Posted By zac on January 20, 2010

Bill Hybels has written a quick-flowing book on leadership called Axiom. While I enjoy reading leadership books, a potential problem with most of them is that they are largely theoretical. Hybels has written a book that is less theory and more experiential. He gives insights from his experience as a leader. The short chapters and the “Links” at the bottom of each chapter make this a valuable reference book, too. The way I read books on leadership is twofold: first, I read it as a leader of others and second, I read it as a leader of myself. In other words, the principles I learn I try to apply not only at work but also in my personal life.

Here are some excellent quotes from Axiom that are useful to me in leading others as well as leading myself:

• “Language matters!”
• “Effective consolidation earns you permission to enter yet another season of growth sometime in your future.”
• “Leaders, don’t ever apologize for the strength of feeling you have for the vision that God has put in your life.”
• “Incremental thinking, incremental planning, incremental prayers — it’s the kiss of death.”
• “Nothing is ever lost by leaving room for the surprising and supernatural emergence of a yes.”
• “I want an environment that helps keep blood pressure stable, the nuttiness quotient low, and fire drills and soap operas to a minimum.”
• “Keep the ‘church’ in church work.”
• “If a bunch of smart people who love God, love the church, and love each other will devote adequate time to these problems, there’s no mountain we can’t move.”
• “Stay prayed up, rested up, and committed to entering the tunnel of chaos whenever the Spirit prompts.”
• “Just say it!”
• “Friend, it’s as green as it’s gonna get in our world.”
• “The way I am doing the work of God is destroying God’s work in me. Something has to change. Soon.”
• “We have to get better about implementing what we can sustain.”
• “When you have clear, objectified data, you can plan better, you can make better decisions, and you can chart a surer course for your church.”
• “When we are focused on the right mission and have the right people executing roles that are consistent with their gifts and calling, I expect to see a bounce in people’s step, a sparkle in their eyes, joy in their hearts, and energy to spare.”
• “What life are you waiting for?”
• “Never once have I regretted taking the high road.”
• “If you are a serious-minded leader, you will read.”
• “We must fight for excellence because it is excellence that honors God.”
• “Admitting your mistakes says something profound about your basic integrity as a leader.”

Category: Book Reviews | No Comments »
Tags: Axiom, Bill Hybels, book review

Posted By zac on January 19, 2010

A friend asked me to compile some of my favorite blog posts. As I reflected on my blog, the past year has been momentous for me because it was the year that I found out I had cancer. So, my “favorites” seem to all have something to do with cancer. If I met someone for the first time and they wanted to know about me, I think the following blog posts would tell them more about me than I could succinctly describe.

Here are a few favorites from 2009:

• Cancer’s Immediate Effect Bolder And More Brazen
• Monopoly Spirituality
• Cancer As Goodness & Mercy
• Do You Do Well To Be Angry
• On Sufficiency

My personal favorite might be the poem I wrote while in the hospital:

• Cancer, Probably; A Poem

Also: the most viewed / shared item is the video that was made:

• Letter To Zac

Glory to God!

Category: Cancer | 1 Comment »
Tags: 2009, blogs, Cancer

Posted By zac on January 18, 2010

Thanks to the kindness of a variety of people, I was able to take a trip to New York City with Mandy and Lizzy. It was our first time in NYC. Lizzy’s wish was to go to the American Museum of Natural History. We got to fly up the Hudson and see the whole city from the air. We stayed at a great hotel right by the museum. We spent all day at the museum then visited Central Park. We ate well and rested well. Here are some pictures:

Category: The Un-Category | 3 Comments »
Tags: Lizzy, Mandy, New York City

Posted By zac on January 12, 2010

The book of Proverbs, in the Bible, has many recommendations for success. We are told to be fair, righteous, just and to seek wise counsel. But there is another character trait we should seek after: diligence.

According to the dictionary, one who is diligent is characterized by steady, earnest and energetic effort. According to the Bible, one who is diligent is characterized by riches, power, wealth, supply and abundance.

Proverbs 10:4 — A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

Proverbs 12:24, 27 — The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor. Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.

Proverbs 13:4 — The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

Proverbs 21:5 — The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

So we can conclude that one who is steady, earnest and energetic is one who is richly supplied. Stop being slack, lazy and slothful.

