backward and forward

So it's time to start making your list of all the stuff in your life - habits, routines, lack of routines, and so forth - that goes or stays as you prep to move into 2010.

The kind of list that requires you to pause, look backward, look forward, and look inward. The kind where perhaps you pray a bit, even if you don't normally pray, asking God to show you what you're missing.

For your list, consider:

• What did I accomplish in 2009 that I'm most thankful I did?
• Have I kept a healthy attitude?
  
• Did pride occur?
  
  
  
• What did I miss out on in '09?
• Did I take care of my soul well?
  
• Are my relationships completely honest?

Don't just read this challenge and move on. Seriously - make a list, even if it's only in your brain (although writing it down does help).

Otherwise, feel free to carbon copy whatever was unproductive about this last year... because all of that will likely be showing up again in 2010.

you can't handle the truth

I have always been impressed by the ability of others to make bold statements that sum up an appropriate tension. And even more so, when those statements are so filled with truth that they help you "feel and think" at the same time. For instance:

• "The Church is a whore, but she is my mother." - Augustine
  
  
• "Where you live should not determine whether you live or die." - Bono
  
  
• "I had a professor one time... He said, 'Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this: that God spoke to Balaam through his jackass, and He has been speaking through jackasses ever since. So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself. And, if on meeting someone, right away you recognize what they are, listen to them anyway'."" - Rich Mullins

There are times when those thoughts need to creep up into you, like a whisper someone plants behind your brain when you aren't looking. Later you turn your head and your parietal lobe catches wind of it... and you are forever stunned and changed by it. It's something out of left field, and yet it isn't... its out of the box, and completely within your box.

"Wow," you say, "I had no clue, and they helped me see it."

And then there are moments when we need someone to pull us into the locker room, shut the door, and throw their clipboard or hat across the room at us. It's a bit edgier to be sure, evidenced by the sweat on their forehead and blood in their cheeks... and as they call us on the carpet for something we've been otherwise coy about, our heads droop... be it from conviction or self-examination.

"Wow," you say, "I had a clue, and they made me face it."

In both instances, you can't handle the truth.

Oh, you'll try... you'll put your fingers on it, but find that you can quite grasp it all because it's like trying to palm an over-sized medicine ball in one hand. The weight alone makes you want to drop it, not to mention the size and depth and width that you simply cannot contain.

It's one reason, by the way, that you need a community outside your own household to help you process the most important things in life. Say... a church?

So typically we'll take a portion of the truth presented - the piece that we were able to put our own fingerprints on - and walk away with only that piece. Some may defy this and attempt to take that piece and bring the whole ball with them later so that they can better digest it over time and study. But this is a rare breed, for the usual Joe or Jane will focus in on one thing, and one thing alone.

Sometimes that one thing is good - it's a thought or an "Aha!" idea that they walk away and do something. Other times, though, that one thing is merely a piece of truth that distracts from the others. Maybe it's a love or a hate for how the other person shared the thought... and so now the focus is less on the truth itself and more on the messenger of it.

I dare you to be the rare breed. While you can't handle the truth, you can *keep on* handling it... turning it... sizing it up... digesting it into your life.

And that journey alone will push you into new places of growth that you otherwise would have stopped off and settled for something lesser on.

Learn the truth, keep handling the truth, and the truth will set you free.

"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'" (John 8:31-32)

getting buffed up

I am absolutely convinced that a leader isn't a leader from birth, but must get buffed up in order to be effective in any avenue of life - at home, work, or play.

Granted, some kids seem to be more confident in directing others at an early age, but that's not what I mean. There could be a number of reasons why this is the case, be it birth order, the social structure of the family, or the specific environments and circumstances they've been a part of in peer situations.

That's more my point - it takes many experiences to make a leader a good one... one that is buffed up and capable. And I truly believe some of those experiences have to be so hurtful and sharp that they bring you to the ground and cause you to wonder what you really believe. As you feel alone and dejected, tired of all the cliche's you've been given by people who are so speechless to your situation they have nothing else to offer, you are finally humble enough to consider that the way you've been living life isn't enough.

That something "must" be done.

That you will come through this, even if you look a bit different.

It's like the whole process of buffing a ring. You take a piece of metal and put it under something that is spinning fast, creating a soft-yet-sharp brush against the metal... all so that which you hold precious can lose pieces of itself in order to smooth out and shine the way it was intended.

That's not a pretty process... it's best to wear goggles.

So I wonder if we shouldn't consider the trials you are under right now and what they may be offering you. Nobody likes to go through the tough stuff, but I've found that this buffing process helps us to smooth out in ways we never would have before. Without it, we may never realize what we need to shed in order to shine.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4)