Think factually with focus on him ...

Thursday, Oct 2, 2014. Recently we have been in some discussion, where one of the participants felt criticized by what was said. Indeed, there was some criticism involved, but it was about some particular piece of work, and the point was that the content of this work was not correct.

What layer is the discussion on? …

But the person who had written it took it personal. He thought that the criticism of the writing was one of his person. He reacted with a pattern like: but I am not that bad. But it was not said that he was bad, it was just said that this particular text was not correct. No one wanted to draw any further conclusions about the author at this point. It can be really difficult sometimes to make progress with some topic, as long as some people involved interpret the discussion about content on a personal or political or power level.

Recently, we spent a lot of time searching for someone taking care of a working branch in our church. We did not find any person who would have been willing to take that over as responsible leader. So I continued to do it with a little part of my time (having enough other responsibility). At some meeting suddenly someone strongly criticized me about not delegating enough, I should at some point start to give some things up to others. This person did not see or realize that we had already spent hours talking to people to try to do exactly that. But it was some very strongly expressed opinion - in a tone which was on the personal level. It did not match reality, but a psychological reality which was the impression of those involved.

Of course, we all want to be appreciated and valued personally. But we can not be valued for a text with important parts being incorrect. We cannot be appreciated for something we do not manage to do currently. All this is going into the wrong direction. Our value needs a better basis!

It is better to focus on him …

Let me first say: I think it we can be very confident that we will be appreciated if we contribute our work with care, with truthfulness and trustworthiness. And we will be appreciated if we are pure in our mind and in our motives, if people know that they can rely on us and trust us.

But the point is that we need to get away from the focus too much on our own person . We need to find peace with our own frustrations, with the things which did not work out in our life, with the things which hurt us in the past, or hurt us still today. And then we need to move our focus to the important things. This is, in the first place, the origin and owner of all things: the Lord.

When we have the Lord in our heart, then let us talk about what is important to do. Let us focus on the content. Let us fix the wrong statements - change them into correct statements. Let us stop doing things we can not carry out anyway - the expectations need to be corrected. This can all happen when we put our focus onto the right goal, the eternal goal - and then adapt all other goals and topics accordingly. There is no doubt that we will find a good order and good priorities for our daily work, when our main prioritiy is set right and when we are filled by his holy spirit, by his insight into humanity and into creation. Give it a try! He is just great … (Roland Potthast) ... more texts