Caleb Versus
the Minimum.
I am always
puzzled by people who lack vision, people who are content as to what they are and
where they are. It is something I find hard to understand. Maybe I was dropped
on my head!
Yet, it
seems most people are just content with where they are.
“Please do
not ask us to stretch further.”
“Please do
not ask us to be world changers. We have come this far. Surely that is enough.”
They are,
what I call, “Minimum people.”
“What is the
least we can do just to get by?”
Maybe it’s
that bump on my head why I find it hard to understand.
Yes, of
course, there are entrepreneurs out there. Thank God for that! Unfortunately, they are not the majority.
Many are
like the people I started work with when I left school, working in a large
company. Finishing time was five o'clock
and boy oh boy at two minutes to five, they were queuing at the clock out, card
in hand, ready to punch it the moment that hand on the clock moved to
five. I found the work exciting and
often stayed behind because I was in the middle of some company project. Every
day they would shout, “Why are you doing that? It's nearly five o'clock!” I am
sure they thought I was mad. I thought they were boring and lived in a
microscopic world.
The problem
is I see it today, and I am still struggling to understand that approach to
life. It irritates me in our school
program when I have seen teachers say things like, “That is too hard for them!”
or, “Oh dear! That is too much work for them.”
I prefer the
words of Dr Donald Howard, also an educator, who used to say, "Most people
can do more than they thought they could do because someone else thought they
could do it."
It was a
privilege to lecture, along with my wife, on the subject of, “Practical Leadership,”
to some of the future leaders of our country. What did bother me though, was
the personal question afterwards, these high flying youngsters, some with at
least two degrees under their belts, said, "Please help me. I don't know
what I want to do. I do not seem to have any vision for the future."
No vision
for the future? Don't know where you are going? Find someone with vision, who
does know where they are going - and join with them. That is still my today answer.
Throughout most
of my life, people have cried, concerning projects, “It cannot be done.” Often,
the problem has been that I had already done it because I was too stupid to
know it couldn't be done.
The other
thing I hear a lot is, “Surely that is enough!”
My reply? “The worst enemy of better is very good. Of course, it is not enough!”
I love the
story of Caleb in the Old Testament part of the Bible. He must have been in his
eighties when he went to the leaders and said, “I know I am getting on, but I
want more. Give me this mountain, and I will take it.” The leaders understood the vision and said, “Get
on with it.” He did and took it.
Joshua 14:6-12 The Old Testament part of the Bible
The people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb son
of Jephunneh the Kenizzite spoke: "You’ll remember what God said to Moses the man of God
concerning you and me back at Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years
old when Moses the servant of God sent me from
Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And I brought back an honest and accurate
report. My companions who went with me discouraged the people,
but I stuck to my guns, totally with God,
my God. That was the day that Moses solemnly promised, ‘The land on which your
feet have walked will be your inheritance, you and your children’s, forever.
Yes, you have lived totally for God.’
Now look at me: God has
kept me alive, as he promised. It is now forty-five years
since God spoke this
word to Moses, years in which Israel wandered in the wilderness. And here I am
today, eighty-five years old! I’m as strong as I was the day Moses sent me out.
I’m as strong as ever in battle, whether coming or going. So, give me this
hill country that God promised me.
You yourself heard the report that the Anakim were there with their great
fortress cities. If God goes
with me, I will drive them out, just as God said.”
Adrian Blog
Words 864
280320
