Tag Archives: Bible

Ambition that’s humble and willing to yield

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I want to look at James 3:13-17 again, but from the positive side:

13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.

If Harvey’s theory is true, and this passage is really about ambition as much as it is about wisdom, then James is saying ambition should be characterized by being honorable, humble, pure, peace loving, gentle, sincere and impartial. Godly ambition is willing to yield, full of mercy and full of good deeds. That’s certainly not the traditional view of ambition. Let’s unpack the implications over a couple of posts this week.

When I think of humility coexisting with ambition, I think of Jim Collins. In Good to Great, he suggests that the best companies were not run by superstar CEOs, but humble men and women who were homegrown in the company. The defining factor was not a lack of ambition, but a lack of ambition for themselves. They didn’t seek out the media or even to be out front speaking to their staff. Instead, they were ambitious for the company, for the cause. Collins noted that they were determined, even stubborn about seeing their company succeed.

Ambition and submission are seldom said in the same breath. We think of ambition as elbowing people out of the way to get to the top. But there is another kind of ambition: James says it’s “willing to yield.” Aspirations to advance God’s kingdom should look as countercultural as God’s kingdom itself is. With God, the ends don’t justify the means. Since God’s kingdom is not just a future hope but a reality here and now, it must be advanced in God’s way and with God’s methods. That means an inverted value system where the last shall be first and the first shall be last. That’s exactly how God’s kingdom expands, because it is so contrary to every earthly system and every earthly instinct in us. The great in the kingdom of God are those who are considerate of others, who serve and who “turn the other cheek.”

Mother Teresa is the example that comes to mind. She certainly was humble. But her ambition to bring God to the poor led her to confront presidents. She was determined. Her ambition to bring the kingdom of God into some of the darkest places was marked by servanthood and a hands-dirty style of leadership. I remember that her death was upstaged by the death of Princess Diana. But when history defines greatness, Teresa will win hands-down over Diana.

Ambition’s evil cousins

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One of my favorite topics to blog on is ambition. It’s so misunderstood among Christians today, and when the topic is misunderstood, it’s either avoided or piously denied. When the topic is avoided, it doesn’t go away; it goes underground. When it goes underground, it becomes weaponized.

Martin Luther once said, “If you’re going to sin, sin boldly.” That’s not how most churches and Christian organizations operate today. His point was that overt sin is better because it comes to light quickly and can be covered by grace. In contrast, western Christianity has been boiled down to Niceness and the appearance of godliness. The result is that sins have a caste system: there’s no room for overt sins while covert sins are tolerated.

A friend who reads this blog referred me to Rescuing Ambition, by Dave Harvey. As I enjoyed Harvey’s marriage book, When Sinners Say I Do, I figured correctly that I’d enjoy this one. Harvey did his research. He really unpacks the roots of ambition and what the Bible has to say about it. Harvey says ambition is hardwired into all of us. At its heart, ambition is a quest for glory. The question is whether we will pursue God’s glory or corrupt it in the pursuit of our own glory.

Harvey refers us to James 3:13-17, where the early leader of the church in Jerusalem talks about the results of ambition going bad. I’ve always categorized this passage under “wisdom” and therefore missed the important message it makes about perverted ambition.

13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.

Harvey says the word for “selfish ambition” refers to demeaning yourself for gain, like a politician or prostitute. He suggests the word picture that this kind of ambition shrinks our souls.

Let’s look at some of ambition’s cousins. Three times James pairs selfish ambition with jealousy. Why? Because the pursuit of your own glory will always find others to be a threat. Boasting and lying are likewise a pair of troublemakers, usually required for inflating your own sense of importance and glory. Then along come disorder and evil of every kind. Do you see the progression? It’s like a mud slide. Ambition doesn’t always start selfishly, and no one seeks disorder and evil. But when ambition is corrupted, eventually all kinds of evil join it as it slides.

Likewise, hidden ambition leads to nasty sins like false humility, gossip and slander. These sins are far too common in church and Christian organizations today. Somehow they’re tolerated. So I enjoyed hearing Dave Ramsey a few years ago share about how he runs his company. The first incident of gossip goes in your record. The second one means termination. The result is a very healthy organizational culture.

James doesn’t pull punches: “Such things are earthly.” They have no place in God’s kingdom. “Such things are unspiritual.” They have no place in church or Christian organizations. “Such things are demonic.” Their root is in the one who is seeking to destroy us.

