Lecture

Thank you for coming as I shed the guilt. I have a task of sharing with you, and I’m not as proficient as Bill Hybels is. He summed up my life in 10 minutes, and I’ve now got to explain how it all happened in 50 minutes. So I’m going to try to highlight as much as I can, share a little piece of it. I am blessed to be here with you today, excited about what’s going on here. And I pray that not just this morning but this whole week you’ve determined to go beyond being challenged to being changed. And that begins with a decision. I bring you greetings from my lovely wife of 32 years (hope they got that on the tape) that I love and adore very much and appreciate. She is God’s gift to me. Also [greetings] from my seven sons, 14 grandchildren and if it sounds like I’m boasting, I am. But it’s all part of my story.

Let’s bow our heads as we go to the Lord in prayer and just open our hearts and appeal to the ministry of the Holy Spirit who is the revealer of truth. Heavenly Father, we are indeed blessed and highly favored, for what our eyes have been open to see, our ears have been open to hear, and our hearts have been blessed to receive is not common among men. So thank You that through the grace and love of Jesus Christ, we are taken into a realm of knowledge and understanding that transcends this human environment and takes us into the environment of Your Spirit, the realm of the invisible that gives birth to what we see that is visible today. Touch us deeply in our hearts as we learn, as we understand, as we gain Your wisdom. We ask You to do this in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen and Amen.

Now usually I like to say that I pastor a small storefront church in Brooklyn, but I can’t say that to you. Because you know now that, 26 years later, it has been enlarged quite a bit. And it’s been a journey, and I learned that success is both a destination and a journey. And I look with excitement towards the destination, but the journey is what really, really intrigues me. Because on the journey is where I have the opportunity to be shaped and fashioned, to grow, to learn, to experience; and I want to share just a little bit of that journey with you this morning.

We began in 1978 actually with a small Bible-study group. A guy named Nicky Cruz ministered to me, and brought me to the Lord in 1975, January 11th. And I became very dissatisfied working as a banker, because I didn’t feel I was in my purpose. I can articulate it now, but I didn’t understand it clearly then. But within four years, I ended up leaving the bank; and a small Bible-study group became a church. And as was traditional to the denomination that I was in, we all began by opening little storefronts; and that’s where we began services. Now here it is 26 years later, and we have a congregation of 21,000, continuing to grow, and seeing some incredible changes in the lives of people. And I’m proud to say that here it is 26 years later, and we still have our original founding members. And that, believe me, you need to applaud that, because that is uncommon. That is uncommon. They are still with me, my wife, and my three sons. And so I take pride in that sustained growth.

By 1979—we actually started 1978—by 1979 a year later, we had 50 members. By 1985, we had 325 members. By 1989, 10 years later, we had 625 members. By 1999, we had 11,000 members, and by 2004, we had 21,000 members. I look back and I find it very interesting, because I see exponential curves of growth, from 50 to 325. And it took the first 10 years just to grow the ministry to 625. But then within the next 10 years, we jumped from 625 to 11,000. And now, from 1999 to 2004, five years . . . half that time, we have jumped from 11,000 to 21,000.

It’s more than numbers, but the numbers help me understand patterns. And when I look back at this, I realize, in the context of what I want to share with you this morning, that every time we hit an exponential curve there was some crisis that I was experiencing personally and in the ministry. Now I’m not recommending growth by crisis. However, it seems to be a pattern that God engages us in. So as I look back, and I looked at the exponential curve and these steps that turned into leaps from time to time. I looked at 1985. And I know that from ’78 to ’85 we were engaged in resolving the ministry identity crisis. There’s a personal identity crisis that we go through, but there’s also a ministry identity crisis: finding out who we are, why we exist as a ministry, what is God’s purpose for us? And I’d like to think that that begins day one, but it doesn’t. You really evolve into that. You begin to understand some things that are unique about you, about the church, the mindset and philosophy that’s being developed.

