Spiritual leadership or strategic leadership: Which do you choose?

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What kind of leader are you? I think it’s safe to say that if you lead within the Christian realm, you consider yourself a spiritual leader. And I agree; you have to be about the things of God if you intend to take people on a journey within His will. But what about the things of this world? Do they have any place in your leadership?

I think Acts 6 gives us a picture of the right focus. How the disciples handled the situation shows us what our priorities should be. And it makes me wonder,

What if the answer to question in the title is not really either/or? What if it’s both/and?

In the early days of the Church, we see the disciples busy doing the things of God. They had a fire at the core of their being, with a strong desire to declare to the world that the war with sin and death was over – and Jesus Christ had won. Every day believers were increasing in number as they preached.  What a fantastic time in the life of the Church. As Christian leaders, isn’t that the kind of impact we want to make?

Yet in Acts 6, as they were declaring the good news, the disciples were confronted with a logistical problem: Simply put, the Greek widows and orphans were being overlooked in the church’s distribution of food.

How they responded, I think, illustrates how we should prioritize our leadership today:

So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

The disciples didn’t overlook the problem. It would have been easy to do: to say that their focus needed to be on the spiritual alone. However, they didn’t do that because they knew that issues like that need to be resolved. Why? First of all, because people matter to God. But I think there was also another reason. If they didn’t handle it well, the complaining within could end up forfeiting momentum in reaching out.

It’s important to note that the leaders didn’t drop everything and go solve the problem themselves. Instead, they created a system: a specific team was appointed to take care of the widows. Effective leadership focuses on both the SPIRITUAL and the STRATEGIC.

Spiritual                        AND                   Strategic

Focus on prayer and people                    Focus on process and projects

Relationships                                            Results

Real and authentic                                   Relentless and with no excuses

Experience grace                                     Execute performance

Systems and strategies are necessary for any high-performance organization – even a revolutionary one. But the strategic must be yoked with the spiritual. An effective spiritual leader never overlooks either one, even a revolutionary leader.

Are you overlooking logistical or strategic problems in your quest to share the Good News? These problems won’t go away. In fact, if you don’t master the things that you overlook, they will eventually master you and your leadership. Instead, be more strategic. Create systems that allow you to keep your focus where it needs to be AND solve the problem.

Next time: Finding the line between revolution and institution

The value of simple leadership and communication

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So far in this series, I’ve talked about why leaders should obsess, what they should obsess about, and how they should obsess — by moving from simplistic to complex to simple.

Now let’s talk about how to know when you’ve obsessed enough. I touched on it last week: When you can explain what you’ve learned in a simple manner.  If you can do that, you’re ready to communicate about it and lead people through it. This goes back to the reason a person obsesses: because they’re a leader. And the most important outcome of obsession is the ability to lead your people well.

At 12Stone Church, one of my roles is that of primary communicator. And I learned a long time ago that in order to communicate effectively, I needed to drill down through all of the complex to reach simple. That’s why I my sermon notes always contain way more material than I can ever possibly use. I’m responsible to communicate at the simple level.

When you lead or communicate from the simplistic stage, you dole out simplistic concepts to people. Your message, whether it’s about discipleship or managing the nursery, ends up being trite and useless. And when your followers attempt to do what you’ve said, they run into all the barriers of complexity that you skipped. Many times, the reason laypeople can’t pull off ministry is because the people who lead have assigned something simplistically, without taking the time to think it through entirely.

Leading while still in the complex stage is no better. If you try to communicate instructions or concepts while you’re still working through their complexity yourself, you end up confronting your listeners with something too complicated for them to apply and use. Followers get “stuck” at this stage, wallowing in the complexity and unable to figure out what to do about it.

The nice thing about communicating at “simple” is that it can be understood at many levels. Those with the capacity can grasp the complexity that isn’t being shared, while those who need simplicity are still reached by the message. Think about Isaac Newton’s Theory of Gravity: My eight-year-old son can experience and define gravity. But that doesn’t mean he can explain or teach it! The person explaining it to him had to go through all the complexity to make it simple. And the complexity of the concept still exists, for the person who wants to go deeper in their study.

After all these years, I can tell when someone isn’t communicating at “simple.” Sometimes the communicator has borrowed the material he or she is teaching and doesn’t truly understand it, or maybe they’re just not in the habit of drilling down. Either way, leading or communicating at any level other than simple does your people no favors. To effectively lead in any area, you need to have obsessed over the topic long enough to move from simplistic, through complex, to simple.

