We’ve all heard that phrase, “Perception is Reality.” It has been used since the beginning of time to explain the things people can’t explain. Greek mythology is all based on what people perceived to be true. We use to believe the earth was flat, until one brave man decide to explore it. Throughout our history people have made up things to explain stuff they can’t explain. The sad thing is we do this exact same thing with people.
It’s one thing to say the earth is flat and I could even see someone being scared to go find out. A person might not come back if they find out that it is. When we do the whole “Perception Is Reality” thing with people, we are to scared or to lazy to just ask the person for the truth or even worse, we just don’t want to believe someone. Simply saying “Well you know, perception is reality…” Is this even true?
Lets look at one man, actually “The Man” Jesus. If perception is reality, He is not the Son of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. See the Pharisees had perceived Jesus to be one way and that’s what the stuck with. Although Jesus came to give life, they perceived He came to threaten their way of life. People to this day still don’t believe the truth of who Jesus is or why He came to this earth. These same people don’t seek the truth, they settle for assuming.
The thing about the perceiving things that aren’t true is eventually we see the earth is not flat, we understand that its actually round. If we take the time to go and explore the truth of who a person is and not what we perceive as truth, we will discover new things about them as well.
Seek to the truth! Stop assuming that all lawyers are bad, all doctor just do it for the money, every pro athlete is a conceited womanizer… Perception is not Reality, it’s just what you perceive, until the truth comes out.
What do you think? Is Perception Reality?
I heard this story the other day and thought I have to share it. It hold so much truth to it on all levels of life.
There once was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.
One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.
“How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.
“Why sir,” said the farmer, “didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”
He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor’s corn also improves.
So it is with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.
The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn
What will you do with the gifts, talents and abilities God has given you.
Matthew 25:14-30
Last week when I was At the Exponential Conference. One of the session I sat in on was Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson. In it they were talking about reproducing leaders and they shared this simple yet effective way so I thought I would share it with you.
- I do > you watch > we talk
- I do > you help > we talk
- You do > I help > we talk
- You do > I watch > we talk
- You do > someone else watches
It seems like we all are waiting on something to happen before we start doing what we know we are supposed to do. Let’s think about it: Do you need to start working out? Do you wait ‘til the New Years day to try to stop smoking or say “I’ll just wait till I finish this pack”? How about you need to study harder in school but decide to just wait tell next semester? This is one I hear a lot “when I get married I will start doing this or stop doing that”.
Why is it when we know what we need to do we choose to make excuses to start it later? I image the conversation in our head goes something like this. “I know I need to get better, but, I’ll do what I need to do in a month or so”. What sense does that make? That makes about as much sense as saying, “Look! A stop light! I’ll stop when I get on the other side of it”.
When it comes to doing what we know we need to do, procrastination is not our friend, but our enemy. Let’s not continue to make excuse about what needs to be done and just do it!
What will you do today to get better? Now that’s a pretty vague question. “Get better at what?” is probably what you’re thinking. See most of the time we think of getting better as something athletes do. Like, I won the bronze medal last Olympics so for the next Olympics I’m going for gold. See most of our lives we live to get to a certain place or goal and once we get there we stop trying to improve upon ourselves. When we get that job we wanted or when you get your PHD or now you are married. Once the goal is reached we feel like we can stop striving to get better.
But what would happen if we were to look at every part of our live as a chance to get better? Maybe you need to be a better husband or wife, perhaps a better parent or child, maybe a better leader or follower. How does one even know if they need to get better? I’ll start by saying no one is perfect so that leaves the door wide open for us all to get better. So let’s stop and examine our lives and see what we can do to get better.
All this week we will look at different ways that we can get better on a daily basis.
Have you ever driven a car with no brakes? I don’t mean brakes that aren’t working well, but one that has no brakes! Well I have and let me tell you it sucks. Let me tell you how it went down. About 9 years ago I had an 81 Grand Prix and it needed a brake job in every way – about 700 dollars worth of work. Yet I still needed to get to work which was on the other side of town like 14 miles.
I got to work that day just fine, yet, on my way home as I was going to slow down to get on the highway the brakes didn’t work! Not at all! Now, if you’re thinking I was freaking out you’d be right. I’m now on the highway doing 70 mph and have no brakes. I was thinking what do I do? How am I going to stop this car? We’ve all seen how this ends in the movies. I figured, I’m either going to run into something or drive off a cliff. Either way I wasn’t looking forward to it.
At this point I thinking I needed an exit that had a long ramp and drive off time. I remembered one that was a few miles up. I was so blessed that traffic never slowed down and kept flowing. When I reached the exit I ran in to a problem – there where cars in the way! Somehow I managed to avoid them and find the field that I knew was right of that exit. I drove through the field and swerved back and forth until the car slowed down enough that I could just throw it in park.