But I noticed that in 1985, I was in a personal crisis. The ministry had gone on from ’78 to ’85, so that’s about eight years or seven years or so. And it was in ’85 that we were at 325 members, and I looked back and said, “Okay, what was going on in my life?” And I have to say that at that time, the crisis was in ministry but more so in my marriage. It was in 1984 that I realized that I had committed the sin of transposition. In other words, I got my priorities out of order. The ministry that I loved so much and that my wife supported me in actually became my idol, and I began to worship it. And I almost sacrificed my marriage, my children, my family on the altar of this idol called ministry. And God did some serious readjusting in my theology. And here’s something that I learned from Job. Whenever you go through a crisis, you experience a change in theology. You begin to see God in a different way.

So it was in 1984 that this began to come alive to me. And by 1985 I was in a hotel room in Dallas, Texas, attending a leadership seminar that was being conducted by Prestonwood Baptist Church. And a guy named Paul Yonggi Cho was one of the ministers, and he was sharing what his experience was in the early stages of ministry. And I felt he was talking directly to me. So I went back to the hotel room that night, and that morning I was in tears because I realized deeply what I had done. And by that time, we were actually on the brink of divorce. And I figure if I tell you the story publicly, I get it out there before the media does. So I’ve always maintained a transparency with my congregation and with the public. You tell it first, they don’t have anything to tell. So when I have people who come and say, “Oh, did you hear Pastor Bernard and his wife almost divorced back in 1984?” I say, “Yeah, get the tape. It’s in the bookstore, the whole series.”

But there I was on that hotel room floor. And I mean I was weeping. I was distraught because it came down on me what I had done and that the condition of my marriage was my fault. And one thing I love about God, God will deal with you privately first. I don’t think you heard that one. God will deal with you privately first in hopes that He doesn’t have to deal with you publicly. But if He fails in trying to deal with you privately, guess what? You’re going to be on the news. So I took heed to some things that God wanted to say to me as I stayed in that hotel room and on that floor praying and just weeping before God. And the Lord made it very clear. He said the condition of your marriage and the condition of your ministry is your fault. Although the ministry looks like it’s going well, your marriage is in crisis; and it’s your fault. And if you don’t change your home situation, your ministry is going to be a reflection of that home situation.

Well, what do I do? He said, “Well, call your wife, take full responsibility, and apologize. And don’t think that she is going to be agreeable or accept what you have to say.” Boy, was that prophetic. I called home under the anointing and power of God. And I said, “Honey, I am so sorry. I am deeply sorry.” And I began to share what was on my heart. And she said, “Mmhmm. Yeah, mmhmm. Okay.” I said, “Thank you for listening.” “No problem, good bye.” But you know what? It didn’t matter, didn’t matter because I changed. I changed. And I knew that that’s where it began. If I would change, eventually, she would respond to my change. And that was the crisis that I was in, and it adjusted my thinking about ministry. And I changed my priorities, and she was no longer competing with the ministry. Instead, there’s God first, my wife second, my children and family third, and the ministry fourth. That was liberating. And somehow I understood that not only was there a shift in my theology but adjustment in my character. And I share that with you because I realize that no matter how much technical finesse we have, no matter how many programs, no matter how many talented and skillful people you put together in seminars and training you attend, and all of the latest sophisticated tools for ministry—all of that can take you to a place where your character cannot sustain you.

So parallel to my growth in ministry, was my growth in character. Because I realize that only strong character could sustain large ministry. So I discovered that God was working on me at the same time that He was growing my ministry. And it established a philosophy that was there all the time, but I didn’t realize it. And it allowed me to reread John 17:19. And in the Living Bible it says, “[Jesus said,] ‘I consecrate myself to meet their need for growth in truth.’” And it became my philosophy of ministry. So I don’t work hard on my congregation. I work hard on me. I don’t work hard on my wife or my marriage. Boy, did I give that one up—working on my wife. I work hard on me. And I realized that God’s pattern—and God is a God of pattern and principles—that God’s pattern is to develop a model and that He puts that model out there for us to learn from. And I began to model—and I developed this principle in my thinking—and that is that whatever you want people to become, you must become it first. And that is the basis upon which I lead and provide leadership.

