Matt's Muzings
The Challenge of Change
I wrote a Muzing almost a month ago. It just sat on my computer and I didn't sense to push it to get it done. It was about the challenges we are facing on the campus from my perspective. I tentatively called it, “life sucks” as I told about my brother dying and those were the words he used to describe the pain of his life as cancer ate away at him. Sometimes I feel that way.
There are lots of challenges in my life right now as the process of change is always messy and the past leadership teams have been shuffled around. I have stepped down from most of the leadership I carried, although I still am involved in the DTS center. Issues like identity, security, pride and finding your value are always creeping around like all the other little bugs you find in a tropical climate.
Added to that, our family income has dropped significantly and I am scrambling to see if I can find another online course to teach or some way to fill the gap.
The fire is turned up. The challenges of life test you. Impurities rise to the surface and others can see it. For example, I was teaching the other day, telling about things going on in my life. I was talking to the students about honesty with God and used an honest and yet risky word as an example of something that I was struggling with that morning. Is it possible to be too open in front of people? Yes, it is. I apologized for it at the end of class.
Okay, Lord, the heat is on, now what?
Then I went to see “The Passion of The Christ”. How can you put in words what you watch on the screen? You see Jesus, and watch His life. You see what he went through.
I am undone.
How can I describe it?
He has called us to live out that love.
He has called us to pick up our cross and follow Him.
He has called us into the fellowship of His suffering.
I am now trying to put things back into perspective. I know why Peter began to sink when he looked at the waves. I know why the disciples ran when the guards came to get Jesus. I have felt like things are sinking and I have wanted to run.
I can run, but I must run to him. I must force my eyes off the waves and put them on the author and perfecter of my faith. He has paid a price and he will finish the work that he began in me, if I let Him.
What has that to do with leadership? In one sense, nothing, and yet in another sense, everything. I will leave it to him to make application at this point.