Hope

“Hope”… the word has had an increased exposure and has been used in our society to symbolize many different things. Having hope is very important to all of us. It is said that a person with no hope is truly someone who lives a miserable existence. Our hopes and dreams for the future fuel our lives and energize us, they speak to us about what could be possible and help us to endure the tough seasons that life brings us. One dictionary definition of hope is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen”. I don’t think that the dictionary definition is a bad one, it certainly captures what most of us feel about hope, however, I think the best way to discover truth about this or any other subject is to find it in God’s Word. 

Biblical “hope” as described once by a teacher that I had in Bible School, is a “confident expectation”. This is very different than the everyday hope that most people experience. Everyday, common, hope says, “I hope this changes”, but doesn’t really know whether or not it will. It is a desire but it is void of a solid faith in God that brings a confident expectation. When you know what God’s Word says about something, you know what His will is, when you know His will for you, you can begin to have faith in Him, trusting Him in your circumstance. Hope added to your faith says, “I know that my circumstances haven’t changed yet, but I have prayed and spoken God’s Word and I have hope for the future. You have confident expectation that in the future you will see with your eyes what you have seen and counted as done in your heart. 

Abraham is the best example of Biblical hope because during his walk with God, he faced great challenges and was given great promises by God in the midst of his circumstances. Abraham was promised an heir and God said that he would have an heir and not only that but that this heir would be the beginning of a line of descendants that would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. This was a lot for Abraham to believe since he and his wife Sarah were way beyond child bearing years. But the end of the story is that Abraham believed God, had faith in His promise and it all happened just as God said. But the scripture that illustrates the power of Biblical hope is in Romans 4:18. There is a statement that says Abraham “contrary to hope, in hope believed”. Abraham without supernatural help had no hope, but with God he had a “confident expectation” for the future.

There will be many times in your life when it looks like there isn’t a reason to have hope for the future and without God you would be right. But if you will find out what God has promised, believe His Word, speak it over your life you will have great reason to hope for the future, you will have the best kind of hope - Bible hope, a confident expectation that what you are believing will come to pass!

The Power of Delegation

To "delegate" is defined in the dictionary as, entrusting a task or responsibility to another person or to send or authorize someone to do something as a representative.
In today's busy world many of us find ourselves too busy to get everything done that we want to do, whether you are a busy parent, a small business owner, or the CEO of a large corporation. Delegation, the process of using a team of people to help you accomplish tasks, can be a valuable key in getting things done and a great tool for empowering others. 
Here are a few keys that I have found over the years that have been of help. I will say that I am still learning and growing regarding this and many other things in life and work and I am constantly trying to improve. These points are a mixture of resources I have used in the past plus some personal experience.

1. Identify what to delegate to others. Look at the tasks that you are currently doing and identify which of those you MUST do verses things that someone else COULD do. If you are a parent, delegate house cleaning and chores to the kids, but you better take care of reconciling the checkbook :). If you are a business owner you may want to meet with community leaders, the media and prospective large clients.  Other tasks like accounting and bookkeeping or secretarial tasks and answering the phone could be done by someone else. Things like janitorial services, searching for a new office location or legal work could be delegated to an outside professional or company. If you are a small business, using a contractor or temp employee can be of help. Some buildings will lease you an office with shared resources like a receptionist, secretarial pool and a copy room so although you are a smaller company, you can take advantage of getting help at a reduced cost.
2.  Identify who to delegate to. Be honest with yourself regarding your strengths and know the strengths of those around you. One quick side note, when you are hiring , hire to your weakness so that those on your team compliment your skills. Sometimes a team member has a potential that you will need to develop through training, some on your team are ready right now to take over tasks that will immediately free you up. Just remember that someone will always do better working in area of they are naturally strong in.  Also delegation of extremely important tasks should be left to those employees or team members that are the most loyal and faithful to you and your organization.
3. Release and Empower. To be a successful delegator, you must release people to do the work in a way that they feel empowered to succeed.  If you micro-manage all the tasks that you assign to others, you defeat the purpose of delegating in the first place. If there is training required, investing that time up front will really pay off in the future. The response from some of us that feel overwhelmed and too busy is, "I'll just do it myself, it's faster". While that may be true, it is a short term fix to your time management and efficiency issues. People may not be as good at a task as you are, but do you want to keep doing it? It will take some time for people take over a task with complete success and they will make some mistakes along the way. Create an environment where people will not be afraid to take risks and put themselves out there a little. In the long run you will have a much more creative, dynamic team. It is super rewarding to empower others and watch them develop and grow all the while helping you to be more successful - it is what's called a "win-win".
4. "Trusting is good, checking is better". One of our church board members who is also a great friend taught me this saying many years ago. Of course trust is a valuable part of releasing people to take on tasks as a part of delegation, but it doesn't mean that we are completely "hands off". There is a difference between micro-managing someone and monitoring them as a part of being a good manager. We should check on a person's progress, quality of work, time spent on task and other measures of performance from time to time. We want to make sure that the work is getting done in the way we expect and that the person is not overwhelmed by the task. If you aren't aware, then you cannot provide coaching or additional training to help make your team member, you and your organization successful. You can accomplish this by setting up simple progress reports for the person to fill out that can be sent through email and/or by setting up regular "one on one" meetings over coffee. Even is the person is working at a different location, making face to face meetings impractical, you can use technology like "Skype" to do a meeting over the internet. Find a method that is appropriate in your setting.

I hope these few keys will help you get started in delegating or encourage you to do more of it. You can find many great books on leadership and management online and in your local bookstore that would treat this subject with much more detail, what I have written here is just a start.

Most of us have talented people around us that can be of great help and who would be fulfilled and love the opportunity to take on a new challenge. Whether it is church volunteers, paid employees, or outside professionals we can all accomplish more with some help.

The Power of a Fresh Start - Part 1

I think that one of my favorite scriptures in the whole Bible is found in Lamentations 3:22-24, here quoted in the New Living Translation.

The faithful love of the LORD never ends
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!” NLT

The book of Lamentations is generally considered a real “downer”, you can kind of tell by the name of the book, to “lament” means to grieve, to sorrow, even to wail. The original Hebrew name of the book translates to “How!”… in today’s language, “What the Heck?!”. Most Bible scholars agree that the author was the prophet Jeremiah. The book was written at a really tough time for Israel. Through their disobedience to God they had been taken captive by Babylon, the city of Jerusalem destroyed, the Temple burned and all that Judah held precious gone.
Through all that Israel was experiencing, Jeremiah reminds the people of who their God is and how He feels towards His children. One of the most awesome things about God is that He never changes. No matter what we do, how we mess up, miss it, whatever, He still feels the same. Maybe there are things that took place in 2009 that make you want a fresh start for 2010. You could want change in one or two areas or maybe you wish the whole year was a “do over”. I have good news; you serve the God of the fresh start. Look at our scripture and you see several characteristics about our God: His love never ends, His mercies never cease, and He is faithful to us. If that weren’t enough, here the Bible says that God’s mercies “begin afresh each morning”. Wow a do over every day! Can you think of a time in your life when you needed that?

I think we should all have the desire to grow and change, that through spiritual growth and faith we overcome the challenges in our life. But we will always be reliant on the mercy of the Lord. If you need a fresh start in an area of your life or for your whole life, I want to encourage you to remember that no matter what you have done or where you are at in your life that God’s love, faithfulness and mercy are there for you. Call on Him today in prayer and receive His loving mercies and His help to change!