Preston Gillham

We need to do a work around. I’m sorry for the hassle.

You were supposed to receive a link from my contracted email company to confirm your intent to join the Prayer Tribe. Some did, the majority of you did not.

I’m working diligently to remedy the foul up. The problem is wholly the email provider’s.

In the meantime, if you would like to be part of the Prayer Tribe, here are two work-around options as Reny guides and focuses the Prayer Tribe:

• Reny will post at my website, at my Facebook, and at my LinkedIn. You can check in at your convenience and stay updated.

• Or, you can go to PrestonGillham.com and sign up to receive an RSS feed into your email reader or your Inbox. The link to do this is in the upper right corner of the third column.

By signing up for RSS, you will receive an email each time a new post is made at my “Life and Leadership” blog. This is a good option for now, it just isn’t as personal as our “Join the Prayer Tribe” option. Once the mailer fixes “Join the Prayer Tribe,” I’ll let you know.

While you are praying for Ruby, please pray for me. Stuff like this drives me nuts, which is weird, because I’m already nuts. :/

Thanks for being in my corner. The editor is working diligently on “No Mercy.” His name is Steve and I’m certain you will hear from Reny soon about how to pray for Steve.

Bless you, and have a great Saturday.

Preston

Dianne (my wife) and I want to introduce you to a dear friend, Reny Madjarska, and ask you to join her in forming a Prayer Tribe to pray for us and my nearly-completed book, “No Mercy.”

Reny and I worked together for eleven years at Lifetime Guarantee Ministries. She is talented, trustworthy, and has a vibrant relationship with God.

Reny came to college at TCU from her home, Bulgaria, in 1994. She was an atheist, a card-carrying communist, and on a full scholarship in Economics. Our Heavenly Father pursued her, won her heart, and she became a follower of Jesus Christ. She has since earned a MATh, a MBA, and is currently the CFO of a financial services company in California.

“No Mercy” is a work of fiction. It’s about connecting with God, what goes wrong in the process, and how to remedy the relationship.

As Dianne and I discussed with Reny some of our challenges, she offered to assemble a tribe of people to pray. This is where I hope you enter the picture. Would you join the Prayer Tribe and pray?

As I share with Reny, she is going to write to you and post to my website, PrestonGillham.com, under the “Life” column. If you sign up by clicking this link, you’ll see “Join the Prayer Tribe” in the right column. Reny will keep you focused.

Reny has expressed concern that she, whose third language is English, is posting to a writer’s website. I have encouraged her that you are meeting to pray, not judge her writing.

So you’ll know, as Reny writes she will sign her name to her posts. If my name is on a post, it’s from me.

Thanks in advance for joining us. If you want, please pass this invitation along to others.

You will see “Join the Prayer Tribe” in the right column of PrestonGillham.com.

Bless you,

Preston

That’s how Dianne and I read the Bible. More verses than that, for longer than a paragraph takes, has proven too formidable for us to enjoy success, let alone benefit.

Mornings are demanding—and we don’t even have kids. Yikes! The alarm goes off at 4:45. Di’s out the door at 7:00. No matter how hard we try to manage our minutes, by the time we get exercises done, showers taken, and breakfast downed the clock has precious few ticks left prior to take off.

For years we just acquiesced into the jaws of defeat. But then the idea of something—anything—being better than nothing registered. It seemed a good place to start was with a paragraph. And we did, and it worked. Very well.

Measurable goals. Achievable results. Blah, blah, blah. I know. Here’s the surprise: We are enjoying reading Scripture more than ever. And, we are getting great insight too. The bite-size chunks of Bible are allowing us to savor our paragraph like gourmets. It’s rich.

There is something to be said for an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. But, there is also something to be said for a gourmet meal presented “just so” and relished bite-by-bite so each complexity bursts in your mouth.

I eat at both kinds of places, and I digest Scripture similarly. But in the mornings, Dianne and I savor the Scripture one paragraph at a time while we drink our fruit smoothie.