Another thing I learned in that crisis is that leadership is about learning how to adapt quickly to change. I realized that change is the only constant in life, especially in ministry and in business. So in 1985, amongst the many crisis and problems that I had to deal with, the one that impacted my growth most was the issue in my marriage. So in four years, we doubled. The ministry actually doubled. So we went from 325 to 625. We added 300. And that was 1989. And what was critical to us then was space, and boy is that a crisis. Boy is that a problem. We ended up growing to the place where we were having four services, thousands of members in a facility that only holds 1,100 people. So we became known as the church where people gather at 5 a.m. in the morning to stand in line to try to get in. And if you didn’t get in the first service, you’d have to wait until the next service. But you didn’t want to lose your place in line. So when the weather got cold or rainy and what not, we had to determine: Where can we put these people who are standing in line? So we got a building. We put up a tent. We kept responding to these crises and these problems that kept coming up, adjusting and adapting, changing as we had need, but directly from these crises and these problems that we engaged. So we grew. So from ’89 to’99 we were just busting at the seams. And here we were 11,000 members. And we were preparing to build another building, but there was another crisis that came that brought me another valuable lesson. In 1989 we were at 11,000 members and really, really bursting. We were becoming a pot, a plant rather, that was too big for the little pot that it was in.

But another crisis hit, and that major crisis was personnel. How many of you know that personnel is always a problem and personnel is always the answer? So I had to develop a philosophy in personnel issues: retrain, reposition. Or if that fails, retire. I try to work at the first two. But I realized that I had done something else in ministry as we expanded, and I wanted to establish a national and global presence with what God was doing with us. I had personnel that I made a mistake with. And the mistake was that I deferred what I should only delegate. What do I mean? Well when you defer to people on your staff, you give them the power to run without you; but you also empower them to run without your mindset, without your input. But when you delegate, the nature of delegation requires follow-up. When you defer, you don’t follow-up. When you delegate, you follow-up. And it put us in a crisis where top-level leaders in our ministry had to be retired. And I was challenged deeply. Well from 1999 to 2004, we went from 11,000 members to 21,000 members.

Two things in all of this that I want to leave with you today, number one, problems are common to growth. Problems are common to growth. The problems that give you the major growth spurt tend to be the most critical crises that you go through. At least you think it’s the most critical crisis as you go through. So there’s a relationship between problems and growth, and most problems come in the form of crisis. Problems are common to growth.

The second thing is problem solving is an art. My mind changed. And now, as a result of this information, I get excited. And I realize that Fortune 500 companies pay top dollar to individuals to come in and solve their problems. I never saw myself as a leader and even as a ministry in the context of being empowered to solve problems.

In the gospel of John 15, Jesus said something to His disciples. He said, “Every branch in Me that bears fruit, I purge it that it becomes more fruitful.” Before those words, He says, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, it will be cast away.” It will be cut. So I like the words in the King James. He says, “If you don’t bear fruit, you’ll be cut. If you bear fruit, you’ll be cut.” So I figured, if I’m going to get cut, let me get cut for good reason. So I chose to bear fruit and be pruned to become more successful. So I discovered that God’s pattern for success is a pattern of purification, cutting away those things that are unproductive. And when I shared about my marriage, about personal issues, about personnel issues, it was a pruning that was taking place. It was God coming in and cutting away those things that would be detrimental to my growth and my development.

I began to see certain things that God would do on purpose, and it moved my theology from thinking of God as someone who came to my rescue into God as someone who took more interest in my growth and my ability to respond to issues in life, especially in a leadership position. So I looked at two passages: one in the gospel of Mark 6, another one in the gospel of Luke 22. And I saw God do something that concerned me. In Mark 6, He was preaching a powerful message, came to the close of the message, and He told the disciples. He said, “I want you to get into a boat, and I’ll meet you on the other side. I want you to go while I send the crowd away.” So He sends the crowd away. He goes up onto a mountain, the Bible says, and He begins to pray. And there He continues praying. And a certain time later, the scene shifts to His disciples; and they’re in the middle of the sea. A storm hits them, and they’re toiling and rowing. And Jesus looks up from His prayer spot and somehow sees them in the middle of this sea struggling. He doesn’t get up, put on His Superman uniform, and fly down to the rescue. In fact, what He did was continue to pray. After He finishes His prayer time, He goes out. And at first I’m thinking that He’s going to them, but the Scripture says He’s walking on water. And here’s the part that got me. It said, “And He would have passed them by.” I had to wrestle with that. I didn’t finish wrestling with Him in the back of the boat sleeping. But here’s a situation where He sees them in trouble, and He would have passed by the Scripture said. And when I looked at that, I said, “Goodness. He would have left them in the situation.” Obviously, there’s a purpose for the situations that we get into. And if we don’t understand that there’s a purpose to it, we’ll rebel instead of cooperating and learning the lessons that we need to learn in every situation in life.

