Archive for year: 2024

When I started a personal Bible study on the book of Ezra several years ago, I wasn’t expecting that I would turn my own study notes into a book about leadership, but that’s what happened (Leadership Ezra, available on Amazon).  When that was done, I started a study of Daniel, and never made it past the first chapter before organizing my personal notes into a series of valuable lessons to share with students.  As time has gone on, God seems to be prompting me to do more with it, so I have begun the process of turning my notes into short articles, that will then become the basis for chapters in a book (current working title: “Without Compromise: Leading with integrity in the face of pressure”). 

The story’s underlying basis is this:  In the time and world of Daniel, Israel and the capital city of Jerusalem were invaded and captured.  In that process, the most gifted and talented young men were given a “scholarship” [albeit, against their will] to attend the most elite private school in the known world, one designed to prepare leaders & experts (Daniel 1:3).  Upon graduation, Daniel and his friends were at the top of the class and were hired into executive leadership positions right out of school (Daniel 1:17-20).  But here’s an incredibly significant observation: In between . . . they refused to compromise their faith, values, and integrity.  

How did they do it?  One way was by developing (and using) knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

In Daniel 1, one of the ways we see that Daniel and his friends were gifted was in their mental acuity.  Verse 4 tells us that they were “gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand.”  Then verse 17 says the same thing, but with the added description that these were gifts from God and that Daniel had a special, God-given level of understanding that would be for a purpose.  Based on the context, it is important to remember that Daniel and his friends knew that these gifts were from God, and they also put in the personal effort to develop these gifts.  Therefore, because they had these tools, they were equipped to make good decisions.

When it comes to our own equipping, you need to realize that it’s not enough to just to “know”, whether it’s broadly (knowing a little about a lot, like a jeopardy champion) or deeply (knowing a lot about a little, like an expert in a specific area).  You also need to know why it matters and how to use it to make good decisions.  I vividly remember hearing my dad described this way at the graveside service of his funeral in a message spoken by a pastor that my dad had mentored, and that description stuck with me.  This is how I would describe these three levels of mental effort and ability:

• Knowledge:  having a grasp of information, with the knowledge and awareness of information that is relevant to your context, career, community, and culture.
• Understanding:  having the ability to make sense of knowledge, to connect the dots, to grasp what it means and why it matters, and to recognize truth.
• Wisdom:  having the ability to apply knowledge and understanding to good decision-making, with meaningful, practical, and effective application to life.

These three tools help equip you for decision-making.  But here’s the really good news – these tools are attainable!  You can develop knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, but it doesn’t happen by accident.  It happens with intentional effort and certain characteristics that you choose to employ.  Those characteristics include seeking wisdom from the right people and places (just for fun, do a comparison of I Kings 12:1-19 and 1 Kings 3:9, and make note of who each person listened to), being humble and teachable, and asking God (see James 1 as a reminder of how important this is) but then making sure to listen.

The lesson we learn from Daniel in this is the Lesson of Wisdom: the importance of intentionally pursuing knowledge (grasp of accurate information), understanding (knowing what truth is and why it matters), and wisdom (knowing how to apply it to godliness and life decisions).  Make the choice to develop knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part three in the series titled, “Without Compromise.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you struggled with compromise or conformity? That’s the ongoing question we are talking about in this series.  Today’s discussion is the third in the series, all of them based on a study of Daniel chapter 1 and corresponding to the articles posted each week on the Leadership Ezra website.  The big idea we will be discussing is how you can navigate pressure – specifically, the pressure to compromise or conform in an unhealthy or immoral way – without deviating from your values.  It’s really going to be a discussion of how to lead and live with excellence without compromising your faith.  And today, that begins with recognizing how God has gifted you.

In between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I got a job as a door-to-door salesman.  Here’s what happened.  I was paying my own way through college, which meant that during the school year, I had been working about 30 hours a week in a restaurant as a busboy and kitchen helper.  It just about paid my bills, but as a minimum wage job, it did little more than that. Well, sometime in the spring of my freshman year, a company came on campus to recruit for summer work.  Someone talked me into attending the recruiting presentation, and by the end of it, I was convinced I could make a whole lot more with this company than I could working in the restaurant that summer.  So I signed up.  The job I signed up for was selling books door to door for 13 weeks.  More specifically, selling a 2-volume encyclopedia of knowledge and a New King James Version Study Bible.

So, as soon as my exams ended, I loaded my car and drove to Nashville, Tennessee, for a week of training and inspiration. At the end of that week, I was sent to my territory, which was Sumter, South Carolina.  As soon as I arrived, I found a place to live and mapped out my area, the tobacco farmland outside of the side.  I proceeded to get up every morning and start driving from house to house, knocking on doors, and asking people if I could show them these books.  There is an important piece of information in this that you need to know:  I was very much an introverted people-pleaser afraid of rejection.  You can imagine that it didn’t take long before I figured out I was not cut out to be a salesman and began regretting my job choice for the summer.  In fact, as the weeks went on, it got harder and harder for me, and by about the 10^th week – I’m being very transparent here – I was calling my dad every single day, in tears, asking him to help me find the courage and discipline to go out and face another day of this.

