Category: The Dave Rave

I love living in Nashville, Tennessee, the epicenter of creativity; not just in music, but in film, art, and so many other endeavors.  I love being around a creative atmosphere.

But for those who think being creative comes easy, it doesn’t.  It comes with a high price.  Over the years as I’ve struggled to be creative in my own life through writing and speaking and other creative endeavors, I’ve learned along with others that there are seven costs of the creative life.

1. The cost of loneliness. Creativity is done alone.  People tout collaborative efforts and I guess they work.  But I challenge you to go look at the great music and the great art, the great books that are written.  They are all done alone, by a single person in the genius of the creative moment.  If you’re not willing to be alone with yourself, your ideas, and the muse, it’s going to be difficult to be very creative.
2. The cost of being unappreciated. Of the songs, the art, and the books that make it into public, only a fraction wiggle through into the public eye.  The greatest books, the greatest songs have never seen the light of day.  A writer writes.  A painter paints.  A singer sings.  This is what we do.  We don’t do it for money or accolades.  We do it because this is who we are and what we must do.
3. The cost of being misunderstood. Creativity is taking the simple and mundane and looking at it from a different perspective; putting words, ideas, images, things together, so that we get a fresh and better perspective.  It’s also easy to be misunderstood in how we try to express a certain truth.  Some people just don’t get it.  And of they don’t get it, you can’t fall apart worrying about why they don’t.
4. The cost of criticism. Creativity attracts inspection.  It gets put under the microscope.  And those who don’t have a creative bone in their body usually are the loudest in criticizing what they don’t like.  As a creative person you have to learn how to have a tender heart and a tough hide.
5. The cost of being ignored. I went for over ten years being rejected before I got my first book published.  Being ignored is really difficult.  Rejection isn’t something that the creative heart and sensibility takes well.  So you have to pay that price.  And we all do.
6. The cost of being successful. This is what we want, isn’t it?  We want our books to sell, our records to top the charts, our poems to be read, our art to be bought and hung in prominent places.  But here is the double-sided sword of the creative effort: once you’ve been successful, you have to continue to be successful.  It’s the one-up-ism of our culture.  And the burden to have a better record, a better song, a better talk, a better book is one not easily born.
7. The cost of being sidetracked. One of the most difficult things of being successful in your creativity is what gets built up around your creativity.  Publishers, and singers, and managers, and performances, booking agents, bus lines, drummers, musicians, book-signings, public appearances: all these things come together to distract you from the very thing that you love doing – creating your art, making your contribution.  All of a sudden you wind up being a business person.  You have a big organization around you that you have to feed and fuel and fund constantly.  The creative act itself gets put on the back burner.

Here are the things I can think of.  Maybe you can think of more.  But here’s the bottom line.  You are creative; not just a few, not just the select, not just the genius.  You are creative because you were created by a creative creator.  The very first words of sacred Scripture tell us that in the beginning God created.  He created the world and created you in His image as a thinking, acting, feeling, creative individual.  You have within you the power to create a new life and a new future. You are innovative.  You are smart, you are strong, you are good.  We need your art.  We need your effort.  So don’t let the fear of loneliness, not being appreciated, being misunderstood, criticized, ignored, or even exploited because of your success hold you back.

Sing your song and offer your lyric.  Tell us your narrative.  Make us listen.  Be compelling.  Engage us at our deepest pain and take us to hope. You’ll be glad, and we’ll all be better.

We live in transitional times.  You can call it a recession, a downturn of the market, whatever you want to, but things are changing, and changing forever.  If you know how to deal with it and face it positively, you can benefit from it.

But most people that I listen to want to put their head in the sand and just wait it out, hunker down, and maybe they’ll emerge with the same old attitudes.  That ain’t gonna happen, dude.  Welcome to the new world.

In light of that, here are six reasons why you should lose your job soon.