When WHY and HOW get together

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I want to look at two more partnerships where one leader clearly eclipsed the other, but couldn’t have been successful without the other guy. In both cases, one had the clear ability to originate vision but didn’t have the ability to make it happen without his older brother.

The spokesman

In the third and fourth chapters of Exodus, when God appeared to Moses to tell him that “I have seen” the oppression of Israel and “I have come down to rescue them,” Moses prepared to watch the fireworks. But he didn’t like God’s conclusion: “Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.” Nice twist at the end. Total set up.

Moses reacted badly. He argued for an entire chapter before closing with his speech impediment and begging God to send someone else. But God didn’t relent, instead pairing him with his brother Aaron as his mouthpiece. “You will stand in the place of God for him, telling him what to say.” As Moses whispered the WHY in his ear, Aaron spent the next 16 chapters making the public speeches. Eventually, Moses appears to have gathered the courage to make the speeches himself, but the partnership was cemented by that point. Moses became CEO and judge while his brother became high priest, together leading the people through 40 years of preparation for getting their own land. Moses gets the credit, but clearly wouldn’t have had the confidence if he hadn’t had a confidante working shoulder to shoulder with him.

The older Disney

“If it hadn’t been for my big brother, I’d have been in jail several times for checks bouncing,” Walt Disney said in 1957. Roy was a banker, eight years older than Walt but in awe of Walt’s talent and imagination. He quit his job to follow Walt’s WHY, because he knew someone needed to guard against Walt’s tendency toward risk and neglecting business affairs. As one biographer put it, “Walt Disney dreamed, drew and imagined. Roy stayed in the shadow, forming an empire.” While Walt created Mickey Mouse, Roy started the distribution company and the merchandising business that made him so widely loved.

After recounting this powerful Disney collaboration in Start with Why, Simon Sinek concludes:

In nearly every case of a person or an organization that has gone on to inspire people and do great things, there exists this special partnership between WHY and HOW.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Herb Kelleher and Rollin King. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy, who would follow up King’s inspiring speeches with the line, “let me tell you what that means for tomorrow morning.” So, let’s hear it for the HOW guy. WHY guys would be nothing without them.

Let’s hear it for the other guy!

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I heard an interesting description of a leader a while ago: leaders create heroes. Now, there’s no sense in creating heroes out of celebrities. Too many people already do that, to their detriment. Instead, leaders notice the little guy and elevate him to heroic status.

I’ve been fascinated recently with the fact that breakthroughs don’t usually happen to individuals alone. There’s often another person involved, and it’s the synergy of their giftings that creates the breakthrough. Some get headlines together. Hewlett and Packard go together like peanut butter and jelly. Paul and Barnabas are like love and marriage. But they are the exceptions. Most often, one gets all the headlines while the other’s contribution goes unnoticed. Following with my last post on acknowledging those who make silent contributions, I want to spend a few minutes heralding “the other guy.”

The other Steve

A 25-year-old engineer at Hewlett-Packard, Steve Wozniak was using his spare time to design a language interpreter for a new 8-bit microprocessor called the MOS 6502. But even though the motherboard he created was smaller and less complex than other kits on the market, and even though Wozniak gave away the schematics for free, hobbyists still found the board difficult to build. So Woz and his high school pal Steve Jobs, who was working at Atari, decided to sell preassembled boards—which they dubbed the Apple I. They built them at night in Jobs’ parents’ garage, paying Jobs’ sister $1 a board to insert chips. In 1976, they produced 200 units and sold 150 of them for $500 apiece. (From WIRED magazine, courtesy of Creative Leadership by Tony Kim)

The Bible translation promoter

L.L. Legters was a Presbyterian minister who served among Comanche Indians, then on the east coast, and then as an itinerant speaker at church mission conferences. He made trips throughout South America in order to document the spiritual needs of language groups, challenging churches back home to pray and to act on their behalf. In 1921, he spoke to a Cakchiquel Indian audience at a Bible conference in Guatemala. Translating for him was Cameron Townsend. The two men got along well. Townsend told Legters of his passion for Guatemala’s distinct language groups. Legters, in turn, amazed Townsend by reporting about the hundreds of unevangelized language groups which he had seen and heard about in South and Central America alone — none of whom had a single page of God’s Word. He also mentioned the countless unreached groups reportedly living in other parts of the world. The two men talked and prayed about the obvious need for thousands of new Bible translations. By faith, they determined to do something about this pressing need.

