Category: Leading and Helping When People Want to Stay Stuck

How can we use our limited resources to make the biggest impact in the world?

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Renewal in an Organization with a Long History of Hurt and Failure

The temple, the glory of the people of Israel, was in complete ruins. The Babylonians had destroyed everything and taken many of the people into captivity. Now, thousands had returned but returned to devastation.

In spite of the disappointment, those who returned from exile did not give up. They saw the place where the altars had been, and they rebuilt them. There, with no walls or temple, they held a feast to the LORD, the feast of tabernacles, where they remembered how God was with them in the wilderness when they came out of Egypt.

Then, they got to work. In the 2nd year of their return, they began building the foundation of the temple.

When the foundation was complete, the people began to praise the Lord: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever” (Ezra 3:11). They all gave a great shout to the Lord.

But shouts of praise were not the only sounds. “Many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid” (Ezra 3:12). The result was that “no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise” (Ezra 3:13).

This reminds me of many churches, families, and organizations I have observed. When renewal begins to take place, good things are happening, but it is hard for those who have experienced disappointment or hurts in the past to see the good. This makes it hard for the work of renewal to move forward.

So, what should we do? For those rejoicing in the present, it is important to remember:

  1. Understand that the organization has a history.
  2. Understand that good things have been lost.
  3. Understand that there have been hurts.
  4. When people express pain or longing for the past, don’t get defensive. Ask for stories.

For those who are grieved at the losses of the past, it is important to remember:

  1. Remember that new didn’t experience those earlier times.
  2. Remember that people are there because they see good things.
  3. Remember that there are challenges in the present to even carrying out the work, and people need encouragement.
  4. When you hear the good things, ask them to share them without bringing up your bad experience. Just let them give thanks and rejoice with those who rejoice.

So, who goes first? Who reaches out? The person who is more emotionally mature. Someone has to step up and say, “I understand my own emotions and sympathize with the emotions of others. I will step outside myself to consider what others need.” Whoever has the strength to do this should do it.

In all of this, we should remember that this is God’s work. He is the one who is at work in the church and in creation to bring about good things. That should encourage us, and that’s why the prophet Zechariah encouraged the people of that day: “What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel (the Israelite’s civic leader) you will become level ground. . . . The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you” (Zechariah 4:7-8).

Zechariah reminded them that whatever their personal feelings, the temple needed to be built. He encouraged them that it would be built, and he promised a glorious future. These same considerations can help us to move forward with the work of renewal in ourselves, our families, our churches, and our governments.

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Scipio Africanus

Many people know the great Carthaginian General Hannibal. He took his elephants across the Alps from Spain to invade Rome and Italy during the 2nd Punic War (218–201 BC, the Punic Wars were a series of three wars between Rome and Carthage). This famous act memorializes Hannibal’s military prowess.

But less have heard of the man who defeated Hannibal: Scipio Africanus, Publius Cornelius Scipio (236–183). Scipio not only defeated Hannibal, he never lost a battle. He was Rome’s greatest general.

Seeing that Scipio’s rise was connected with the threat of Hannibal, it made me wonder, would there have been a Scipio without a Hannibal?

I tied that question into a larger question I had been pondering related to the Roman Empire. Carthage was Rome’s most formidable enemy. It was a vibrant and wealthy empire that controlled much of the Western Mediterranean outside of Italy. It’s easy to speculate, what would have happened if Carthage had won the war? Would there have been a Roman Empire?

But my question was a little bit different. It was this: without Carthage, would there have been a Roman Empire? Without this powerful opponent, would Rome have remained content as a land power in Italy?

Military historian Richard A. Gabriel’s book Scipio Africanus demonstrates that these two questions are interrelated to a much greater degree than I would have initially expected. According to Gabriel, Hannibal’s success allowed Scipio to arise, and it was Scipio who developed the idea of an empire as away of solving the long-term security threat posed by Carthage.

Here’s how it happened.

Hannibal was a great general, but Carthage had great generals. They had well-developed tactics, and they knew how to use their diverse armies as a tool of their will. Hannibal was simply the most capable and daring of these generals.

Hannibal dealt Rome its greatest defeat at the Battle of Cannae. There, Rome lost 80% of the soldiers who participated in that battle. However, this was merely one of many defeats that Hannibal inflicted on Rome. Hannibal remained in Italy as a threat to Rome for 14 years!

