You’re Not Starting From Scratch

Everyone starts from somewhere, right? But sometimes where you end up looks different from where you started. I’ve been working on a project for a client in recent weeks and I’ve made at least 4 renditions of the project and we’re still nowhere near a final solution because I keep getting new information and changes from the client that affect what I’ve done. Yes, this is essentially what life is: a journey of making adjustments based on how you grow and how the world changes. I doubt that most of us would imagine where the adjustments we’ve made over the years would have brought us.

But in the case of this project, and most of our life journey, rarely are we back at ‘square 1’ when we make an adjustment. I’ve got data and information that means I can create new renditions much faster than the initial version. With each new rendition I’m more used to working with the items and context of the project, so things move much faster now than they did when I started. It doesn’t mean that I love having to make adjustments because of information that I should have had from the beginning, but that’s also something we run across in our life journeys.

You could think about it like navigating an obstacle course: if you run it 10 times you’re going to be much better at it than you were the first time. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement with each run or that situational changes don’t make it harder or different (like if it’s raining or super hot), because even if you run it 100 times you’re still going to have room for improvement, but it should get easier or at least more familiar the more you run it.

So if you’re trying to do something again for what might feel like (or actually is) the hundredth time, don’t be discouraged that you’re at that mark. Instead, try to focus on how much more experienced you are at this point, or what you’ve learned along the way, or how you’re going to apply these experiences for the future (like getting better at asking questions or measuring or starting on time). It’s also helpful to remember when you go into things that you know will have multiple steps that patience isn’t optional, and that it can be a good thing to have to do multiple tries, rounds, sketches, revisions or renditions because the end result after all that work is usually better than anything that could be created on the first attempt.

Hearts for Prayer

Wednesday is See You At The Pole day, where thousands of students gather around the flagpole at their school and pray. This day is something that I write about each year because I think it’s so important for people to know this opportunity exists. And while the goal of the event is for students to gather and pray, it’s not just an opportunity for students, but for the adults around the country to pray for all students too. Just like the pastors who say the prayers at church each week need prayer too, so do the students saying the prayers.

I shared recently on one of my business blog posts about the challenge we sometimes run up against when it comes to repetition and consistency: it’s hard to sell something that hasn’t changed when people think it should have. What does that have to do with school, students or prayer? It can be hard to keep praying about the same stuff. That list of people who you pray for each day may not change very much and you may sometimes wonder why you spend the time praying when nothing seems to change (which sometimes is a good thing). You may be so far removed from your school years that you aren’t in the loop on what’s challenging to students today specifically, and that’s OK. You don’t need to know all of the details, because there’s always the basics to pray about which haven’t changed in a very long time: teachers, students, learning, bullying, safety, growth, communication, and decision making are just some topics to start with. Those are all topics that can be prayed about, without needing to know any specific details, whether you pray for your local schools, those in the most challenging districts or just in general. Don’t be discouraged that you’re praying the same prayer or that you feel like you’re light on details that would allow you to be truly specific in your years

Finally, See You At the Pole, much like church each week, reminds me that we’re not alone. Even if just a couple of people gather around the pole, or whatever other meeting place is designated, it’s a reminder that other people care enough to take time out of their day to stop and pray. You might need that reminder today, or someone else might, but it’s something we all need to be reminded of from time to time, because even when we’re wandering the halls with so many other students or fellow employees or fellow shoppers it can seem like we’re very alone. It’s not always about how big of an impact you can make or how much time you can invest, but about those very little, very simple things you can do that show you care and that others matter to you. Will you join me in praying for the schools of the nation and the world on Wednesday?

“If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:13

Down-to-the-Wire Victories

Lately I’ve had cause to think about how we deal with life when things get down to the wire. I wouldn’t say I’m a last minute type of person, I rarely let things get to almost-late or late status, but it’s also rare that I do things days/weeks/months in advance, and a big part of the reason is because the work I do and life I have requiring more flexibility than some people have or need, so it’s much more challenging to work ahead for me than it is for some people. So I understand that sometimes it’s difficult or even impossible to do things in advance, like getting dressed for your wedding or reheating dinner or buying sushi. Some things have to wait until just the right moment to be done. But I’m also glad that going ‘down to the wire’ tends to have a negative association in general, and that people generally understand that waiting to the last minute or beyond is frowned upon and not appreciated.