Townsend agreed to work on a Cakchiquel translation of the New Testament, keenly aware that he lacked academic preparation for work in the field of linguistics. Legters agreed to promote the cause of unreached peoples and to raise money for Townsend’s Cakchiquel translation project at church mission conferences back in the United States. In the process of keeping his part of the bargain, Legters set up a new organization called the “Pioneer Mission Agency,” the roots of Wycliffe Bible Translators. (From The Network for Strategic Missions)

Both Wozniak and Legters fell to the side as their charasmatic, innovative partners grew in renown. But Apple and Wycliffe could not have become what they’ve become without their solid contribution. So, here’s to the small people!

Theology: spiritual gifts are for followers, too

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What about the theological belief that the Holy Spirit empowers believers and gives spiritual gifts to all who know him? In John 16, Jesus unpacks the Holy Spirit for the disciples he leaves behind, promising that they’ll be even better off with God-as-Spirit than with God-in-human-form.

Certainly, the idea that the Holy Spirit works in and flows through a leader has implications on a leader’s role. Many have written on this subject. In fact, our leadership book discussion group at Wycliffe is getting ready to read Bill Hybels’ The Power of a Whisper. I may have more to say about the leader’s need for discernment and his role in “drafting the Holy Spirit” after I’ve read that book. Instead, I want to focus for a minute on another question.

What does it mean for a leader that every believer has spiritual gifts? It means all followers are empowered. First, leaders must listen to their followers, because the Holy Spirit might speak through a prophetic gift or someone with a gift that complements the leader’s blind spot. Second, leadership is just one part of the body. Just because there are fewer heads than fingers doesn’t mean the head is more important or any less needed. That’s hard for most leaders to believe. Leadership seems a more important gifting.

But leadership is just one of the spiritual gifts mentioned in Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12. It is not given special prominence in the Bible; in fact, leadership falls under the principle that “the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” Certainly, Jesus said that leaders shouldn’t “lord it over people” but should be “servant of all.” So where do we get the idea that leaders should be rewarded disproportionately to other gift-holders?

Let me offer a biblical perspective on leadership from Fast Company magazine. Yes, you read that right. Fast Company. Author Nancy Lubin offers this zinger in the midst of her article, “Do Something: Let’s Hear it for the Little Guys”:

The working world would be a happier place if more of us aspired to roles that were just right — if we valued job fit and performance at every level and stopped overemphasizing the very top.

Lubin says we should honor chief operating officers, midlevel managers and staffers. She would probably add career placement people, whose job it is to get staff into the right positions. So, let’s hear it for the followers!

I think Lubin has a little prophet in her:

The underappreciation of followers has a major bottom-line consequence: crazy redundancy. You can see it in the not-for-profit sector, which has a gazillion little organizations replicating one another. We all want to run our own thing, so not-for-profits never die. As a result, we have huge inefficiency and ridiculous amounts of overlap in the sector. This is wasteful, and this is fundamentally bad business.

When you consider Christian non-profits, it also reflects a lack of unity. Considering that Christ said the world would know we are Christians if we’re unified, Lubin’s statement is a complete indictment of Christian leadership. So, a failure to understand that the Holy Spirit has empowered all believers leads to a misunderstanding of the importance of followers. Bad theology leads to misprioritized values, pride, redundancy and waste, not to mention derailing our witness.

Theology: no answer but Jesus

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What are the implications of the fact that God sent Jesus into the world to redeem us? First, it speaks to our worth. The God who created us in his image felt that we were worth redeeming. He died for our sins, instead of us, to reconcile us to God and to each other. None of us will ever understand that sacrifice by a holy God. So, we are valuable. Remember that as we consider this next part.

Second, according to James Plueddemann, because we are all broken and sinful, “all the problems in the world are directly or indirectly caused by sin.” Poverty, war, greed, injustice, illness and tragedies of every kind stem from a broken creation spoiled by sin. Therefore, government or business solutions are like applying a topical cream to treat cancer.

Jesus is the only solution to the sin problem… so the most competent leader in the world cannot solve any major problem without the gospel of Jesus.

The gospel alone — God rescuing us from our brokenness — is the answer for the deepest needs of humans and creation as a whole.

