Live. Love. Lead.

     Guaranteed success?--Who does not want to walk into every meeting, event, date, relationship, etc with the mindset of "I KNOW I've got this!"      For this post success is defined as the "accomplishment of a purpose" (Google) and I would suggest "the accomplishment of His purpose."      I have recently been meditating on Numbers 13 & 14.  The quick context is God is about to take the Children of Israel into His promise.  They had been victorious over slavery and were beginning to find their freedom.  They were experiencing a physical manifestation of God's leading with the pillar of fire and cloud.  Now, God was positioning them to fully embrace His promise of the land.  The spies came back with a bad report, with the exception of two, that accentuated all the reasons why the people would not be successful in this venture.      Then Caleb speaks up, "Do not rebel against the Lord! You should not fear the people...The Lord is with u

     This year for me as a rookie leader was great and tough all at the same time.  One of the areas I wish to do better in is slowing down and investing all my heart in quieting the noise and hearing God's voice.  My goal is to create sacred spaces where I refuse to allow interrupting thoughts a foothold in my mind.      Lately, I have been pursuing a dream that I have had from a young age.  As I struggle between whether I should invest time and money into something that is not so "safe" I have been reading the book of Judges.  One of my favorite passages is about Gideon hearing God's voice in the overwhelming currents of fear.  The first time Judges records that God spoke to Gideon and Gideon heard His voice was when the Angel of the Lord came to Gideon.  Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine vat because there was fear the Midianites might take the wheat (Judges 6:1-12).  The first thing God tells Gideon was an affirmation about His presence--"The LORD is wit

     Recently, I have had several conversations with friends where we have wrestled with the question of, "Are we where we are supposed to be?"  Often we have a tendency to paint of picture of where we should be based purely on the fact that we are a certain age, have accomplished a certain task, or have a certain amount of knowledge.  In this vein, the sole determinant of what chapter in the journey we "should" be living are milestones that we have set; instead of being based primarily on where G-D's presence resides.  This style of life only leads to frustration by creating a glare so that we cannot see the miracles that HaShem is daily weaving for us.        Just weeks ago I struggled, professionally, with where I was supposed to be.  During that same time, I "happened" to be reading Numbers 9:15-23, where HaShem granted the specificity of His direction to His people.  It says, "According to the word of HaShem would the Children of Israel jou