"My Precious"
Theme of the week: Leadership: It Begins on the Inside
Monday, August 2, 2010
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. (1 Peter 2:9) Dig Deeper:1 Peter 2:4-10
As I struggled with feelings of despair and self-pity [over a job loss], I thought of Gollum in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Here was a creature who was consumed with the ring he nauseatingly called "my precious." I read these stories to our daughters, and when I did so I used the most nasal and irritating voice I could to mimic Gollum's self-infatuating and loathsome possessiveness.
So I was repulsed when I realized that my job had become "my precious." In the spirit of hard work and company loyalty, I had given my life to my job but at the same time had unconsciously given up my identity apart from my job. What made this so confusing and difficult to see before was that I was a Christian leader who aspired to an all-out dedication to God in my job. I had imbibed the rallying call of "work, for the night is coming" from too many Christian commitment talks—some of which I had given!
Yet I don't blame my commitment to God as an excuse for idolizing my job role and job identity. The problem is endemic with all leaders because it is part of our humanity. We pump ourselves up with success and then feel very empty inside when that success cannot be sustained or is taken away from us.
—Robert Fryling in The Leadership Ellipse
My Response: How much is my own identity tied to my career or my job?
Prayer for the Week: Dear Creator,help me to make my life centered on you so that I might lead and serve from the right place.
Adapted from The Leadership Ellipse (IVP, 2010) by permission. All rights reserved by the copyright holder and/or the publisher. May not be reproduced.
Copyright © 2010 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Dear Creator, help me to make my life centered on you so that I might lead and serve from the right place.
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