1.    You should lose your job soon if you only show up for the money. Enough said.

2.    You should lose your job soon if what you take from the company is equal to or greater than what you add to the company. Here’s basic economics.  No company, no organization, no movement can afford to keep you on if you’re draining resources from the company.  Rule of thumb: you need to be adding double to triple your total income, including benefits, to your company to be “essential personnel.”

3.    You should lose your job soon if you gossip and complain and come in every day like a sad dog spreading gloom. You’re unhappy, they’re unhappy, both of you need to be put out of your misery, and a good firing just might be the ticket.

4.    You should lose your job soon if your attitude is, “they owe me my job, promotion, or more money, because I’ve been here the longest.” Now I’ll be the first to admit that long-term loyalty and stability is of value.  But I’ll also be the first to admit that just because you’ve been at a place a long time, doesn’t mean that you automatically have the right to a job or promotion.  You need to be a performer and a producer just like everyone else.

5.    You should lose your job soon if you’re carrying responsibilities on a daily basis for which you have neither the gifting nor the passion. Just because you can do a job doesn’t mean you should do a job.  And just because you can do a job at an acceptable level doesn’t mean you can be great at it.  If you have no passion and native giftedness for what you are doing, then you’re going to always live a smaller life and earn a smaller paycheck than you could.  The sooner you get away from a dead-end job, the sooner you can spread your wings.

6.    You should lose your job soon if you are forced to work in an environment where you feel diminished, disrespected, and used. Now I am not saying that just because you don’t like the people around you that you have an excuse, but if you’re constantly working with people and doing tasks that violate your basic value system and principles, it’s not worth it.

Here is the bottom line of this Dave Rave.  If you’re in a job where you get up every day and it doesn’t feel a little bit like Christmas, if you’re not doing what you know you were born to do, with people you love, in a place you love, for purposes you clearly understand and buy into, the sooner you lose that dead-end job, the sooner you’re going to find your lifelong passion and realize you can make a lot more money doing things you love and being great at it, than you ever will hanging onto a job you’re afraid to lose because you don’t believe God is big enough to take care of you if you follow your passion.

During these times of financial transition and change, the newest twist is that now the government is going to bail out the American auto industry.

I feel very strongly about this because I was raised buying American.  I bought American-made cars only.  My father was a Ford man. And I, from the very first car I’d owned at age 15 have been a Chevy man.  I’d been a Chevy man for decades until I got sick and tired of buying inferior products that didn’t last, and cost way too much.  So I changed a couple years ago and I bough a Honda truck.  And I love it.  It’s been great; 64,000 miles and still going strong.

So I feel very strongly about this whole bailout issue.  It’s a bigger issue than Ford, or GM, or Chrysler in that it is an issue of how we look at life.  So let me respond and give my take on what’s gone wrong with our economy and why bailouts don’t work.

1.    Bailouts never address the core problem. It’s not that we’re not driving cars and that cars aren’t selling.  I love my Honda and everyone else I know who loves a Honda, loves theirs.  People who own Nissans and Toyotas and other types of cars love theirs.  It’s because they just work.  It’s the reason I buy Apple computers.  They just work.  So the bailout in the auto industry is to ignore the core issue: it’s that they don’t build superior products that people can take pride in owning anymore. Ignore the core problem and cover it up only to deal with it at a later date when the price will be much higher.

2.    Bailouts reward suck-y service. One of the delights of owning my Honda truck is the service I get.  My dealership is Darrel Waltrip Honda here in Franklin, Tennessee.  Not only can I take my truck in, I can wait for it to be serviced.  They’ll wash it for me for free. They also provide a place for me to wait that has free Internet service, and coffee.  The service people are actually nice.  They meet me when I drive in.  They don’t just treat me this way; they treat everyone that way.  Shift back to my experience when I owned American-made cars.  I had to wait in line and the service people were rude, angry, and gruff, acting as though I had interrupted them.  They were never on time and always too expensive.  It was a nightmare experience that I hated.  Getting my truck serviced today is a joy.  That’s just the truth.  Bailouts reward suck-y service.

