Heartlight Articles - Leading in Hope

Penchant for Perfection

rshelly@rc.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ... All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things (Philippians 3:12-15 TNIV).

You've heard of analysis paralysis, right? Some people are so determined to think through every detail of every possible eventuality that they can only see opportunity in the rear-view mirror. The window of opportunity for many profitable investments, career options, or relationships sometimes closes before she is comfortable with making a move. By the time she determines to act, the time for acting has passed. Thus the dictum "carpe diem", Latin for "seize the day."

Good judgment is one thing. Prudence before taking a risk is appropriate. But, the inability to make a decision and take action is not a virtue.

Then there's the variant of analysis paralysis that I'll call the penchant for perfection. When it is self-oriented, this spirit embraces incredibly high and unrealistic standards of performance; it is unable to acknowledge fault or failure. It is the person who must make all A's in school, be the top performer in the company, and always be acknowledged to be right in family decisions. Some researchers claim a link between the penchant for perfection and depression. Some even link it to a high percentage of suicides.

If the penchant for perfection is other-oriented, it imposes unrealistic expectations on the people in one's environment. He can only criticize and find fault with his employees and co-workers; nothing is ever so good that he cannot tell the person how it could have been better. In his family, his take on things is that the house is never clean enough, the children never do as well as they could in school, and nobody really deserves praise. These people make other people unhappy and find it hard to keep good employees or to stay married.

God didn't put us here to do everything "just right." He certainly didn't put us here to be one another's monitors and critics. Each of us is imperfect, and the best way to relate to one another is with patience and encouragement.

Admitting our shared imperfection is not an excuse for failure. It isn't meant to keep us from trying. And it certainly isn't whitewash for low standards and puny performance. It is simply acknowledging that we human beings must accept our imperfection and admit that we can't do everything right all the time. It's a plea for our right as humans to learn from our mistakes and continue moving ahead.

It is in our moments of imperfection and failure that God meets us with his grace and empowerment. And you don't want to miss that encounter, do you?

Rubel Shelly preached for the Woodmont Hills Churchin Nashville for thirty years. He is the author of more than 20 books. He has accepted the position of President of Rochester College. For more details, click here or here to email.

Website: RubelShelly.com

Sharing Her Grandpa

rshelly@rc.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Avery's elementary school hosted a Grandparents Day recently, and her Grandpa was able to arrange his day to be there. Avery was pleased. And her proud grandfather was looking forward to sharing a special event.

Things ran about as you would have expected. With all the grandparents seated in the bleachers, boys and girls began parading onto the gym floor. Various classes were introduced. People were thanked for helping. And the children were given permission to go sit with their special guests.

As Avery went to her beaming Grandpa's side for a hug, a beautiful smile practically covered her face. But she looked back over her shoulder at the only child in her class who had not left the gym floor to scale the bleachers. Joshua was standing there all alone and looking sad.

"Grandpa," Avery said, "Joshua's grandparents are all dead. So he doesn't have anybody to be with today. Can he come and sit with us?"

"Why, of course he can, sweetheart," came the reply. "It would be great to have him join us." He did. And three people had a great time together.

I only wish you could have seen his face as Avery's grandfather told me the story. He was so proud of his granddaughter for her sensitive spirit and kind treatment of her friend. He teared up a bit as he told me what had happened. I knew immediately that I had heard a story that needed to be shared.

Jesus once reminded his disciples that they needed to become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of God. If you've ever wondered what he had in mind with that statement, just picture Avery's compassionate treatment of Joshua. See her giggling, playing patty-cake with her Grandpa, and sharing his presence with Joshua. No jealousy. No selfishness. There was enough human kindness and laughter to go around for everyone that day.

Maybe she will keep that spirit for the rest of her life. But I can guarantee there will be events, people, and circumstances to tempt her to change. Somebody will try to convince her she has no responsibility to anybody but herself. And there will be times of scarcity when her own heart will tempt her to be selfish with something under her control that another person needs. May she rise to the occasion – as she did on Grandparents Day with Joshua.

There will be somebody in my world today who needs an Avery. Since she will be at school, I will try to remember the lesson she taught me and imitate her. You just might run across a similar person in the course of your day, too.

I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3 NIV).

Website: RubelShelly.com

Growing to Your Space

rshelly@rc.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity (Romans 12:1-2 JB Phillips).

One of the common complaints of people in our time is the monotony and boredom of life. I have a sneaking suspicion that this slant on life contributes to what we call "burnout." It may also play a role in certain high-risk behaviors that range from driving too fast to getting caught up in a marriage-destroying affair to experimenting with drugs.

Monotony and boredom are self-inflicted wounds to the human spirit. If you have a routine, lackluster, and sometimes tedious job, that does not mean you have to live a routine, lackluster, and tedious life. Maybe you need to change jobs. In the current environment, that's not always possible -- or necessary. Maybe you simply need to give yourself some additional space to grow.

