Justin Answers Your Questions - Part II

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey Justin, what's up today?

Well, hey everyone. Welcome to Made for Mondays. I'm glad you guys are joined in with us this morning as we continue our journey with some questions you all sent in. Thank you to those of you who emailed them over or even used our form on our website to engage. And I'm glad to just read about those of you who are just from all across the country, just really engaging with some of these questions and engaging with us as well. So let's jump into our questions today and once again, if you guys want to ask anything, you can go to jrlester.com and click on Made for Mondays and send us an email. Or you can email me directly rev jrlestermail.com and we'll do our best to get these on our show. This entire month is dedicated to answering your questions and as a hope to really kind of agitate whatever you really are curious about to ensure that we do ministry directly to you. Alright, let's jump right into these questions today. They're all over the board and I'm happy about the ones today as we jump in. So the first question I have today from John in Seattle. Thank you for listening John. Here's a question that John gives us. He says this. You mention a lot about circles and influence and relationships and friendships and enemies. How do you handle a co worker who was a friend but is now an enemy? Well, John, first of all, let me say this. I love Seattle. I hear a lot about Seattle. Seattle actually being the future and the west coast being the future. Like Washington, Oregon, Northern California and Arizona just really being the future. And shout out to Arizona for counting this last weekend. Regardless. So about friendships and relationships. You know, one of the things I'm learning in my life is I have a 3 year old. My son grows out of shoes left and right and when we try to force him to wear shoes he can no longer fit, it's uncomfortable for him, it's uncomfortable for us because he's crying, he's frustrated, he's uncomfortable, he doesn't want to walk, he doesn't want to move, it's uncomfortable for him and that no matter how nice the shoes are, he's outgrown them. I think a lot of Times we consider people enemies when we've simply outgrown a season. Or maybe that person's outgrown you, right? And so I'm not trying to knock you. I want you to be comfortable with the fact that you have a really nice shoe that you no longer can fit. It's uncomfortable for him or her. It's uncomfortable for you, right? You outgrow people, and people outgrow us. I had some amazing friends in college that our lives went a totally different direction. And I had some amazing friends in college that when their lives went a completely different direction. And then eventually we came back together. For example, one of the listeners in our show, Brian Hendricks from college. Brian was in a committed relationship out of college. Brian was in a great relationship right out of college. Brian. Brian got married before I did. Brian had a kid before I did. And there's nothing against Brian. Brian has an amazing life. He was on our podcast a couple of weeks ago. Brian's doing amazing work in the community. Brian's life went a lot faster than mine. And there were times we simply didn't talk. Not because I didn't like Brian or Brian didn't like me. He was never an enemy. Brian's life was on a completely different road. But now we talk more because we're both the dads. We're both leaders in the places that we're in, and. And we're both doing some amazing, great work in the places that God has called us to be in. So I want you to be comfortable with the seasons of relationships, and this is nothing to you and nothing about the other individual as well. Now, if someone really is an enemy, I mean, by enemy, I mean they are going after you. They are coming after you. They are putting down. Putting. Putting you down. They were saying bad things about you. They are really inhibitive about the work you're doing. I want to go back and reference was Lynn Legrand talked about a couple of weeks ago that people don't actually desire to be bad people. They're just disengaged people. If it's a co worker you're working with, I challenge you to engage with them again, because maybe they're simply just disengaged. They don't feel welcome, they don't feel appreciated, they don't feel welcome in the space they're in. And maybe they're simply disengaged and they're not being an actual bad person. But disengaged people end up doing things to seek for attention, seek for affirmation. And because of that that leads to then us considering certain people enemies and really they're just disengaged people. Now the last thing I mentioned, that there are some bad people in the world. I think if anything this political cycle has taught us there are some bad people out there. And if this person's simply a bad person, you need to cut it right. Frankly put, if you think, and this is a practice I employ for hiring and firing people, if you think about firing somebody, you're too late, right? If you think about it, you're too late. If you're considering it, you're too late. If you think about hiring somebody, you're too late. You need to just go ahead and do it. If you have someone you're working with and you have the authority to make that type of decision, I would suggest for the health of the organization, your personal health, your mental health, to make a decision for the betterment of the organization before that person makes a decision for the organization which may or may not benefit you. Alright, so that's my first question. John, thanks for listening. Hopefully sometime I can meet you out in Seattle. I really love Seattle. Next question today comes from Anonymous. Anonymous has a question I think is I honor you for even asking. It's not easy to ask this question, but I honor you for asking this question. And here's a question. My wife makes more than me. I never admit I'm not okay with it, but part of me is really insecure about it. I want to work through it and lead in my home. Well, hey man, thank you for even saying something about this to us. And I hope I can encourage you along the journey. I realize that life is about walking alongside people. And when you got married, married, you made an agreement to walk alongside someone that your wife makes more than you means absolutely nothing to you. It means absolutely nothing. Even her. It's simply you guys are together, so really you both make a good amount of money and resources. I want you to remember as well that money is not the definition of your life. While