3.    Bailouts prop up products that have served their purpose and need to die. We need better cars, more fuel-efficient cars.  We don’t owe the auto industry anything to buy these big, gas-guzzling behemoths that should have been replaced years ago knowing that this day would surely come.  Bailouts reward bad leadership practices.  At the end of the day it is about leadership and vision, and the courage to change.

4.    Bailouts reward broken systems. The American automotive industry is a broken system.  Here’s what I mean.  Management and labor are locked in a hopelessly adversarial relationship.  When Saturn moved to Tennessee, it was an experiment in change where the unions and the management would work together.  And guess what!  It worked.  It worked great until all the money started coming in and all of a sudden the unions seized the old confrontational conflict, seize-and-conquer control mentality.  And nothing can grow in that kind of environment.

5.    Bailouts discourage innovation. Innovation is always painful and carries with it the risk and reward of failure.  But let’s just build the same old thing and shove it down people’s throats instead of going through the hard work it takes to innovate.

6.    Bailouts cheat the future. The future of the gas-guzzling automobile that lasts 40 – 50,000 miles before needing major over-hauls that sends people into major debt over 5, 6, or even 7 years is dead.  It’s not the future. When any industry tries to hold onto an old paradigm that’s not embraced anymore, it becomes parasitic.  And instead of giving to culture and society, it’s a taker.

Now I’ll be the first to admit this has been harsh, but it’s been a long time in coming.  I loved my Chevrolets.  I’d love to be driving one today.  I’d love to return to that cool, fun, hip-factor that I had in those days when I bought a great product.  But they’re gone.  And the way things are going now, they’re probably gone forever.  Bailouts aren’t just about auto; they are about anything.  Let’s learn our lesson and move on to a bigger, brighter future instead of trying to continue to ride dead horses.

I’m a pastor.  I have been all of my adult life.  I love it.  It’s a privilege.  There is no greater honor than when someone says, “Hey, here’s my pastor!”

It’s my firm conviction that everyone in America needs a pastor.  Yeah, I said it.  Everyone in America needs a pastor. Pastors are good people!  They sacrifice and they are highly trained and highly motivated.  They are constantly learning and growing and giving.  So let me tell you, before I start, that I’m for being a pastor, and I’m for everyone having one.  But, not all pastors are created equal.

Surveys tell us over and over again that one of the issues that ranks highest in people’s choices of churches is, what is the pastor like?  So let me make a contribution to your search for a great church and a great pastor, because great churches have great pastors, like it or not.   There are a whole lot of people who would like for churches to be run by committees. They object to personalities in the pulpit.  They think that those are bad things even though that view flies in the face of everything we’ve learned in the Scriptures about how God leads.  He leads through personalities, through people, through strong leaders.  He gives a church a pastor.

So here are the seven kinds of pastors I’d run from:
1.    I’d run from any pastor who wants to tell me how to vote. It’s the pastor’s role to challenge you to seek truth, and to love truth, and to love people.  It’s not his job to tell you how to think or come to conclusions.

2.    I’d run from any pastor who tells me who to marry. That’s way too much intrusion to your life.  No good pastor wants to make that decision.  They want to help you to get married well, so you can be married a long, long time and be happy.

3.    I’d run from any pastor who wants to tell me how to spend my money. It’s not a pastor’s job to tell you what kind of house to live in and what kind of lifestyle you can afford.  It is, however, a pastor’s job to teach you what the sacred Scriptures, what God says about finances.  And He has an awful lot to say, not the least of which is that we should owe no man anything except to love.

4.    I’d run from any pastor who tells me who to hate. I’m sick and tired, during this election period, of demonizing John McCain and Barack Obama.  Neither one deserves it.  Any pastor who tells you who to hate, I would run from.