A lot of folks figure that if you are a follower of Christ and lead people that you are a Christian leader. That’s trite. Too simplistic, and therefore contributes to abetting the enemy’s tactic of rendering Christianity and Christian leadership irrelevant, distant, and out of touch.

One aspect of leadership is leading the way. You know, “Follow me.”

To split hairs, “follow me” doesn’t quite capture the proximity of leading people effectively. A person can follow from some distance. But if you say, “Join me,” or “Come with me,” the proximity implied in the invitation changes.

Leadership is not so much showing the way as it is taking people on the journey with you. Leadership is not only by example—follow me—but by affinity and by close proximity. You know: show, don’t tell.

I’ve been reluctant in my leadership-by-proximity because of the verses of Scripture that talk about not letting the left hand know what the right hand is up to, about doing your deeds in secret, about loss of reward, etc. Proximity of leadership and followership implies that the leader lets the follower into his leader’s heart and motivation and contribution.

Leadership can be abused by using its platform to garner praise and recognition. But, leadership can also have as its motivation taking others to new heights—new places—by example, and proximity, and sacrifice, and personal risk, and transparency, and by inclusion in the heart’s motive.

Showing the way with an inclusive, arm-around-the-shoulder proximity is the embracing of leadership by inclusion. I like that image.

Leadership by example alone is too distant. I can’t imagine Jesus calling to his disciples from a distance up the trail-of-life and saying, “Follow me.”

I think what he really meant was, “Come with me.”

It’s Sunday night—probably Monday morning by the time you read this post. I was just sitting by the fire and thinking backward when it occurred to me that I should let you know what’s on my mind.

I fought a brutal battle against feeling insignificant for years. It culminated on another cold night a few years ago while I was sitting on a curb, in my neighborhood, with my dog. It’s a story for another day, but I came to realize that evening that I was significant because my Heavenly Father chooses to spend time with me.

The victory came from space. Not outer space, but realizing that since no one else—not the dog that was sitting between my legs, nor my dear wife with whom I sleep—can occupy the same time and space that I do, I’m singular. These can be close, but they can’t be completely integrated into where I am.

Therefore, no one occupies the same place in time and space that I do…except for my Father, who lives in me. That makes me significant. Singular. Important. Noticed and valuable by virtue of the fact that God spends time alone with me.

He could be anywhere. Everywhere. And He is. But most importantly, He is in me, where I am, and no one else is there—can’t be—and that makes me singularly significant.

Like I said, it’s a story for another day.

Significance and recognition—the subject of my thoughts this cold night—are not synonyms. Father resolves my need to be significant by connecting with me, and with me alone, in my space and time and place.

But recognition is different. Of course, He recognizes, e.g. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” but I believe He intends for those around us to play a part in our recognition.

Herein is the problem. God is dependable and absolutely faithful, and I wish the same could be said for me. But I am human, fatally flawed, and undependable. When humanity is introduced into your equation, you should expect disappointment. Drag.

I need to be recognized. To be sure, I won’t die without it, but I will suffer without it. Analogously, I need to be touched, but I won’t die without it. Like my need to be touched, I need to be recognized, and while Father is sufficient to carry me forward with/without touch, He is sufficient to carry me forward with/without recognition. I believe this. I believe Him. So, I’m OK in the long run, but I feel vulnerable sitting snuggly by my fire.

It is tricky to manage this battle against recognition—to be noticed. It is not as clearly defined as the battle with significance. It comes down to what a friend of mine calls “keeping your own counsel.” From my experience, keeping my own counsel is like balancing the ingredients in a complex recipe. Get it right, it’s good. Get it wrong, you feed it to Fred (that’s our garbage disposal’s name). Fred lives large at our house.

There are those aspects of life that Father deems so important that He singularly takes care of them, e.g. significance. There are those aspects of life that Father partners with us to achieve, e.g. recognition.