So, of course, you know the story. One of the disciples scream out, “It’s a ghost!” He was identified, He was spotted. And I figured He had to now get in the boat and rescue them. Otherwise they would have died of cardiac arrest, and He would have been guilty of killing His disciples. So He got into the boat, calmed everything down. But it stuck with me the fact that He would have walked right by the situation. That struck me. Then there was another situation where Jesus tells the disciples, says, you know, “Satan seeks to have you and sift you as wheat.” Specifically He identifies Peter. Says, “Satan seeks to have you and sift you as wheat.” Then He says, “But I prayed for you that your faith will not fail. And when you’re converted, strengthen the brethren.” I had a problem with that. “What do You mean You’re praying for me? How about rebuking the devil? How about I stood there and defended you, and he won’t touch you. What about that stuff?” Didn’t say that, simply said He offered a prayer on my behalf. And I saw that it is not about God with a Superman uniform sweeping down to rescue us when we’re in crisis, but it’s God using the crisis, using the situation to develop us, to grow us, to teach us, to adjust our way of thinking so that we can grow, so that our ministry can grow, so that our business can grow. So I saw problems, I saw crisis, in a totally different light, and they became opportunities for me to see God’s power at work.

Today, and let me interject this, because we’re in urban ministry in the heart of New York City. And we experience cultural changes over time and the makeup of the city takes place. One of the things that I read in an article on the way here is that there’s a new phenomenon taking place, and that is churches declaring bankruptcy. And it’s happening first and primarily in the Catholic Church. I said, “How does a church end up declaring bankruptcy? How does the finances diminish to the place where they have to close their doors?” And the answer was simple. Jesus stated it. That’s what happens when we become unnecessary or irrelevant to the communities that we’ve been established in.

So I began to think a little bit about that. And in coming here of course—and I applaud Bill Hybels and what he has done in creating this model that is progressive, that is thinking out of the box beyond the four walls of tradition that we tend to stay in and being willing to pioneer new territory, to pave new paths, and to do things quite different than the way we’ve been used to doing things. And here we are experiencing his success.

So let me right now talk about the art of problem-solving, the art of dealing with crisis, and what I learned. Let me begin by a classroom situation where I walked in, and I remember this vividly, because I love math and I thought I was going to be a math teacher. I got the teacher part right. So I walked into the classroom, and the professor had on the board a problem: [4]x + 4 = 19. And had no idea about algebra, walked in fresh like the rest of us. And we sat down. And he looked up and he said, “You see this? This is a problem.” And I said, “Yeah, right. I don’t know what you’re talking about up there.” He said, “But I want you to understand the dynamics of a problem, and I’m going to make you problem solvers.” And it’s amazing how something that goes all the way back to high school comes forward into your life and thinking in a leadership position.

So he had this [4]x + 4 = 19. And then he began to talk to us, and he said the first thing you’ve got to do is identify the problem. And he said because there’s stuff up here that you know. He said you know what 3 is. You know what 4 is. You know what 19 is. You basically know what an equation is. He said the only problem you have here is this unknown factor called “x.” And then he proceeded to give us some tools on how to solve 4x. And believe me, when you’re facing a crisis, there’s an x factor, the unknown; and you ought to know how do I deal with it.

Let me say that one of the things that I also learned out of this example is that the whole equation is not my problem. The whole equation is not my problem, because there’re elements within it that I understand. The problem is the x, see? So if communication is a problem in my marriage, it doesn’t mean the whole marriage is bad. It means communication is the x factor. If finance is a problem in my marriage, it doesn’t mean the whole marriage is bad. Finance is the x factor. So it helped me not to throw everything out when things break down, instead to look at it carefully, identify what the problem really is. Because quite often we end up trying to solve what is not the problem. I was trying, in the times that my wife and I were having issues and conflict I was trying to get her saved again. I figured that was the answer to my problem. After all, she was my problem. So if you don’t identify clearly what the problem is, guess what? You’re going to be fighting the wrong thing.