Rome could not defeat Hannibal in pitched battle, so several Roman strategists believed that the way to defeat him was to attack his base in Africa. Scipio is credited with this strategy, but he was not the only one to think of it. He was, however, the one who actually successfully carried it out.

When the 2nd Punic War started, Scipio was a junior cavalry officer. He did come from a prominent Roman family, but he advanced quickly because he actually survived and lived and so many of the officers above him died. Scipio’s own father was commander of the Roman forces in Spain, and he died fighting Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal at Battle of the Upper Baetis.

Scipio was chosen to replace his own father as commander of the Roman forces in Spain. Scipio eventually defeated the Carthaginian forces in Spain and began planning the invasion of Africa. Beyond that, he began working to implement a broader vision. As Gabriel explains:

Scipio’s grand strategic vision was based in the new Roman class that looked to overseas expansion and commerce for Rome’s future. In Scipio’s view, Carthage’s predations in Spain and Sicily were forcing Rome to become a world power for it was the only way in which its legitimate security interests could be satisfied (140).

But he first had to defeat Carthage.

Scipio’s Africa strategy worked. The threat to the city of Carthage led to Hannibal’s recall. At the Battle of Zama, Scipio defeated Hannibal and quickly brought an end to the 2nd Punic War.

Following the war, Rome established its rule over Spain and other areas of the Western Mediterranean. Scipio established the first of Rome’s overseas colony cities: Italica. It was the first of the many Roman colonies that would spread throughout the Mediterranean world. From this one city came three emperors: Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius the Great (Gabriel, 138). Even though Rome was a republic at this time, this was the real beginning of Roman empire.

So, why does all this matter? When we consider large and difficult challenges, it’s easy to get discouraged. However, these sometimes scary things test us and enable us to grow. We should not seek out powerful enemies, but when we face them, we should be less daunted. Big challenges can defeat us, but they also present the biggest opportunities for growth.

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Expect Opposition

In every good endeavor, expect opposition.

As soon as we get a vision for something good, our tendency is to think, “I’ve got the vision! It’ll be easy!” I want to lose weight, so I can do it. I want to become a writer, so I can do it. I want to make the basketball team, so I can do it.

Then, we crash. We give up. Why? We face opposition.

Recently, I listened to a podcast with author Steven Pressfield. He wrote a book called The Warrior Ethos. In the podcast he explains that the warrior ethos is one that applies to all of life. He noticed this when he started to write. He realized that there was opposition–laziness, distractions, perfectionism, worry, people. Within and without, life was battling against him to keep him from writing. Like a warrior, he needed to go to battle against that opposition.

Opposition to the good comes primarily from three places: the world, the people around us, and ourselves.

The world system seems to oppose us. It’s almost like it conspires to keep us from doing good. We have good plans, but things keep happening that derail them. We want to save money, but things keep breaking down. We want to devote ourselves to writing, but urgent demands keep getting in the way. The world presents us to us innumerable alluring things to lure us away from the good that we would do.

Other people also oppose us. Sometimes, they do it deliberately. They say, “You can’t do that!” “That’s a waste of time,” or “You’ll never amount to anything.” Sometimes opposition is not deliberate. People just have their own agendas, and they subconsciously apply emotional pressure to get us on their agenda.

The world and people would not be nearly so powerful, though, if it did not have an ally within our own hearts. We are our own greatest opposition. We were excited about doing something, but now we’re not as excited. We think we should wait until we feel more “in the spirit” to do something. We see things around us that excite us more in the moment. We think we need more rest than we do. We waste our energy on fruitless things. We just get lazy. The list goes on and on. This is just opposition.

I think here of exercise. Food and diet advice comes and goes, but if there is one thing that doctors are sure of, it is that regular exercise will help us. We all know this. So, why don’t we do it? Opposition, mostly from within ourselves. When it comes to exercise, there is rarely a time that you really feel like doing it, especially tough exercise. You just have to do it. It’s one of those touchstones of discipline in our lives.

In the Christian faith, God gives us great and precious promises to enable us to live a whole, virtuous, and good life that reflects His glory. He forgives all our sins and sets us on a new path. We don’t have to live as slaves to our lust or our pride or our anger anymore. This is good news. When people hear it, they like it.

But one thing the Bible also teaches us is: expect opposition. It drills this into our heads, but the moment we as Christians face opposition, what do we do? We cry out and complain as if God had never warned us about this! We don’t expect opposition. We always seem surprised by it.

