My boss handed me an article today. (Well, more like a reading... unless you consider a 3-page chapter from a book an article. But whatever, not the point.)
It was meant to be an extension of a professional/vocational/personal conversation we shared yesterday about helping people find perspective apart from our own, because we can't give it to them. Perspective in work. Perspective in relationships. Perspective in faith. And while meant to address some recent developments in my relationship and interactions with students and the places they find themselves, this conversation... the book we are readingand the discussions that take place in my women's small group... all of it is so very much for me as well.
I love how God has been weaving together very separate and distinct parts of my life with this same thread of perspective. Realizing His greatness, my life's brevity, and the intersection of how my life is meant to serve Him. Not in some later version of then, but now. And I'm most certain, or at least more so than I have been in a very long time, that my idea of serving has been so very skewed as grand or difficult or intolerable. I have not acted in faith, in the kind of way that impacts other people and not just my own life, in awhile and thank goodness, He's changing that.
So back to the chapter/article/reading.
In this article, Bill Hybels is talking about an interaction with Joni Eareckson Tada in which she credits her resiliency in ministry and life - her ability to continue "leading and serving and creating... despite her obvious physical challenges" - as such:
It was meant to be an extension of a professional/vocational/personal conversation we shared yesterday about helping people find perspective apart from our own, because we can't give it to them. Perspective in work. Perspective in relationships. Perspective in faith. And while meant to address some recent developments in my relationship and interactions with students and the places they find themselves, this conversation... the book we are readingand the discussions that take place in my women's small group... all of it is so very much for me as well.
I love how God has been weaving together very separate and distinct parts of my life with this same thread of perspective. Realizing His greatness, my life's brevity, and the intersection of how my life is meant to serve Him. Not in some later version of then, but now. And I'm most certain, or at least more so than I have been in a very long time, that my idea of serving has been so very skewed as grand or difficult or intolerable. I have not acted in faith, in the kind of way that impacts other people and not just my own life, in awhile and thank goodness, He's changing that.
So back to the chapter/article/reading.
In this article, Bill Hybels is talking about an interaction with Joni Eareckson Tada in which she credits her resiliency in ministry and life - her ability to continue "leading and serving and creating... despite her obvious physical challenges" - as such:
This is the only time in history when I get to fight for God. This is the only part of my eternal story when I am actually in the battle. Once I die, I'll be in celebration mode in a glorified body in a whole different set of circumstances. But this is my limited window of opportunity, and I'm going to fight the good fight for all I'm worth.
Hybels describes his response to her perspective as resolve, knowing that if he's "waiting for some other life to be courageous, than [he's] kidding [him]self."
And I wonder, simply because I know how true it is for myself, how many of us our kidding ourselves?
Hybels, Bill. (2008). Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs. (pp. 187-189) Nashville: Zondervan.
1 comment:
What Bill Hybel's book is the chapter from?!
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