So you’ve got to identify the problem. And in order to identify or define a problem, you’ve got to know what a problem is. Now the title of this particular session is “Leadership or Leading Between Two Kingdoms.” And we don’t have enough time, so I’m extracting out of that. So let me quickly go through this process to equip you, to give you some tools that I’ve picked up. Number one, we need to define what a problem is. A problem, I know you think of a problem as anything that makes you uneasy, anything that creates doubt and uncertainty, anything that you don’t understand, anything that you’re having trouble working out. But here’s what a problem really is, and I pray that you’ll leave here with a different mindset. And what’s great about this, it has a ministry application, corporate application to your business, to your relationships—whatever it is.

Number one, we live in a tension between the ideal and the reality. Let me preface this. We live in a tension between the ideal and reality. The ideal is the way things ought to be. The reality is the way things are. I learned that in marriage. Because how many of you in here are married? Ladies, are you married? Okay. So you know what I’m talking about the best. Because when you got married, you thought you married the ideal. And when you woke up the next morning, you were facing the reality. I learned that there’s this gap between those two points. And, in fact, the distance between those two points determined the degree of disappointment. Oh listen close. And I learned that disappointment is never based upon what you find but what you expected to find. So if there’s anything that you need to learn to do in marriage, in business, in ministry, in leadership is to manage your expectations.

So let’s clearly define the problem. A problem is a, and I love simplicity. I like KIS (keep it simple). And for some people, I add an “s,” KISS (keep it simple, stupid), but today, KIS. A problem is a mismatch between what you want and what you have. And this may seem elementary, but I was at a conference in Washington, DC, a meeting of minds to deal with some of the issues in the African-American family. Here it is quite a few years after civil rights, after Brown vs. the Board of Education, after critical decisions that were made and after a generation of African-Americans have grown up in a society where they are experiencing unprecedented wealth and unprecedented education and absence of certain barriers that existed in generations past. And here we are in this think tank. And they said, “We have to deal with this problem. Do you have any suggestions, Reverend?’ I said, “Well first let’s understand what a problem is.” And I gave this simple definition: It’s a mismatch between what we want and what we have. Boy, did I look profound. They all looked at me and said, “Hmm.”

I believe in simple answers. I believe every complexity has its origin in simplicity. So I try to keep it simple. So when I’m looking at problems, I say, okay, okay, it’s a mismatch. What do we want—whether it’s in ministry, in marriage, in business? What do we want? Whether it’s in personal development, what do we want? And then when we put up there what we want, that becomes the ideal. That becomes the model, what we want to strive to.

And then a second question is: Well, what do we have? What do we have is where you are right now. The problem is not what you want or what you have. The problem is the gap between. It’s the gap between those two points. And the art of problem-solving is not getting upset or excited. Now my wife accuses me of being nonchalant, insensitive, because when the crisis comes, I say to her, “Well what do we have? What do we want?” And she says life is just not that simple. I said, “All right, you’ve got 10 minutes to complicate it.” Then we go back to what do we have? What do we want? And all the men in here said yes. That’s why I have security and a side door.

But the art of problem solving is simply reducing the gap between what you want and what you have, what you have and what you want. We live life on levels, and we arrive in stages. That has helped me greatly. I realize in God there are no plateaus, there are only resting places. And you may think you’re on a plateau. God’s waiting to get your attention; so there’s another level. So we live life on levels, and we arrive in stages. And this is critical in understanding that problems have a purpose to our lives. Albert Einstein said a very powerful statement. Please grab this. “You cannot solve a problem at the same level at which it was created.” We’ll try that one more time. Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem at the same level at which it was created.” So the nature of problem solving is to move you, force you to another level just by engaging in solving the problem. So it makes sense why God would leave us in a situation.

God’s got a sense of humor. I believe it. He’s got 5,000 hungry people that have been sitting there listening to His message. He calls His disciples over. They say, “You know, these people are probably hungry. Maybe we better send them away.” And He looks at one of His disciples and said, “No problem. Feed ’em.” The Bible says He said that knowing what He would do. But can you imagine the crisis in the mind of His disciples. “Feed ’em? What do you mean, feed ’em?” But He knew what He was going to do the Scripture says.