But there is more. When the Hebrew word charuwts is used as an adjective in the book of Proverbs, it is translated as “diligent,” as in bold above. When it is used as a noun in Proverbs, it is poetically translated as “gold,” as in bold below.

Proverbs 3:13-14 — Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold.

Proverbs 8:10, 19 — Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver.

Proverbs 16:16 — How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.

Therefore, it is good to be diligent, but there is something better than diligence: wisdom and understanding. What does this all mean?

I conclude that it is our duty to be diligent (steady, earnest and energetic) in what we do, but we must also continually focus on acquiring wisdom, instruction and understanding from God. We must balance our leaning on Him — our trust in Him — with our own steady doings.

Category: The Un-Category | 4 Comments »
Tags: diligence, proverbs

Posted By zac on January 3, 2010

In the book of Joel, God promises the arrival of His Spirit upon mankind.

Joel 2:28-29 — And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

To the Israelites, the idea of God’s Spirit being on various humans contradicted what they knew about the office of prophet. Prophets were enabled by God to speak forth that which God Himself was saying to them (see Numbers 12:6). They preached to the people and they interceded to God on behalf of the people. They were the mouthpiece of God; a unique role for a select few. Joel’s passage indicates a massive outpouring of the Spirit on humanity. In Acts 2, Joel’s prophecy came true:

Acts 2:2-4 — And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

So God had promised hundreds of years earlier that His Spirit would arrive. Jesus had promised before He left earth that the Spirit, as a Comforter, would arrive. And then one morning, while the first Christians were gathered, the Spirit arrived. Peter got up and preached immediately following this amazing event and three thousand people believed in Jesus as their Messiah that day.

The cool thing is that amazing things happen when God’s Spirit is involved. The cooler thing is that God’s Spirit is still here. He is still poured out on those who believe in Jesus. His job is to speak to us, to guide us, to comfort us.

Thank you, God, for the gift of Your Spirit! May we be attentive and malleable in Your hands.

Category: Weekly Jib Jab | 2 Comments »
Tags: acts, Holy Spirit, Joel, Numbers

Posted By zac on January 1, 2010

It is 2010. A new year; a new decade. And while I am somewhat opposed to “New Year Resolutions,” I anticipate a few changes in the coming weeks — specifically with my priorities.

Pardon my honesty, but with the amount of pain I am experiencing, it is difficult to imagine being around for the entirety of 2010. I really want to be around. And I believe it is possible to be around. But you should understand that the obvious condition that I am in affords me a great desire to evaluate priorities. So here are a few things I have come up with:

• My main focus in life continues to be pouring into my wife and children — I want to invest as much time and energy into them as possible
• At work, my main focus is to pour into my amazing team at NewSpring Central Operations — newly restructured for greater efficiency and productivity
• In a broader sense, I am focusing on ministry THROUGH the suffering, not after it
• In an even broader sense, my simple life plan is to listen to God and obey what He says
• There are also many changes needed with regards to “free time”
  • As much as I want to pour into the people I love, I want to rest and relax with them, too
  • I am whittling down my RSS reader to under 75 subscriptions
  • I am whittling down my Twitter stream to under 200
  • I am discontinuing the Top Ten Gadgets — at least on a weekly basis
  • I am being extremely selective in what books I read
• Lastly, I want to travel with Mandy to some exotic places

This is probably not exhaustive, but it feels right to focus on focusing. I want to trim the excess; I want to be more productive with the time I have. So I appreciate all the prayers and continued encouragement. “The best is yet to come.”

Category: The Un-Category | 10 Comments »
Tags: 2010, New Year

Posted By zac on December 29, 2009

As I sit here precariously close to the year 2010, I must admit there were a few days of 2009 when I did not think I would make it this far. Cancer is a beast and a pain; yet with the help of my doctors, my friends, family and colleagues, my three kids, my amazing wife, and — most of all — my God I have been able to fight these many battles.

I had a PET scan yesterday and received the results today. There is some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that there is still no metabolically active cancer on my liver or on my spleen. This is good because that means the lower dosage of the easier-to-handle chemo regimen I have been on for the past couple of months is maintaining the dormancy. This is also good because active tumors on the liver will do me in with a quickness.