In the end, I actually did make enough to pay for my next semester of college, but the point of this story is that I learned a very valuable lesson about what I was NOT good at doing.  I had certain skills and abilities that enabled me to do well at some things, but cold sales and knocking on strangers’ doors were most definitely not within my abilities.  I refused to quit – that’s just part of who I am – but I finished that summer with the realization that no amount of money was worth a job that hated and didn’t have the ability to do well.

That’s one of the things we learn from Daniel in Daniel chapter 1.  God has gifted us each with skills and abilities, and we function best when we operate within those abilities.  Now, I think those abilities fall into three different groupings:  natural abilities, those that we have been born with (the ones that are part of how God designed and created us from the beginning); unnatural abilities, which I define as those abilities that are not natural to you but that God has specifically given you for a time and a purpose; and spiritual gifts, which were given to us as part of our spiritual nature when we became a part of the family of God through salvation.  These three groups are designed by God to work together so that we can perform with excellence when we commit and submit our work to the Lord.  That’s what Daniel showed us.

Here’s what you need to take away:  Liam Neeson once said in a movie, “What I do have are a very particular set of skills.” And so do you.  God has gifted you with spiritual gifts, natural abilities, and unnatural abilities, and He has given you those for a reason.  Your responsibility is to accept, hone, and use those gifts to carry out the call He has given you. 

The bottom line is that God has given you gifts and abilities, and He has done so for a reason.  Daniel used his with such excellence in his obedience to God that he excelled above everyone around him.  I would challenge you to do the same.

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article of the same name, “Dealing with Your Circumstances.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:

Have you struggled with compromise or conformity? That’s the ongoing question we are talking about in this series.  Today’s discussion is the second in the series, all based on a study of Daniel chapter 1 and corresponding to the articles posted on the Leadership Ezra website.  The big idea we will be discussing is how you can navigate pressure – specifically, the pressure to compromise or conform in an unhealthy or immoral way – without deviating from your values.  It’s really going to be a discussion of how to lead and live with excellence without compromising your faith.  And today, that begins with an understanding of how to deal with your circumstances.

When my wife had been married for a little over 20 years, we experienced a crisis point in her health.  At that time, we had a child in college and a child in high school, and her health had been in a state of decline for about 10 or 15 years, but without any clear conclusions or answers about why.  She had seen numerous specialists, and at different times had received different diagnoses with different treatment plans, and yet her health continued to deteriorate.  But then she began to see a new doctor, a general practitioner, who had an investigative nature.  As she started to get a better understanding of Nora’s health and issues, she also started digging for information.  Eventually, she sat down with us and informed us that she believed that Nora had an undiagnosed cancer that might be at the root of many of her health issues.  This doctor started the process of testing and searching, and the end result was the discovery that Nora had neuroendocrine cancer, with a large tumor in one of her lungs, and emergency surgery was scheduled to remove the tumor and most of the lung.  We later learned that this type of cancer wreaks havoc on your endocrine system, and therefore is often misdiagnosed as a variety of other things.  I am grateful for a doctor who refused to accept the status quo and was determined to discover why things were happening as they were.  But let me back up to the moment in time in that process when Nora began to cough up blood, and her doctor scheduled an immediate scan of her lungs.  I can still picture us sitting in the radiology waiting room of the hospital, by ourselves after everyone had gone home, and the doctor calling us immediately to say that Nora had cancer and we needed to do surgery.  At that moment, we had a decision to make on how we were going to respond.

The point of this story is that we often have no control over the circumstances that surround us in our lives.  Those circumstances may have a physical cause (like Nora’s cancer), or they may be caused by our own choices, by someone else’s choices, simply by our environment, or by God for a purpose.  Regardless of the cause, no one controls our response other than ourselves.  We decide how we are going to react and what we are going to do.  In that moment with Nora, as a husband and wife committed to honoring God in our marriage, we made the conscious decision to trust and thank God regardless of whether we understood what was happening and why.  We chose not to let that bombshell blow up our lives but instead to live in faithful confidence that God loved us unconditionally and would use these circumstances for good.

That’s the lesson that Daniel modeled in Daniel Chapter 1.  He had not personally been unfaithful and disobedient to God, even though much of his nation had been.  Therefore, when his nation and the capital city of Jerusalem received judgment from God, Daniel was included as a recipient of that judgment even though he was not guilty.  He was taken from his home and family and carried away in captivity, and he had no say or control in those circumstances.  However, when you read his story, you see that he chose to respond with trust in and obedience to God.  He determined his own response and let God manage everything else. The same is true for you.  Regardless of the circumstances, whether good or bad, you are responsible for how you respond to those circumstances and how you respond to God.  God is responsible for doing what is best with those circumstances, circumstances for which He has a purpose to accomplish.

Here’s what you need to take away:  You have very little control over many of the circumstances that occur in your life.  You do, however, have control over how you will respond when those circumstances occur.  Nothing that happens takes God by surprise, and Romans 8:28 assures us that God will bring good even out of the worst things (note:  that doesn’t necessarily make those things less painful when they happen).  If you believe that God is who He says He is, and that the Bible is true, then you get to decide to respond in complete trust in God’s work in your life. 

The bottom line is that your response to your circumstances falls squarely on your own lap.  When circumstances seem outside of your control, lean into God, trust Him, and let that trust settle your fear, anger, or anxiety.  When difficult circumstances seem like they are going to overwhelm you, as my dad would say, “You can be better or bitter, but better is better than bitter.”