In my entire life I’ve never met anyone who has driven without any brakes. Nor have I met anyone who did it and managed not to hit anything and from what I see in the movies it’s not possible. I would like to think it was the fact I’m a NASCAR fan and have great driving skills that help me out but I know it was God who protected me.
See, sometimes as leaders we are so busy going and going that the brakes of our lives give out on us. We don’t take the time to service our brakes. I could have spent that $700 and had working brakes, but instead I chose to keep driving until I had no choice but to get them fixed. It’s the same in life, we NEED to take the time to rest in Him so that He can strengthen us and so we minister out of the overflow of our time with Him instead of just swerving in a field trying not to crash.
I am reading a book by Charles F. Stanley. While reading I came across a section where he says “Each of us faces a four-fold challenge about any task we undertake”
It was very impactful to me so I thought I would share them with you.
- Productivity - doing as much as we can
- Quality - doing things as well as we can
- Time management - doing things as efficiently as we can
- Maximum impact – doing things as effectively as we can
That’s great insight to think about when we are taking on any task whether it’s at work or at home. So I challenge each of you as you start your week off to weigh what you do against these 4 things.
The name of the book is “How to Reach Your Full Potential for God”. It’s a great read and I will be doing a full review as soon I finish.
How do you start your day, maybe with 3 cups of coffee, maybe a trip to the gym? Every one of us has a morning routine that we live by; a game plan to help us kick our day off. Is our game plan helping us to have a more productive day or less productive day?
Most of the time we don’t have a problem planning out for something big like a vacation or getting a college degree or even a big project at work. Yet, when it comes to our daily lives we seem to just let things happen and hope for the best.
We may make a list of what needs to be done for that day, but do we have a vision for that day? Do we know how we want the day to look if we were to look back on it and say that was a good day? Now don’t get me wrong, I think lists are great but the average person never finishes their list. Some never even start because a list isn’t a plan it’s just a list.
Taking the time to plan out your day will get you a lot farther than a list of things that need to be accomplished. Try it out and see if at the end of the day you don’t get a little more done.
May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans! Psalm 20:4
Are you rock star? Have you made it to level in life where you feel you are entitled to have things your way? If you don’t get your way do you make sure someone hears about it?
Let me give you an example in my own life. About every month my boss asks his team to make an appointment with him. Everyone on the team makes an appointment but me. Now if your thinking I don’t meet with him that not the case. See we meet but I just walk up to him and start talking. It’s the same way with my barber. I’ve been going to the same guy ever since I got out of the army 10 years ago. I’ve never made an appointment. I usually just send a text and say I need a cut that day and somehow he works me in.
I’m not even sure why I do it, maybe because it makes me feel like a rock star. Well, I’m not and even if I was I should have more respect for people and their time. See Jesus came to serve, not to be served Mark 10:45 and if there was ever anyone who should have been treated like a rock star it was Jesus, yet he washed feet and gave his life for us. John 13:1-17
In this New Year let us all do our best to serve others rather than expecting others to serve us.
LEADING YOURSELF WELL by (Heather Zempel)
Romans 12:8: “If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously.”
Leadership is a stewardship issue.
1 Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.”
Leadership begins with becoming a leader worth following.
- Create a spiritual development plan (Acts 2:42-47)
- Seeking is the spiritual dimension of discipleship. We want to be disciples who practice spiritual disciplines, discover and implement their spiritual gifts, develop the fruit of the Spirit, and understand and participate in the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Learning is the intellectual dimension of discipleship. We want to be disciples who endeavor to have the “mind of Christ” and long to know more about Him. We want to be people who are actively reading, memorizing, meditating upon, and studying the Word of God. We want to be people who understand the core doctrines of their faith.
- Influencing is the relational dimension of discipleship. We want to be disciples who change the culture of our generation, love our neighbors, and pass the faith to the next generation. It’s about community, discipleship, service, and mission. We want to influence neighborhoods and nations for the Kingdom of God.
- Investing is the stewardship dimension of discipleship. We want to be disciples who are investing our finances, talents, time, energy, and resources into Kingdom work. We want to be people whose calendars and checkbooks reflect Kingdom priorities.
2. Lean into your strengths.
3. Identify areas in which you’d like to grow.
4. Read.
5. Get around others who excel in the areas where you want to grow.
6. Write down what you are learning.
7. Put yourself in leadership situations that stretch you.
8. Have an apprentice leader.
9. Create accountability environments for yourself.
10. Take care of your personal life- family, friendships, health, finances.
Husband to the beautiful @melissaparker, father to 2 amazing kids, Pastor, Fitness Professional, Leader Developer and saved by Grace. Who loves to have FUN! and chicken and waffles!
