life

Dave (personal) / faith / friends / God / jesus / life — No Comments
12
Sep 11

What’s mine is mine

I’m a very transparent person. If you follow me on twitter, friended me on facebook, or are a regular reader of this blog you basically know where I’m at in life and what my mood is like at any given time. It wasn’t always like this. I never used to share anything with anybody regarding personal matters, struggles or even accomplishments. I was a very private person.

These days, I probably share too much and at times it probably seems like I share too often. However, know that it is really, really hard for me to do this. To invite someone into my messy journey is such a foreign thing for me. I’m so used to sucking it up and dealing with it on my own--believing that it’s my struggle and my ability that will get me through it--that to do anything differently feels like such a risk. What’s mine is mine and should remain out of sight from others and resolved without any help. At times I feel like I make my burden someone else’s burden when I even tell them what I’m going through or calling upon them to pray with me.

God has laid a heavy task on me. He has called me to him and requires that I rely on him--and not myself--to make it down the path he has laid before my feet. For many this may seem like an easy thing to do. For some, it may seem like a necessity in order to be deemed a Christian. Take responsibility away from oneself and put it at the feet of Christ. To me, this is like trusting someone else with my own life. It’s scary, weird, and extremely difficult. It’s the cross I carry everyday. What’s mine is mine I keep telling myself.

For my friends that have hung around long enough to endure some of my burden, it is as if you were Jesus to me. Your support and encouragement and listening ears have helped me with my struggle on many occasions. One day I hope to be able to trust completely in my God and his promises, but because of where I’ve been, it’s hard to let go of the rope. What’s mine should be his, only made mine because with his help I can make it through the day. I am being changed and shaped for a life that I may not recognize, but it’s one that I desire. A life that transforms me from being mine to being his. To be in a relationship with God where I can trust him with my life even in the most mundane of things. There is hope.

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Dave (personal) / life — No Comments
30
Mar 11

Underneath everything, there is pain

I’ve heard story after story of how people must experience lows in life, before getting to the highs.

I’ve heard story after story of how people must fail repeatedly before they can succeed.

I’ve heard story after story of how people must feel pain in order to understand true pleasure.

I’ve heard story after story of how there must be darkness before there can be light.

I never used to buy into the absoluteness of those stories.

I’ve been humbled by a lot this past year.

I am now one of those stories.

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Dave (personal) / leadership / life / vision — No Comments
10
Dec 10

My 3 C’s for success: Commitment

Of the 3 C’s: creativity, collaboration and commitment, I feel like commitment is the most important. So often we end up so close to realizing success, yet we quit just short of realizing the dream.

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” --William Feather.

It takes a committed effort to be successful, but sometimes it takes a lot longer than we anticipated. We can start off fully committed and passionate about realizing success, but after a few months or a few years it just gets discouraging. Creativity happens and generally acts like a magnet to draw people together to collaborate. It’s commitment though that takes a tremendous amount of effort to keep going. Creativity and collaboration together are wonderful things and important ingredients to success, but without a commitment to see it through, success will not be realized.

Are you prepared to hang on even when others would tend to let go? If so, then prepare to celebrate your success!

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Dave (personal) / life / revolution church sacramento / vision — 1 Comment
7
Dec 10

My 3 C’s for success: Collaboration

I posted yesterday about how creativity was the first “C” required for success. From my experience, the second one is collaboration. For every one who claims success, I say that somewhere along the lines there must have been collaboration. There are varying levels of collaboration--from bouncing ideas of others and surveying their thoughts all the way to joining hand-in-hand with others all sharing equally in the effort.

When I think my efforts to launch my printing business 10 years ago, I often think my success was entirely due to my efforts. However, there was a lot of thing that went into making it a successful venture. First of all, being a sales agent I was a facilitator. Therefore, I needed a partner who would act as my supplier. I partnered with a company in South Korea that extended me credit terms and preferential schedules with no credit history, D&B ranking, or personal guarantee from me. With that partnership, the collaborative effort began. Later, as my business continued to double every year for the first 4 years, I employed a team of people to help meet the needs of our growing client base. In the office, we worked together in a collaborative effort to provide a high level of service to clients as well as managing print projects with our supplier.

As a church planter, I again could look at all of the things that were handled by me and there were many days I felt alone. However, in hindsight, it is easy to see all of the hands that were involved in getting us through our first year. We had ministries graciously helping to support us financially and prayerfully, there were people coming together as a collective of ideas and experiences to help us stay on track and focused on fulfilling the vision of the church plant. Of course, it was a collaborative effort of people with different gifts that came together to form our launch team. The church plant was my baby and I held control and steered the direction of a lot of things, but it required much from others to get as far as we did.

For every major undertaking I’ve embraced, I can’t think of one where collaboration was not important to the success of it. What about you? Where has collaboration been important to your success? Has there been failure in your life due to your unwillingness to collaborate? Your comments are always appreciated!

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Dave (personal) / life / vision — 3 Comments
6
Dec 10

My 3 C’s for success: Creativity

I’m starting a 3-part blog series on what I feel contributes to being successful from my own personal experience. The first ingredient is creativity. The word creativity is something I have struggled with for a long time. As a child I used to feel very creative. I was always drawing and coloring and building things. However, I always felt pressure to excel in academics and therefore my artful side was always just more of a hobby. As an adult I have learned that this aspect of creativity is best relegated as a hobby. I am awful at it when compared to others who have made the expression of art a passion of theirs. Where I do feel as if I excel in creativity is quite different from that of an artist. For me, a definition of creativity is: the ability to take the mundane and ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary. A secondary definition might be: Being able to do more with less.

In my world, I just can’t think of a single instance where one could be successful without some aspect of creativity. Even just having a thought of doing something different or out of the ordinary falls under the label of being creative. I think most of us have ideas and dreams that require creativity, yet we fail to move forward with them and there-in lies the failure. It’s why--while creativity is an element of success--without the other two C’s there cannot be success. I’ll complete this thought in my next two posts.

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below about:

  • What creative things have you been thinking about acting on, yet unsure of how you can be successful with?
  • How has creativity led to the success of a venture or project in your life?
  • Can you envision being successful at something that does not involve some element of creativity?
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