A note from Pastor Bear: This summer, our church is reading John Maxwell’s “Developing The Leader Within You” as our Book-of-the-Quarter. BridgeWay’s Paul Perrin, who writes a leadership blog, recently shared this article he wrote a few years ago with me. After reading it, I knew it was something to share with the whole church as part of our focus on leadership. For more of Paul’s writing, go to learningleader.net.
Our West Virginia trip was amazing. Luke, my brother, Dave, and his two boys, Sam and Joe had a great time of building relationships and creating memories while around the campfire, climbing on rocks and whitewater rafting.
On the first day, Luke and I connected with another former Marine and he invited us to climb with his group and to use their gear, which we didn’t have (yet). What a blessing that offer was. Luke and I were able to climb multiple walls, but the biggest was a 70′ face that you can see up above.
What an exhilarating experience it was! The higher you climbed the more desire you needed to make it to the top. I loved every second of it, but there were challenges along the way that delayed that desire to get to the top. The view was incredible as you climbed, but as you turned around and looked down you realized just how high you were. Honestly, I loved this part, but some in the group made comments about the scariness of it. There was a place in the wall that you had to traverse without any handholds. It was sweet, but again it was a little shaky. It was only my desire and the encouragement from my son and newfound friends that enabled me reach the top.
I was at work the other day in a meeting where we were discussing our growth in our spiritual lives. One of my friends, Eric, used an analogy about a car that struck me. (No, not that hit me, LOL, but that probed at my mind a bit.) He said, “You are either accelerating or you are essentially putting on the brake. Even if you are just coasting, it is really just a slow stop.” That really made me think about how many times in my life, I have just coasted. In my spiritual life and also in a lot of other areas as well.
I had to ask myself a series of questions: Am I just coasting in my career? Am I just coasting in my marriage? Am I just coasting in the leading of my kids? Am I just coasting in my spiritual life? As I sat and reflected on this, the answer to all of these questions was, unfortunately, yes. Not all the time, but way too often.
I think being self-aware that my human inclination is one where I am going to want to just coast, makes me mindful that I need to keep pressing on in my career by being more hungry to learn and grow. It makes me mindful that I need to strive to be a better husband and a better father. It makes me mindful that I need to continue to grow in my spiritual life and in showing love to others more than myself.
I reflected more about having desire and what “accelerating” really meant. I began to think that what it means is putting ourselves in places that are a little uncomfortable for us, like that 70′ cliff wall. Places where we may not be the expert and we have to lean on others to help us to be successful. This can be humbling and tough because of our prideful hearts, but this is exactly what John Maxwell states is a level 5 leader. It is having an attitude that is humble and one that has the desire to grow. In other words, one who wants to accelerate.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
T.S. Elliot
My son, Luke, made a comment the weekend after we got home from our trip to West Virginia in 2016. To set the stage, I had been waiting for him to decide on what college he is going to go to for a while and he finally had decided. He decided on Purdue University. This was significant because Purdue would challenge him in multiple ways right off the bat. He applied late to the engineering program and didn’t get accepted so he has to reach certain GPA to get accepted after the first semester. This was a challenge for sure.
On top of that, he has decided to join the Marine Corps ROTC program where he was competing for a national 3.5 year scholarship and enduring the rigor of the USMC. All this to say that after he told me he decided on Purdue and to take on this challenge, he said, “Well, Dad, if I don’t take on this challenge, I will never know if I am able to overcome it.” I immediately thought…now that is desire and that is a person who wants to accelerate. I believed with that level of desire, he would succeed. He inspired me that day to not coast, to not stop, but to accelerate in all that I do.
My hope is that he may have inspired you too. Whatever your challenge is today or this week, don’t quit and definitely don’t just coast. Remember that coasting is just a slow quit… Eventually you will stop. You are a leader! Take on that challenge. Pray for the desire. Push onward and grow.
A 2020 Update: Luke did make it into the Engineering school at Purdue, picked one of the hardest engineering majors (Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering) and graduated with a 3.4 GPA. He definitely didn’t coast. He inspired me through all the great times and even more in the hard times. I hope that I inspired him by encouraging him with scripture, praying for him and helping him to “stay focused on the moon”; a statement that I used to keep him focused on making it to graduation.
Questions:
1. Are you just coasting? In what areas of life?
2. If you could prioritize those areas, what are the top two?
3. What could you do to help yourself to not coast in those areas? Develop a plan to help you overcome our human nature of just coasting.
4. What do we need to be careful about with our desire? Where does it come out of? Out of our hearts for others and God or out of our sinful bodies in search of gain for ourselves?
Pray a prayer right now and ask the Lord to help you to accelerate more as a leader and as a follower of the Lord.