You are the boulder

    Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun, like a stream that meets a boulder, half way through the wood…because I knew you – I have been changed for good. These words are in the song “For Good” from the Broadway musical Wicked. Usually we hear them and ponder how others have changed our lives, how we have been effected. Because our perspective us usually about us. Self-centered, self-absorbed, not necessarily selfish but self-oriented. We first see things from our eyes looking out. Turn the glasses around and see how you affect others. Consider that YOU are the sun pulling at the orbit of a passing comet. You are the boulder that changes the course of a stream. 

You change the lives of those around you. Sometimes for better sometimes for worse, you change people. A kind word, a friendly face, you make the difference between despair and hope to someone. Someone you may not even know. You lift people up and carry them through difficult times, or give them that much needed push to keep them swinging a little bit longer. You may intentionally help or unknowingly encourage or accidentally hinder. You are never neutral or benign. Just like all beings have a gravitational pull. You have influence and you affect those around you. Because I knew you I have been changed. It is not a question of do you? It is a question of what are you doing?
     “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight, every valley will be filled, every mountain will be made low. The crooked will become straight, the rough made smooth. Everyone will see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3:4-6) You may see the same people though out a life time. Over and over people pass by you, family, friends, at the grocery checkout, at work, neighbors, at the drive through, in the doctor’s office. You spend time with others maybe unknowingly. You laugh together, cry and sweat together. Find love, get married, have children, begin and end careers side by side with other people. Someone you have never looked at is the someone you have pushed. Pushed away or pushed forward? Because I knew you, I have been changed. The valley was filled in and the mountain made low. Because I knew you, was the way to salvation easier to see? Is your life and language an obstacle in the path of another’s spiritual walk? Is the mountain to climb harder because of the debris you have piled on someone’s life? Or does your presence make it easier for them to see God? You have smoothed the way for another to reach salvation. Your life has straightened path. Because I knew you, I have been changed, for good.

Listen to Dissent

Are the nay sayers really our point men?

As a team leader your job is to sell the group on an idea and keep selling them.  Then listen really well, let everybody have a voice and let there be dissent.  Figure it out together.  In meetings, discuss an idea with a “devil’s advocate” at your side.   Find out what the dissenter would say.   At first you may get the popular, everyone’s on board, honeymoon phase, love the idea answers.  That only demonstrates a need to listen more carefully. There is always another point of view.  There are questions, hesitations, reservations about every idea even the good ones.  Hearing what should have been done after the fact is of no help.   Invite the opposing ideas.  Listen to the dissenters.  They may intend to tell you why it can’t be done, but if you listen hard, what they are really telling is what you must do to get something done.  They are showing you how to clear the pathway to success and safely reach your goal.