Encourage the Good

The best laid plans of mice and men

It feels like every time a plan is starting to solidify it liquifies under changing conditions. Ideas run through my fingers and trickle away.

Virtually nothing in the past 18 months has had any resemblance to what I was planning

Today we have two days for the price of one.

Our feelings on moving into a new neighbourhood and some thoughts on counting time.

When I get something new, like a bottle of shower gel, it seems limitless and there is no need for me to keep track of what I am using. But when the bottle is running out I become much more careful and conscious of making it last.

One of the things the pandemic has done for many of us is to deepen our appreciation of the passage of time. They have made us realise that time is more limited than we thought or at least there are more limitations on our time than we anticipated. Months in lockdown, weeks until vaccine shots, days until reopening, have defined a different rhythm to the year

None of us knows how many days we have. Each one is a gift. It is great celebrate progress, birthdays, anniversaries and milestones but we don’t want to live in the past. It is fantastic to look forward to births, weddings, holidays, events and new beginnings but we don’t want to wish our lives away.

Aida is from Spain and has been pioneering student ministry in Equatorial Guinea.

She is part of the IFES Breaking New Ground Network.

An encouraging start was disrupted by the global pandemic but this turned out only to be an interruption as new opportunities have arisen.

Aida has been in Canada this week and we took the opportunity to chat before she went to the airport.

This is often the problem when I decide something has to be achieved by a certain date. Frustration and disappointment arise fuelled by my failure to meet a deadline that I am often responsible for inventing myself.

Audacious goals can challenge, inspire and move forward but we can also fall into a tyranny of achieving the objective at all costs.

I need to take care when my way and my time take on greater urgency than God’s way and God’s time. Much as I do not like this, my vision and optimism must be tempered by the reality of my circumstances.

I need to remind myself that although most things are beyond my control it does not mean they are out of control. I continue to believe that God is working out his purposes for humanity and that I am counted in that number.

Waiting for slow people can be frustrating. Dealing with difficult people takes a lot of time and energy. The influence of a difficult person spreads and impacts others. The resources a difficult person consumes are disproportionate.

At the moment I am a difficult person. Now to be fair I would prefer to think about myself as a person in difficulty rather than a difficult person but I am not sure I always make that distinction when dealing with others.

Three dangers to watch out for as we run the race of faith

Part of the inspiration of the Paralympics is watching people embrace challenges where many of us in the same situation may well have given up. 

There is a definite temptation as we get older to take the line of least resistance and to settle. I have days where I am not sure I can face the hassle of the stairs, getting in the car, going to the office and meeting people but I know it is better to move.

In leadership you will often hear from people who want things to be done differently. This can be viewed as an irritation but often it can be an agitation. Which comes from the same root as agitos (the symbol of the Paralympic Games). What we experience as stressful upheaval can be an opportunity to shake things up and move beyond what we have grown comfortable with.

 “The words of great coaches fuel great athletes”. 

Some of the recurrent themes that come through these stories are humility, care, commitment and focus. The coach athlete relationship is about the coach helping the athlete’s growth not the athlete enhancing the coach’s reputation.

InterVarsity and IFES have always been leadership development movements from our beginnings. We look for younger leaders to entrust and develop to multiply the impact of the gospel now and to lay foundations of greater and growing influence through these men and women in the future.

Seven things to bear in mind in an appointment and selection process.

Selection for a team, in sport or work, is a huge responsibility. It is a privilege to be involved in processes and decisions that profoundly affect peoples lives. I never take it lightly. Putting your hand up for consideration places you in a vulnerable position and I always try to be as positive as possible and give each person the best opportunity to showcase their talents and explore their potential contribution. Of course there are times when tough decisions need to be made and people are disappointed and sometimes hurt. It is especially painful when a decision appears to be political or personal rather than being principled.

Selection is always a judgement call and it is always harder to accept the decision when it goes against you than for you. I am grateful to have had both experiences multiple times on the way through life. Someone else being preferred for a position invariably feels like rejection, although it often leads to a different door opening and a new opportunity. 

If something has gone well or badly we live with the lingering aftermath. The medals of victory hold great memories but are easier to set aside than the scars of defeat. 

Failure is hard to face up to. We have a tendency to refuse to take responsibility, to cut ourselves a little slack and apportion the fault to other people. When we do something wrong we deflect blame, deny responsibility, dispute the facts and destroy the evidence or the accuser. 

David is a leader who faces up to failure. This is a marked contrast to the response of many in leadership in recent scandals which have rocked evangelical churches and organisations. As I was reading a reflection on one such situation a phrase stood out to me. “Evasiveness, misinformation, intimidation — this is what we all tend to turn to when we try to achieve by the flesh what can only happen through transparency, confession and repentance.” 

This is the problem with measuring progress. It is not easy to see what is going on beneath the surface. We can have key performance indicators and attainment targets which will chart growth and potentially help with motivation but these rest on what can be observed and assessed. What is going on beneath the surface is unseen. 

Safe to say that while I would like my ankle to be making faster progress, in myself I wish I had made more progress. I am frequently a disappointment to myself and a pale imitation of who I aspire to be.

But I do not give up and I do not despair because I know that I am a work in progress.