Ask the Minion

Hello Everyone.

Last week, I asked you to post your questions on Facebook and I told you I would do my best to answer them.  Before I get to the questions, let me give you a couple of things.  First of all, I am not associated with the movie, Despicable Me so any questions regarding those minions, I will decline to answer.  Second, please remember that when I write these posts, they are just my opinions and what I believe the Lord shows me.  I do not have any type of degree or certification counseling so if you have a serious problem, please seek professional help as I don't want to lead you astray.

OK, let's get to the questions.

1.  MB - How do I get a guy like you?  Let me start by saying how flattered I am at the question.  While this may sound like false humility, I really don't consider myself all that special but I am a good guy.  So how do you get a good guy (someone better than me, I hope)?  My first thought is that you have to find one.  So when you are around boys or girls, ask yourself how they make you feel and why?  Are they good to you and do they treat you right?  Do they always strive to do the right thing (even if they aren't perfect)?  Do they make you feel special and are you compatible?  Is there any real attraction between the two of you?  If the answer to these questions is yes then you have found someone.

Now here's the hard part - How do you get them to like you?  The answer is - you can't.  Just be yourself, if they like you for you then great.  If not, then they really aren't the person for you.  If you have to change yourself to be someone else for them to like you, eventually you will go back to being your real self and then you have a problem or you will change so much that you won't like yourself.  So just be you.  Be bold enough to go say hello to them and talk to them and then see what happens.  MB, if you have more questions, please don't hesitate to ask and I will try to answer.

MP - What is the meaning of life?  According to Webster's dictionary one meaning is - the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.  If you mean philosophically, I really don't know.

TTS - Why is life so confusing when it gets hard?  There are a lot of reason for that but I think one thing that happens to me is when life gets hard my emotions tell me one thing and my head tells me something else.  When that happens, sometimes my heart is right, sometimes my head is right.  The only thing I can tell you is to take your decisions to God.  When you get peace from Him about the right decision, then go with it.  I will probably try to expand on this in another post.

JAE & AA - What's your favorite food? - That is a hard question and the answer changes based on the mood I am in at the time.  I like almost all kinds of food.  Over the course of my life, my absolute favorite has probably been pizza.

KL - Why does God allow awful things like abuse, especially child and domestic to occur? The Lord is supposed to be this all-knowing, all-loving, kind, caring God. Yet He lets his children suffer?  KL, I have struggled with this question for many years.  I mean, why did God let the serpent take the blessing in the garden of Eden anyway?  Part of the answer is that we are free will beings and we can choose what we do.  Thing about this - If you could make someone love you and you knew that the only reason they loved you is because you made them, would you make them love you?  I wouldn't because it wouldn't be real love.  I believe that God set a system in place and he expected us to follow that system.  As adults when we don't then there is the risk that we will get hurt.  Now let me say, I can feel pain from thinking about child abuse and I don't know why this happens.  It is so awful and so wrong.  I believe that God's hands are tied in certain places and sometimes he can't interfere but I really don't know why.  Now I can hear some of you saying that God is all powerful and he can do anything.  If that's the case, why did Jesus have to come die for my sins?  KL, I don't feel like I did a good job of answering this question but I hope this helps some.

PC - Who is better - Batman or Superman? - In my book, Superman is better.  Why because he always stood for truth, justice and the American way plus he could fly and was super strong.

FB

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Leadership

Today I want to talk about leadership. 

The thing that really annoys me about this topic is I hear people talk about how to be a leader all the time.  As a matter of fact, four or five years ago, that was the "in" thing to talk about.  People wrote books about it, gave classes about it and in general told you everything you needed to know to become one.

But I really struggled watching people who were leaders that didn't have any people following them.  I saw several people who could tell you what to do and what not to do.  They were "in the know" about all sorts of topics.  In fact, if you needed help with a situation, just bring it up around them and they wouldn't even wait for you to ask, they would just "lead" you out with a lot of advice you didn't request.  Have you ever met people like that?

Well now I want to take a swing at how to be a leader.  Let's start with a good definition.  As I was working out this morning, I was reading a book by Dick Marcinko.  Dick was the leader of a group of Navy Seals in the 1980s and he has written several books about his team.  Now these books are not about his actual team, they are fiction and I would classify them as mental candy.  I don't know that the really expand my mind from reading them.  In the book I am reading now, Mr. Marcinko gave the perfect definition of leadership in two words - follow me.

See I think that is what real leadership is all about.  I am learning as I continue to grow in the places where the Lord put me in a leadership role that this is the crux of how to lead.  In my particular position, I tried to just let things evolve on their own and I basically just sat back and watched a lot of things grow on their own.  I was fortunate that the Lord blessed the work and it did grow but now I understand that I need to lead from the front and provide the vision. 

When I think of leadership, I think of two of my closest friends JC and BL.  They both embody the principal that I am discussing today.  Now let me tell you a couple of things that I learned from both of them while I was at TCU.  First of all, while I was learning these principals from them, I didn't always like them.  They were demanding and they were normally not very tactful in the way they approached getting us to follow them.  But I would have done anything either of them asked because of the way they led. 

See, I followed them.  Why because they were doing what they wanted me to do and they were doing it to such a high level that they did it better than everyone else.  Their challenge was always come up here where I already am and let's get better together.  See, if I wanted their leadership, I only needed to look in front of me because that's where they were.

These two guys embodied what Dick Marcinko said - follow me.  So what am I trying to say today?  If you want people to follow you just start doing what you want people to do.  Quit trying to tell everyone else how they should do something and just live your life as an example of how it should be done.  That's true leadership.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion.