End to Begin
Recently, I divided my life into four grids. Christian psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud in his book Necessary Endings insists that to ignite new dreams and beginnings, we need to cut necessary endings. So often, our personal lives and organizations get stuck in unhealthy, hurtful or problematic situations and we are too fearful to kill off unproductive or even toxic areas to usher in fresh new life and dreams. We keep resuscitating situations that cannot be resurrected.
Cloud urges us to prune three things from our lives and organizations:
Healthy extra blooms.
Sick branches that will not get better.
Dead branches that need to give space for new ones to grow.
For me, the hardest to prune is cutting off healthy extra blooms—the many good things which are not the best things. As I examined my life, I identified a key ministry that I excel in and which brings me accolade and affirmation, but it is no longer the most strategic initiative for me to engage in. I had to put that in my “healthy extra bloom” quadrant to be substantially reduced. Recently, I watched a friend mercilessly plucking off entire clusters of beautiful blooms. She explained, “These clusters are beautiful but they have no extra buds. They will not keep blooming.” As she pruned her flowers, it reminded me of the Dawson Trotman quote: “Never do anything that someone else can and will do, when there is so much of importance to be done which others cannot or will not do.”
In my journal I drew three quadrants and prayerfully spent two days asking the Lord what are the extra blooms, the sick branches, and dead weight that he wants me to eliminate from my life. I added a fourth quadrant which are the things He wants me to do more of or to start doing. The things he wants me to do more of includes sowing more intentionally into my adult sons, increasing fasting, teaching at the college level, and exercising more.
In All Nations, Jesus has called us to bear fruit—fruit that lasts—through disciple-making movements. To empower our movements become more fruitful, we are launching an initiative to acquire bibles for our churches that don’t have a single Bible (see below). For each of us in the next months, let’s take time to consider making necessary endings of busy work, distracting work, good-but-not-best work, in order to birth a new beginning. In each of your lives, may the Lord give you new beginnings and the courage to prune the extra blooms, the sick branches, and the dead branches.
Dr. Mary Ho, DSL
All Nations International, Inc. | International Executive Leader
Reaching the neglected globally -- the least, the last, and the lost
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