Perhaps you've been to the fair and seen cucumbers grown inside soda bottles or pumpkins in gallon jugs. Young plants placed inside containers grow to the space they have. They take on the contours and limits of their surroundings.

I understand it works with animals too. Put a young fish whose species normally grows reasonably large into a tiny aquarium, and its full adult size will be suppressed because of the strictly limited space it was given.

The same thing is true of people. We grow to the intellectual space we have. We take on the dull or positive contours of our emotional environments. We are big-hearted or parsimonious due to the spiritual influences that mold us. But this is not to say that we are the helpless victims of circumstances beyond our control. No matter your job or current life predicament, you can choose the environment for your soul. You can give yourself some room to grow.

For your body: eat sensibly, get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and stay away from tobacco and alcohol. For your mind: read good literature, listen to inspirational-educational cassettes or compact disks in your car, expand your vocabulary, and keep clear of the pollution of pornography and vulgarity. For your spirit: worship, read Scripture, invest yourself in service to others, and refuse to live in the spiritual bondage of cynicism or bitterness over a "bad break" life has dealt you.

To be a big-hearted, great-souled person is not the unanticipated destiny of a privileged few. It is the preordained outcome for anyone who chooses to look beyond limitation to possibility and learns to see an opportunity in every problem.

Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31).

Website: RubelShelly.com

Pessimism: Its Mistaken Perspective

rshelly@rc.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I've heard there are people with such sunny dispositions that they never give way to sadness. The rumor is that they always make lemonade from their lemons. And the boast is that they can always win at cards -- no matter the hand they get dealt. They always come out of tough times on the winning side, always cure their own illnesses with positive thinking, and are always loved by all who know them. Maybe there are such people. I doubt it.

Don't get me wrong! There is certainly value to looking for silver linings over getting lost in the dense fog of a dark cloud. In fact, if I had to choose between being a naïve optimist and marching to the beat of the pessimist's drum, I would hope to be confused with Forrest Gump over Eeyore.

There is much pessimism in the air these days. There's pessimism over the Middle East and the economy. There is Eeyore-like melancholy over the state of world and national leadership. You name it. Somebody is there to tell us why things are worse than they've ever been -- and destined soon to get worse still.

Maybe the pessimist lives under the delusion of Golden Age Syndrome. For most of my life, I have had to endure the lament of older people wishing for "the good old days" and "things as they used to be." I've always been skeptical of those people and have been inclined to suspect they have selective memory.

Now that I have lived a while, I'm trying to keep from using those phrases myself. Economics, politics, human relationships, religion -- I seriously doubt there has ever been a time when all these things were just right.

Professor Walter Jackson Bate quotes a dejected Egyptian scribe who lived more than 2,000 years before Christ. The scribe commented on the limitations of language and wrote dejectedly of the fact that there were no fresh, new ways of saying things. In his view, "men of old" had created all the phrases that were possible for human language and had exhausted them by his time. Therefore all human expression had grown stale. Language was bankrupt.

As Professor Bate points out, this pessimistic requiem was sung over civilization before any of what we now take to be the world's greatest works of literature had been composed. Maybe the scribe was premature!

If all the pessimists across time had been correct in speaking of their generation going to the dogs, exhausting every creative option, or being abandoned by God, you and I would not be here to reflect on it.

Without either being naïve or embracing Gump-ism, there is more value in facing the coming week with a positive, forward-looking spirit than wallowing in sadness over our loss of a perfection that never was.

Website: RubelShelly.com

Steering through the Storms

rshelly@rc.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

These are challenging times, and it is difficult to find a silver lining to some of the darker clouds visible to everyone. As election-year rhetoric morphs from harsh to rancorous, the economy of recession continues to take its toll. All of us know lots of people who have lost their jobs. Who will be next to suffer?

One of the interesting fact that some of us have forgotten is that crisis times have often been the stimulus for creative new beginnings. Notable successes have been generated from the ashes of previous economic downturns.

A little perspective from history might encourage you. Walt Disney lost an acting job as a movie extra and started his famous cartoon company in a garage during the recession of 1923-1924. William Hewlett and David Packard teamed up in Silicon Valley in 1938 during the Great Depression. And Bill Gates dropped out of college to launch Microsoft during the downturn of a recession in 1975.

Crisis does seem to spawn an entrepreneurial culture. When the sun is shining, most people are content to let the boat sail under its own power -- and to sun on the deck. When the clouds roll in and the boat begins to toss violently on the sea, creative people are encouraged to take risks and to chart new courses.

What about you? Do you see yourself as a thermometer or a thermostat in these tough times? Thermometers do nothing more than reflect their environments. Thermostats change their environments!

If you have had a bad year, have been laid off, or exist in a generally horrible environment, you have a choice. You can be a victim and whine about your fate. Or you can do some serious introspection, set some positive goals for making things better, and start moving ahead.

