Let’s Care That It’s Not Fair

Last week I shared an article on how life isn’t fair. Because we are all having to confront our inner seven-year-old whining that it really isn’t. But I fear that my annoyance with the adults and politicians constantly whining about unfairness comes through louder than my empathy toward those lamenting the unfairness of life.

This is the growth edge I have been working on, and admittedly leading with empathy and humanity is a challenge for me. So often there is a false dichotomy of either kindly telling people what they want to hear or harshly beating people down with truth. Clearly speaking truth in a kind and empathetic way is the much harder balance to strike!

Andy Stanley recently explained the leadership mindset behind their decision to keep the doors of the North Point building closed through the end of 2020. In doing so he illustrated the same posture I mentioned last week, one of not demanding our rights, what we think we are owed or entitled to, but rather fighting FOR the rights of others. 

This is a huge and fundamental posture that leaders always need to remember and keep at the forefront of our decisions and thinking. It often does not feel like we have much power or influence, but the reality is that we often have more than we think. And if we aren’t careful we can use it to protect the power we have and acquire more of it for ourselves rather than leverage it for others.

Power and influence are a bit like money in that regard. We often feel like no matter how much we have it isn’t quite enough to do what we want. We tell ourselves that when we are in charge we will leverage our strength for others, but succumb to the temptation of believing that right now we only have enough to defend ourselves. But influence is a resource, just as with money, to manage it well we must ask ourselves to what ends do we want our lives to be a means?

There may be no greater evidence of this than the leader of the free world spending much of his time whining almost daily about how unfairly he is treated. At some point he became the most powerful and influential man in the world, yet still feels the need to use his platform to defend himself rather than others. If someone with that much power can fall victim to this thinking, certainly anyone else with far less influence can as well!

But while the posture of being for others is so critical, there was a leadership attitude Andy talked about the week before that might be even more important. If being for others is a posture of leaning in to leverage your strength for those around you, its prerequisite is an attitude of joyful compassion. We have to be empathetic to the difficulty others feel in their circumstances before engaging to try and help.

Andy described this as leading with humanity, but the term that keeps coming up in my meditation is equanimity. One way to think of this is needing to put on your life preserver before helping someone who is drowning. If we try to help without stabilizing ourselves first, there is a good chance our presence will just add to the chaos and not do much good!

Equanimity is the ability to look at what is wrong in our world and accept it as it truly is. No need to reframe, gloss over, or find a silver lining, but able to clearly see the good and the bad without immediately reacting. If we jump in to try and help solve problems right away without first accepting reality, we lack the necessary information to respond well. As Dharius Daniels says in his book Relational Intelligence, “Reflection helps us to act not just emotionally, but intelligently.. It’s almost impossible to made good decisions with bad information.” 

Perhaps our difficulty working together is we only have one perspective on the challenges we are facing today in our nation and world. Not to mention in our homes and businesses! I believe many on “the other side” (whichever side is frustrating you to no end!) truly are compassionate, empathetic, and solution oriented. But only considering the problems visible from their perspective.

Jeff Henderson is concluding his final series at Gwinnett Church this weekend, and he astutely captures what we too often lose sight of in these seasons of adversity. Our goal in each chapter needs to be not winning the battle or coming out as the hero, but rather pointing to the hero of the bigger story. We might win the battle for power and authority, only to realize that we lost influence where it matters most. 

We are all in a season of adversity right now, where we often feel powerless to control our world and provide safety for ourselves, our families, and friends. Whether you are praying for more federal relief now or lower taxes in the future, protection by police or protection from police, to keep schools and businesses open or to limit them to reduce community spread. These are all important things that significantly impact our lives and livelihoods.

To call back to something Andy quoted a few months ago, we must never lose faith in the end of the story. The bigger story, of which this season is just one chapter. But whatever we do in this season, we must ensure that our words and actions, attitudes and behavior, all consistently point to that bigger story. It would be a shame to come out ahead in this chapter, only to realize we sidelined our role in the bigger story. This chapter, this season, feels like it is dragging out forever. But it will only be a footnote in the eternal story.