How are you doing? Are you taking advantage of obsession and thinking through everything about a plan or idea before you try to lead or communicate it?

Moving from simplistic to complex… to get to simple

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What’s wrong with being an armchair quarterback? Nothing, really. It’s not like you’ll ever have any influence over the football game’s outcome. It’s unlikely that Peyton Manning will hang onto your every word of advice. So your opinions, simplistic as they probably are, don’t really harm anyone.

But what about in your area of leadership? You have skin in that game. Your decisions and actions will determine the direction of your ministry. Here, you can’t afford to stay simplistic.

That’s the value of obsession. As the leader, you need to obsess, to drill down deeper than the surface. To understand all of the details. To take into account all of the variables. To plan for all the ramifications of your decisions. This is complexity. This is real leadership.

Unlike simplistic thinking, which says, “All you have to do is THIS,”

Complex thinking says, “You have to do ALL OF THIS.”

Where simplistic is flippant, complex is earnest.

Where simplistic is trite, complex is puzzling.

Where simplistic results in a “Yeah, but…”

Complex results in a “Yeah,… What?”

But in spite of the confusion that it can generate for you, complexity thinking is necessary to good leadership. Looking at “all of this” and considering the full impact of decisions makes the difference between success and failure in an endeavor. And I believe you only get that deep into a leadership area by obsessing over it.

As a leader, don’t be afraid to dive into the complex. In spite of how it looks going in, there is a way out on the other side. Let yourself obsess for as long as you must to fully understand the process or problem you’re trying to solve. Try to look at it from every possible angle. Do research. Seek opinions. It will likely feel overwhelming. But here’s how you’ll know that you’re on your way out: When you can explain what you’ve learned in a simple manner, you’re ready to lead people through it.

How to go from complex to simple is the subject of my next post.

On simplistic thinking

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Last week I wrote that it’s the nature of a leader to obsess. And it’s important to obsess over the right things. Let’s talk a little today about what happens when a person approaches an issue too casually–without the necessary obsession that good leadership requires.

The result is simplistic thinking.

Simplistic thinking in itself is not always bad. It’s where we all start with any new idea. But it should be a starting point, not where we remain, because if we do, we won’t be effective in our leadership.

So what is simplistic thinking? It’s the “all you have to do is __________” response to any challenge or problem. It’s the knee-jerk belief that the solution to anything is simple and easy to implement.

One of the most well-known forms of simplistic thinking comes from the “armchair quarterback,” the guy who watches the football game at home and talks about everything that he thinks the team/coach/quarterback did wrong, and how he thinks they can easily fix it.

It’s easy to critique someone else’s performance and give them advice. But if you aren’t actually on the field, dealing with all the details and variables in the real game, your opinion is not worth much.

With simplistic thinking,

The activity of the mind is to OBSERVE (shallow and fast) 


It’s looking at the surface of the situation and making a quick judgment. And things do seem simple if you just glance at them. But the leader who believes everything is simple is a simplistic thinker. And he often gets blindsided.

We look at a struggling church and someone says, “All that church over there has to do is _________ to be relevant.” Of course, if we really examined the issue, we’d probably discover that the leaders are carrying 10 more things we didn’t think about.

We look at the problems with our country, and one particular group says, “All we need to do is occupy a public place and demand a $16 minimum wage, and that would solve all our problems.” But what about the prices of goods? Increase the minimum wage and the prices go up. Wouldn’t the cost of living just rise at the same rate as the minimum wage? Would implementing such a simplistic solution result in any real positive change?

Simplistic observations are most often shared by those who don’t have to actually carry out the execution of the idea. And they don’t have to deal with all the layers of difficulties and all the domino reactions that come as a result.

A caution about all the people creating content now: These days, anyone can publish an opinion. But be careful about the blogger or writer who hasn’t lived through what he’s advising. No matter how well-argued a position, if the writer hasn’t left behind the simplistic, his or her views will be trite and, at best, only half-right.

When we have simplistic ideas, it’s because we HAVEN’T obsessed over something. But staying simplistic is not an option if you want to make progress and grow in our leadership. It’s crucial that we fully examine the issue we face, down to the smallest details and ramifications. What things will Solution A set in motion that we’ll have to deal with? What other factors come into play? Who else is involved? What do others know and see that we don’t? How can we find these things out? What has blown up when someone else has tried to make progress in this area? How are conditions changing so that even our own experience could lead us astray? What’s at work below the surface? These and other questions help you to examine the complexity of any challenge or problem.

