"Natural gifts, such as personal charisma, mental brightness,, emotional strength, and organizational ability can impress and motivate people for a long time. Sometimes they can be mistaken for spiritual vitality and depth. Sadly, we do not have a Christian culture today that easily discriminates between a person of spiritual depth and a person of raw talent...
"We must always be aware that there are leaders who can build great organizations (including churches) on natural gifts. Say the right words, be smart enough to do the right things, be insightful enough to connect with the right people, and one can go a long way before anyone ever discovers that the inner life is close to empty."
(from Gordon McDonald, "Ordering Your Private World")
This book has been one of "those" books in my life. I have read it several times... each time gaining something I didn't before. If you have not read it, and especially if you are a "type A" personality, I think it is require reading. The premise of the book is that many people spend a lot of time and energy working on their outer world (what they project to others) and neglect the real inner one... who they really are before God. McDonald compellingly calls us to live with integrity... it is a challenging book for me.
Interesting note though: Just a few years after this book was published (it has sold over 1 million copies), McDonald had an affair. Here he was, telling pastors to order their private lives... and he was not ordering his own. I remember when I found this out (years ago at my first church) -- I had just read the book and made some changes to my life... then found this out. I was in despair.
"Man, if the guy who wrote the book on it can't do it..."
Being a person of faith is always harder than talking about it.
Reflections of a Journeying Blogger
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2 comments:
I wonder Paul, if this isnt also true in the world of Christian Music. We look up to Christian Singers as spiritual giants and are destroyed by thier falibility. Look at what happened when Amy Grant divorced her husband (who it turns out was very violent). Heather was crushed
I think sometimes that part of the reason we, as humans, have insight into certain aspects of life is because we are dealing/wrestling with them ourselves.
I also think it's somewhat odd how quickly we (Christians) judge each other over things like divorce and affairs. I don't mean to justify them at all, but Andrew C has a good point--we rarely if ever know the whole story of famous or popular people. And for some reason we see those marital troubles as particularly unforgivable.
[Maybe, said the psychologist, maybe we judge extra hard because deep down we know that we are weak and fallible just like these heroes, but we want to distance ourselves from that sense of co-failure.]
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