capitalism tries to make it seem as if money is who we are, money is not who we are. Money is not your marriage, Money is not your relationship. So I want to challenge you to do this. I want you to celebrate in order to cultivate, right? I want you to celebrate your relationship, celebrate the time you spend together, celebrate who she is to you. Celebrate what made you marry her. Celebrate what made you guys stay together. Celebrate what even makes you ask this question? Because I honor the reality that you're unearthing this, which means you know you need to correct it. So I want you to celebrate in order to cultivate. And then here's the last piece I'll give to you. It's just money. It's not your life. If the coronavirus has taught me anything, is that money is great and money is awesome and we need money in order to live, but that's it. But it's your life that really matters. As a pastor, I've seen people on hospital beds. I've had to pray for people on Zoom, had to pray for people on FaceTime. As a person in their community, I've seen and understood what it means to really see the true effects of the coronavirus. And I realize I've seen millionaires and I've seen people who are barely making it week to week, sick, on the verge of death. And there are people who realize that life is more important than money. So I want to challenge you to value life over you, value resources. And the last thing, because I haven't met you and I don't know you, I'm just going to be very frank with you, buddy. Check your ego at the door. Check your ego at the door. Our egos sometimes get in the way of possibility. And so I want you to check your ego. I want you to check that, and I want you to celebrate that you have an amazing spouse who's doing amazing work and spend more time cultivating and celebrating that. And I guarantee your relationship will see health. If you have children, your children will see health within your relationship and your community will as well. And you'll end up seeing that the vision for your life is not money dependent, but the vision for your life is life dependent. So thanks for asking the question. Praying for you and your family. Our third question today comes from Brianna in Dallas. Dallas is a great, great city. I've been down there a couple times and I love Dallas. And here's it sounds like you're an entrepreneur and I thank you for this. Brianna says this. I can sense my company is on the brink of moving ahead, but I can't seem to break the ceiling. What are some tips to break the glass ceiling on top of me? Brianna, great question. I wish I knew what field you were in, be able to answer it more concretely. But here's what I will give you. Glass ceilings are meant to be broken. They are and they're meant to be broken. They're only there really so that we can see through to what's above us. And they're meant to be broken. And I truly believe that While I don't know the full scope of what your company does, I do know this. The culture solves what money can't, right? Culture solves what money can. So what is it in your culture that you can communicate with clarity all the more? Maybe it's inviting your team members over to your home to give them an entrance into who you are. Maybe that's inviting people into your space. Maybe that's listening to your stakeholders and your board of directors, if you have one. Culture solves what money can't. An entrance into your life, an entrance into your mind gives them that. Here's a practice I gave to my employees at my church that I'll give you as well, that has really helped us really think through Covid. A couple of weeks ago, I told my team, I said, I'm going to force you all to spend a half hour every week paid during office hours to sit and create something. I said, whether that creativity is taking a nap, whether that creativity is going for a walk, taking pictures, drawing, doing artwork, I am forcing you all to spend 30 minutes purely being creative. And I wanted to see what comes out of them to give sustainability to our company. And a lot of the ideas and ideation and cultivation and projections we have for our company and our church have not come because of me. They've come because of the creativity of people. And so many people have creativity inside of them that'll break ceilings that we didn't even know they had. So I want to challenge you to cultivate culture where you are, cultivate creativity where you are. And I guarantee that it's your employees, it's your people that'll break the ceiling. Here's the last thing I'll give you. I've been reading a lot recently about augmented reality and artificial intelligence. And one of the things I'm learning about artificial intelligence is that there's so many things that can be automated in our businesses that we just simply haven't automated. And if we were to automate a lot of our systems, we can then spend more time with what leadership is all about. And that's human development. Leadership isn't about answering phones and sending emails. Leadership is about developing the people that are trusting their lives to us and their resources to the visions that we have and being the tiebreaker in meetings so that we can develop them to eventually become leaders that will go into the world as we continue to develop ourselves. So develop your culture. Let your culture solve it. Give your employees a space for creativity. Automate what needs to be automated so you all Together can do the things that really are important and let your leaders be developed. And I guarantee some amazing things that will happen. And the last thing I want to ask you is, is the ceiling that you're trying to break, the ceiling that you need to break? Right. At my church, for example, and I can speak to some places I've worked in, but I'll speak to my church. There were some growth things that I wanted to do. There were some things I wanted to do in our community. And I had to realize for a second that a lot of the ceilings I was trying to break weren't ceilings that I needed to break. So when I pulled back and began to see the ceilings that we could break, the ceilings that were a lot easier to break because they were authentic ceilings, the ceilings that needed to be broken, for example, mental health in black and brown communities. We stopped trying to break the ceilings on certain generations and started breaking the ceilings on mental health. We started breaking ceilings on understanding black and brown women. We started breaking ceilings on dual language worship experiences. And when we started breaking those ceilings, we started seeing growth financially, in