If you want to become a better leader, you need to tap into obsession. By its very nature, good leadership is not simplistic.

Next week, we’ll look at complexity and how confronting it can help you to become a better leader. And in the week after that, we’ll discuss how to regain clarity as a leader—without giving in to being simplistic.

What are you chewing on?

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What is obsession? The dictionary describes it as “to have the mind excessively preoccupied.” Some see it in a negative way, but I believe there is a good side to obsession. In fact, I believe that it is in the nature of a leader to obsess.

You see it all over the stories of leaders in the Bible. Think of King Saul; what did he obsess over?

If you say, “killing David,” you’re thinking of the latter part of his reign. But he wasn’t always fixated on guarding his throne from David. Early in his story, he possessed a healthy leadership obsession that honored God. It was only later that something shifted, and he let another obsession take over.

In the first half of his kingship…

Saul Obsessed over Victory: Protecting God as King.

In the second half of his kingship…

Saul obsessed over Vanity: Protecting Saul as King.

When Saul started to take his focus off of defending God as King and instead obsessed over protecting his own kingship, his leadership started to go wrong.

As a ministry experiences success, it’s very easy for the leaders’ obsession to shift. With size comes notoriety and options. You can easily get a sense of being somebody and looking to hang onto what’s yours. This shift, going from guarding what God has entrusted to protecting your own role, is very subtle and hard to detect. Our actions might not look any different (at least at first), but we’d be doing them for the wrong reasons.

Here’s a truth: What preoccupies you pretty much defines you. Your obsession is what you “chew on” when you appear to be doing nothing. It guides your decisions. And your decisions change you.

And as I said before, it’s the nature of a leader to obsess. So if you lead anything, the question is not IF you’ll obsess; it’s WHAT you’ll obsess about. Good leaders understand the value of this specific trait. They choose and train on where they will and will not obsess.

What about you?

Do you obsess over victory – for the sake of God’s Kingdom?

Or has something shifted, and you’re obsessed with vanity – for your own sake?

You WILL obsess. Self-deception on what preoccupies you does no good. Drill down to what it is. And then choose to obsess over the right things.

Pulling every trigger

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Did you ever see the movie Unforgiven? Clint Eastwood’s 1992 film dealt with what it really meant to be a gunslinger in the Old West. The characters didn’t just ride in, shoot’em up, and ride off into the sunset. Instead, they had to deal with all of the consequences of their actions, both internal and external. In Unforgiven, those consequences were dire.

Last week I wrote from a positive point of view about a leader’s role as a “gunslinger”– someone who has the confidence to pick the right target, the courage to pull the trigger, and the character to persevere through either trial or triumph. This week, I want to talk about the kinds of triggers that we leaders often need to pull.

It’s often easy to list the pivotal leadership triggers – the big decisions that change the course of our organization or church. But we also need to consider other triggers, which often precede the pivotal ones. Here are the three types of triggers a “gunslinging” leader must be willing to pull to achieve the right outcomes for his/her leadership:

1. Personal Triggers. These are the character qualities and personal disciplines that you demand of yourself – the decisions that determine whether you are personally ready to face the challenges of leadership day to day. In my case, every year I focus on a list of non-negotiable regular decisions that I intend to pursue throughout the year. They are in the following areas: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, and Fun.

2. Preparation Triggers. These are the daily decisions and actions that you make behind the scenes or before the big event. They might not be seen by others, but they’re just as important as the visible decisions. A Sunday morning is more than the three-hour event. Its success or failure is also the result of all the decisions running up to it. Do you pull all the triggers of preparation beforehand? Or do you sometimes find yourself saying, “I wish I had thought of that earlier”?

3. Pivotal Leadership Triggers. These are the big decisions – those that create and keep up momentum in moving toward the big goals. They are often the unpredictable triggers, and they demand a cool-headedness. When you’re in the habit of pulling the personal and preparation triggers, you have the confidence and courage to confront the pivotal ones.

Leadership can sometimes feel like the Wild West. Many decisions can have big repercussions, and we shouldn’t make them lightly. But we also shouldn’t shy away from them. Do you consistently pull all of the personal and preparation triggers that you face on a regular basis? Without that discipline, you may not have the cool-headedness that you need to pull the pivotal triggers.

What personal triggers do you need to pull on a regular basis? What areas need your attention?