5.    I’d run from any pastor who tells me what I can and cannot drink. Now, I know that’s controversial, but the Scriptures teach moderation; not the abstinence from every controversial subject or activity in life. We all make choices.  So the choice is moderation in all things, rather than abstinence.  Unless, of course, you have an addiction to a certain substance or activity.  You should stay away from them.  But your weakness or addiction doesn’t define everyone else’s liberty or freedom.  If you don’t like that, go to the Scriptures and deal with it, because it wasn’t my idea.

6.    I’d run from any pastor who has a new revelation. There are an awful lot of people out there who will tell you that God speaks to them in ways He doesn’t speak to anyone else.  I wouldn’t believe it.  Whatever God has said and wants you to know, He has said and recorded in the sacred book called The Bible.  It can be believed.  Pastors are to teach it and apply it; not add to it by their own particular spiritual nuance.

7.    I’d run from any pastor who has a long list of dos and don’ts. This may be hard for many people to believe but Christianity is not about morals.  It’s about ethics.  It’s about what is right.   It’s about truth and truth seeking.  And truth seekers ultimately, I believe, wind up at The One Who is truth.  Jesus said, “I am the life, truth, and the way.”  I seek truth.  I find Christ.

No amount of moralistic ranting and raving makes a person a Christian or changes the heart.  As a matter of fact, what we do doesn’t change until who we are changes.  And that’s a matter of the heart, and that’s where the gospel is pointed.  So if you are around someone who is condemning you for a long list of things that they prohibit that you’re doing, I’d keep looking to another place.

Now I don’t mean for this Dave Rave to be negative, but sometimes we just have to get real and say what we’re all thinking.  So what kind of pastor would I be looking for?  One who leads the way with humility and wisdom; one who takes the sacred Scriptures and lifts me up and sets me free; one who can inspire me; one who makes the truth of God compelling and real, and gives me the ability to apply it to my everyday life.

You need a pastor.  There are a lot of great ones out there.  Go find one.

No one really likes confrontation, even those who say they do. For if you really like it, you’re a bully more than a person. But the truth is, we do have to confront. Here are 10 signs it’s time to confront the people you love, care about, work with, or are responsible for.

1. It’s time to confront when things aren’t working out even after you’ve given them sufficient time to do so.

2. When you’re avoiding each other.

3. When your silence is more about fear than the truth.

4. When allowing the contact to go on is hurting the other person.

5. When the contact is hurting other people.

6. When you see there is still time to redeem the relationship, the job, the person, or the potential future.

7. When you’re responsible for the health and well-being of the people involved in the situation. You have the power to do something, therefore you have the obligation.

8. When you’re able to separate the behavior from the person. You love the person always, even though you can’t support the behavior.

9. When your integrity and reputation as a friend, manager, leader, or business owner is on the line, it’s time to confront.

10. When you understand that sometimes love must be tough if it’s truly love. Love that is based on a lie is indulgence. Love that is based on truth and applied with mercy and grace is truly a gift from God.

Are there people in your life that it’s time to confront? Really good things can happen at the other end if done in the right way, at the right time, for the right reason, with the right tone.

Am I the only one who gets the idea that a lot of people these days are stuck in mediocrity? They’re not happy with where they are, but have no idea where they want to be; kind of just phoning it in. If you’re not sure you’re one of those, here are some warning signs. You may be phoning it in if, or when:

1. You start dreading going to work on Monday morning, Sunday afternoon.

2. You spend most of Monday morning in water-cooler talk, roaming around, dreading actually getting started; knowing you can get in a full day’s work in an hour or two anyway.

3. You complain about how bad the economy is as a justification for doing nothing about it.

4. You spend most of your “think time” worrying about losing the job you have. Even though you don’t like it, it does pay the bills.

