How to know if your should listen to that influence...

Ever wondered if you should actually be listening to a particular influence (writer, TV show, blog, etc...)?  Was faced with this today and God called this to mind from James 3...

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
James 3:17

Is it...
...pure or tainted?
...ultimately peace-loving or divisive?
...considerate to others or rude to them?  (not does it tell others they are wrong, that's not being rude, and sometimes it's the most considerate thing to do)
...submissive to authority (God) or demanding for itself?
...merciful or unforgiving?
...impartial or one-sided?
...sincere or manipulative?
What fruit seems to spring from it?  (solution or separation, unity or useless conflict, insults or insight).

If it doesn't pass the test, then you can probably get along without it.  Also, any wisdom that you feel led to give to others should follow that rule, too.

"Why can't our team be like their team?"

I was listening to someone who was lamenting how their organization wasn't like "someone else's" organization.  "They do ____ ... I wish we could do _______."  They cataloged all these cool things "that organization" did and how uncool their organization was.  After listening for a while, I couldn't help but think this thought...

If you are in a group and wonder, "why aren't we more like that organization over there?  Why can't we be like them?", more than likely the answer is that people in that organization aren't sitting around complaining about why they aren't like some other organization.  They don't have the time or energy to do that...they are too busy investing themselves in the place they are and making it the way it is.

Most of the time, people who are so frustrated with their organization are the ones most unwilling to put themselves into the organization to make it better...it's easier to just complain about it, and that's a big drain on the teams where they are.  They back out of assignments, they don't go the extra mile, and they always blame failures on some straw man out there that "doesn't let them be _______".  (When the truth is they could do a lot, but they've created an excuse not to do it...and they like it.)

"Bloom where you are planted" may be an old saying, but in all honesty, sayings get overused because there is truth in them...just saying.  Here's a couple more...

"Stop making complaints and make a difference."
"Stop pointing fingers at something and and put your fingers to work DOING something."


People in great organizations are not "wannabelikes" or "wannabees", they just are.  They are positive people, because they know that consistent negativity impedes productivity, it doesn't enhance it.  Even their criticism is ultimately positive and life-giving, because their criticism is designed to get better than what they are, not just be bitter about what they aren't.  When they find a problem, they rarely stop there.  They don't find pride in discovering a problem, they find pride in discovering a solution to the problem and then being a big part of that...that's life-growing achievement, not life-sucking mediocrity.

People in great organizations don't waste time finding reasons not to do something, there are always plenty of those to go around.  They don't waste time and energy finding reasons never to start the journey, they save their energy to overcome barriers to success along the way.

I always am tempted to say to those people "You want to know why your team can't be like their team?  That's easy.  Because, right now, you are on it."

Tolerance... fresh direction, new and improved...not really

In thinking about everything from Chick-Fil-A to Katherine Webb to Louie Giglio to so many things that get Americans up in arms lately, America seems to have become a country, in which, it's fashionable to be self-righteously indignant.  People seem to act as if the more offended you appear to be, the more righteous you are.  I think that people hope that pointing fingers and taking offense is really an attempt to place blame and criticize, so that they can cast attention away from their own faults.

Tolerance in America is a fail because it is just another mask for someone to exclude and hammer someone else...in fact, one factor that gets blamed for the "tolerance movement" is the claim that conservative Christianity has been so "intolerant" of others.  They were mean to them, excluded them, judged them, ridiculed them, silenced them.  So what is this "new" enlightened position?  To be mean to, exclude, judge, ridicule, and silence anyone who they think is not tolerant.  It's almost as if they have a Bible of their own somewhere that says "the worst thing you can do is disagree with me".  That doesn't sound new or enlightened at all...that's just the same old prejudiced, angry hypocrisy that allegedly caused this to begin with...just pointed at a different group of people.  But it's "right" THIS time, because "they" deserve it...funny, that argument isn't new either.

In truth, tolerance in America is a failed attempt to create an ala carte, faded copy of what God has offered all along...grace.  The difference between tolerance and grace is that "tolerance" says you are wrong, but we won't tell you, and if you are damaging yourself, I'd rather you do that than be mad with me and inconvenience me...and CLEARLY, that's already been abandoned.
Sadly, like all things trying to achieve God, but not guided by God, it has become perverted and mutated.  Tolerance ends up doing the exact opposite of what it intended and becoming the very dragon it hoped to slay.  Look at America now...is everyone MORE free to speak or is another group just taking their turn with the keys to the "jail" and the power to imprison?

The truth is that tolerance in America is simply INtolerance everywhere else.  It's the "Emperor's New Clothes" in verbal and written form..."Look at me!  I'm enlightened and tolerant, now get your sword and let's shut down those idiots over there who aren't tolerant like I am."  It's just repackaged hypocrisy and prejudice...a sin-driven society just "chasing it's tail" and going nowhere.  The end won't be found in beating or shutting up everyone you think is wrong any more than just never calling foul on anything that isn't cleared by your lawyers and popular opinion...the answer, just like the problem, has never changed...the answer is Jesus.