What preparation triggers do you find necessary before the big events or decisions? Where have you neglected preparation?

What can you do to make yourself ready to face the pivotal triggers when it comes time to face them?

Pulling triggers

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Psalm 2 speaks of how the kings of the earth rose up against the Kingdom of God. David, then responsible for stewarding Israel, wrote of how God defeated the other kingdoms in battle. When I read that, I made a note that the weight of battle was not removed, even though Israel was part of the Kingdom of God.

Curious at some of the implications, I paused to skim a couple of commentaries for context. And one writer’s interpretation caught my attention. He said, regarding the Kingdom of our God,

“…though it will be set up certainly, it shall not be set up tamely…”

Not tamely. A battle would have to take place. If Israel were the Wild West, the commentator could have gone on to say that victory would take gunfighters.

I love Wild West movies. In almost all of them, the good guy is quicker on the draw than the bad guy and wins in the end. The gunslingers are what make the movie interesting. And they all have something in common: They know when to pull the trigger. That’s a common thread in every Western.

In other words, the gunslinger knows when it’s time to make things happen. Whether in the saloon or in a showdown in the middle of the road, at the critical moment the gunslinger pulls the trigger without hesitation.

I think we leaders can learn from this in ministry. I believe that we are the gunslingers in our life stories: doing battle to take territory and fight the forces of evil. The question is, do we pull the trigger when we need to?

I suspect there are three qualities that we need to possess to take action and pull the trigger successfully:

1. The confidence to pick the right target. In the Wild West, the good gunslingers – the Wyatt Earps – didn’t just shoot indiscriminately. They aimed for the right target: the guy they needed to do battle with. Are we confident enough in our vision and calling to pick the right targets to pursue?

2. The courage to pull the trigger. I can think of few Western movies that are very honest about this. One is Unforgiven, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. In it, the characters actually have to face how difficult it is to shoot another person. Pulling the trigger has huge implications, and Unforgiven shows the struggle.

In ministry, as well as in life, we have to make decisions that affect many things and people. Are we willing to pull the trigger when we will be the ones to deal with the consequences?

3. The character to persevere in trial or in triumph. Once the trigger is pulled in a Western, circumstances change. Often, they get more frightening or difficult. Do we keep a cool enough head to persevere no matter what the consequences? Or after we pull the trigger, do we run and hide?

What are the areas in your leadership where you need the confidence to pick the right target, the courage to pull the trigger, and the character to persevere, whether in trial or triumph?

Submit to one another

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One of the greatest leadership lessons I’ve ever learned came as a result of needing to grow in my marriage.

My wife Marcia and I have been married nearly 30 years. I look back on all of that time with joy – except for the first couple of years. Those were really rocky. You see, I went into marriage thinking I knew what it was all about. I thought it was about getting my needs met. End of story. As I found out later, Marcia thought the same thing: it was getting HER needs met. We spent the first years of our marriage frustrated and angry that the other person wasn’t doing “their job” in meeting our needs.

One day I was confronted with a Scripture that I’d heard and read many times. This time, its meaning jumped off the page at me. It was Ephesians 5:21, which reads, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That day I realized that it didn’t say, “Submit, but only after the other person does.” Or, “Your spouse should submit to you out of reverence for Christ.” It said that I needed to submit to Marcia out of reverence for Christ. That day I committed to take responsibility for surrendering my will and agenda to Marcia’s. It was hard at first, but slowly we began to see a change.

Marcia saw the difference in me and made her own commitment to surrender her agenda. Gradually, each of us began to realize that the other person had our best interests at heart. And submission became a way of life that we’ve fought for to this day. It’s the source of joy and contentment in our marriage.

I refer to that kind of submission as Mutual Voluntary Submission, and I believe it is not just for marriage. It is actually the secret sauce for unity in the church. It is the evidence of maturity and the strength of staff community. And its presence is the evidence that we actually love God and love one another!

If Mutual Voluntary Submission is present, you cannot contain its capacity to unleash new life: It is energizing, powerful, life-giving and soul-refreshing. If it’s absent, you cannot contain its capacity to steal life: Its absence is demotivating, dismantling and destructive. You cannot structure around it, job description around it or counsel around it. The absence of Mutual Voluntary Submission is like a cancer in any organization or relationship that will destroy the body that has the disease.

