ComfortBetrays.com » devotion http://www.comfortbetrays.com Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:27:30 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Punched in the face by what she said http://www.comfortbetrays.com/2009/07/punched-in-the-face-by-what-she-said/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=punched-in-the-face-by-what-she-said http://www.comfortbetrays.com/2009/07/punched-in-the-face-by-what-she-said/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:51:59 +0000 Daniel http://comfortbetrays.com/blog/?p=116 The other day I heard something at work that just punched me in the face with a “What now?!” follow up. If you come at it from a similar viewpoint that I do, maybe it’ll strike a chord with you as well. The story behind this is that my company puts all of their employees through a rigorous leadership training program that kicks off with a 4-day main session, follow-up weekly group meetings, an accountability partner, and another 2-day session after 12 weeks. The training is a huge investment for the company and it builds a specific culture (think “family”) as well as communicates to everyone how much the upper management cares about the well-being of their employees. I could talk about the obvious strong points of the program, or the underlying core beliefs in it that I think missed the mark and don’t line up with reality, but that’s not the point of what hit me the other day. For our discussion’s purpose, this training program is a full-fledged belief system, based on a book and meant to be integrated into all aspects of personal and professional life, complete with an extensive binder that is a practical guideline for living it out (…sound familiar?!). Some employees certainly attempt that and their enthusiasm about the program shows; others I would naturally guess aren’t as strong of supporters for various reasons.

It was from one of the program’s biggest fans that I was convicted. It’s simple and here’s why. She casually mentioned that she goes through the material that’s provided in the binder for 30 minutes every day.  …Okay let me just stop for a second… does the word “devotion” or “discipline” come to mind? Ouch, I just got punched again.

Thirty minutes a day. What an accurate example of someone really going for it amidst the hectic schedule that I know she has. Do you see where I’m going with this? How about bringing in a quote that sums it up? This wasn’t my main point, but you get the picture from two guys I look up to:

“G. K. Chesterton correctly remarked that the problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting but that it has been found difficult and left untried. In response to an article in The Times of London entitled ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ Chesterton replied, ‘I am. Yours truly, G. K. Chesterton.’ That is precisely Jesus’ point – we are wrong with the world.” – Ravi Zacharias

Can I tie in something I heard during my time at The Master’s College? I only vaguely remember this, and it might’ve been a guest speaker, but it was an interpretation of Luke 16:1-15, also known as The Parable of the Shrewd Manager, or Unjust Servant, that stuck with me. In this parable that Jesus tells, he congratulates a manager for what seems like deceiving the boss whose money he was put in charge of, but the key is the second part of Luke 16:8, that “the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”  So this shrewd manager actually took action in light of something he heard (read the chapter), used his resources wisely, and Jesus held him up as an example.

To bring in just one more point, I think it’s sad but true that a lot of Christians define the health of their faith by the things they’re choosing not to do or participate in: think getting drunk, sex in the wrong context, drugs, even dirty language. But if that’s what we’re using as the measuring stick, something is not right. That leads into the concept behind Francis Schaeffer’s short but powerful little book called “The Mark of the Christian,” which I wrote about in another post. The connection I’m trying to make between this sincere woman applying the leadership training program everyday in her life, and my own convictions about my shortcomings (they never cease to amaze me), is that there is so much more living out to do. Who do I think I am, that I could skip out on the hard work of devotion and consistent discipline it takes to live the things Christianity is all about?

]]> http://www.comfortbetrays.com/2009/07/punched-in-the-face-by-what-she-said/feed/ 1