Friday, May 18, 2012

If not you, then who?

I heard that term several years ago for it also includes, "if not now, then when?" as part of a concept of accountability, purpose and energy.  There are people in our world that, by their very nature, embrace an issue and immediately begin to size up the situation, marshal a concept, mobilize resources  and energize a fix.  There are many other people that are completely comfortable watching all of that energy expenditure with great joy unfold and then be in amazement when the job is done or even worse, the first to criticize those are that embracing the issue, taking the headwinds, fighting the fights pushing to the victory circle and nursing the wounds of the battle.  Know anybody that fits into those two camps? 

Sure you do for everybody is going to fit into one or the other and I pretty much believe Pareto rightly has told us that the drivers for correction, the leaders, fill that 20% and the 80% are looking for the next best buy on a lawn chair to facilitate watching the process or cannot wait to get to be critical of those that do the work.

In the last ten day,s beginning with a brief conversation over a glass of iced tea, I have realized all over again just how true my first paragraph really is.  All of the last ten days became a crucible for me that led to an event last evening with close to two hundred great folks coming together to be part of a phenomenal ministry here in Canton, OH called the Refuge of Hope.  Eleven days ago I would never have dreamed I would have been the keynote speaker and singer at the event that was a blessing in so many ways.  The Refuge of Hope, www.refugeofhope.org, is an organization of volunteers and provides free meals and overnight shelter to men that simply have not over options.

For me, however, the most amazing thing that happened was after many hours of crafting and tweaking my speech text for last night, my mind took a very different shift change of what and how God wanted me to address the audience last evening. While my actual comments were rooted in the crafted text, the illustrations that I chose to use came to me in trying to take a nap about 3 pm to rest up before the event. As I lay there my mind was awhirl about the simple yet potent reality that THE ENEMY IS HERE!  The illustration came to me like a firestorm with the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863.

Lee was leading his Southerner force north into Pennsylvania to strategically attack  the capital at Harrisburg.  His army was using the South Mountain to screen and hide his nearly 200,000 troops from the Northern Army that was seeking to make contact with Lee's force to run them out of Pennsylvania and from the vicinity of Washington, DC.  The Union Army sent cavalry west to find Lee's marching army and the skirmish took place at Gettysburg.

Lee, without his eyes and ears, his cavalry, turned his marching army south toward Gettysburg as did the Union Army turned North toward Gettysburg.  Nobody ever thought or planned to thrash each other in the rolling terrain of a sleepy town like Gettysburg. But "the enemy is there and I will fight him and defeat them there" Lee spoke as the skirmish turned into a battle that roiled into the most studied military battle in the history of mankind.  History records clearly there were some really good and some really not so good tactical decisions made those three days in 1863 with profound national and global and societal implication as we now realize all too well today. It was the spear tip to the second American Revolution that showed the world that the US Constitution was real, valid and a force on the world scene; that was the currency of the Civil War focused on the hills of Gettysburg.

But my mind was spinning in the lead up to my comments last night that the enemy of Refuge of Hope is the societal maelstrom of starving and homelessness in our very neighborhood of Canton. So, like Robert E. Lee decided to turn his entire army around and engage the foe, thus is the challenge for the resources, the mission and organization of the ROH, the enemy of starvation and homelessness is here, it is here now so if not you, then you will be part of the engagement was the crux of my actual comments last evening. I do believe in hindsight God moved me into that direction in challenging the donor base last evening to join the 20% group of people that choose to fight this battle day after day and to throw away all the lawn chairs of complacency that watch and criticize those that are carrying the fight to the enemy.

Folks, this is all so very true of life.  For those of you just beginning your walk as an adult, a new parent or are winding up the journey of life post retirement with grand kids, where ever you are on the spectrum, "to whom much is given, much is required."  Each of you reading this has been given so much but with that gifting comes the requirement to be part of something greater and bigger than you the individual is; that I believe has been branded into me more deeply than ever before in the last ten days.


1 comment:

  1. Funny you would write about this. The past couple of weeks, I've been focusing on service. It started with a chapter in the book I'm reading, but the theme of service keeps coming up in the day to day. So, since I've gotten way better and listening to those divine 'taps on the shoulder', I've been trying to focus on how I can better incorporate service into my daily tasks. I was surprised to find how many times, I've had the opportunity to serve and have ignored it.
    Thank you for this post. Luke 12:48 has been my 'motto' for quite a long time.

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