So God always has in mind the answer. And let me say this. This is so beautiful that the answer existed before the problem. In God’s world, in God’s economy, the answer existed before the problem. That’s when you read about Christ being slain from before the foundation of the world, you understand He had the solution. He had the answer before Adam was even created and had the opportunity to sin. So it’s not a matter of trying to figure it out or create something that doesn’t exist; it’s a matter of saying, okay, the answer is here. We’re looking at a problem. We’re looking at a situation. It’s creating a crisis for us. But guess what? The answer was here even before the situation came, even before the problem came. I’m telling you that is a shift in philosophy, a shift that reduces stress. And I love leading a stress-free life or minimizing the stress. So again, Albert Einstein said you cannot solve a problem at the same level at which it was created. So problems are designed to take you to another level of life, to take your marriage to another level, to take your ministry to another level, to take your business to another level. That is the purpose. And if the purpose of something is not clearly understood, you will not cooperate with it; and you won’t gain the lesson. And I don’t believe God graduates people who have not completed the necessary requirements of the course. I don’t believe He puts out there dysfunctional illiterates. I believe with God, you have to keep learning. You have to keep going through it over and over again until you learn that lesson.

So the nature of problems is to take us to another level. Let me share with you three things that we move to another level to, not just in solving the problem but in our own personal development and character.

Number one, it takes us to another level of knowledge, because, when you’re facing crises in business, in ministry, in relationship, all right, you’re limited to the knowledge in your own mind. And we tend to make decisions based upon the experiences we’ve had up to that point or the knowledge that we have, the information available to us. Isn’t it true? We make decisions in life based upon the information we had at the time. And we look back with 20/20 vision, and we say, “Boy, if I had some more information or if I had the right information, I would have made some different choices.”

Another thing I have to add in here about that is we also make decisions in the past based upon our way of thinking at the time. And you can have good information, solid information, but if the way you think is off, you won’t process that information effectively. And you will be stuck in the same rut with the same crisis, with the same problems. So it’s not just the information, it’s the way we think. And I’m telling you that whenever you are engaged in problem solving, you experience a change in the way you think. Because the nature of it is to look at something and have to see it from a totally different perspective. So problem solving takes you to another level of knowledge, and it also takes you to another level of responsibility. Absolutely you become responsible for that new information.

Thirdly, problem solving takes you to another level of authority. Wow, that is powerful. Because in the beginning when it was a problem before you got the new information about it and learned how to solve it, guess what? You did not feel authoritative at all. In fact, you can feel overwhelmed. You can feel that you are unsure, you don’t have that confidence, that assertiveness that you need. So the moment you move to another level by engaging in the art of problem solving, guess what? You come out with a new level of knowledge, responsibility, and a new level of authority.

I’m telling you after my professor gave me the tools to solve that [4]x + 4 = 19, next time I saw that problem, it was no problem. I said okay, just, you know, let’s get x by itself, subtract [4], move it over there, x equals, get it down, x equals. I went through that, because I had the tools. So there was an authoritativeness that came to me as a result of my experience. My wife and I, we still have opportunities. Oh boy. That one word will just change your whole mindset. Make you smile through it. And when we see issues try to crop up again in our lives that we dealt with, that we solved, you know what? It’s no problem. We look at each other. We nod our heads. We say we’ve been here before. This we know what to do. So it takes you to another level of knowledge, responsibility, but also to another level of authority.

Another thing that happens, and in fact it requires that when you go through problems in life in the art of problem solving, you experience a deepening of your character. Remember I told you there’s a parallel between the growth of your organization and the growth of your own character, your own personal development. So problems also take you to a place where there’s a deepening of your character. You’re a different person when you come out on the other side having resolved the issues and solved the problem.