How else can I explain the relationship between me and my church board? How can I have a relationship with people who have become my friends, and still report to them, while simultaneously having them report to me? The board has power; I an accountable to them. But at the same time, I’m their pastor and leader, and they are accountable to me. The only way this works is through Mutual Voluntary Submission. When all of us submit our will and agenda to each other and put the other first, then real progress can be made in growing God’s Kingdom.

Here’s how I define Mutual Voluntary Submission:

It’s Mutual. We all live in a world of submission. You may answer to your boss, who answers to her boss, who answers to his boss. But even the CEO answers to someone. Anyone who’s owned a company can tell you that they also feel owned BY the company. No one is immune.

The good news is that we can look to our relationship with Jesus Christ. We’re all ultimately owned by HIM. Thus, we submit to each other out of reverence for Christ. That is why it’s mutual!

It’s Voluntary. YOU have to choose Mutual Voluntary Submission; I cannot choose it for you. In fact, Jesus cannot choose it for you. How did Jesus go to the cross? Voluntarily. In life, you either have someone else put you on the cross, or you voluntarily go there. Few things destroy the unity, strength and capacity for accomplishment in a team like somebody who won’t go voluntarily. If you are not willingly submitting to others in the Body of Christ, then it’s YOUR problem. Nobody can solve that for you.

It’s Submission. Now that’s an irritating word. It’s been a problem since the Fall. Resistance to submission is in your church, your work, and your marriage. You face it with your kids. It’s everywhere. And just in case you didn’t know, the need for submission never goes away. If you think that someday you’ll reach a place where you don’t have to submit to anyone, you’re wrong. That place doesn’t exist!

Submitting to another person’s will or agenda deals a death blow to YOUR will/agenda/ego/wants/desires/opinions/preferences. But it has to be done. When you surrender your rights and embrace your responsibility to submit, you create an environment of trust and unity. You make it possible for all parties to find joy in the journey.

 

What is the status of Mutual Voluntary Submission in your life? Do you willingly submit your agenda to the will of your spouse, your colleagues, your employees? Or are you too busy fighting for YOUR rights? It’s your responsibility to submit. Will you do it?

Overlooked leadership lesson: Pick up the pieces

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Jesus taught a lot of lessons in his short time here on earth. He taught about faith, mercy, and love, among other things. He also shared lessons on leadership with his disciples. So many that we sometimes aren’t able to process all of them. Lately I’ve been ruminating on a leadership lesson that I believe often gets overlooked.

Pick up the pieces.

Matthew 14:13-21:

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns.14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

16 Jesus replied, ”They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17 ”We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

18 ”Bring them here to me,” he said.19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Many lessons can be learned from the feeding of the 5,000. This leadership lesson was delivered to the disciples AFTER the miracle.

“…the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls…”

Jesus and his disciples had tried to get away to a solitary place, but the crowds followed them. In spite of his weariness, Jesus met the people’s spiritual, intellectual and medical needs. When evening came, he even met their need for food. And after everything was over, after every need was met, he asked the disciples to clean up the mess. What was that all about?

Here’s what I think we need to learn:

1. Some of the best ministry moments are not planned. So pay attention.

I’ve been approached with needs just about everywhere: after church at the foot of the platform, in a restaurant, at the store, even in the middle of my workout at the gym. And those situations remind me again and again that God often moves in the interruptions.

We have to be very cautious that we do not get warped into thinking ministry must be a formal organized activity. In reality, it’s bigger, wider, deeper, and broader. Pay attention to the need before you in the moment, because some of the best ministry moments are not planned!

2. Some of the best ministry moments are at the end of “WEARY.”

The disciples were WEARY. I’m sure there was some enjoyment in gathering a crowd. But eventually the crowd becomes inconvenient, then intrusive. It’s the nature of ministry that a time comes when you’d just like for people to GO AWAY.

In those times, when you’re “done,” Jesus might not be. Instead, he might be ready to do a miracle, and he wants you to be a part of it.

3. For every miracle, there is a mess.

Jesus had involved the disciples in a miracle. The people had been fed, which was complicated and messy. Now Jesus asked them to pick up after everyone.

That’s reality, isn’t it? Someone has to pick up the mess! We want to say, “It’s not my job. I distributed the miracle. Someone else needs to clean up.” Yet we’re confronted with the fact that Jesus told THE DISCIPLES to clean up. I think we need to know that: even when the ministry was unplanned, even after they were weary, even after the miracle – Jesus expected his disciples to PICK UP THE PIECES.

