LeadershipConneXtions

Paying Attention

The images in this post are all images of the Prophet Isaiah.

 

Here are the words of God through the prophet Isaiah:


  

I am the Lord your God

who teaches you what is best for you

who directs (leads) you in the way you should go.

If only you have paid attention to my commands . . .

Isaiah 48:17-18

This Old Testament language resonates with Jesus' words that His father is always working and He too is at work (John 5:17) and Paul's exhortation about keeping in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25).

And this language in Isaiah is "present tense" meaning that God is right now teaching us what is best, and God is right now directing and leading us in the way we should go.

The Presence, Work and Word of God are always present tense for us.

AND . . .

They are always personal.

It is not enough to intellectually affirm that God teaches us through His word. It is essential to believe this, but it is not enough to hold to this belief.

The vital next step is to have the Personal Knowledge of insight and guidance from God today.

What is God doing specifically in my life today?
 
What lessons does God want to teach me, specifically, today?
 
What ways does God want me to move, specifically, today?

We often spend too much time propositionally affirming "truth in general" and never take the vital, next step of personal encounter and specific knowing of what this truth means for me, right here, right now.

To take this next step, it means I must learn to PAY ATTENTION. Something the Israelites, did not do. They did not notice, they did not attend to, they did not discern, they did not engage with, they did not reflect on, they did not penetrate . . . and they did not live in to and then live out of God's Truth. 

To say it the way, theologian J.I. Packer said it in Knowing God, it is not enough to know about God, even when we have accurate knowledge about Him. The biblical reality is that we are meant to personally know God. Which means personal encounter and daily experience.

So, today, I need to pay attention.

In this ADVENT season, I especially pay attention to the God/Christ who is with us.

May you pay attention as well and be surprised with joy at attending to Immanuel.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

Willing...

I have two favorite scriptural texts from the story of the Birth of Christ.

One of them is the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary, recorded for us in Luke 1:26-38. I won't remind you of all the details about the risky invitation to an outrageous adventure (really a dangerous journey) that was given to the young teenage girl Mary.

 

 

 

All I want to do is note this. She said YES!

I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said.

Mary said YES to God's invitation. YES to God's will.

I think this is at the heart of Christmas, you and I, like Mary, saying yes to God.

But it is not easy, the speaking of a simple word - YES.
It's shorter opposite comes more naturally from our lips - NO.

 
The late Richard John Neuhaus said it this way:
 

"Slowly and not without difficulty, we learn to prefer God's will to our own; we learn to want God's will to be done, knowing that he knows us and loves us immeasurably better than we know and love ourselves."

Just a few days ago, a very short prayer, from a little prayer book I use, was very stirring for me.

 May it please the supreme and divine Goodness
 to give us all abundant grace
 ever to know his most holy will
 and perfectly to fulfill it.
 Ignatius of Loyola

Jesus encouraged us to pray:

Our Father in heaven . . .
Thy will be done . . .

That is a good prayer to pray every day during advent.

Jesus, may your will be done in my life.
May you give me all the grace I need to know your will and to do it well.
Help me to want to do your will and be patient with me in my faltering attempts to be faithful.

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

The First Advent

I will be doing several posts each week that have some Christmas /Advent themes. I hope these will be useful in helping your own Christmas season be full of meaning and purpose.

December will also have different posts on leadership and spirituality and maybe even a few more on the church.
 

 I am using a devotional, God With Us: Discovering the Meaning of Christmas, edited by Pennoyer and Wolfe. It has a devotional for every day of Advent, six different authors, and, the main reason I picked this one is beautiful art that illustrates every devotion.  (I was able to browse through the book at Hearts and Minds Bookstore in Dallastown.

The thoughts I will share have their origins in my own reflections on this devotional.

In addition, I have been working my way through the Ignatian Exercises and spent time re-visiting the biblical texts used in those exercises that are from the Birth Narratives.

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Advent, the word itself (in its Latin origins), means - coming. It's Greek equivalent means "the appearance or manifestation."

So Advent is the Coming, the Appearance, the Manifestation of the Messiah.
Advent is God With Us - Immanuel (or Emmanuel).

 And the Advent Season, which begins (always) on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, is a month long preparation of our hearts for the coming of the Messiah.

I recently shared in a small group of colleagues, that Christmas is NOT one of my favorite seasons. It is not because of consumerism on my part, because I do a pretty good job resisting personal consumption... No, for me, it is due to the excessive busyness of this season.

Do any of you have this problem. There is just so much going on. Extra meetings, additional gatherings of families and friends, more things to do just to get ready for the Holidays...

And the "introvert" part of my personality just gets a little weary and wants it to be over.

Well, I am resisting this tendency.
I've decided to be more intentional about preparation for the Messiah this season.
I've determined to get in touch with longing and anticipation to prepare my heart for the Christ.