As I was navigating one of these down-to-the-wire situations I had two thoughts: first that it’s good to do them from time to time because it shows your ability to work under pressure and reassures you that you can do hard things and can put a good effort forward without completely breaking down, freaking out or failing. If you’ve ever been in a high pressure situation with a newer team or people you don’t know well, you find out real quick who can pull it together and be a true team player and still bring their usual quality work to the table.

The other thought I had was aside from being thankful that you passed that “test” and life can return to normal, even in these high pressure situations there’s a victory to celebrate. Yes, it’s a ton of work and you may just want to go to bed when all is said and done, but I think it’s important to stop and feel the satisfaction of a job well done. Maybe it’s not as perfect as you would have liked it to be, but usually in these high pressure situations perfection isn’t expected. As long as you’ve set realistic expectations from the start, you’ve got not only a chance to succeed through the do-or-die situation, you’ve also got an opportunity to have better than expected results that mean you accomplish your victory and set yourself up for an easy cleanup or next stages to the victory journey.

So if you’re facing a down-to-the-wire moment in your victory journey this week, I encourage you to put on a brave face, make a good plan, gather a reliable team and go for it. Give it your best effort and believe that you’ll achieve great things.

Being Faithful

Today, I’m thankful that God is faithful, that He’s there to support us when we stumble and catch us when we stray, to listen when we speak and speak to us when we listen, to have a plan for our lives and to give us the free will to live our lives.  I’ve been thinking about our free will in life and the blessing and responsibility that it brings us.  It’s been said for many years that we Christians have gotten distracted and swayed by the worldliness of the world, but I think it’s more than that.  I think we’ve forgotten who we are in our essence; who all people regardless of religion should be.  Somewhere along the line we’ve lost our ethical and moral foundation of how we treat all people.  We’re not faithful to our fellow man, men God created too, as we should be.  Why does being faithful matter?  Let’s take a look at 4 reasons: 

Zechariah 8:8 says “They will be my people, and I will be their good and faithful God.”  Our perfect example, as with many things, comes from God.  He’s always been faithful to us, and always will be, it’s us who are unfaithful.

Revelation 1:9 says “I was on the island of Patmos because I was faithful to God’s message and to the truth of Jesus.”  Being faithful to live up to your convictions, to have moral and ethical beliefs, sometimes means that you’ll experience doubt or rejection from others who don’t live with the same beliefs.

2 Chronicles 16:9 says “The eyes of the Lord go around looking in all the earth for people who are faithful to him so that He can make them strong.”   God is looking for those who are faithful.  How cool is that?!  It’s a reminder that God doesn’t ignore us, but rather He looks to get involved in our lives, to be part of us and not let us struggle alone.

Rev. Peter Schineller prayed: “Lord Jesus, Who came not to be served but to serve, help us to live useful lives. Help us always to encourage, and never to discourage others. Always to be readier to praise than to criticize, and to sympathize rather than to condemn. Help us always to help, and never to hinder others. Make us more ready to cooperate than to object, more ready to say yes than to say no when anyone appeals to us for help. Help us always to make it easier for others to do the right thing. Help us always to take our stand beside anyone who is standing for the right. So grant that indeed our lives may be like lights to the world.”

Let this be your prayer this week, the encouragement you need to think about being faithful, to yourself, to others, and to God, and what is truly important to you.

Students of Faith

Like many other people I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with school. On one hand it was exciting to get all the new supplies together and anticipate the things you might learn that will help you feel truly accomplished and more knowledgeable at the end of the school year. But on the other hand it’s a ton of stress, you have to get up early, you have to read stuff you don’t want to read, you have to memorize stuff that may seem irrelevant depending on your plans for life, and you have to take tests! But whether we like it or not, our school years are some of the most important in helping build a foundation for our adulthood and hopefully it sets us up for success. As I’ve been thinking about this new school year as well as See You At The Pole, where students gather around the flagpole at their school and pray, which is happening in just two weeks’ time, I started thinking about what it means to be a student of faith.

I do think it’s important to apply some more traditional forms of learning to your faith life. Yes, faith is learned through experience and hearing from God, but I also know that it’s only through reading the Bible, attending/doing Bible studies, reading devotions, listening to sermons and studying with those who have spent significant amounts of time learning about the Bible and what God teaches. Not only do we establish a foundation of faith through these traditional school-type activities, we’re also able to go beyond the basics and deepen our understanding of our faith and spirituality.

