What should I do with my life?
We had a fun conversation this morning at our “check-in” meeting regarding yesterday’s “Resign Today” post. I don’t take credit for any of these thoughts. They come directly from the folks that work on my team.
- Several of my staff explained that Perry’s challenge is certainly not how corporate America operates. In fact, one of my staff people said, “At one time there were 15 people working in my area and all 15 people didn’t like their job.” That’s just accepted in the marketplace.
- 6 out of 8 people on my team were offered more money to stay in a corporate job they didn’t like…and their superiors knew they didn’t want to be in their job.
- A couple of guys acknowledged poor job fit pollutes relationships with other people especially with co-workers and spouses. (I can speak from experience on this one. It’s part of my “killing cockroaches” story. When I’ve been discouraged by my job situation, it has impacted my marriage.)
- One of the folks on my team said, “If this is how people in ministry are reacting, imagine how people working in the marketplace are wrestling with this issue.”
- One of the guys said, generally speaking, people tend to “drop anchor and not move.” That’s true. Change, whether it’s healthy or not, is difficult. Another guy shared, “Finding God’s will usually involves us doing something rather than waiting for him to do something.”
While we’re on the topic of what we should all be doing with our lives, this morning I worked out a fun opportunity with the folks at Thomas Nelson. Five readers of my blog are going to receive a free copy of Marcus Buckingham’s new resource called The Truth About You. You have to earn it though.
I want to read the truth about you. Submit a comment to this post sharing one truth about your past. The more colorful the truth you share without lying, the more likely you are to win. I’ll select the top five truth-tellers who will receive a free copy of The Truth About You.
Can’t wait to hear your stories. And, don’t forget, you have to tell the truth.
I have been a total hypocrite and taught my son & stepsons some really bad truths about “Christians” and living the life of a church person. I was the smiling, loving woman at church and the screaming, despicable shrew at home. I was mean and always critical. I know now that they really did feel that no matter how hard they tried, they could never win my approval. This is what I showed them about God.
Now I have wounded relationships with them that I’m trying to mend, but the thought of facing up to each one and telling them and asking for their forgiveness will result in a shrug of the shoulders or an outright denial of that forgiveness. I’m scared, but I know I must.
That’s about as open & honest as I can be.
In a 2 month span in high school I was so lost I accidently shot my best friend and got my girlfriend pregnant. Thank God for His salvation!
I had a drooling problem till I was 6 or 7. I had problems breathing through my nose so you could always tell my brother (who is 364 days younger than me) and I apart. I was the one smiling in the pictures with the big ring of drool down the front of my shirt. My parents asked the doctor if I would be walking down the isle at my wedding with a drool stain. He assured them that I would eventually grow out of it and I have. And yes, there are pictures.
While living in Chicago I repossessed cars (among other things) to make ends meet. On more than one occasion I would be on a date in the city and be near a car that needed to be re-poed. So, on more than one occasion, my date would drop me off and I would “steal” a car to get home.
I am liar, a procrastinator, I lust after women who are not my wife, I yell at my children when they don’t deserve it, I love myself more than God sometimes…most times, I try to make myself look better by twisting the truth, I long to be known, I am a gossip, I have tried to tear others down by telling things about them that the told me in confidence, I am a despicable, wretched, disgusting excuse of a person…YET…I am a pastor… who is trying everyday to be more like my Savior and I am thankful for grace…not the cheap, I will sin again and know it grace, but the grace that saves me. I AM A CHILD OF GOD!!!. That is the first time I have ever really admitted those things to anyone other than myself in a journal and to God. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share this here.
In High School I was an office assistant to the principal for 5th hour. I forged his signature on passes to get my friends out of class. Never got caught. This happened for weeks.
Thankfully the Lord saved me from what could have been a life of white-collar-crime no doubt.
I pooped my pants–in public. I know, all of us have (usually before the age of 3), but for me, I was 24 and a youth pastor in Toledo, OH. And to make matter worse–I was in a suit hosting dinner for a funeral party.
I knew I wasn’t feeling good but thought it was just a reaction to eating one too many deviled eggs. As I was trying to connect with a middle school girl in a conversation, what I thought was a little “gas” was not and the next thing I knew something brown and warm was worming its way down my leg.
the poor middle school girl, saw the panic on my face and then caught a whiff of source of that panicked look.
The sad thing is–I still have that suit!!
When I was a youth pastor, I was in a Hampton Inn and threw a role of toilet paper down the hallway and knocked off a sprinkler head and flooded out two floors. They also had to evacuate the hotel. That’s the short version.
I just read these comments hoping to find someone weirder than me.