The bad news is that there is “excessive and progressive” cancer in my peritoneum. Again, this is the membrane that holds my organs and intestines in place. It is covered with a “caking” of cancer — in other words, too much to count. The implications of this are several. First of all, it should be noted that peritoneal mets are rarely fatal. They are aggressively annoying, though. As they grow, they interfere with the normal digestive process causing massive pain and possibly resulting in digestive detours via surgery or colostomies. Because of this, people with peritoneal cancer can still die — they die due to depression from dealing with the pain or they die due to malnutrition because they give up on eating. There are four basic ways we can deal with this cancer:

1. Do nothing. Basically we can sit tight and manage the pain and wait for it to become unbearable.
2. Chemo. This is essentially useless; chemo is IV-based and very little blood flows through the peritoneum.
3. Surgery. It is hard to find surgeons willing to undergo this difficult, invasive procedure. It would involve cutting me completely open and scrubbing this caking of cancer out. It is not possible to remove all of them and it is almost a guarantee that the tumors will return in that area eventually.
4. HIPEC. This is a very extreme procedure where hot chemo is injected into the abdomen, the patient is rolled back and forth for several hours and then the chemo is removed. It can take 30-60 days to recover from this and it is similar to surgery: it is rarely possible to remove all the tumors and it is almost a guarantee that the tumors will return in that area eventually.

As far as the options above, we are going to be talking to some surgeons to see if surgery is an option. Chemo will be suspended indefinitely until we know more about surgery — chemo and surgery do not play nice together. Until then, I am simply managing the pain.

All this to say that the medical prognosis is not good. I will have cancer in my abdomen for the rest of my life. I will continue to experience great pain — even greater than I currently experience, which is hard to believe. It may sound hard to believe that someone could die of depression because of the pain, but it seems plausible to me. I am trying several different methods to deal with the pain; when I find one that works, I will share it. Right now Valium seems to be taking the edge off.

So, medically it is not looking good. The cool thing is that, like I said above, there is no medical way to completely remove and cure peritoneal cancer. Which means that complete removal falls in the realm of the supernatural, i.e. a miracle. So that continues to be my prayer. It should also be noted that I am extremely grateful to be walking, talking, working full-time, enjoying my food and living a relatively normal life. So I have some pain that I must deal with. I am excited about continuing to be productive and my prayer is that I continue to give glory to God with my life.

To God be the glory!

Category: The Un-Category | 41 Comments »
Tags: Cancer, chemotherapy

Posted By zac on December 27, 2009

In the ancient world, the art of divination was used to determine the will of the gods. Various methods of divination are still used to this day all around the world. In the Bible, the most common method of divination used was cleromancy — literally meaning “lot prophecy.” The idea of casting lots has to do with participants picking something whose outcome is random, e.g. a shortened straw among several regular-length straws or a colored rock among several white rocks. This random outcome is not considered random in cleromancy, though. In this method of divination, the outcome is considered to be the result of the deity’s will; in the Bible it is often used to define the will of the one true God.

While the Bible is clear that divination is something to be avoided by the general populace (Deuteronomy 18:9-12), it is allowed by those who are in the priesthood (Exodus 28:15-30). Casting lots occurs several times in the Old Testament and a couple of times in the Gospels (Luke 1:9; Matthew 27:35). But the last time that lots are cast occurs in Acts 1 when the eleven remaining disciples seek God’s help in finding the twelfth disciple.

Acts 1:23-26 — And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

This is an example of divination: a seemingly random outcome treated as non-random, but rather as the will of God. A coin flip to decide which of these two guys would join the eleven. The disciples clearly trusted the omnipotence of God to providentially define the outcome. But it is interesting that this is the last occurrence of lots being cast in the Bible. The answer is the next chapter.

In Acts 2, we see that day of Pentecost happens; the Holy Spirit, the promised Comforter, is given to those who gathered. From that point on, followers of Christ are given the presence of God in the form of the Holy Spirit. And it is the Holy Spirit within them that guides them; no longer do they need to cast lots. Notice what happens throughout Acts after the Spirit arrived (emphasis mine):

Acts 11:12 — “And the Spirit told me to go with them…”

Acts 13:2, 4 — While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said… So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

Acts 15:28 — “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden…”

Acts 19:21 — Now after these events Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia…

What we see is that after the arrival of the Spirit, it is the Spirit Himself who guides the believers. There is no longer a need to use divination to determine the will of God; for God is with us. Thank you, God, for giving us your Spirit — for giving us your eternal presence. May we be discerning and wise.

Category: The Un-Category | 3 Comments »
Tags: acts, Holy Spirit, lots, providence