After all, it takes a lot of planning to marry the wrong person.
We only get one shot at every season of life. Whether or not we learned anything becomes evident in the seasons that follow.
The problem was that somewhere along the way I had bought into the myth that a good leader has to be good at everything. So I operated under the assumption that I had to upgrade my weaknesses into strengths. After all, who would follow a leader who wasn’t well-rounded?
The desert always feels like a complete waste of time. It is only when we are able to look back that our desert experiences make sense.
Do you know why people are prone to make such foolish moral decisions? Because something always whispers to us that our situations are unique: Nobody has ever felt this way before.
Our greatest moral regrets are always preceded by a series of unwise choices.
Our tendency is to pray for miracles. But in most situations, it is more appropriate to pray for opportunities. More than likely you need an opportunity rather than something.
But leadership is not always about getting things done “right.” Leadership is about getting things done through other people. Leaders miss opportunities to play to their strengths because they haven’t figured out that great leaders work through other leaders, who work through others. Leadership is about multiplying your efforts, which automatically multiplies your results.
The people closest to you routinely catch the flak thrown off by the explosive stuff you normally work so hard to keep hidden.
Think about this for a moment. What would happen if you were to begin speaking to people’s potential rather than their performance? What if you made it a habit to dispense the same type of grace to others as has been poured out on you? What would happen if you intentionally laced your conversations with notions of what could be true of the people around you?
What kind of vision are you casting for the people around you? Dad, what kind of vision are you casting for your children? Mom, what kind of vision are you casting for your husband? Grandparent, what about those grandkids? Leader, what kind of personal visions are you casting for the people who have invested their time and talents in your vision?
Patience is the decision to move at someone else’s pace rather than pressure him or her to match yours. Patience.
There is no necessary correlation between how busy you are and how productive you are. Being busy isn’t the same as being productive.
It is next to impossible to hear the voice of wisdom if we are not really listening for it to begin with. The best counsel in the world is wasted counsel if our minds are already made up.
People who were nothing like him liked him. And Jesus liked people who were nothing like him.
It’s unfortunate that someone can grow up hearing sermons and Sunday school lessons, yet never be captivated by the Scriptures.
You can’t give yourself fully to someone else as long as you are mastered by something else.
Pursuing a vision requires faith. Pursuing a great vision requires great faith. Pursuing a vision will test, stretch, and at times exhaust your faith. And while you are pulling your hair out down here, God revels in the glory he receives.
Preachers’ kids who gravitate toward ministry are commodities. I hire all I can. We see church differently than everybody else.
The roots of envy always run deeper and wider than the relationship in which it surfaces. In.