Third, Plueddemann adds, “the goal of leadership is to point people to Jesus.” Rather than work independently, we realize we are branches on a vine, and we can do nothing without him (John 15). Rather than draw attention to ourselves, we realize we are nothing without him. Our goal is to co-lead with him, if you will, pointing to him as the solution and primary source of any gifts and ability we have or success we enjoy.

Fourth, leaders have a model for their own leadership style. Jesus is the ideal leader who modeled servant leadership, an “astounding and universally countercultural” concept. Mark 10:45 lays out the standard for our leadership practice:

For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So, a failure to understand what Jesus did for us leads to the misunderstanding that we are something on our own and down the ugly road of pride. This sure isn’t a feel-good post. I feel really small. Thank God that the gospel doesn’t end with how bad we are. It’s worth reading the first paragraph again.

Restoration

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Because the LORD is my Shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the ‘waters of rest,’ he restores my soul.

In While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks, Timothy Laniak says the idea of “restoration” in Psalm 23:1 is about returning. David uses the same verb as Jeremiah used to predict Israel’s return from exile. Sure, restoration is about satisfaction, that feeling when your deepest needs are met. It’s about rest, solitude and regeneration. But it’s the idea of returning that sticks with me.

First, returning to a former state. It’s helpful when you’re in the midst of a crazy-busy period to have a marker you can refer to when life was manageable, your days filled with joy and you had a deep satisfaction. For me, the ultimate answer is a place I can never go back to. It’s a world of naive innocence in the first year of my marriage, before the pain of our first miscarriage, when all our relatives seemed healthy, when our friends’ marriages seemed solid and before the economy turned upside down. Life was simpler and the pace more comfortable. Optimism and hope were the prevalent words to describe the year I’m thinking of. I can remember having more time to celebrate, think and enjoy life.

You know how you’re going through life at a frenetic pace and suddenly a smell or a sound takes you back to a moment years in your past? Restoration for me is about catching “throwback” moments when I’m spending time with God in the morning, when I get a chance to jump in on a pickup game of soccer or volleyball or when I participate in the joy of my kids. Those moments are rare, but incredibly rejuvenating. Laniak takes it one step further. He says those moments are about worship.

Worship rises freely from the satisfied hearts of those whose needs are tended to.

Restoration might also be a “return” to something you’ve never experienced — to God’s ideal. As eternal beings, we will one day go to a place that finally satisfies that vague hunger that has plagued us our entire lives. That’s where we’ll finally feel at home… the place we were created for. We may not have ever experienced a great marriage, parents, family life or workplace. But one day we will return home.

So, what does this post have to do with leadership? As followers, we need to remember that our Shepherd is very much concerned about our anxiety, restlessness and frenzied activity. Those things may be part of life for a time, but those aren’t his intention for us. He desires to give us rest and satisfaction, tending to our deepest needs — physical, psychological, intellectual, relational and spiritual. Are we seeking to meet those needs in Christ? Dan Allender says that leaders are more prone to addictions than the average person. Before I lead others, I need to recognize my own neediness and find times to get back to that state where I felt rested and fulfilled.

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. (Psalm 62:5)

Second, as leaders and shepherds, we have a responsibility to mirror the Great Shepherd. How do we lead our staff to rest? Here are some questions from Laniak:

  • How do we assess needs in our places of ministry?
  • Do we really want to know the extent of the needs?
  • What kinds of needs do we seek to meet? Do we only limit ourselves to tangible needs? Or only spiritual needs?

Here’s the question he floored me with: “Do you give your people a chance to rest?” If I’m so busy myself, what kind of inference am I making for my staff? Instead, how do I promote a rhythm of restoration and rejuvenation for myself and those I lead?

Good questions as we head towards the weekend. I hope yours includes a few moments of restoration and rejuvenation.

Shepherd and overseer

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We know the Bible teaches servant leadership. Right? Ever since Robert Greenleaf gave the idea traction in the business and ministry lexicon — the idea obviously preceded him, though he gave it substance that caught on in our popular culture — it’s come to be synonymous with “biblical leadership.”  My problem is that proponents refer to a limited list of scriptures to prove their point. I’m not arguing that it’s not a good leadership practice, I’m not arguing that it’s not a biblical model, and I’m not arguing that Jesus didn’t practice it. What I’m suggesting is that it’s a simplistic view of Jesus’ leadership style. It’s one of many styles that he used throughout his ministry.