Picking up the pieces is an easy lesson to overlook. But when we miss it, something gets lost – in our servant heart, in our ministry mind, in our core calling. When you forget that somehow you are involved in picking up the pieces, you lose something that you cannot afford to lose.

And here’s one final observation. It’s what really makes picking up the pieces so hard:

We don’t know WHY Jesus asked them to clean up.

I don’t think the disciples knew either. I mean, why didn’t they just leave it for the birds to eat? This is an irritating reality of following Christ: he asks you to do something and you often don’t know why. Jesus’ reasons on that day could have been as simple as keeping the disciples grounded, or seeing the abundance of God, or cleaning up the physical mess, or it really could have been of some value as food. But the lesson is this:

You don’t have to understand everything about why Jesus asks you to do something.

Picking up the pieces is a part of participating in a miracle. And we ALL have to be willing to do it. Even if we don’t understand why.

Are you missing out on miracles and God’s lessons because you’re unwilling to do the hard work of picking up the pieces?

 

Will you sink … or stand?

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July, 2010: I was on vacation with my family. Every summer, I plan to get away for times of restoration and renewal. By that point in the ministry year, my energy level is at zero. And I need the time away from all ministry and work if I’m going to enter the fall with the ability to love Jesus and other people. J That summer I felt even more depleted than usual. I could really feel the need for the getaway, and I was looking forward to letting God fill me back up.

Just a few days into vacation, we did a family study on Matthew 14, the story of Jesus walking on water. Last week I wrote about how I was both inspired and haunted by one fact: Peter walked on water, and he didn’t have to.

But there’s something else that inspires and haunts me about that story:

Peter sank, and he didn’t have to.

Only a day after our Bible study, my wife Marcia went on a bike ride. To make a long story short, soon after she left, she was found on the side of the road, unconscious and badly injured. She had somehow fallen in the middle of a steep curve in the road. By the time I got to her, the paramedics were already loading her into an ambulance.

Marcia was conscious at this point, but she didn’t know who I was. She didn’t know that she had children. All she knew was that she was in great pain.

The first 24 hours were rough, but we made it through. Marcia started to remember things, and her brain didn’t swell. When the neurologist stated that he thought she’d make a full recovery, we rejoiced.

But she still needed a lot of help; she’d shattered her collarbone. Cutting the vacation short, we returned home, so I could nurse her back to health. For a few weeks, I was being Dad and Mom to the kids – and I haven’t mentioned that we were preparing for my son’s wedding, which was just weeks away.

After Marcia’s positive prognosis, after all the rejoicing and praising God, I suddenly realized: I’d lost my vacation. The wedding came and went, August arrived, and I hadn’t had any break.

“I can’t do this.” That’s what came to mind as we started gearing up for fall. I still felt empty, and now I needed to launch into the busiest season of the year.

That’s when our study of Peter came to mind.

He sank, and he didn’t have to.

It was the power of Christ that made it possible for Peter to walk on water. And yet he sank. Did Jesus somehow stumble? No! HE never sank! Does this mean that God’s power can have you WALKING ON WATER, but YOU can make yourself SINK simply by DOUBTING?

Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

What if when I say, “I can’t do this,” I’m right?

And when I say, “I can do this,” I’m also right?

I think storms have that effect. They drain you until you cannot see a future … until all you can see is waves coming over you … and you become convinced that you will drown. Peter probably would have blamed the storm for his sinking. The reality is that we make decisions in personal storms of chaos that would never make sense when life is calm.

It was true for Peter. While the power of Christ made him able to walk on water in the storm, there was something PETER DECIDED about the storm that caused him to sink.

Anytime you decide you can’t do this anymore, YOU’RE RIGHT.

What if you’re right because you said so?

Is there a LAW OF EXPECTANT FAITH that is as powerful as the Laws of Nature and can somehow defy those laws? When Jesus said, “You of little faith – why did you doubt?” he put the blame on Peter!

What if my expectant faith determines whether I walk or sink?

It’s the beginning of a new year. You WILL have storms; you might be experiencing one now. What if you need to stop embracing the laws of nature – which say you will sink – and start embracing the Law of Expectant Faith? Here’s what I believe to be true:

High expectations + doing the hard things = high reward.

People with expectant faith, who do what Jesus asks, tend to walk on water. Those who doubt tend to sink. The rest never get out of the boat.

You have places where you need to walk on water this year.

What if the storm is the very thing that sets the stage for walking on water?

Will you embrace the Law of Expectant Faith? Or the Law of the Storm?