Wouldn’t you love to have been able to actually hear Jesus speak? What was it about Jesus that people felt he spoke with authority? What convinced them of his power? What was there about his word? We have the gift of scripture, so we can know what Jesus said. And from scripture, we can know who He is. Would I be willing to trade that gift to be able to hear Christ speak? I wonder. If I heard Him speaking directly to me and if He was saying things I didn’t want to hear (but I needed to hear for my salvation!), would I listen?
Words. What power they hold! Encouraging or discouraging.
We ran a contest this month at work for a select group of managers who needed to improve their performance in a particular area. We allowed the managers to select the standard to be met based on their own confidence in their abilities to reach the goals. The goals were quite modest in my opinion. I would have loved to see a higher goal set, but it appears that I have more confidence in their ability than they do. We discussed the game plan that would help us achieve our newly set goals and agreed to stick to the plan, even if we ran into obstacles.
We were tested the first few days into the contest. Our performance did not improve. In fact, it worsened from last year. We had dug a hole so deep even our low goals seemed way too high. My boss and I were commenting on the performance daily (“To keep the focus up”, we told ourselves). Our comments at first were of encouragement and confidence. After it was apparent this tactic was not working, and a couple of the managers were grumbling that we needed to lower our goals or their teams would become discouraged and quit trying altogether, our comments became more sarcastic and less than charitable. We thought of lowering the goals to a break-even level, but that would have made the whole idea of the contest meaningless. Instead, we decided to keep the goals we had set, look for reasons for our reverses, and change our behavior. We looked at the game plan we had written at the beginning of the contest and felt confident it was the right direction to follow. We returned to more encouraging and charitable comments on the daily progress.
We then took our plan directly to the individual team members one by one and made sure they understood their part of the plan. We did not meet our goals—sort of. What we did manage to do was to climb out of the hole we had put ourselves in and finish positive over last year! The boss is so happy with the late surge he decided to reward the managers anyway. (However, instead of a steak barbecue cooked by the boss, all we will have is hamburgers and hotdogs—and I will be the “chef”). What the experience told us was that if we had followed our plan from the beginning or at the very least followed most of it better, we may very well have blown the modest goals out of the water. I think the managers learned something. I know I did. They want to repeat the contest this month and have already set higher goals!
The world’s standards seem so low at times and yet, whenever we run into a standard that causes us a problem, the solution seems to be to change or lower the standard. Then there are God’s standards - which seem impossible. Love your neighbor? I even have to love that so-and-so down the street? Love my enemy? Really? And yet Paul says we have the mind of Christ. I know I’m a sinner and I know I’ll fall short of God’s standard. So, should I repent and try to do better or simply change and lower God’s standard? Well, since God’s standards cannot be changed, the Good News is that we worship a loving, forgiving God who welcomes our repentance.
One of my problems is I always want to sit in judgment of the world (and its inhabitants). I need to realize that the judge position is already taken and my job is to simply live in obedience to God’s Holy Will. Simply? Right. So much easier said than done. I have to realize, it’s not about me, it’s about Christ and to keep my focus on Him.
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