Leadership Thought: A Pastor’s Episode with “Stinkin’ Thinkin’”

Dear Friends,

A Man walked into a fortune teller’s tent at a carnival and paid his money to have his palm read. “I see many things,” she said. Like what?” the man asked.

“You will be poor and unhappy until you are forty-five,” she stated.

“Oh,” he said dejectedly. Then he had a thought. “What will happen when I’m forty-five?”

“You will get used to it.”

Negative thinking often sets the tone for our life. If we expect things to be bad, that is the way they will be. On the other hand, if we expect things to be good, that’s the way they will be.

In Alcoholic Anonymous people often talk about "stinkin’ thinkin’.” The other day I had an episode with “stinkin’ thinkin’.” I was working on our Mother’s Day message. Preaching to a computer screen or a video camera is a new and challenging assignment for many of us as pastors. It is not easy. And I had reinforced that belief by telling myself  again and again how difficult it was. I had spent four excruciating hours trying to record a 25-minute message, with Pastor Nick overseeing the taping. Again, and again I would make a mistake, and have to back up and start all over again. Finally, in exasperation, I cried out, “This is impossible.” And guess what, it would continue to be impossible if I persisted in reminding myself that it would be so. 

I told Pastor Nick that my mind was so filled with negative thinking that I needed to go home and reassess my attitude. When I arrived the next day to repeat the taping, I possessed an entirely different attitude. I attacked the challenge, and within an hour, I had completed the recording. 

What had changed? It was my attitude. In the intervening 24 hours I had realized that my attitude was impacting my actions. My negative expectations had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

In between recordings  the Holy Spirit reminded me of one of the first verses I memorized as a new believer.  Philippians 4:13, which states “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

Shame on me. I had given up instead of looking up. I had succumbed to “stinkin thinkin.”

Ben Franklin once said. “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall receive it,” and nothing was just what I had received.

Relying on our own experience, abilities, and wisdom will always get us in trouble. Reminding ourselves of our own inadequacies and insufficiencies will keep us from achieving those significant things God wants us to achieve and accomplish in our life. Shame on me for forgetting this and trusting more in my own abilities than in HIs strength, in my own experience than in His power.

We need to be like the “Little Engine That Could” who kept climbing to the top of that steep mountain all the while repeating “ I think I can,” “I think I can,” “I think I can.” And then when we make it to the top, we can relax and joyfully look back down the mountain and proclaim because of God’s power “I knew I could,” “ I knew I could,” “I knew I could.” 

Yours in faith and friendship,
Tom