dictionary definition of "bored." Here's the definition in case you need more help remembering the last time boredom hit you).
“Feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one's current activity.”
Let me ask it another way. When was the last time that you were "unoccupied?" Ok, now I bet you have a hard time pinning it down.
The truth of the matter is that we are rarely unoccupied. We live in an age where entertainment is constantly at our fingertips. We ALWAYS have something that occupies our minds. Our eyes always have something to look at, and our brains always have something to keep us occupied... or rather "checked out."
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Faith To Be Healed
At the national wrestling tournament, in March of that year, during the medal rounds of my sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma, I snapped my knee. The sound of it was so loud and reverberating that my parents and coaches later told me they could hear it from the mat side and the stands.
Over twenty years have passed since, and I still vividly remember that moment. Everything slowed down. I heard the crowd near the floor let out a collective gasp as searing pain shot up my leg, into my lower back and seemed to distribute itself over my entire body. And then, I collapsed as the sound returned with referee whistles and a gaggle of voices.
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Miraculous Signs
About sixteen years ago, I was invited to speak at a Revival service at a local church in south Florida. Breanna and I were young in our marriage and just trying to make ends meet. She was teaching school and pregnant. I was working for Ricoh Lanier, attending school, coaching wrestling, and travelling to preach as God opened up new ministry opportunities.
The first night of the Revival was pretty uneventful, not in a negative way but in a normative way. We praised and worshipped in song. The gospel was preached. People made decisions to follow Jesus' love and leadership.
The second night, however, took a different turn. I have never publicly told this story, and even now, I feel hesitant, but here goes…
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Pray for Rain
Though Thomas Jefferson painstakingly cut every miracle from his New Testament, desperately trying to reduce Jesus and His narrative to that of a good man with great wisdom, the reality is that the Scriptures are filled with the miraculous activity of God and of people God works in and through. I have the privilege of sharing with you that I have seen several miracles firsthand. I have seen arms permanently bent from birth, straightened. I have seen a young woman get out of a wheelchair and walk. I watched as my mother prayed, and God took Cancer from her body.
I have seen miracles done by God through prayer. But the moment that stands out, which I have shared and will continue to share for all of my life, is the miracle of my son's birth. Breanna was diagnosed with a rare condition called vasa previa, and in one night, I almost lost my wife and my newborn son. Though I have told this story from my perspective, I would love for you to read it from her perspective.
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Work the Works of Jesus
The year was 1849, and those attuned to the times knew that the U.S. was on the brink of catastrophic consequences. African people had been in bondage in the U.S. for over two hundred years, and the prevailing winds of incremental change were blowing. War was on the horizon, and the sin of slavery would cost more lives than anyone could have ever imagined.
Dr Edmund Sears, a Unitarian pastor from Wayland, Massachusetts, was attuned to the moment. He felt lost as he sat trying to construct an uplifting Christmas message for his community. How could he inspire them when his soul was heavy, wearied and restless in light of all the brokenness surrounding him?
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Denying Jesus
Like Dave Grohl once crooned, I've got another confession to make. At times in my life, I have denied Jesus. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, over the last twenty-six years of following Jesus, I have denied Him a grievous number of times. But one time that stands out happened back in 2018. I was travelling from one coast to the other amid a string of trips to preach at different conferences. I was tired, very tired, over tired because I was living out of an overpacked schedule and failed to recover well—talking to a few of you all right now.
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Labels Do Not Have the Last Word
I first heard the phrase tall poppy syndrome when I was first in Australia. When I asked what it meant, it was explained to me that Australians tend to tear down those "standing tallest" or those who stand out. At that moment, I thought about how that same syndrome plays out in the U.S. We love to make heroes just to break them. More still, I find that our culture labels people—according to one or even a few incidents they find wrong or unacceptable—and tries to lock them in those labels, even if they change.
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Unmanaged Leadership Moments
Jim Collins, famous for several books, including the groundbreaking Good to Great, once wrote, “Bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions.” Weighty words and apropos of our time today as we look at the life of my favourite leader. Moses' life and leadership are the stuff of legend. Though he initially recoiled at the Lord's “invitation” to lead, no human being has led a larger, more disgruntled group of people in the rest of history. No one has led better. He even showed such humility that he is called the most humble man on earth.
So how did he end up on this list? I am still reeling from the discovery, but it gave me an even greater appreciation for the difficulty of leadership, the kindness of the Lord, and the danger of one unmanaged moment.
According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, public speaking is the greatest human fear—more so than death. I contend that if public speaking is the greatest fear—even more significant than death—leading people must be a very close second! In twenty years of leadership, time has proved this to be true from my vantage point, but nothing has been like these last few years. Author, former pastor, and leadership expert John C. Maxwell said that the past three years have been the most challenging season to be a leader he has seen in fifty years of leadership.
Founder and outgoing pastor of Saddleback Church, Rick Warren, recently named five storms that the world has weathered in the last few years: global infirmity, social instability, racial inequality, financial insecurity, and political incivility. Amid all of those storms, culturally, much of what used to be understood norms for leadership has largely vanished. In today's new world:
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Dancing in the Grey
Have you ever done the right thing the wrong way? Or, have you ever done something wrong—even sinful, as followers of the way of Jesus would say—but for the right reasons? We sometimes find ourselves on complicated moral terrain, and when we do, perhaps we wonder how to weigh our choices. Consider the true story behind the movie Schindler's list. As a Nazi party member credited with saving more than 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler was nothing if not a complex personality. To save those lives, he had to lie many times. He did what many of you—what I—would consider a wrong thing for the right reasons. Yet, any of us would unlikely have him do it differently. I do not know how many of you relate to his morally tenuous conduct, but every one of us—most notably me—has been deceptive. You have shaded the truth to achieve even a noble outcome. We have all done the wrong thing for what we believed were the right reasons.
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