This leads to the second thing to talk about: time. I know so many people who really counted down the days until they were done forever with traditional schooling. But the rapid pace that life moves at these days means that if you don’t keep learning, there’s no way that you’ll be able to thrive in today’s world. For example if you graduated college in 2000 and decided to stop learning after that you wouldn’t use Wikipedia (2001), Tom Brady wouldn’t be a household name (first primetime football win in 2002), the war in Darfur wouldn’t have happened, there was no social media as we know it (Facebook founded in 2004), the Boston Red Socks would still be cursed (broken in 2004), there would be no iPhone (2007), there would be no black president (Barack Obama, 2016), and so many other things. It’s amazing how much has changed in just 20 years, and the only way to know these things is to keep learning. That definitely doesn’t mean that you need a ton of more formal schooling, but that you have to be willing to keep learning in little bits and pieces each and every day. Some days you may not learn a lot, while other days you you’ll learn a ton.

Finally, I think there’s a lot to be said for life lessons. These are the lessons you can only learn through experience, much like you only learn how poorly a recipe can come out after you screw it up. That doesn’t mean that I think outright failure is necessary, but that there’s definitely lots to be learned from living, experiencing and trying life. One might call this trade school, another might call it a broader version of Home EC, it also might look like an internship. Because as much as faith is a knowledge and heart-and-soul thing, it’s also a life thing and something that impacts not only how you live but the lives of others as well. So as much as you need to learn mentally about faith, it has to be applied to your life for it to really serve the purpose it was meant to serve.

With the final months of 2023 I encourage you to spend some time learning more about your faith, whether you really dive into it and invest a lot of time or just make it a more consistent part of your day. Whether that’s with additional devotions, maybe that’s volunteering with a faith-based organization, or maybe it’s extra time praying and talking with God, there are a ton of ways you can learn and grow closer to God. What ways are you learning about your faith now in your life?

Reality Reflection: A Celebration of Life

Life should be appreciated and celebrated. This weekend my partner and I were able to attend a wedding that had been postponed several times for different reasons and it was nice to be with family and friends again, celebrating a couple that is very much in love and happy to be together. It was nice to see people reconnect, sit back and relax a bit and not think about work that had to be done, what was going on in the world, or the challenges going on in our lives or the lives of those we love. It was a reminder to me how important it is to stop and see the world around you and be assured that not everyone is having a bad day, acting crazy, self-centered, or doing something wrong. There are a whole lot of awesome people in the world, and we need to remember that they’re out there and worth spending time with.

It felt appropriate to be at this celebration of life on this weekend leading up to the anniversary of September 11, a day when so many lives were lost and countless more changed forever. Should we spend time grieving for those we’ve lost? Absolutely. We should spend time remembering them and including them in whatever ways seem most appropriate in gatherings we have throughout the year. Maybe it’s with a picture or a treasured recipe or bringing out gifts and treasures they’ve given us or sharing stories about them, but their impact can linger long after they’re physically gone if we choose to celebrate them and share them with the next generation.

Take some time as we head into this year’s holiday season as well as this solemn day to reflect back on the people whose lives have touched yours. For those who are still alive, make time to talk with them or see them and let them know in small ways or big ones that you appreciate them being in your life. Make an effort to attend these celebrations, and treasure the moments you have with them. And for those who have passed on, thank God for their time in your life and find a way to honor them that brings a little of them back to life. Remember who they were when they were alive, not the fact that they’re not still with you.

Victories at a Minimum

Are you familiar with the concept of a minimum viable product? It’s a product that has been fleshed out or given a framework or has enough features ready to show that it’s a product that will sell so investors can buy in or it’s exciting and complete enough to get the first customers purchasing it. In some ways it’s also similar to the ‘minimum payment’ that your credit card shows you each month: it’s the absolute minimum you have to pay to keep your account in good standing. I was thinking about this concept but in relation to victories the other day because I had a project I was working on and I knew I didn’t have time to get it all done that day. So I looked at it and decided what the absolute minimum was that I had to do and how much I could realistically do on it that day and what could be left for another day. And thanks to this planning I got done the minimum done and packed up the rest to be completed at my first available opportunity and felt good about what I had gotten done and the timeline I was working with.

Did I not complete the project because I didn’t want to? No. Did I not complete the project because I was procrastinating or avoiding? No. Did I not complete the project because I failed to plan? No. Does it mean I won’t complete the project? No. Sometimes, like in my situation, you’re happy to do the work, you just don’t have enough time or the resources don’t show up at a time that allows for getting things done ahead of time or properly planning out your schedule to fit it in all at once.

