Leadership Thought: Charlie Kirk: Another Sad and Senseless Killing 

Dear Friends

It’s two thirty in the morning and I can’t sleep. My heart is broken over what is happening in our nation.

Another senseless killing-a political assassination just  because some hate filled person is unable to get along with someone who holds a different political view. When will it stop? When will people come together and honesty, and openly discuss their differences in kind and respectful ways?

Every Wednesday I meet with three friends for breakfast. We are different politically. One is liberal, two are somewhere in the middle, and I am on the right. We pray and give thanks for our food and our friendship. We discuss and debate, we listen and learn, we challenge and  confront, and when breakfast is through, we pay our bill,  get up and leave stronger friends than when we came.

Like many of you, I am sick of the dangerous and hateful political rhetoric that is dividing and destroying friendships. There is nothing good about any conversation that divides friendships and contributes to the destruction of the fabric of our democracy.

There is no place for finger pointing and inflammatory speech among those who claim the name of Jesus us.

What has happened yesterday with the senseless killing of a 31-year-old man with a wife and two young  children all  because someone disagreed with his efforts to bring people together to discuss their political differences.

Regardless of one's political position, there is no place for the kind of hatred that would take another person's life-all because they didn't agree with their political position.

I watched in dismay as one congressional representative suggested verbally praying for Charlie Kirk's family, and she was shouted down. Is there no room for  verbal prayer on the floor of Congress?

I was angered when I watched television clips of some individuals celebrating and glorying in his death?

What in the world is wrong with us as a country? How can we be filled with such hatred?

I implore you as a follower of Jesus to guard your tongue and avoid even the hint of anger in any of your political and social discourse.

Jesus is clear when he teaches that we are to us to "love your enemies and do good. and lend ,expecting nothing in return ,and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil." (Luke 6:35),

Paul writes, "Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another at Christ Jesus forgave you." (Ephesians 4:32)

Pastor Chuck Swindoll describes his sister's practical  description of kindness: "Be nice to one another; just be nice. Say nice things to one another."

Years ago, I remember someone wisely teaching "that if you have the choice to be right or kind, always choose to be kind." 

Good advice and let us  pray that we might always heed this admonition.

Yours in faith and friendship, 

Tom

Leadership Thought: How I Dealt with My Summer Spiritual Funk

Dear Friends,

Life has its challenges, and the past several months I've learned this lesson well. A few months ago, I was having some breathing issues while walking my dog, only to discover I had a heart blockage which resulted in the placement of a stent to open one of my arteries providing greater blood flow to my heart.

I contracted a UTI that hospitalized me, but fortunately it was not as severe as the one I suffered a year ago that hospitalized me for a week and which became life threatening when it turned septic.

On top of this in June, I began to experience pain in my hip, only to discover that the hip replacement of 30 years ago had begun to fail requiring the need for another hip replacement.

All of these events, which happened in the span of several months. took its toll on me.

A friend expressed to me that "I was wearing my pain on my face," and I had to admit that I was not dealing very well with all my newly discovered health issues that were beginning to affect my emotional state.

I found myself isolating from friends, and I had to acknowledge that  my hip pain was impacting my efforts to be the kind of person I wanted to be. To put it plainly, I had become self-absorbed with my own issues, and I was not happy with the person I had become.

On top of all this, I noted my devotional life was suffering, and I was not praying and reading my bible the way I knew I should. To put it mildly,  my life was beginning to spiral out of control, and I didn't like what was happening to me.

I knew I had to make some changes to pull me away from my 'woe is me' mentality.

While I had always been able to provide others with help who were going through a similar condition, I couldn't seem to help myself.  I was unable to translate  'knowing what to do,' into 'doing what I know, and I was feeling very guilty about my attitude and actions. I was spiritually stuck in a place I didn't like.

And then one morning I was reminded of a story I had shared many times from the pulpit about a person  who was stuck on the verge of depression. She had been coming week after week to the great psychiatrist Karl Menninger,  and yet she was making no progress in dealing with her condition. After months of counseling, Dr. Menninger, frustrated with his inability to help her, finally said to her as a last resort, "I want you to go across town, find someone in need, and do something to help them." 

She did this and two weeks later she came back to Dr. Menninger a changed woman. All she had needed was an admonition to forget about herself and her own problems and make someone else's problems her own.

Yes, getting back to the discipline of prayer and reading the bible, and church attendance are important, but for me the most important action was thinking about how I could forget about myself and begin thinking about how I could care for others.

I got on the phone and began calling people who I knew would appreciate hearing from me. I began writing letters of encouragement to some friends who were struggling, and  I visited several people who had experienced some personal setbacks, and suddenly my selfish attitude began to dissipate, and I noticed a change in myself, and I discovered I was slowly working myself out of my spiritual funk. 

I am not yet where I want to  be, but I am happy to say that I am no longer stuck in the 'sloth of despond' and I know I am moving in the right direction.

Yes, as Jesus reminds us, our life is meant to be about serving and caring for others, and when we make that our primary goal, we find a life of peace and contentment.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

P.S. While I am still on vacation and not writing a daily Leadership Thought, I wondered if there might be someone like me who was going through their own spiritual funk and who might be helped by this message.