person, attendance, culture, engagement. We started seeing a lot of things break because we stopped trying to break different ceilings. I want you to consider what ceiling you're trying to break and then make sure you're breaking the right ceiling. The last question comes from Michael, who goes to Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. What's up, Michael? Sorry about Auntie Rona and all of that. And ring out a Hoya for Mu Rah Rah. Thanks for listening to the show. Here's the question that Michael asks. Michael says this. I've been struggling with my prayer life while I'm in college. I've heard you mention a lot about prayer. Are there any suggestions you have on a healthy prayer life? Yes. I've actually preached like four, four week sermon series on prayer. And so trying to condense it down to like three minutes is a lot for me, but I will do my best to do so. Michael, here's what I've learned about prayer. Scripture teaches us, seek and you'll find. Knock on the door will be open. Scripture tells us the model prayer. There's a difference between the model prayer and the Lord's Prayer. The model prayer is the story that Jesus gives us where he says, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, went all the way down. The Lord's Prayer is Jesus short prayer in the garden of Gethsemane when the disciples went to sleep, when he said, father, let this cup pass from me. But if it be thy will, I will follow through. Jesus shows us long prayers, short prayers, but really the prayers are always directed towards God. They're always directed from our heart. They're always pulled from our hearts, directed towards God, with the goal of doing two things. Unearthing the gift of God inside of us so that too, we can build the kingdom of God around us. That's what prayer does. So here are the practices that I will give to you. It comes from a book, the Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. I read it every year in January. If you haven't read the book, the Celebration of Discipline, I suggest it. I read it every year. So here's suggestions. I'll give you. Number one, sit in silence. A lot of times the reasons we can't grab a hold of the word that God wants to give us is because the world is way too loud. I want you to capture the thoughts that come into your mind. When you get into a posture of prayer, there's nothing wrong. When your mind begins to wonder what it is doing, it's just telling you what's important to you. So I want you to sit in silence. I want you to sit in silence. Whether that's 5 minutes, 15 minutes. I personally have a practice where I daily sit in silence for 15 minutes. I know it seems like a lot, but that's just built into my day. I want you to sit in silence. I want you to let life pass you by. Howard Thurman mentions that in his book the Meditations of the Heart. The be so still as to watch life pass you by. I want you to sit in silence. I want you to see the noise around you. I want you to see what's grabbing your attention. And then eventually you'll be able to see then where your attention can be directed towards God. Number two, I want you to sit in solitude. I want you to find a space and a way to be by yourself. I want you to be with you. I want you to listen to your heart, listen to your body, listen to your. Listen to your lungs, listen to your breathing patterns. I want you to be in solitude. I want you to turn your phone off, close your computer, let the books go away. I want you to sit in solitude. Sit in silence. Sit in solitude. And the reason solitude is so important is even the story of Jesus, when Jesus had to have a serious connection with the Father. The Bible says that he went a little further and he went away from his disciples. And he was away. And it was there he cried tears of anguish. It was there that he was able to be honest with God. It was there. He was able to echo some things that other people couldn't hear. There are some prayers we pray in public around other people that we just pray. There are some prayers that we really need to pray that our hearts have not given out. And I truly believe that heaven is full of the prayers we're too scared to pray. So I want you to sit in solitude so you can be honest and open and authentic with God. Then lastly, I want you to sit seeking. I want you to sit seeking. I want you to really seek. What is it that you really need God to answer, to clear up and to do? What is it you need God to answer? What is it you need God to clear up and what is it that you need God to do? And I want you to sit seeking. I want you to write those things down. I want you to have a prayer journal, prayer list. And I've gone from having a to do list to having a to be list. And it's that to be list. I feel more comfortable bringing it to God this week. I'm going to be this individual. I'm going to be this leader, this pastor, this person. And so God, I want to make sure that this list that I'm making lines up with the person that you're calling me to be. Sit seeking that Sit seeking the honest things that you need for your job, for you in college, the honest things you need while you're in school. The focus, the relationships, the people, the resources, the opportunities. Sit seeking. And my scripture tells me that if you seek it, you'll find it. If you knock the door open, God will do exactly what God says God will do. So I pray that helps you sit silence, sit solitude, Sit seeking. And I guarantee you'll find out that angels will always encamp around the praises of the people of God. And God will come be right there in the midst of it as well. Hey, listen, I pray you guys are blessed by this time together. Today we'll have a couple more weeks of questions and answers. If you have any questions you guys want to send over, you can go to jrlester.com and click on Made for Mondays. You can send the questions over for us. You can also submit your questions by simply emailing us@revjr lestermail.com thank you guys for journeying with me in this and we'll see you next Monday. Remember this, you are made for Mondays. Mondays don't own you. You own Mondays. And so give yourself a license to live. Let's say our affirmations today. If you repeat after me, just simply look in the mirror if you want to lay your hands on your heart, your chest. I know it seems corny, but you own this and remember this. Just simply say, I am me. I can be me. And no one will stop me from being me. You are somebody now. Go win your week. You're made for this. God bless you.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at MrJlester and online at www.jlester.com. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.