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“. . . be generous and willing to share.”  – 1Timothy 6:18 

At the suggestion of one of our staff members our corporate team one year committed to do something we had never done before at year end, pitch in a few bucks out of our own individual pockets and help someone who was struggling.  Prior to that our tradition had always been to have a party and exchange gifts among ourselves.  Instead, we were introduced to a family who had several children, the mother was battling cancer, and the father had lost his job.  As we learned more about them we were able to determine their specific needs, proper sizes of clothes, food and other household items they needed, and toys for the children’s Christmas, to name a few.  Then on a specified day we all collectively caravaned to their modest home to deliver Christmas.  One of our team members was even dressed as Santa.  Tears flowed on both sides, the givers and the recipients.  What we didn’t expect was how our whole business operation would be transformed by what we did, as we all began to change the way we treated others, and each other, launching a steady, rapid and significant growth period in our business.

Recently someone happened to mention the classic 1942 movie Citizen Kane starring Orson Welles, and even though I had heard about it all my life I realized I had never seen it, which prompted me to search it out and rent it on Amazon.  The long and short of the story is about a man who spent his whole life pursuing wealth and self-gratification, only to find himself in his later years a lonely old man withering away alone in his giant mansion.  Contrast that with another 1940’s era movie classic, It’s a Wonderful Life in which George Bailey sacrifices his dreams of wealth and success for the good of his family and community, yet in the end is declared the “richest man in town.”

As Frederick Buechner once wrote, “Our happiness is all mixed up with each other’s happiness and our peace with each other’s peace.  Our happiness, our own peace, can never be complete until we find some way of sharing it with people who . . . have no happiness and know no peace,” which is a great description of the lesson our team learned on that winter afternoon many years ago.  As the Apostle Paul wrote to his friend Timothy, “Command those who are rich in the present world not to . . . put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain . . . [but] to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”  Doing so can be transformational – both for the givers and recipients.

“. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . .”  – Joshua 24:15 

Even in his old age our son Marc’s family dog Porter, a ninety-pound Lab-mix, remains the hilariously funny gentle-giant he’s always been, though still full of mischief every chance he gets.  My favorite mischief story about Porter occurred several years ago when he was left alone in the house and noticed the pantry door slightly ajar enabling him to open it with his nose.  You can imagine the feast that lay before him on those pantry shelves, except Porter decided to have some fun before digging into the groceries.  Up high was a brand new bag of flour which he reached up and grabbed in his giant jaws, carrying it into the family room where he tore it open and slung flour all over the entire room.  Well, you can just imagine the reaction when the family returned home!

“Bad dog!” screamed Mom and Dad over and over as they stood there stunned by such an incredible mess, as Porter cowered in the corner, tail tucked between his legs.  Enter our granddaughter Olive, maybe four or five at the time, tugging on her mother’s skirt.  “But Mommy,” she insisted, “Porter’s not really a bad dog, he just makes bad choices.”

Olive may not realize it, but she is a true philosopher, for what is dog-nature in Porter’s case is often human-nature for many of us; that is, we may be good people at heart, but sometimes we make bad choices.  I recall back in fifth grade there was this neighbor kid a few years older than me who lived across the alley from us with whom I started hanging out some.  He taught me all kinds of bad things, like cuss words and what they meant, to name just a few.  Fortunately, my parents were paying attention and got me redirected before anything bad happened – from the bad choice of company I was keeping.

Through the granting of free will God left us with the responsibility of making choices, and like Porter being left alone in the house with the pantry door ajar, sometimes we find ourselves overcome by temptation and make bad choices.  Except, unlike animals, we were also given the gift of reasoning to help us weigh the consequences of those choices in order to determine the potential outcomes.  As God’s chosen the Israelites, like us, were not bad people, but often made bad choices.  Thus their leader Joshua issued a challenge, “choose this day whom you will serve.”  Think!  Look at the history of your ancestors.  What were the consequences?  The same choices that apply to us today.

“. . . you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”  – Matthew 11:25 

A major corporation could not figure out how one of its competitors consistently outperformed them in nearly every measurable category such as profitability, stock performance, customer satisfaction, employee retention, and safety.  Both were excellent companies and among the world’s largest. A friend of mine, a fellow executive coach, who happened to be doing some contract work with the company at the time, shared with me how the company had employed brilliant people to do exhaustive studies of their competitor’s processes and business model, yet failed to identify the secret sauce of their success. The secret it seems, that in addition to their exceptional processes and business model, was their focus on people – customers, vendors, employees – and how they were treated and cared for. It was right before their eyes yet hidden in plain sight.