When it comes to doing that which is good, we should expect opposition.

That’s a hard truth, but a helpful one. If we can learn to say in every good endeavor, “there will be opposition,” then we can prepare. We can plan. We can engage. Expecting it, we won’t be as discouraged when we encounter it. Additionally, when we take opposition seriously, we have the opportunity to consider the resources we have to stand up against it.

On the other hand, if we think that there won’t be opposition, then we will get discouraged the moment we encounter it. We will take it as some sort of sign that things are amiss and abandon the endeavor.

To steel ourselves to do what is good, expect opposition!

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Pursuing Excellence

When you think of excellence, who do you think of? Lebron James, Albert Einstein, Muhammed Ali, Thomas Edison, or Ludwig Beethoven? All of these people accomplished great things.

The reality is, though, that most of us won’t be pro basketball players or boxers or famous scientists or compose musical numbers that people will enjoy listening to centuries after our deaths. No matter how hard we work, pray, or think, these things will not happen.

However, the door to an excellence that is greater than anything these men accomplished is wide open to everyone. That is the excellence of reflecting the glory of God!

How do we do this? We do it through virtue. Virtue is an excellent trait that shows the nobility and glory of humans and reflects the glory of God.

Humans were created in the image of God to reflect the glory of God, but this glory is diminished by original and actual sin. Corruption rather than virtue more often characterizes the human race. The goal of the Christian faith is to restore human beings to their original glory, excellence, and virtue.

What does this look like? The Apostle Peter provides us a beautiful description in his opening exhortation in 2 Peter 1:3-11. He begins by telling us that we now have everything we need for a godly life. How? Through God’s own virtue (same word as virtue in the Greek, v. 3). It is His own excellence that provides for us what we need to live a godly life.

When we think of a godly life, it is important that we think not merely of doing the right things or not doing the wrong things. It is about who we are. It is about characteristics that are excellent and noble that reflect the glory of God, participating, as it were, in the divine nature (see 2 Pet. 1:4).

After laying that groundwork, Peter explains what those characteristics are. He says, “For this very reason, make every effort, be totally zealous, to add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge self-control and to self-control endurance and to endurance godliness and to godliness brotherly love and to brotherly love, a love that reflects God’s love for lost sinners (agape love).”

This list does not exhaust the excellent character traits that reflect the glory of God, but they provide a helpful overview.

When we think of these characteristics, it is easy for us to miss that they are all about joy and happiness. When we think of God, we should see Him as being eternally content and happy. He has everything He needs for total and perfect happiness. He is the One who is creative and delights in making things. He is so full of goodness that His goodness cannot but overflow.

That’s the excellence that we should pursue. We should seek to be happy and joyful people because we are filled with the sufficiency of God. We delight in the good that God is and the good that He creates. We are filled with joy because we expect good things from Him, and so we don’t need to desire things that are not good or reasonable for us (self-control). Like God, we move out of this sufficiency to create and to love, even the most unlovable.

That is the glory that is available to each and every human being and that God offers to us as a gift.

If it is so available, why do we not see more people who reflect that glory? Because it involves serious effort. It takes zeal. We have to work at it. This does not mean simply trying harder. It means enlightening our minds through the means of grace, engaging prayerfully in the world with a new mindset, and enlisting folk to help us and serve as examples.

At the same time, it’s not an effort that is beyond normal human reach. It is available to us. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life. The burden and yoke of Jesus is a light one that actually gives us rest and gives us an excellence that reflects the transcendent glory of God. The power, promises, and presence of God are always available. We can become people of virtue, people whose character reflects the glory of God.

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Doing All the Good We Can

Why did God put us on this green earth? To do all the good that we can possibly do.

What else could our purpose be? What else would we want to do? Get as much wealth as possible? Travel as many places as possible? Make it to retirement? Reproduce? Play as many video games as possible?

To me, it seems self-evident that we are here to do as much good as we can possibly do. So, why don’t we live that way? Because fulfilling our potential to do good takes time and effort, and a lot of our body and brain chemistry tells us to enjoy the thing that is most pleasurable in the moment. The emotion of what we should do in the moment often contradicts our long-term purpose.

So, how do we overcome the sluggishness of our body and brain and get out of the ruts that would keep us from fulfilling our potential?

We need to start by getting clarity on the fact that we want to do as much good as possible. This is not our default. We have to get a vision for it. We have to take it in deeply.

