24 posts tagged with "Spirituals"

The most important lesson I ever teach younger engineers is this:

Solve the customer's problem, not the one you wish they had.

I call it The Parable of the Bridge Builder.

A wealthy man walks into a bridge builder's office.

"I'd like a suspension bridge," he says. "Six lanes. Railway line on top. Finest steel and concrete money can buy. Money is no object."

The bridge builder is intrigued.

"Where would you like this bridge?"

"In front of my house."

The builder blinks.

"...Why?"

"Well," the man replies, "there's a small dip in my driveway. When it rains, water collects there. Sometimes I step into the puddle and my shoes get wet."

He sighs.

"This cannot continue."

At this point, every engineer in the room has already designed twelve better solutions.

Fill the dip.

Level the driveway.

Build a small footbridge.

Buy the man rain boots.

Teach him to look down occasionally.

Problem solved.

Except...

The customer did not ask for any of those.

Having another child has reminded me that fatherhood is not only about teaching a child.

Sometimes the child arrives and begins teaching you.

Not with sermons.

Not with arguments.

Not with carefully prepared PowerPoint slides, because newborns have not yet discovered corporate suffering.

Just by existing.

Quietly. Loudly. Repeatedly. Usually at night.

Somewhere beneath the blazing sun of ancient Canaan, an old man is listening to what may be the most unbelievable promise ever made.

His name is Abraham.

He has no children. His wife Sarah is barren. Both of them have lived long enough to know that biology has already packed its bags and gone home. If Abraham were alive today, people would politely tell him:

Sir... it is time to start looking at retirement villages, not baby strollers.

Then God speaks.

"I will make you into a great nation."

"I will bless you."

"I will make your name great."

Now pause for a moment.

If you have spent enough time around overly religious people, that probably is not the speech you expected.

You almost expect God to say something like:

Abraham, I have called you into a life of glorious suffering. From today onward, your primary assignment is to be permanently broke, perpetually miserable, and mildly dehydrated... for My glory.

But that is not what happened.

Instead, God begins talking about Abraham's future. His family. His inheritance. His influence. His success.

Almost as though God genuinely wanted something good to happen to the man.

Imagine that.

There is a sentence in the Bible that sounds suspiciously like something you would hear during a Monday morning status meeting: “While your servant was busy here and there ...”

It appears in 1 Kings 20:35–43. A prophet, disguised as a wounded soldier, approaches King Ahab with a story. During battle, he says, someone entrusted a prisoner to him with very clear instructions: guard this man. If the prisoner escapes, your life will answer for his life. Unfortunately, while the soldier was “busy here and there,” the prisoner disappeared. King Ahab hears the case and gives his judgment without hesitation: “So shall your judgment be; you yourself have decided it.”

Then comes the awkward part.

The prophet removes his disguise and reveals that the story was about Ahab himself. God had entrusted King Ben-Hadad to Ahab's judgment, and Ahab had released him. Ahab had just pronounced judgment on his own behavior without realizing it.

It is one of those wonderfully uncomfortable moments in Scripture where a man discovers that the sermon is, unfortunately, about him.

But hidden inside the story is a principle that reaches far beyond ancient kings and prisoners: when you accept responsibility for something, you also accept responsibility for navigating the difficulties attached to it. Circumstances may explain why you failed. They do not automatically remove your responsibility for whatever was genuinely within your charge.

That applies whether you are a CEO responsible for a company, a pastor responsible for a congregation, a father or mother responsible for children, a husband or wife responsible for a covenant, a manager responsible for a team, or an intern responsible for updating the spreadsheet without somehow deleting Q3.

Welcome to adulthood. We have responsibilities.

I recently came upon a job posting and had to pause.

Not because the responsibilities were strange.

Not because the role was fake.

But because the gap between the expectations and the compensation was loud enough to start speaking in King James English.

The company wanted a Technical Project Manager for a fintech and crypto product. Remote. Full-time. Reporting directly to the Founder and CEO.

Somewhere in a startup office, a meeting is happening that should have been an email. Deadlines are discussed with confidence, priorities are “aligned” in real time, and words like velocity, ownership, and urgency move freely across the room. Everyone nods. Everyone agrees. And yet, if you pause long enough, a strange realization settles in. No one is entirely sure what is actually happening. The team is busy, but not effective. The company is moving, but not progressing.

Somewhere in a quiet office, a church hallway, a startup meeting, or a family living room, a familiar drama unfolds.

A task was promised.
A deadline was agreed upon.
An expectation was set.

And then… nothing happens.
An explanation arrives instead.

There is always a reason. A circumstance. A complication. A cosmic alignment of events that made success impossible. The weather was wrong. The tools were wrong. The instructions were unclear. The timing was unfortunate.

In this moment, something subtle but powerful is revealed.

Somewhere in a quiet corner of life, a troubling thought appears.

A man says he follows Jesus.

He sings the songs. Knows the phrases. Grew up around church buildings, church programs, church people.

Yet the question lingers in the air like a whisper that refuses to leave:

Does he actually know Christ?

"Cast your cares on the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to fall."
— Psalm 55:22

Let's start with something simple:

God said you should cast your cares on Him.

Not the other way around.

"You are not going to be a disciple spending 1 hour a week with Jesus"
- Andrew Wormack

Imagine, if you will, a small, padded room. It has air conditioning, polite music, and comfortable chairs arranged in neat rows. Once a week, for exactly sixty minutes, the occupants gather. They listen. They nod. They may even say “Amen.” Then a clock ticks, the doors open, and everyone returns to their regularly scheduled lives.

You have just entered the Twilight Zone of modern discipleship.