Defining the problem also forces you to tell the truth about your present condition. You can’t lie and be an effective problem solver. You can’t lie about the condition. And you know what? We tend to deny. And I love what the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said in chapter 3, verse 14. He said (Living Bible translation says), “You cannot heal a thing by saying it’s not there.” So defining the problem, identifying it, takes you through a process where you have to tell the truth about your present condition. And typically, and I use marriage because it’s a great illustrator. Typically, men are the last to know, the last to find out when a marriage is in crisis. Nobody tells us. But that’s another conference. Identifying the problem forces you to tell the truth about your present condition. Look, the business is failing. If we continue this way, we might as well close shop. Look, our marriage is in trouble. If we don’t find out what’s going on, if we don’t make some changes here, all right, we’re going to go by way of the divorce court. Look, the ministry is not growing. We’ve got issues here. You know we’ve got to be honest with ourselves. We can’t just flower this over and say, oh, God will provide. Jesus loves us. Uh-uh. It forces you to take a good look at your present condition and your present needs.

And let me say, when you—because this is something I want you to take with you and practice, because if your theology is not practical, it’s just theory. This is where the rubber meets the road. When you sit down to engage in this art of problem solving—and I want you to leave here as artiste in problem solving—tell the truth about your present condition. Do it without shame. Don’t be paralyzed by embarrassment. I have no problem standing up here and telling you that my wife and I had issues years ago. I had to accept that, you know. And I will not live a theology that tries to make it look like everything is always wonderful and fantastic. That’s a lie. You’ll die that way. Be honest. Do it without shame. Don’t be paralyzed by embarrassment. Do it without blame.

Take the responsibility. Don’t do like Adam did: Things went wrong in the garden. God, you know, came up to him and said, “Adam.” And Adam said, “The wife you gave me . . .” Yeah, Adam got all the blame. Blame the woman, blame God, okay? Which I understand his reasoning. Because, remember, Adam was alone. And God is the one that came up with the idea that it was not good. (I may not be invited back. I think I’m getting in trouble here.) Do it without blame. Don’t play the blame game. Take responsibility. Be specific. Write it down. There’s power in writing things down. Don’t have it aloof. Don’t have it in the high and lofty recesses of the dream world of your mind.

Boy, that was flowery language. I didn’t know I could do that. Write it down, put it there. Be specific. And I’m telling you when you go through this process step-by-step, it’s amazing how you engage the presence and power and wisdom of God. And one of the first things you do, you get rid of the anxiety. Because when you have a system, when you have a way of addressing things, oh, it takes a load off your shoulder. So once you’ve clearly defined it and gone through these processes, pray. Can’t tell you what a good idea that is. Pray for God’s direction. Pray for God’s direction. He knows what’s going on, and He’s waiting to give you an answer.

And let me just give you some insight about God’s direction, God directs by giving insight as you brainstorm the possible solutions. He said, I know what you need, but I want you to get involved. Think. Don’t just pray and ask Me to mail you the answer. Brainstorm. Think. And guess what? When you brainstorm, you have to include others. So you have to be honest. You have to share. You have to be open. You bring the minds together to give you the information you need.

And here’s something powerful, all right? Try this one. After you pray, all right, step away. Leave it alone. Don’t expect the solution to come after you say amen. Step away. Step away from the problem. Solutions often come while we’re doing something else. And when you experience that, you’re experiencing the power of your spirit working to generate solutions. Even when you don’t realize it, something is happening. Very quickly, create an action plan. What are you going to do about it? Think about how specific actions will reduce the gap, because that’s what you’re working on, the gap. You’re not working on your wife, your business partner, your staff. You’re working on the gap. That takes the focus of attention off of people and puts it on the situation, on the real problem. How can we reduce the gap between what we want and what we have?

Again, write these things down. And while you’re writing, remember your purpose. It’s to reduce the gap. Think of actions to be taken. Also, put a schedule down. Work a time through. I said to my wife, I said, “Honey, don’t worry. I am going to change.” I am changing. Hallelujah. She said, “How long?” You need a schedule. You need a time frame. And lastly, resources. Resources, think about the resources that you’ll need to reduce the gap. And by resources, I have a little list. Here it is. People, can’t get away from people. You need them. Your struggle is with them? But guess what? You need ’em. Imagine if we can get it all done by ourselves. Then you’ll be like the pastor that we saw in the skit: People, space, equipment, supplies, time, and money.

Closing thoughts: Problems force you to the next level of business, of ministry, of relationship in life. It takes you from the transient to the permanent, from the lesser to the greater, from the temporal to the eternal, from 90 seconds of fame to generations of greatness. God bless you.