Once we do, we have a direction. But then, how do we do the most good we can possibly do?

Here’s my suggestion for doing as much good as possible: focus on yourself, focus on others, focus on a bigger vision, and recognize it takes time. This list is not necessarily chronological. They can and should overlap, but all four need to be present in order for us to do all the good that we can possibly do.

First, Focus on Yourself
It’s somewhat ironic that you have to focus on yourself in order to do as much good as possible, but it’s true. Why? Because whatever you do, you have to use your self as the tool. If that tool is not in good condition, you won’t be able to do much effectively.

Certainly, there are wrong ways to focus on yourself. It is wrong to focus on yourself if it means fulfilling whatever desires you have in the moment, making yourself as comfortable as possible in the moment, and reacting to whatever anyone does in the moment. In this sense, we have to die to ourselves in order to live.

The right way to focus on ourselves is seeking to become the human being that God made us to be: to become as healthy, strong, virtuous, and skilled as we can be.

Focusing on ourselves means attending to our relationship with God. Christianity offers to us unparalleled and often unused resources to ground our sense of self in a God who loves us and cares for us. The death and resurrection of Christ provide a way to put the guilt of the past in the past and empower us for the new life of the future. Without these resources, we will look for love, acceptance, security, and power in all the wrong places. Our relationship with God comes first. The more we are rooted in God’s love and grace, the more we have to give to the world around us.

Second, we become more loving people. We stop reacting to what everyone around us does and learn to relate to others with the virtues of patience, kindness, compassion, and wisdom. The more loving we are, the more good we have to give to the people around us.

Third, we develop our ability to work and serve. This includes health and physical exercise, the development of our gifts, time management, knowledge, etc. The more of these abilities we have, the more we have to give for the good of the world around us.

Fourth, we embrace enjoying God’s creation. We learn to experience the good things around us. This means more than just going outside and looking around (though that’s a good idea!). It also means developing our capacity for enjoyment of creation and culture. For example, you can only experience the joy of what your body can do in exercise by exercising it. You can only enjoy the potential of music by training you ear or hands to experience it better. The more we can really enjoy the world God has created, the more we have to give for the good of the world around us.

Focus on Others
The next aspect of doing good is to focus on others. We don’t want to just do good for ourselves. We want to do good to all people, especially the household of faith (Gal. 6:10).

This means we start to think about bringing those things we have developed in ourselves to other people. We think about how to promote a relationship with God to those around us. We reach out to those who need to experience a loving touch. We start to use our skills to the benefit of others. We take our enjoyment of the world and share it with others.

Think about an ability to cook and plan a good meal. You can do this for yourself and get joy out of it. You can also do it to throw a party for your friends. Then, you are doing good to others as well as to yourself. When you go further to throw a party for those who are lonely or who need connection, then you are doing more good. That is what it means to focus on others.

Focus on a Bigger Vision
But don’t just get caught up in the day to day doing of good. Think long-term. Think of what you could really accomplish if you worked at it over a long period of time (I owe some of my clarity on this to Jordan Peterson, as you can read in my article here).

Think about promoting a relationship with God. You can do this in a very simple way with those whom you meet day by day. If this is your passion, though, you may want to develop this much further. You will want to understand the people among whom you want to promote God’s grace. You will want to understand the Bible a lot better and understand how people have reflected on the Bible through the ages. You will want to be a better communicator. You will want to learn what platform you can use to promote a relationship with God. You will want learn to be a better friend so you can connect with people because that is generally the best context for helping people connect with God. All these things take time.

To fulfill our potential to do good, it takes a lot of preparation and effort. To do that requires a bigger vision, a long-term vision, of what God and will do through us and in us.

Recognize It Takes Time
It is important to remember that doing all the good that we can do will take time. We have to develop and grow as an individuals. It will involve following some dead ends and making mistakes. It will involve hard work and often suffering.

Think of a friendship. We can’t just build a friendship in one day. It takes time to get used to each other, to walk through difficulties together, and to work through differences. At the end of a long period of time, we can have really strong friendships. These friendship are a tremendous good and service for both friends. However, it takes a lot of time to build these lasting friendships.

Like relationships, developing the skills and building the organizations to do greater good take time. However, if we keep planting seeds and keep the vision for doing good in front of us, we can, by God’s grace, make a lot of progress.

And what would be a better investment of our time? What better could we say at the end of our lives than that we have done all the good that we could do?

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