Now that’s real honesty…
Wow, I’m such a book-hound that I’ll actually share a dark truth just for a book?! It all started when I was an 8-yo boy. I went to the library, and stayed so long I had to go to the bathroom. The long kind of trip, you know. When I was finished, I realized too late there was no paper. Anywhere. In. The. Room. What on earth do you do? You do what you gotta do, man up, even if you’re a young boy. Suffice it to say, a strange feeling wells up in my bowels any time I go to a library. Sad, but true. So please, I beg you – don’t make me to go the library to read Buckingham’s new book!!
Loved Perry’s challenge to the staff. It caused me to really evaluate where I am and what I want to be when I grow up! The problem I see “marketplace” people running into (point 4) is that most ministry people find it natural to live out God’s call on their live by earning a paycheck by followjng Gods call to full time ministry. On the other hand, my experience is that it seems tougher to follow what God’s call on your life when you know you have to work a secular/ “normal” job to pay the bills, but you truly desire to advance His kingdom. Most companies are not as benevolent as Perry (i.e. 3 months salary to quit), so a quandary of pay the bills or make a change ensues.
On to The Truth About You…I’m not going for the weirdest or most revealing comment award, so my truth is I am a member of the advisory boards for all three institutions where I matriculated – High School, College and Grad School. I also have a secret obsession of watching the new 90210 with my wife, but I don’t tell anyone.
You said you wanted honesty so here goes nothingJ
When I was in seminary my buddy got me a job in a lab that I was in no way qualified to have. I was supposed to just clean up tests and keep things neat and organized. The money was great and so I thought it was cool. I wasn’t making a difference but I thought I could just put my headphones on and put up with it for a couple years. Eventually my disinterest and dissatisfaction with the job caught up and I started cutting corners. I was eventually fired for poor performance, which all the sudden woke me up to what a tool I had been. Everyone there knew I was a Christian and heading into ministry and I had left the worst testimony ever.
I should have known myself and my gifting better and pursued something inside of my interests and strengths. I should have resigned now, but instead I kept trying to tough it out for the money and stability.
10 truths about me that I wish weren’t true:
1) I love to throw “Bible” darts at people for my own benefit.
2) Although I am not overweight, I am a glutton.
3) I am not financially responsible, so I rob God.
4) When I help people, I want an immediate reward or recognition.
5) I am afraid to talk about Jesus to some people because I know it will make me uncomfortable.
6) I idolize my own comfort, so I ignore God sometimes.
7) I wouldn’t want my daughter’s husband to treat her like I treat my wife.
8) I fall asleep often when I pray.
9) It is difficult for me to accept authority.
10) I usually keep these things to my self.
Thanks for the opportunity to share.
I preach to be seen by people. I really like the “great sermon”‘s and the “wow, Billy”‘s I sometimes get. I like hearing people brag about me. And I struggle with it all the time.
That’s the truth about me that I wish wasn’t true….any of the time!
I used to castrate pigs and chop off their tails for $3.35/hour.
When I was about 14, I found a “dirty” magazine my dad hid in the garage. I snuck it into the house and looked at it 2 or 3 days, then felt guilty and burnt it in our woodstove (our sole source of heat) to get rid of the evidence. The problem is, when I opened the stove, not all of it had burned! I panicked and used our scoop to scoop the ashes into the “ash bucket” (if you had a wood stove, you know what I mean). I was scared my dad would see part of it, so I climbed the fence and went several yards into the woods (on our neighbor’s property) and dumped the evidence. I came home and pretended nothing had happened. When my dad came home, he ran in screaming, “the d&$m woods are on fire!” The smoldering ashes had caught the woods on fire!! The fire department came and I remember hearing one of the firemen say “we’ll find the source of this” and I was SO scared they would! (They never found the source!) A CRAZY day for me I’ll never forget as long as I live!
Jesus interrupted my life when I was 24. Graduated from high school with GED at 31. Graduated from Bible college at 36. Pastor of church 1, media director church 2, pastor church 3, attempted church planting, media producer for churches, pastor church 4, unjustly fired from church 4, broken-hearted, broken. broke, and FINALLY at age 52 I am starting the ministry God placed in my heart long ago. I am a blessed man, and THAT’S THE TRUTH ABOUT ME!
I was young, very lost, newly married and partying like a rock star. I had a dead end job until I cried about my paycheck being late and my husband visited the boss. So I found a new job with an insurance company, not because I knew anything about insurance but because I could pass the exam and they offered a free two week trip to Chicago to brainwash…um, I mean….train new hires.
The first weeks pay was guaranteed because your supervisor was with you every day to make sure you did and said all the right things. I had the worlds worst first week of selling. By Friday, I knew this wasn’t for me but I didn’t know what else to do but keep on keeping on.
