I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ll soon be completing my 18th year of priesthood (I guess that makes me an ADULT PRIEST now). I feel like 18 years is enough of a milestone where I can now officially “look back” and “reflect” on some lessons I’ve learned over the years. I feel wiser and more distinguished already!
I’ve noticed a lot of discussion recently about the topic of leadership. What makes a good leader? Can leadership be learned? What are some do’s and don’ts of leadership?
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Dear Mr. Christian,
Hi...I'm not like you. I'm no "believer" but I wanted to have a little heart to heart with you since you seem to be interested in wearing your God on your sleeve. I'll be candid so don't be offended. I'll try not to make fun of your Jesus fish or your cool Christian gear. This is just my open letter.
First, can you stop treating Christianity like an STD? I'm not scared of catching it from you. I know that sometimes you're so afraid to offend me that you sort of get paranoid and weird. Relax dude. There are times when I'm even a little curious by things you do (like why you practically live at church or have the weirdest & most fluctuating diet ever) but why do you get so awkward about it?
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What’s the secret behind answered prayer? Why do some people get their prayers answered and others seem to get nothing? How come in the movie, The War Room, that lady prayed for 15 minutes (in movie time) and her whole life got fixed, while others pray for years and get absolutely no where?
Is there some secret that we're missing?
If we’re honest, we’ve all wondered about that at some point in our lives. It’s great to talk about the power of prayer and what prayer can do in our lives, but every one of us could tell at least one story of a prayer that never got answered… one that we prayed and prayed and prayed, yet every prayer only seemed to take us further and further from our desired result.
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WHAT IS CHARACTER?
Will Rogers, the great comedian of the Great Depression, once commented on the definition of character. He told to people to "live in such a way that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip!"
Gordon H. Taggart struggled with the whole concept of character, wishing he had more of it. As he wrote about what he lacked in character, he did a fantastic job of describing what it meant to BE the right kind of person. He described 11 characteristics.
"I wish I were...
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It’s that time of day – time for your favorite cup of coffee from your favorite coffee shop. You love their coffee, but you hate their prices. Now imagine there’s a new invention in coffee mugs and the first ever “smart” mug comes into existence (it’s just a matter of time before everything is smart and human beings remain as the only dumb thing left on the planet).
A “smart” mug is a coffee mug that turns any regular coffee into your favorite store-bought, brand name coffee. All you have to do is program the mug by pouring your favorite blend in there once and then after that, the mug will automatically turn any coffee into a virtual replica of your favorite brand.
How great would that be? How much money would you save by just making regular coffee and pouring it into this fancy new mug? This would be the coolest mug in the universe and everyone would want to drink coffee out of this mug, right?
But imagine the mug has a problem – not a big problem, just a little one. The mug has a small hole in the bottom of it. It works great and performs all that it promises to perform; the only problem is that it drips scalding hot coffee from the bottom of the cup onto the person who is drinking from it.
Not a big deal, right? Just a small problem, right? Would you use that cup?
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“For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” Luke 16:15
Imagine that you went into a store one day and all the price tags were switched around. Someone came in during the middle of the night and pulled the price tags off of expensive items and put them on the cheap ones. And vice versa, they put all the cheap price tags on the expensive items.
So items that should cost $100 were being sold for a $1 and items that aren’t worth more than $1 were being sold for $100. What would happen? What would the scene look like?
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Those who know me know that I am HUGE football fan and an even HUGER fan of the Washington Redskins. It’s now been three days since their painful loss to the Seahawks in the playoffs so I feel like I am finally ready to come out of hiding and talk about football once again (but not the Redskins yet – the healing process takes time).
I will however talk about another football game I saw this past weekend – one that didn’t involve my beloved Redskins. In this particular game, I saw one of the greatest catches I have seen in a long time. It was one of those “jump out of your seat” kind of plays. The quarterback dropped back, avoided the defenders and then threw a long pass to a receiver who leaped to make a beautiful catch. The play was incredibly graceful and extraordinarily athletic.
But there was a problem – it didn’t count. It didn’t count because he went out of bounds. In the process of hauling in that pass, the receiver stepped out of bounds and thereby nullified the play. In football, you often see players twisting and turning in amazing ways to stay in bounds.
Because no matter how impressive the play is – if you’re out of bounds, it just doesn’t count.
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Integrity. What does it mean? How would you define it? More importantly, do you have it? Would those around you say that you are full of it?
Integrity is not an easy word to define. It’s one of those words that people define in different ways. But I define integrity as this: HONESTY. Integrity is living a life of honesty – a life where I am who I say I am, and my deeds are visibly in line with my words.
Integrity comes from the same root word as “integer” – meaning one, or not divided. A life of integrity is a life where you are one person, not many people. You’re the same person on Sunday mornings as you are on Monday mornings. You’re the same person in front of the spotlight as you are when no one’s looking. Integrity. One. Honesty.
As much as we demand honesty from others, there’s one person that we are willing to put up with some dishonesty from. There’s one person that deals with us dishonestly on a regular basis and we accept it and don’t say a word. Who? OURSELVES!
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