The Story So Far

I've read a number of books about management and leadership. Typically, these books espouse market trends, personal development plans, and how to be a successful person. I was really into that sort of thing for a while. And, while I learned a lot about business and leadership theory, I felt I was missing something. It's not that much of this literature was lacking practicality; rather, it was lacking something deeper. It didn't feed my soul. After reading these books, I noticed I cared a lot about numbers, and spent a lot of time writing goals. I had an umpteen amount of goals—goals for practically everything. This goal obsession made me laugh when I thought about my New Year resolutions.

My past experience with New Year resolutions, or goals, was that they go in one year and out the next. They never stick. Maybe the reason is becasue goals, as Donald Miller says, need to be apart of a narrative, because then they make sense. Someone can say I want to lose 20 pounds on Jenny Craig and not be that motivated. However, if someone says they want to run a marathon or climb a mountain, they will certainly be motivated to lose the excess pounds.

One of my stories that I want to develop for 2010 is more spontaneity in my daily living. I call this “Spirit-led living.” I didn’t come up with this out of thin air; Scripture talks about this quite often. Throughout the Bible, we learn that God created us to walk with Him, never leaving his presence. So far, I’ve seen the fruit of my new sense of awareness. Conversations have gone forth, and I’ve met new people I normally wouldn’t have spoken to. In the past, I’d dread waiting in lines or eating lunch by myself. Now, it is an opportunity to obey God and share His goodness with strangers. Soon these strangers become familiar faces.

Frank Labauch said “The first business of every day is to look into the face of God and ache with bliss.” I’ve started to notice that the face of God shows up in others more often than I thought. And that is where I’ve started looking for Him.