5. You haven’t upgraded your skills in a long, long time.

6. You’re not reading books about best practices in your field, or at least something you’re passionate about.

7. You spend company time on monster.com looking for a better job, any job.

8. You complain about how you’re treated in the marketplace because of your age. And it can go both ways; young and old.

9. You’re a clock-watcher. You start counting down around 2:00 for when it’s time to go home, and you’re often one of the first people out of the parking garage.

10. You think, feel, and act as though your company, business, or organization owes you a job for life.

If more than one of these describes you, your attitude, and behavior, you’re going to get a wake-up call. It could be this Dave Rave, or it could be a pink-slip. You get to choose.

Life is short. You can’t afford to waste any of it. And yet too many people do, living in what I call LaLa Land. The land of “someday, maybe, if so, well I’ll get around to it.” Here are ten signs that you’re living in LaLa Land and you need to get out as soon as possible.

You’re living in LaLa Land if you…

1. Assume there is plenty of time to do the thing you should be doing. Assuming kills life and potential. Stop assuming and start doing. You may live another forty years. You may live another forty days. Take advantage of it.

2. You have no written goals. When are you going to realize that what gets dated gets done? You need to hold yourself accountable.

3. You ignore your own mortality. By that I mean you simply think you’re going to live forever, have enough time. You squander your opportunities, your wealth, your health, and your relationships. You will die one day and it could be soon. You are mortal. You will not live forever. Stop wasting the stuff of life.

4. You ignore the big God questions. You are really doing yourself a disservice by assuming that one day you’ll have time for God, after you’ve lived your real life. The truth is, God is life. And without Him in your life as a core reality, everything else is just spinning your wheels.

5. You spend more than you make. Debt is robbing your future for some fleeting satisfaction in the present, or worse, in the past. Avoid it at all costs.

6. You spend all that you make. It’s another disaster, not saving up money for future investments and opportunities, or as we all know, the day you get down-sized, fired, or your job is eliminated altogether. You’ll need money to finance your transition.

7. You think you’re working for other people. The truth of the matter is, you work for yourself everyday, no matter what company you go to. Forget that, and you’re really living in LaLa Land.

8. You aren’t learning new things. The future will demand that you remain inquisitive, that you read, that you learn new skills. Things are changing too radically and if you’re not learning new things and preparing for the future, you will be left behind in LaLa Land.

9. You’re allowing past regrets, bitterness and unforgiveness to fill up way too much of your head space. If there’s unfinished business in your past, get it dealt with, forgiven, put in the past. Forgive people. Let them go for your own sake.

10. You’re living in LaLa Land if you’re ignoring the awesome power of small changes done over time. Don’t wait until you can make a huge transition to change. Make small ones now. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period of time and woefully underestimate what we can do over time.

Remember, it’s your life. You can live it in LaLa Land looking for that one day that your ship will come in. Or you can live each day deliberately. You are in control. These are your choices. It is your life and it will be what you make of it. You truly have great potential, but the sad fact is, most people die with their potential unrealized. Don’t let that be you.

Things change. But whether they change for the better or not depends on what people do; not just any kind of people, but angry people. Yes, you heard it right. It’s angry people who change the world. Comfortable, satisfied, stuck-in-a-rut, trying-to-protect-my-turf people don’t change the world. They nurse the status quo, which I’ve heard is Latin for the mess we’re in.

It’s absurd to say that the way to change things is to make people angry. Most angry people are not constructive, but destructive. But it’s just as foolish to think that things will change when everyone is fat and happy.

So here are ten ways that angry people change the world:

1. There’s a wrong that must be righted, now. We’re talking about a serious wrong; a principle, not a preference. Something is violated that leaves a gaping hole in the ethical fabric of life.

2. The wrong is in the circle of my influence. There are two circles we have to always be aware of: the circle of my concern, and the circle of my influence. In the circle of my concern, I can pray, study, think, consider; there’s not much I can do. It’s only in the circle of my influence where I can make a positive change. Where there is a wrong that must be righted within the circle of your influence, you have the seed for a true revolution.