You may be familiar with the story about the lesson Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame, had learned from his mother. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” he once shared with his television audience, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people helping.’”  A powerful message for sure, but I wonder how impactful it might have been were it not for two words, which until recently I had failed to notice – “look for.”  Amid all the scary news, Mrs. Rogers was trying to teach her young son that there are also beautiful things going on by good people. . . BUT, you have to remember to “look for” it.

Told together these two stories offer a metaphor for Jesus’ teaching, “. . . you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”  My coach friend kept encouraging the “wise and learned” corporate executives to “look for” how their competitor treated people, the true secret of their success, which though in plain sight, remained hidden; while a small child, through his mother’s encouragement, “looked for” and discovered much goodness taking place even amidst scary news.

We too are constantly subjected to scary news, yet how like the “wise and learned” we neglect to “look for” the helpers, the goodness of people – our neighbors and friends, sometimes hidden in plain sight. They are our hope and good news amidst the scary.

“Two are better than one . . . If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” – Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 

My grandmother Wilson, or Munna as we grandkids lovingly called her, always had a shiny new Cadillac at her disposal sitting in the garage, courtesy of my grandfather, except she never drove it.  I can count on one hand, with probably a couple of fingers to spare, the number of times I ever saw her behind the wheel.  That changed, however, after my grandfather passed away who had always served as her chauffeur.  After that she had to drive herself, which she did twice a week, on Wednesdays to the grocery store, and on Sundays to church.  Except she didn’t exactly drive herself, she had a co-pilot.

After Munna was widowed her sister, my great Aunt Jenny, moved into her grand home so the two could look after each other and not be alone.  It was a great arrangement that lasted many years.  But if Munna seldom drove a car, Aunt Jenny never even learned how.  To make matters worse, Munna suffered from failing eyesight caused by glaucoma, and Aunt Jenny was hard of hearing.  What a pair, you might think.  But we had a joke in our family that when they got in the car together Aunt Jenny was the eyes and Munna the ears, and between the two of them they made many a round trip together.

“Two are better than one,” the wise writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, for “if one falls down, his friend can help him up.”  Or in the case of my grandmother and great aunt, one’s weakness was compensated by the other’s strength, and vice versa, so that what neither could manage alone, together they did quite well.  As the Apostle Paul points out, “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function . . . [yet] each member belongs to all the others.”

Patrick Lencioni calls it teamwork.  “It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare,” he points out in his highly acclaimed book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  Notwithstanding that in today’s world turning two elderly women loose on the streets with such physical limitations as Munna and Aunt Jenny would be considered dangerous (but this was long ago and in a small town), what a team they were.  And as far as I know that shiny Cadillac never suffered a scratch.  To be pitied is the one “who falls and has no one to help him up!”

“To each one of us grace has been given.”  – Ephesians 4:7 

Have you ever felt as if you were being watched, followed, or spied on?  Or how about this, one day you suddenly became aware of the fact that someone has been following you around, watching your every move all your life, yet until that moment you had never realized it?  Sounds creepy, doesn’t it?  It is creepy I suppose, unless you realize as I did that the one following you around has been there not to cause you harm, but to watch over you in your every move.  Grace is her name, as I finally discovered, and she has managed to station herself nearby my entire life in every place I have ever been, and everything I have ever done, bad or good, wise or foolish.

I was well along in life before it occurred to me about Grace’s presence, but I realize it now, like the time my Dad backed over me in his car.  I was only five-years-old at the time out playing in the front yard of our home when a toy I was playing with rolled across the street.  I ran across to retrieve it and just as I approached our driveway on the return trip my Dad happened to be backing out in his car unaware of my proximity.  The car did strike me, except my older brother who was nearby came running out screaming, “Daddy stop!  Daddy stop!” which he did, just in time to prevent me from being run over.  Grace saved me that day – also my Dad! – using my big brother as her instrument.

Grace has always been there for me, not just to save me from danger or my own foolishness (and there’s been plenty of that), but she has also been there to bless me in many ways, like the time she used Tee’s friend Donna as her instrument in arranging for us to meet on a blind date that quickly evolved into a fifty-four year love affair, a beautiful family of children and grandchildren, and a blessed and prosperous life.

I’ve just been lucky, you might say, and you would be right.  So, why hasn’t Grace shown up for the less fortunate like she has for us?  Because Grace seldom works alone, but invites others in to be her instruments, like my older brother was in my own story, and Tee’s friend Donna.  So, in the case of the less fortunate, it is not because Grace is not watching over them too, she simply needs more instruments.  For “to each one of us grace has been given,” and for those of us who have received it opportunities abound to multiply it by sharing that grace with others.  Amazing how Grace works.