My early morning biblical reflections are a part of this preparation.

And my prayer for all of us is that we will each prepare the way for Christ. In the upcoming posts, I'll have some thoughts that may help you in your own preparation.

And my question is -- what do you do to prepare for Christmas? What do you do so that this season is full of spiritual life and significance?  Let us know...

Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com

Merry Christmas to Our Friends Around the World

Blessings of Christ and His love to all our friends.

May your Christmas be full of glad tidings.

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Dicken's Christmas Carol

One of my favorite Christmas movies is Dicken's - Christmas Carol and my favorite version of that is George C. Scott, since he plays a masterful Scrooge.  Scrooge - even the name conjures the image of stingy, hoarding, greedy and selfish.

The entire movie is worth watching again this Christmas season. My favorite part is the last 15 minutes of the movie, after he has been visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

He is truly a transformed man. He has the qualities of gratitude, graciousness, and generosity. These qualities are the anti-thesis of his old name (Scrooge)! And one of my favorite lines in the movie is at the very end as it describes the transformed Scrooge.

He became as good a friend, as good a master and as good a man as the good old city knew . . . and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that truly be said of us and of all of us.

Christmas is all about fresh starts, second chances, new beginnings and the surprisingly wonderful, unexpected things God does in, through and for us. The miracle of transformation is among the greatest of those unexpected things.

May it be said of you and I, that we became as good a people, as good a friend and as good a leader as our church, our workplace, our family and friends and our community knew . . . and that we knew how to keep Christmas well (full of generosity, gratitude and grace).

And in the words of Tiny Tim, God bless us, every one.

Brian Rice

Christmas Reflection: Jerry Levin

Since we are in the month of December and the Christmas Season is upon us, I thought I'd do some posts in the weeks ahead that are in some way tied in to reflections on Christmas. Not normal leadership stuff, but I hope it will be meaningful to you.

Here is a "Christmas Story" I found in Joyful Exiles by James Houston. It is on pages 74-75.

Jerry Levin, CNN bureau chief for the Middle East was kidnapped when he was in Beirut. At the time he was a secular Jew. He was chained to a radiator in a dark prison cell. During that time he began to think about God. During that time he began an intense contemplation of faith and God. Here is a lengthy quote from Jerry.

On Christmas Eve 1984 at about ten or eleven o'clock, one of my captors paid an unexpected late night visit to my almost freezing cold cell. I was additionally surprised when he wished me a merry Christmas and asked if there was a gift I would like. Hardly thinking about the answer, I replied immediately; "A Bible. That'll do." I needed a Bible, becuase, after nine months of belief that I was quite aware I had acquired without benefit of studying scripture first hand, I was anxious to read it from start to finish. I was especially keen on knowing whether or not I had gotten it right - especially with regard to praying. To my astonishment two nights later my captor came back and gave me a brand new red pocket-sized Gideon New Testament, Psalm, Proverbs along with a ball point pen . . .

Three days later . . . when I had got to the part about the shepherds in Luke 2:8-20, "when they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them," . . . I heard footsteps in the hall outside my unlit pitch-dark crypt-like room.

That sound was the signal to me to pull my blindfold over my eyes, which I did . . . After the man left, I pushed the blindfold above my eyes and beheld the most astonishing - or at least unique - sight of my captivity.

On the floor, anchored in a puddle of melting was was a flickering candle. Next to it was a bowl of fruit. And next to it a big platter and on it a "log" type of chocolate cake. In front of the cake was a very intricate and beautiful manger scene. Intricately carved pines sood guarding a tiny woodern barn, open to view at one end. Inside was a minuscule manger. Sitting before it was Mary holding Jesus, with Joseph standing close by. There were several shepherds looking on plus cows, horses and sheep - all carefully crafted and painted in a smaller than toy soldier scale.

The passing minutes crackled with a kind of physical and spiritual energy that seeemed to be dissolving the centuries separating me from the event. I actually experienced a kind of vicarious surge when I recalled that this was happening to me not too many miles to the north of Bethlehem in a frigid room that I imagined was not any colder or less comfortable than the one in which Jesus had been born . . .

To relate what we witness and try to make sense for others, of that long ago event, is what shepherding is all about. It is, I believe, job enough to keep us all meaningfully occupied for the rest of our lives.

Christmas is that time of the year when the wonder, the mystery, and the messiness of life are all pronounced. As I read Jerry's story of finding faith, of experiencing mystery and wonder, and being called to relate what he has witnesses - I am moved by the mysterious and magnificient ways by which God works.

May this be a season when those of us who are called to leadership, take some extra time to sift through the long ago event , be moved by it, and find ways to interpret it for othes.

If you would like to read more of Jerry's thoughts Click here for the website that has a list of his essays.

-BR