3. The wrong moves from a bother to a burden. With a glaring wrong in front of you, it’s hard to ignore it. It’s an ethical thing, a principle; a violation of what’s right, good, and just about life and it bothers you. The minute it becomes a burden, something you can’t shake or run away from, it becomes your responsibility. You become the missionary, the mover of the movement.

4. “Someone ought to do something” becomes, “I must.” Everyone talks about the things that ought to be different. These things are many. But the must-dos and must-haves of life are few.

5. The passion becomes a vision. The real meaning of passion is to suffer. That’s what angry people do when there are wrongs that must be righted. They suffer. And when that suffering becomes intense, a vision arises; a picture of things not as they are, but of how they could be if something happened.

6. Other like-minded people catch the vision. The visionary now talks to his friends and shares. He must. He can’t keep it inside. It’s a burden that can’t be bottled up.

7. First steps are taken. This is the hardest thing to do; to take initiative, to take first steps when those first steps seem to be so woefully short of meeting the need of revolution and change. But they’re necessary. They’re always small, usually done in obscurity by lonely, angry people with a vision.

8. Results are small, but promising. This, again, is a tenuous point in the process of change. We’re looking for big results. We want to make small input and have big output. That simply doesn’t happen. First results are small, but promising leading in the right direction.

9. More people buy into the mission as missionaries. Results attract support. Results attract people. Movers and shakers like being around new things that are arising and happening. And when they come around the mission, they become missionaries.

10. Eventually, the movement creates APB. APB stands for Abundance, Prosperity, and Blessing. Over time the vision of how things ought to be, and should be, and must be, translate into vision. Surrounded by people with steps, great things happen.

Here is the formula for how angry people bring about great change:
W+AP+V+MAP+T=REVOLUTION Simply said, a wrong, plus angry people, plus vision, plus more angry people, plus time, equal revolution.

As we begin a brand new year, many of us are under the mistaken assumption that what we need to do is add more stuff to what we’re already doing. If you’re like me, I’m already doing more than I can keep up with now. So in the spirit of having the best year yet, here are the ten things I suggest that we stop doing before we start doing the other really great things.

1. I’m going to stop looking back with regret, wondering what might have been if I’d made other decisions or other people had been more cooperative.

2. I’m going to stop putting off starting the things that are really important to me; things that have been lingering around on my to-do list and my what-if list. I’m going to stop putting off what I need to start doing.

3. I’m going to stop holding grudges toward people who have slighted me in the past. I’m simply going to count up the debt, forgive it, and let it go.

4. I’m going to stop saying, “yes” to so many good things. There are none of us who have enough time to say, “yes” to all the good things clamoring for our attention. You have to learn how to prioritize your time, which leads me to number 5.

5. I’m going to stop saying “no” to the best things. So if I stop saying “yes” to the good things, that means I can stop saying “no” to the best things. The challenge is to know what those best things are. What are your best things? Usually they are the things that are important, but not urgent.

6. I’m going to stop putting my family second. You know exactly what I mean. No further explanation needed.

7. I’m going to stop putting myself last. We have this idea that if we work hard and love others we don’t really need any attention. That usually happens after we crash. So I’m going to stop putting myself last.

8. I’m going to stop wanting what I don’t need. Again, a lot of people pay a lot of money to get my attention and to get me to feel unhappy with the things I have. That’s called advertising. I’m happy with the life I have and I have far more possessions than I’ll ever need. I’m going to start focusing on the things that are more important.

9. I’m going to stop spending all the money I make. I’m going to learn how to live on less than I make so I can be generous and give, and save for the future.

10. I’m going to stop running until I break.

1. Give the gift of time. If you give me money, it can be replaced. If you give me time, you give me your life. Spend time with the people who matter the most.