Whether you face overwhelm when working on victories or just have too many things in play that you struggle to find time to fit it all in at once, sometimes the best thing we can do is to accept the small, minimum victories. You may also recognize them as the little things you’re able to celebrate each day that you’ve successfully completed. Maybe you haven’t done the whole victory in a day, but if you took a step or two closer to the finish line that day, and every other day, that’s worth celebrating.

My victories matter enough to me that I’m willing to give them the time and energy when and as I can. To me the baby steps are just as exciting as the big steps and so many days I’m just thankful for any and all progress and I don’t let myself focus on how much I haven’t completed or is yet to complete. So what minimum, progressive, stages of victory are you thankful for this week?

Choosing Patience

Sometimes the best thing is to wait. Those are some really hard words to hear sometimes, I know. Especially when we’re in the middle of a true crisis or something that’s upsetting us, or maybe even more challenging, we’ve been told by God to wait. It’s one thing to wait to hear back from God when we’ve prayed about something, but when His answer is that we have to wait, as much as we appreciate getting an answer, it’s almost harder to accept that answer than it is to wait for what comes next. Unless of course it’s not a “you have to wait” answer, but a “keep waiting, I won’t let you down” answer, which is much more reassuring and does give you a measure of peace to be patient for God’s timing.

But it’s not just about waiting for answers to prayer, this is one area that our many blessings in this day and age tend to do us a disservice in. We rant and rave when it takes 5 minutes to start up our computer, when it used to take 5 days for information to get from one place to another by mail or package. We get upset if we don’t hear back immediately when we contact customer service. We turn to takeout frequently because cooking at home takes too long. I’m sure you can come up with other things that you’re not super patient with or about too. It’s not to say that I don’t appreciate all the advances and opportunities that we have today, but that we shouldn’t put everything in the past, because there are things that still matter and can still benefit us, like patience.

You probably know that I’m not a fan of perfectionism, that I tend to accept a job ‘well done’ and knowing that either I’ll accept the little imperfections I’ll find over time or I’ll know that there will be some things to tweak in the future. Because rather than trying to get it perfect out of the gate, I’ve learned time and again that we will grow and will change and done-for-now is better than trying for perfectly done. Sometimes it’s not even about choosing perfection or not, it’s about how willing we are to be patient with the timing, because if we can wait a bit and be a bit patient we will be able to end up with a far better result because we’ve been able to take it on at a speed that does help you get a lot closer to perfection and with fewer regrets along the way or when you’re done.

So whether you’re looking at the calendar and getting concerned about how close we are to the end of a year, or you’re panicking over the new school year and all that it entails, or just tired of how long your to-do list has gotten, I encourage you to take a deep breath, choose to step forward one little or big step at a time, and do one thing at a time as carefully as you may need to. Be patient with yourself and with God if this is a season in your life that is encouraging or reminding you to just go a little slower.

“Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

Reality Reflection: You’re Welcome Here

If you’ve ever been blessed enough to have several dogs at the same time in your home you’ve probably witnessed what happens when one of them has been out and comes back to rejoin the others. The other dogs are all excited to greet their fellow canine companion and sniff around to see where that dog has been and what they might have missed while it was out. All the tails are wagging and everyone is glad to be back together. Some families experience this when a parent returns home and the kids run to greet them, and if there are pets there’s usually a cheerful, excited greeting between humans and pets when they get home too.

I know everyone doesn’t have the ability to care for multiple dogs, and some are allergic, but there’s something to be said for that type of welcome home that makes you know that you were missed and the other party wants to find out about your day, or at the very least just let you know that they’re glad you’re back. And the same holds true of course for our fellow human housemates, but I think it’s less likely these days that you’ll receive an enthusiastic welcome from them than your pets.

What it all comes down to is the importance and opportunity of welcoming in each other. No one wants to be a burden or be unwelcome, but sometimes that’s the impression we give off because we don’t welcome them in with any feeling. Welcomes aren’t opportunities to have the lengthiest or deepest interactions with people, but they can be a important moment of connection that does an essential job of reestablishing your closeness and the relationship that exists between you. And there’s nothing like knowing that someone missed you or is glad you’re there. So whether you’re welcoming students back to a school year, team members to a meeting (in person or virtual), family members home, or volunteers to a work event, even if you aren’t going to jump all over them and give them an enthusiastic welcome, it’s worth it to make sure that you welcome them in and let them know that you’re glad they’re there.