Dilemmas

A duck was waiting to cross the road when a chicken came running up.  "Whatever you do, don't do it!" shouted the chicken. "You'll never hear the end of it!"

Don’t expect to have all the answers.

A visitor from a rural African nation in the United States for a big meeting got lost in the big city. He called his host for help.  The host asked, “What are the names of the streets on the corner? Tell me, and I’ll come get you.” After a moment, the visitor came back on the line and said, “I am at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk.”

A man was walking down the street when he came across a body lying on the sidewalk. He immediately called 911. The operator asked him where he was, and the man replied, “I’m on Sycamore Drive.”  “How do you spell that?” the operator asked.  “S-i-c-k…” the man began. “No, s-i-c-a…..” No, s-i-k-a…. oh heck, let me drag him over to Lake street, and I’ll call you back.”

Sometimes life isn’t very easy.

One of my relatives was known for ending conversations with, “THAT I do not know…”  I’d walk away mumbling to myself, “Then what DO you know?”

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. —Acts 1:6-7 (NIV)

If you are leading you will face tough choices—that’s why you get paid the big bucks.  And for some, if not most of those tough decisions, you may not have all the answers.

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13, you know—the love chapter.  Honestly, I don’t like the chapter because of all the love stuff, I like the latter part of this discourse.

Paul says, we don’t know:

Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete… Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. —1 Corinthians 13:9 & 12

This chapter in 1 Corinthians is sandwiched between two other passages the mention speaking in tongues and the role of women in the church.  I think this chapter has the answer to the theological questions those issues encourage—we don’t fully know!  I tell people to pick a position but then remember there’s a fifty-one percent chance you are wrong.

Being the leader doesn’t mean you have all the answers.

Tony Schwarz encouraged, “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity, and a willingness to embrace paradox.”

Mark Batterson advised, “Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery. Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation.”

And Tom Hanks remarked, “A hero is someone who voluntarily walks into the unknown.”

In the book of Ezra we see this:

“So this Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God in Jerusalem. From that day to the present it has been under construction but is not yet finished."--Ezra 5:16

God has us, our leadership and our lives under construction.

I expected God to give the church we started the property we moved into years ago.  I never expected that some guy would embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars and sell the property out from under us.  I expected God to make the land we purchased behind a fitness center work for us.  We had a contract on it and things looked pretty good, I never expected the city to take three and a half years to do a lot split and then all of the sudden redo things to make that property a flood plain.  I never expected that we’d buy property on a major road; we expected to become at least six lanes.  When the city told us it would be a smooth path to getting a building built there, I didn’t expect that we’d be sued and lose and get a huge judgement against us.  And I also never expected us to be able to buy a bank for less than what we were paying for rent at a movie theater complex.  I never expected that a city that has so many hoops to jump through would simply stamp our request to meet here.  I never expected the bank that sued us and held the judgment to go out of business.  I never expected the bank that took over for them to go out of business as well. 

God has had my expectations constantly under construction.  And I suspect God’s done the same thing with yours.

Lily Tomlin concluded, “The road to success is always under construction.”

We don’t have all the answers, but we do have God.  He is enough.