LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"You are like a jar of river water all shaken up. What you need is to sit still long enough that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear." Ruth Haley Barton

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

I want to spend a few weeks this month just talking about REST. Some of these things I'm exploring, thinking about and working to implement in my life.

I picked up a book this weekend by Ruth Haley Barton entitled "Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest". Thank you Estha for the recommendation. In the first few pages I found some powerful reminders of why I'm even talking about REST.

The quote from Barton above just resonated with me.

We have a pool, and the other day I was cleaning it. I follow 3 simple steps in cleaning the pool: First, I scoop all the leaves off the top of the water. Second, I sweep the pool with a long pool broom. Third, I vacuum up the leaves and then we're good to go.

However, there's a step in this process that I don't really pay attention too... it's the step between sweeping and vacuuming. When I sweep, it stirs everything up, makes the water messy and dirty. After sweeping, I have to literally STOP for about 10 minutes. This allows everything to fall to the bottom, making it easier to vacuum up.

When I saw this quote, I realized that this was the process I've been following with my pool, but I hadn't made the connection to my life.

Barton goes on to say this: "A jar of shaken river water looks murky, cloudy, chaotic - and you can't see through it no matter how hard you try. You can't force it clear. You can't stir it into clarity. The ONLY thing that works is stillness. Time. Waiting. That's the soul under pressure."

Real clarity can be elusive, and often we're trying to find it will moving way too fast.

Barton's book is primarily about the power of SABBATH and we'll explore this more next week.

But for today, do you feel that you're living like a jar of river water? All shaken up?

What would it take for you to "clear out" the murkiness and cloudiness in your life today?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes - including you." Anne Lamott

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

I want to spend a few weeks this month just talking about REST. Some of these things I'm exploring, thinking about and working to implement in my life.

I love this thought from Anne Lamott because it's so true.

There are times that I will spend hours trying to get my internet working again, or updating my computer, or even an alarm on my car, and it total desperation, I simply 'UNPLUG' it from the power source, count to ten, then bring it back online and everything works normally.

I usually let out some kind of gutteral sound at that point, but then move on, getting back to what I was working on before things all stopped!

It's the simple idea of a RESET.

Here's what I'm learning (even at my age), when I run at an unsustainable pace, there are things that I'm not able to keep up with, things that get thrown aside in the midst of the chaos I find myself in.

This is natural for everybody as we focus on the most important things at the time.

The problem is that sometimes I shed some things that ARE important just to save time, energy and to help me focus on the task at hand. I know when I'm doing it, I know why I'm doing it, but at the time, in order to get things done, I have to make some changes.

I just finished a pretty FULL run of events, travel, speaking, projects, meetings and family and personal things all mixed together. It was the perfect storm and I'm happy to say that I not only survived, but I saw God do some great things in the midst of everything.

But now, I need to pick up some things that I set aside and integrate them back into my life.

Here's the deal though, I don't know if this is true for you, but when I'm pushed with my calendar and my schedule, the things that always fall first are the things that are the most important: REST - EXERCISE - SOLO TIME - SPACE - NUTRITION - RELATIONSHIPS - REPLENISHMENT

These are the things that I time and time again, set aside, and they are the things that are the most life-giving.

Covey calls these things Quadrant II: Important - Not Urgent

I call them the high cost of a full schedule!!

When you get pressed, what do you immediately let go of? What do you set aside in order to keep up with your required pace?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"I've laid down a pattern for you. What I've done, you do." Jesus

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

I've been talking about INFLUENCE for a number of weeks. You can read the posts off of my website HERE if you're interested. This will be the last post on this topic, then we're going to move into a different theme talking about REST for a few weeks.

I hosted a Leader Mundial Global Summit event a few weeks ago in Georgia, and spent 4 full days with a group of 66 leaders, representing about 15 different countries and about 30 different organizations. We spent the week focusing on the topic of INFLUENCE and were encouraged to examine the scope of our personal and organizational influence and pay attention to those that are impacted through us and by us.

As I moved through the week, I spent some personal time simply looking at Jesus and his instruction to each of us to follow his example.

The quote above comes out of John 13:15 in the Message translation, and I love the simple image he gives... "I've laid down a pattern for you" or in the ESV or NIV, "I've given you an example".

I remember as a small child dreading going with my mom to the fabric store. That was a place I never wanted to go because it felt that we were there forever and it was really boring (at least for a 7 year-old boy).

What my mom was doing was buying fabric so that she could match it to a pattern and make a shirt or a dress or whatever out of it. She had a template of what she wanted to make, and she was following that plan.

I thought she was just going to the fabric store to talk and to torture me, but there was a purpose behind it.

Jesus says this to us: I've given you a template, a model, a plan, now follow it. He wants us to follow his example and do what he did.

If you read a few verses earlier in John 13, you see exactly what he was modeling when he washes the feet of his disciples. He's illustrating a powerful message here of influence. He's showing his disciples what to do, then he's telling them to go and do it and then he's telling US to do it.

We learn by watching, but we learn best by doing. Jesus did both and in that moment he turned the message of leadership upside down teaching leaders to serve others first.

This is the greatest example of influence.

How has Jesus influenced your leadership? What do you do differently because of what He said, what He did and what He challenged each of us to do?