2. Give the gift of appreciation. Most people feel unappreciated. You can solve that by taking the time to point out to them something that you appreciate about them. It is the art of catching people doing something right.

3. Give the gift of attention. This gift is a combination of the first two. Time and appreciation equal attention. People do really stupid things to gain attention when they feel ignored. Children steal and married people cheat. The need for attention is powerful. It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give any time of year. And it costs you little or nothing.

4. Give the gift of words. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many Christmas cards I’ve gotten this year. It seems to be up more than any other time of the year. Take the time to write a note. E-mail if that’s all you have time for, but take the time to say the words on paper, in print, particularly with a card. Words move the world.

5. Give the gift of memory. I have, right now on our refrigerator door, pictures from our vacation last summer when our whole family got to spend time together. Make a good memory and it will last a lifetime.

6. Give the gift of hope. For lack of hope people despair. Be hopeful, positive and give people real reasons to hope. If you’re a Jesus person, help them understand that this is more than just about a baby. This is about hope.

7. Give the gift of support. Take the time to put your money where your heart is and support someone or a cause that you care a great deal about. It’s nice to be there and it’s nice to send cards, but sometimes cash talks the loudest.

8. Give the gift of encouragement. This is the time of the year when people are most depressed and emotionally down from the weight of the past, unmet expectations of this past year, or just the pain of life itself. Be encouraging. Give an encouraging word.

9. Give the gift of anonymity. Do something for someone and stay anonymous. It’s amazing how powerful it is on them and how great you’ll feel doing something for someone whether it’s financial or using your connections or your position in order to help someone get somewhere, do something or have something and they don’t know who did it.

10. Give the gift of goals. In the next Dave Rave we’ll talk about how to set goals for the New Year, but now is the time to think about what’s just ahead. As we turn the corner into the New Year, it’s really important to have written down specific, agreed-upon goals. Enjoy the holidays and we’ll talk about goals later.

I’m speaking right now in a series called “Everything Begins With A Dream.” It’s amazing how God can give people an idea, a thought, a desire, and that immaterial thing be turned into something amazing and beautiful. Over time I’ve observed great dreams and how they are accomplished. Here are the 10 stages of a dream.

Stage 1: A great need, or problem, or injustice moves someone. Something is missing, lacking, and you get upset. That’s the beginning; a holy burden, beautiful anger always starts there.

Stage 2: Someone moves God. Someone gets upset and they ask God to change things. They assault the throne of God with their prayer. They’re obsessed with it, they talk about it, they think about it, even argue with God over it.

Stage 3: God dares a dreamer. God challenges you to be the solution to the problem. Suddenly the problem becomes internalized. You bear it around constantly.

Stage 4: The dreamer becomes a vision-caster. All of a sudden you start talking about the solution, how things could be. You get a vision of what might happen if certain things were done; a need, a business, a song, a book, a poem, something that’s created.

Stage 5: The vision-caster becomes a risk-taker. You now go into action. You dare do something so great that you’re doomed to fail unless God is in it.

Stage 6: The risk-taker becomes a ground-breaker. You suddenly start doing things, no matter how small, to achieve greatness. One day at a time, you turn a spade of dirt, you plow the soil, and things begin to grow.

Stage 7: The ground-breaker becomes a rock-dodger. All of a sudden people start criticizing you because they see that this might indeed work. You have to be able to withstand criticism.

Stage 8: The rock-dodger becomes a seed-sower, which means that the dreamer continues to sow the seed into the ground that he has broken.

Stage 9: The seed-sower becomes a careful cultivator, which can become the hard part of the dream. Not much is happening on the surface, but you know that life works by the law of the farm, not the law of the factory.

Stage 10: The careful-cultivator becomes a happy harvester. The dream becomes real. It takes on a life of its own and begins to spawn other dreams in dreamers. And that’s how things change.

Which are you just a dreamer, a schemer, or someone who lives by fear? Dare to turn your dreams into deeds and God will join you.