In the business world, laid-off and unfulfilled workers have changed the world by being bold in hard times. The same thing is true in other settings as well. Individuals, families, and churches who sense that something is wrong always have choices. The single most important choice is between passivity, grumbling, and dejection on the one hand and exploration, resourcefulness, and enthusiasm for a new challenge on the other.

Now that you have seen the newscasts and figured out that times really are tough, it is time to decide about your future. Make responsible choices on the basis of your passions, values, and priorities and not your gloomy circumstance. With the strength of God to help you, you can move from being a melancholy thermometer to become a difference-making thermostat in your world. You can chart a new course and set sail to a brighter destination.

Website: RubelShelly.com

Faith in the Dry Seasons

rshelly@rc.edu (Rubel Shelly) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

My friend wrote me about his marriage. "It is a dry season for us," he admitted to me as a confidant. "There has been much stress of late and very little hope of relief in the near future. But we press on. We find our joy in little things. I am thankful for her, and I know she feels secure in my love for her."

There is something wise, deep, and very spiritual about that perspective. It stayed in my mind for days. It lets me know he is the good and decent man I thought him to be. My respect for him has grown from what he saw as a sad confession of a dry season in his marriage. How fortunate is his beloved wife!

Then there was the voicemail from another friend. "Please call as soon as you have time," she said. There was an urgency to her request that I recognized. My fear was that it reflected a struggle that has been going on in her life for almost three years now. So I phoned almost immediately. And she told about the feelings that were tugging at her. The addiction will not turn loose, but she is determined not to be dragged down without a fight. Then she used the term.

"I feel like I am in a dry place with my life," she lamented. "After the divorce, I am so lonely -- and vulnerable. I need something to fill the void in my soul. But the closest and easiest things are the ones I know will only make the pain worse. It is so hard not to give in, and I just don't know if I can hold on much longer."

This afternoon, I sat down to think about what might be worth sharing with you. In order to focus my thoughts, I pulled down my much-valued copy of a devotional collection of writings from C.S. Lewis. There, on a page already dog-eared, was this highlighted line: "Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please God best."

Do you hear the recurring theme? My friend's marriage is in a "dry season." Another's personal life feels like "a dry place." Now I read about praying when one's soul is in a "state of dryness." Is it a sign of sorts to a theme worth thinking about? Or is it just the ongoing truth of the human condition? Life is not all fun and games, and relationships -- even with God -- are hard to maintain. We go dry.

What one does in those times of dryness reveals who she really is! To use it as the excuse for walking away, giving in, or giving up says one thing. To see it as a time of testing when holy purpose must trump inconsistent feelings and commitment must be put above momentary desire says something very different.

Maybe an ancient writer was experiencing this same testing of faith in a dry season when he wrote these beautiful lines: "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psalm 42:1).

I hope he survived his dry season and found renewal. I pray as much for you.

Website: RubelShelly.com

Dwell on These Things

rlawson@wclo.net (Russ Lawson) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Our memories can be of good times, or bad times, or even a combination of both. A lady wrote me recently and said that I didn't have any idea what it was like to go through "real problems or hard times," because I always write positive articles. I replied that I had my share of difficult times in my life, but just chose not to dwell on them.

Anyone who grew up on a farm knows the bad or hard times, but that's not what we choose to remember. Actually, the farming part of my life only lasted until I was 13; after that I started working as a construction laborer, then eventually as a carpenter (summers and weekends) until I graduated from High School. During this time, I became independent, to an extent, buying most of my clothes and taking care of other needs.

I don't have any idea of how much manure, how many tons of gravel, or how many yards of dirt I shoveled in my youth. I don't have any idea how many thousands of board feet of lumber I carried on my shoulders or how many thousands of nails I drove with my hammer. I don't know how many times my thumbs and fingers were smashed or how many splinters I had to dig out of various parts of my body. Not only don't I remember those things, but I don't care to remember them either -- they are unimportant.

I know lots of folks that love to remember the bad times in their lives. How do I know that? I know that because that is all they talk about. You don't have to be around them very long to know they are stuck in the memories of bad things that have happened to them. Struggles are part of everyone's everyday life! There is a saying that goes like this, "Cease to struggle and you cease to live."

What is the focus of your life?

Do you dwell on only the struggles? The apostle Paul says those things should not be our focus. Notice what he writes:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, DWELL ON THESE THINGS." (Philippians 4:8 NAS, emphasis mine).

Yes, life can sometimes be hard and problems sometime seem never ending. However, keep in mind Paul's words to the Corinthians where he gives us insight into the correct way to view our lives:

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Russ Lawson is a former missionary to Africa and minister in Ohio. He now works with World Christian Literature Outreach and writes a weekly email devotional, Messages from the Heart. For more information about Russ, click here.

Website: Messages from the Heart