Hi friends!
Yes, I realize that it's Thursday. It's OK...I promise! Life is more important that blogging, always.
I'm still trying to mentally unpack some of the things I heard at Orange last week. You have no idea how busy my brain has been! This conference challenged me as a ministry leader, a person, and a parent. I'm just trying to make sure it all sticks!
One of the things that stuck with me is something that Andy Stanley, Senior Pastor of North Point Ministries in Atlanta said during his keynote session. He was speaking about leadership, and making sure that we are leading by serving, the way Jesus did and this is what he said...
"Don't be fair, be engaged."
Five little words that have rocked my world! Our world seems to revolve around "fair". Everyone gets a participation award so no one feel left out, people sue other people left and right because they didn't get equal treatment. Now, granted, sometimes that is completely justified, but I think "fair" has gotten a little out of control.
What Andy Stanley was trying to say was to not avoid helping someone because "if I help them, then I have to help everyone." He challenged us to reject that notion.
(source unknown)
I don't want to let the fear of not being able to help everyone keep me from helping someone. It just doesn't make any sense. It's like telling an adopting family at an orphanage that they shouldn't adopt one child because then they would have to adopt them all. It doesn't apply to that situation, so why should it apply to others? If I can help someone now, I should. I may not be able to help the next person, and that is OK too. Andy Stanley used the story from John 5 to illustrate his point. Out of the "crowds" of sick people at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus chose to heal one (at least according to the record). I don't know why He chose that. It certainly wasn't because He wasn't capable of healing them all. Maybe it was so 2000 years later I could hear that story from a new perspective and learn that it is OK to just help one. Who knows?
I had the chance to bless a friend of mine in a small way financially today. I could have gotten caught up up in thinking that I shouldn't bless her because I can't bless everyone, but I didn't. Thank goodness for that. If I had gotten stuck in that thought process I would have not only kept a blessing from her, but I would have missed out on the joy of being the one doing the blessing! Seeing someone happy makes me happy. Getting to bless someone is a blessing in and of itself.
I don't want to miss out on being engaged because I'm stuck at fair.
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Be blessed!
Heather
I loved your philosophy on helping just one if that is all you can do. It is the second story like that I heard today (ever heard the story like that about the starfish?!)- hmmm... things to get me thinking! We might not be able to make a difference to ten thousand people but if we can help just one- it makes a HUGE difference to that one person. What a way to go about what we do! Thanks for sharing and confirming an important message to me.
ReplyDeleteHeather, don't know why my comment came up as unknown but it was me, Sarah visiting from SarahHarmony.com. :) Have a good day!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great quote--stay engaged. I'd write more, but I need to ponder that one a bit and let it cement. Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteStacy
your post immediately reminded me of this: http://feedjustone.storenvy.com/ -- an amazing resource to just feeding one -- and as a people, group, a nation we can help many together. thank you for sharing!
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