John Piper rocks my world

Noel Piper, John Piper's wife, has been posting their daughter's adoption story over the last couple weeks. One of the posts that stood out to me was a reproduction of John's letter voicing his agreement with the adoption. It highlights two challenges for me.

1. A model of Biblical submission and love. Noel states several times that after many hours of discussion, the final decision would be John's - submission. In his letter, John states that Noel's heart's desire is the most important factor in his decision - love. He agrees to adoption not purely out of his own reasoning, but primarily to love and sacrifice for his wife. When was the last time I made a decision like that?
   
2. Consistency of commitment and character. John makes it clear that after honoring his wife, adoption is a way to live a radical commitment to love, racial reconciliation, male/female role modeling, pro-life, and every area of his life's ministry. He is (and they are) willing to put their beliefs on the line visibly, publically, and irrevocably. Have I ever done that?

If I didn't respect John Piper before, I certainly do now. He is far from perfect, I know, but he has established an impressive platform to speak from.

Don't trust the nice

I recently had a revelation about the reorganization and downsizing at work. There are two broad categories of people now working...those that will continue to work, and those that will be laid off. The revelation was that for most of the people in both groups, today is about the same.

They come to work, they do what they are asked to do, they eat lunch, they gossip and worry and try to predict the future. Those that will no longer be working do not (for the most part) have "Short-Timer" on their badge or a day-to-day lease on their office. We are all just doing our jobs as best we can.

Yet behind the scenes, there is more going on. The managers and decision makers have opinions and thoughts. Whether they can articulate it or not, they already know if they really want to keep you (and me) or not. At the same time, they may not know what they think until the question is asked, and even if they do, it is unlikely that they will share it with us.

The conclusion? You cannot trust the nice. Nice is what everyone will be until they hire or fire you. Taking confidence from someone's outward demeanor is completely unfounded. Rarely is anyone truly evil, but rarely will they be open and honest with themselves or with you from the beginning.

So what to do? First, stop being mediocre. The excellent ones get genuine praise, not ambivalent niceties. Second, base your thoughts, emotions, and actions on your reality, not others'. This goes for positive and negative stuff from others. In the end you get to live with you, I get to live with me, and others live with themselves. No one gets to trade places.

Agree or Disagree or Both or Neither?

Scott Young recently posted about advice he disagrees with, including some of his own. It is a fun post because

1. I agree with him
2. I disagree with him

The cool thing about the web is that there are folks out there I agree with and those that I disagree with. The same is probably true for you. Here is the surprise in the days of black-and-white partisanship...sometimes they are the same person.

It is fantastic to read something that both affirms and challenges me at the same time. The list isn't long. Go read it and see if you can find yourself nodding in agreement and writing him off as a fool at the same time. I did.

The Key to a Happy Marriage

The title is a bit ambitious and very misleading. If you think that a blog post will give you The Key to a happy marriage, then you are

a) reading the wrong blog and
b) fooling yourself.

There is a key that I am thinking about today, though. Self-awareness. Simply the ability to know what I am feeling and thinking plus why I am feeling and thinking that way. If I do not know myself, why would my wife have a chance?

As an example, imagine I am mad at my wife. If I know that the reason is that she said something that touched a core insecurity around finances, I can tell her that and we can sort it out. If all I know is that I'm mad and she's a jerk, there is not much to work with.

So be aware of yourself. Check your thoughts and feelings, figure out what they are all about, and share them with your spouse. You'll both be glad you did.