Reality Therapy
Theme for this Week: Disciple Making
David Wardell
Friday, February 1, 2002
 1 of 1
Reality Therapy
Theme for this Week: Disciple Making
Friday, February 1
Key Bible Verse: Timothy, my son, here are my instructions. … may they give you the confidence to fight well (1 Timothy 1:18). Bonus Reading:1 Timothy 1:18–20
Cliff Martin, an older gentleman who mentors me, has my permission to ask tough questions to challenge my thinking. This isn't a role he is shy about.
One day Cliff took a look at my appointment calendar and said, "Dave, let me ask you a question. Your ministry has a policy that a person should only be out traveling a maximum of 10 days a month. But I'm counting up 22 days that you're away from home every month. You obviously have an ego problem. Why are you doing this?"
I began to hem and haw—but he cut me off. "From my perspective, comparing your schedule to your ministry's policy, I feel you've lied to me." he said.
My jaw went tight and I said something like, "No, you don't understand. … I'm doing God's work."
Cliff wasn't buying it. He looked at me and said, "No."
We went on to a calmer dialogue about why I was acting the way I was—and how I could change to become a better servant. I realized I was ignoring my wife and had a talk with her. She agreed that I'd been gone too often. The next month I managed to cut my travel days from 22 back to 11.
—David Wardell in Daily Disciples
My Response: Who can I invite to ask me the tough questions?
Thought to Apply: You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it himself.
—Galileo Galilei (Italian mathematician and astronomer, 17th century)
Adapted from: Daily Disciples (Promise, 2001).
Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
January/February 2002,Vol. 5,No. 1
1 of 1
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Lord, I want to follow you so closely that others are tempted to fall into line.
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