This week in Peru, we’re spending time on the idea of a leader as a shepherd. It’s a powerful metaphor, and I had no idea how many scriptures actually make reference to shepherding. Many of them were easy connections for the reader that have been lost on later, more urban cultures. The observations below and in my next few posts come from While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks, by Timothy Laniak.

In contrast to my assumed beliefs, the idea of watching and overseeing comes from the profession of sheepherder. Overseer has come to mean foreman, the person up the chain who assures the success of a broad project. It also has been tied to the connotations of a bishop, a term that suggests to me a position-driven leadership role. But Laniak says the term comes from shepherds, who spend the majority of their time watching their flocks. What looks to the casual observer as lazy inactivity is rather continuous surveillance, active attention and constant concern.

Shepherds spend their time looking for threats, supplies, disease and anxiety. They gaze in order to inspect, count and intuit. Laniak uses words like perception, insight, instinct and vision to describe the full picture of “oversight.” Simply put, shepherds see what’s not always visible.

There are some great scriptures on the qualities of this role, including Psalm 121, 1 Peter 2:25 and the role of elders in 1 Timothy 3:2. Most of them clearly tie the principle of overseeing with shepherding. I don’t know why I never caught that before. I think I assumed the apostle was using contrasting metaphors when he referred to God as both Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.

So, what’s Laniak’s point? He asks a few questions that I find personally challenging.

  1. Are we carefully watching our flocks or have we made the assumption that they can take care of themselves?
  2. In whatever leadership role you’re in, how much time do you spend on “in the tent” activities versus looking after and over the people in your care?
  3. How good is your vision? Are you able to notice trends in morale, signs of stress, anxiety over change, and woundedness from abuse?

As we consider those we have responsibility for, are we doing the job of a shepherd, attentively watching and seeing what’s not visible?

When the right person won’t

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What happens when the right person is unwilling to lead? I know an organization that recently came up short looking for a new president. The board made the decision to start their search over again. Is there simply a shortage of good leaders in that organization? No. There are a number of extremely-qualified candidates who turned them down.

Not long ago, The Reluctant Leader had an interesting post that drew my attention to an Old Testament parable. While Steve Murrell applies Judges 9 to government — which I think is a very good application — I think you’ll see how it applies more broadly. In the non-profit world we live in at Wycliffe, with no financial incentives to offer someone to step up in leadership, we often face situations where the right leader is unwilling to take on greater responsibility.

When the right people don’t step up, the void is filled by others.

Spotting redemption

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What is the place for people like Barnabas in management? Saul would never have completed his turnaround if Barnabas hadn’t noted the fruit of his change. John Mark would have been forever labeled a quitter if Barnabas hadn’t taken him under his wing, even at the expense of his partnership with Paul. When the Holy Spirit does a work in one of these “wrong people,” do we have people tuned to notice that change and advocate on their behalf? Do we have the courage or the margin to take a risk on someone working to rebuild trust?

About four years ago in my management career, I decided that I’m willing to take on one “project” at any given time. As long as I’m able to fully support the entire team, I’m willing to give special attention to one person who has had some issues identified in previous jobs or who is beginning to discover new leadership abilities. I’ve seen the problems that arise when a manager has more than one of these cases, and the department becomes known for being a collection of wounded souls or the manager becomes known for his soft heart and inability to turn anyone away.

Having said that, I love the story of David and his band of malcontents in 1 Samuel 22. While Saul was king and David an outcast, men who were in trouble, in debt or discontented gravitated to David’s leadership. When he became king, his “mighty men” took office and filled legitimate positions, such as bodyguard and special forces. Fiercely loyal to this man who took a risk on them, they went on to accomplish great feats like conquering Jerusalem and defeating giants alongside him. When David suggested one time that he’d love a drink from the well in his hometown, three of them busted through enemy lines just to get him a cup of water.

The leader who can spot potential and identify the work of the Holy Spirit in someone is a rare gem. Time and time again, God has used people like that to complete His work of redemption, giving the wrong person a second chance.

  • Jethro helped restore Moses after murder
  • Jesus gently forgave Peter and gave him a new mission
  • Ananias and Barnabas took a chance that Saul’s repentance was real
  • Barnabas took John Mark under his wing when Paul gave up on this young quitter

Who is filling that role in your church and in your organization? May God give us as leaders the eyes to see people the way He does and the courage to follow through on a hunch.