Something a little more personal today.

I feel bad, ashamed, and sad that I just plain old chose to miss “it” yesterday.

The Story

There is this sweet older lady named Josie. Josie is my grandmas neighbour in her condo building. Josie has a kind, gentle and plain old friendly personality. Over the last years our family has gotten to know her and she has loved on our kids.

Yesterday I was supposed to go visit Josie on my way home. It was a long day, I was tired, I just wanted a shower and supper. I even had this conversation in the car with God as I’m driving home from work. It went like this, “Lord, I just want a hot shower and some rest. You know the busy day I had, I’ll go visit her tomorrow.” I didn’t “hear” anything else, assumed we were good, and grabbed a hot shower at the Y and went home to a nice relaxed evening.

Josie died at 2 am this morning….

When I heard the news I knew I had blown it.
Thankfully I had the opportunity months ago to share Christ with Josie and answer some of her questions. As far as I know she loved and accepted Christ as her savior.

Sadly, I heard God yesterday and did nothing. Even better, in all my wisdom I let Him know when it would suit me better. (Seriously how idiotic can I be planning His calendar for Him) Have you ever seen that Mastercard commercial where the coach comes into the hockey locker room between periods and the text says “knowing what and when to say it” and the screen shows him saying nothing and the screen then fades to “priceless”? That was my feeling today. Face down,ashamed, feeling somewhat like Isaiah did, a small, small man, hearing the stillness of His rebuke. Thankfully, I know His grace is sufficient, and His passion for me is never ending no matter how undeserved it is.

So today I have two questions for you.

1. Has He asked you to do something that you haven’t?
2. If He has rebuked you don’t miss it and confess accordingly. Don’t miss His passion and desire for you by not hearing and acting on His rebuke. Proverbs 1:23 reminds us by saying, “if you had responded to my rebuke I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you.”

I missed it yesterday. I accept His rebuke today. I’ve confessed today. I’m forgiven today. . I continue to place my trust in Him and long for His heart and His thoughts and the courage to act. I trust you do as well.

So yesterday I wrote about my one sentence mission. Or my “OSM.” I recommend you take the time to create one for yourself. It’s hard, takes time and yes it can change over time. For me, at least, it brings clarity to the here and now.

Often people have asked me, “Where do I start.”  Here are my thoughts based on my own journey. I have divided this post into 3 parts.

A – The 4 simple steps I used

B – Further/deeper explanation of the steps

C – Example of the Stephen Covey Mission Statement tool. I copied my results as the example.

Part A

4 steps to creating your own one sentence descriptor (further explanation below)

(If you’re in a rush, just do step #3 as a starting point)

1. Know your strengths. Take a personality assessment. (Read about my thoughts on StrengthFinder here)

2. Write down any and all your thoughts about this topic concerning you.

3. Use a tool like Stephen Covey’s Mission Statement Builder as a good starting point.. (See my results below)

4. Craft, Reshape, Edit, Finalize, and do it over again.

Part B

Further Explanation on the 4 Steps

1. I find that personality profiles didn’t actually help me in creating my one sentence mission. However they were and continue to be a great creative starting point and reference tool. Your profile helps to explain the “how” you will achieve your OSM.

2. I can’t emphasize this enough. For me this process took a long time. Mostly because I was never satisfied with my results and I actually never took enough focused time to put it all together. However I did save virtually any type of descriptive mission statement that piqued my interest. I used Evernote to save all my notes.

3. I didn’t do this initially, but think it is a great tool for people to help shape their thoughts and key passions, desires and wants.

4. This is by far the most important step. This takes time and for most lots of it. For me personally it took about 4 edits and revisions, which happened over about 4 months. (Remember I didn’t plan specific time for this) However one benefit of me taking so long is that I had more exposure to other creative ideas, experiences, etc.  Going forward I have now created a yearly reminder to review my OSM. If nothing else to serve as a good reminder of what God has called me to do.

So, with all that said please share your OSM and/or your Covey Mission Statement. I love reading the “mission” of others.

Part C

Example of my results form the Stephen Covey Tool

For kicks, I copied my mission statement as generated by the Covey tool.  I left it in its unedited form so you have an idea of the “product” and what kind of information you would receive and have to edit.

I am at my best when asking questions creating big picture.

I will try to prevent times when i have to be social admin work.

I will enjoy my work by finding employment where I can plan organize lead.

I will find enjoyment in my personal life through read, play sports and spend time anywhere tropical .

I will find opportunities to use my natural talents and gifts such as decision making, planning and leadership.

I can do anything I set my mind to. I will help consult and equip Christ following organizations on how to better lead and make tangible differences in society..

My life’s journey is about Jesus Christ and creating environments for people to choose to follow or deny Him.

I will be a person who Darren was authentic, real and influenced millions for Christ..

My most important future contribution to others will be That they are strong followers of Jesus Christ and strong leaders who influence others.

I will stop procrastinating and start working on:

• spending more time with my family and kids
• to expand our life experience by living internationally for at least some time

I will strive to incorporate the following attributes into my life:

• Leader
• Wisdom
• Discerning

I will constantly renew myself by focusing on the four dimensions of my life:

• work out
• scripture reading
• spend time vacationing with friends and family
• spend time reading and with friends

What would you add in the process of creating personal full blown mission statements, like the Stephen Covey one, or simple one sentence missions? If you have one, how did you create it? Also, please share what yours is.

I just read Malcolm Gladwells latest editorial in “The New Yorker” titled, “How David Beats Goliath.”

I found this editorial fascinating to say the least. There could be many, many interesting thoughts and potentially conclusions that come from it and I recommend people read it. In a nutshell Malcolm points to some research by Arreguín-Toft, a political scientist.

Toft, studied epic battles and wars fought where one side was at least 10 times more powerful than the other side. (through technology, armor and just sheer number of people) What he found wasn’t too surprising. The “goliaths” won the battles 71.5% of the time. While not too surprising that they won more often than they list, what is surprising is that the underdog, a 10:1 underdog at that, won one third of the time. Incredible if you think of it. But the surprise is still to come. Toft did some further research.

Gladwell shares that the biblical story of David and Goliath made Toft re-analyze his data. David after all decided not to use the Kings armor, sword and shield. Instead he took a few stones and sling and killed the mighty giant. The underdog won that battle. When Toft went back and analyzed all the battles where the underdogs won. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5% to 63.6%. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win the majority of battles. Two thirds in fact.  Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

People, the press, the world in general often look at these upsets as flukes, bad luck, etc, etc. Throughout the article Gladwell shares example after example of where the “David” of the story didn’t win by random chance but by meticulously thinking through the options, being creative and by not playing the game by “Goliaths rules.

Almost always i find myself assuming the rules of engagement, of how I ought to do this or that. Not that I face a ton of “goliath’s” in my life. yet again, any small obstacle is still some sort of goliath that I must face and hopefully overcome.

I have no hard and fast conclusions from this but this story and statistics have been floating around in my head constantly since I read them. What do you think could be some outcomes for the church, for Christians, for yourself, if you chose to fight the battle, to face your Goliaths on your terms/rules that you set. What would change in how we act, what we say, teach, how we program, how we teach, how we live if we chose not to play by Goliaths rules?

Perhaps nothing would change…somehow I doubt it.  Any thoughts or comments?

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