We drove down a long dusty road to where the mountains meet the sky and found a small shack, no running water, no electricity. The lady of the house was elderly, painfully uneducated and no match for the power sell of the supervisor. She had cataracts so thick that they were visible but not to her…nothing was visible for her. She obviously had no need for yet more insurance (these were “qualified leads”, as in they had already bought into the company scam) and just as obviously had no money to buy more. I watched with ever growing discomfort as the supervisor bullied this simple country woman into “making her mark” on the forms. Then she told me to sign the documents.
I refused. I’ll spare you the details of the VERY heated exchange that followed, the icy cold ride back and the subsequent hunt for yet another new job. But I found some self respect on that road.
I learned two things that week. One, insurance might be a wonderful thing but it is an industry rife with corruption and greed. Two, I couldn’t sell water to a man dying of thirst in the desert.
I know this is long but here’s the cool part…the next job tumbled me into the world of computers, where I’ve been for 14 years now. It has been an awesome adventure and along the way, I came to know my Jesus who I now realize had been waiting patiently for me to look around. I’m still interested to see what I’m going to be when I grow up.
I sometimes doubt God even cares…especially when children are suffering.
heh, ok I’ll share something.
I like reactions. Like really like reactions..
In bible school I did 2 things.
1. People kept borrowing my pens.. and wouldn’t give them back.. so I asked a buddy of mine who was a pharmaceutical vendor to get me the largest pen he could with Viagra on the side.. so he did and when people would ask to borrow pens who usually would lose them, I handed them the viagra pen in the middle of class. Needless to say they brought pens from there on out.
2. Always seem to be some crazies in the world and there was one kid who told this girl God said they were to be married.. she did not concur.. well after a year he still bugged her and at the start of our 2nd year, we all had seats next to each other.
He made some comment to her again and I mentioned to her she should go to the administration over it. She didn’t. So one day while she was sick, I slid next to the guy and looked him in the eye, kinda did the arm around the back of the seat thing and said God told me that we were to be wed… smiled, waited for reaction.. then slid back to my seat.. he never bothered her again.
Well you might be thinking who is this guy from california writing to me, well yes i’m from california san francisco to be exact and i follow what you and your church have been doing, great job!
but the one single truth that i may expose for the first time about my past is that I was highly addicted to pornography, as much as i hate it the images ive seen about 6 years ago are images that still haunt me today. I know this may seem cliche but to me this truth was one that i didnt want people to know and trust me I wore a mask that fooled every one including myself. the more i feed the need of this monster the harder it got to say no. pornongraphy is a tool of the enemy and it has stolen the dreams of many men and women. Im glad that i was able to turn away and recieve a saviour who takes my mess ups and turns them into a message. Even now as a christian i cant lie, i need to tell the truth right, i get tempted sometimes i haave slipped into lies, but by the glory of God I am able to resist. it’s hard dont get me wrong, but it’s easier for me to turn away. that is my single truth that i’d like to expose.
Wow. Just a little too much background with some of you. You might need professional help.
Here’s one truth about my past that I wish was a lie: one of my favorite movies to watch in elementary school was Mary Poppins. I still feel a little emasculated!
I live in Australia.
Is that colorful enough?
Never thank God at the urinal. When I was offered a job with my current church I felt so blessed! It was my dream job! After receiving the news I stood at the urinal relieving my bladder and began to thank God for this great blessing. Moments later I looked down and discovered I was standing in a pool of urine. What a mess. As I stood back wondering what I how to clean up my mess a custodian walked in, made a comment about little boys, and went to get a mop to clean up. I didn’t have the courage to say it was my mess.
Thanks for your entries. I couldn’t pick the winners, so I had my assistant do it for me. Blame her. :-)
Here are the winners:
Mark B.
Ryan Smith
Sebren
Matt Adams
Santos Samayoa
If you won, email me with your shipping address. Thanks.
tony
I ate Rocky Mountain Oysters cause someone dared me too. What are those you ask? Nothing other than bull testicles. I still have the taste in my mouth, a new book would help that go away.
I euthanized the family cat with a pillowcase, a brick and a pool and then lied about it to my sister that I did. Pretty disturbing.
I am a wife, mother, worship leader, songwriter, and mentor who has only recently began to believe that God loves her. I have the wonderful opportunity to travel the world singing background for different artists and Ive met some amazing people. But in this last year, I have shed the “image” of who people think I am, and I’m on he journey to discovering who I really am in Christ. I read your blog every day. And whether I get the book or not, I’ve received so much encouragement from our posts.
Thanks for the book Tony, can’t wait to dive into it.