In most parts of Africa it is considered a huge compliment when somebody tells you that you’re fat. It implies that you have enough resources to feed yourself which means that you are blessed and able to take care of others with less.
One of my favourite people on this planet—Howard Hendricks—writes about FAT people in his book “Teaching to Change Lives”. I love his
description:
F aithful
A vailable
T eachable people…
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”
– Marie Curie –
Faithful
Immediately the image of a dog appears in my mind. A panting puppy returning to his master’s hand which had punished him a moment ago for peeing on the sofa or chewing up the mistress’ pot-plant. In my opinion indiscriminate loyalty is not true faithfulness. I think one kind of faithfulness that pleases God is when I choose to remain devoted to the Lord’s calling on my life despite the obstacles in our faith-journeys like being hurt or disappointed by my fellow believers—whether they did it knowingly or unintentionally. It is too easy to stick around only when everybody likes me and what I am doing. I believe God honours faithfulness borne from forgiveness and endurance.
This kind of faithfulness becomes possible when I discipline my mind to respond according to the truths found in the Word and not to my carnal
instincts of revenge and earthly justice. It grows in me when I stay dedicated to Kingdom values even when I can only see glimpses of their rule on our fallen planet. Being reminded of Who is ultimately in charge of our reality, empowers me to remain a trustworthy witness to my fellow mortals as we all try to live in this broken world.
Faithful people like this depend on each other and allow others to rely on them which is only sustainable through the indwelling power of the God
the Spirit. Bring it on! I will love you even when you disappoint me.
Available
“Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives. And when that person moves away, someone else arises to take his or her place.”
– Parker J. Palmer –
I see the picture of a patient mother waiting in her car outside her ten year old daughter’s ballet class. Over the last five years she had declined
invitations to day-long seminars about her favourite interest, spontaneous urges to have her hair done and several opportunities to visit with her friends whom she does not get to see that often since she started a family but instead uses these hours in her car each week to read and encourage her girl to follow her dreams. I see this mother get up early every weekday for the more than a decade before her family to make them breakfast even if she’s ill or tired. Her children can wake her up any time of the night for a reassuring hug after a bad dream or her husband can call her from his hotel room at five in the morning to say ‘hi’ before he heads out to catch the taxi to be on time for his plane going to yet another work related location.
Who gave me all the time I have in every single day?
How accessible am I to the needs of others who might need a reminder that God loves them?
Am I open to new friendships with difficult, lonely people who can’t even articulate their need for forgiveness and acceptance?
Or do I exist to fill my life with self-centred activities and priorities?
I want my converse with other people in such a way that they free us all from the lie that we are too busy to care. I want my home to be open for unexpected visitors who might disagree from my own worldviews and philosophical positions. I want to manage my time so well so that I will always have some of it left to offer it to somebody who needs a kind word, hug or cup of Early Grey tea.
Teachable
“Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself. If all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.”
– Simone de Beauvoir –
This was the most important characteristic which I sought in my husband (to-be). Not that I would be the teacher and he learn from me – quite
the contrary! But I have discovered that life always works out different from what you expect and so flexibility in your opinions make for a more realistic experience of being human. Now, I am not suggesting that we adapt our values according to each new episode of Ophra or allow temporary powers like governments and best-selling writers determine our foundational truths about how we view the universe and everything in. But surely, we should allow space for other perspectives and discoveries to enrich our person.
This reminds me of an episode on National Geographic or Discovery Channel where they were discussing the amazing intellects of chimpanzees. The one finding which made me smile was that each new generation of apes, learn the same tricks of catching ants and building their nests etcetera from the preceding one. But that they can never go beyond that cycle despite the fact that their genome shares 96% of our human genes.
One definition for wisdom is the ability to learn from the experience of others. Surely this skill is one of the most precious gifts that God lavished upon us humans. One of the ways that many of the ancient witnesses described Jesus the Christ was his meekness. I was bothered by that word ever since I discovered its existence. In my young mind, that sounded like weakness and I felt unsafe around a ‘weak’ king.
As I grew older, I discovered that God had given me the spiritual gift of leadership and I remember reading and listening to as much material on
the topic of ‘leadership’ as I could, since my teenage years. As a licenced architect, I worked with many male leaders around me whose styles I tried to imitate. But during my late twenties I began to realise that the average, western model of dominant leadership had a number of limitations to it. It was born out of the modernistic philosophy of the two world wars as well as the industrialisation of the world. This paradigm was dominated by ‘the experts’ who later included women once they were allowed to go to universities and participate on the intellectual playfields of science, technology and politics.
Recently humanity has developed a concept called the Teachability Index: the educational disciplines use it to gauge the potential of students. It basically relates to your knack to learn new information and your capacity to deal with change. Back to my learning curve on the building sites in Namibia: autocratic leadership said: ‘either’/’or’ to the world, where I felt more comfortable with the mentality of a ‘both’/ ‘and’ way of including more than one right answer to the intricacies of different people groups, living conditions and economic realities.
As a South African returning home in 2003 after my theological studies in the USA, the latter became a necessary avenue for reconciliation, forgiveness and nation-building as our country was in its second decade after Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk modelled this profound form of statesmanship. Sadly, their integrity was not replicated by the people who would succeed after them, which reminded me to return to the ultimate example of adaptable leadership: Jesus the Christ, the son of a carpenter in a dusty dessert town.
He showed every human being in his time and in ours, how servant leadership can start a revolution which has lasted for more than two millennia. At age twelve this boy joined in conversations with the educated elite in his society. He listened. As an adult, the One who spoke creation into existence regularly sat at dinner tables with prostitutes, the resented tax-collectors and ordinary uneducated ones from the neighbourhood. It is not difficult for me to understand how he could feel at peace with these marginalised people of his day. What blows my mind, is why they felt comfortable with him?
What was his body-language like as a hand with dirty fingernails held out a piece of bread to share? What kind of words or stories did he use to
illustrate his points? Imagine how patient he must have been with them if they did not understand him immediately. Did they smell bad or maybe have lice? Did he hug them? I am sure that he looked each person in the eyes and saw them.
This remains the criteria for me when I ask myself if I am still teachable. Do I get excited about the prospect of learning from new, strange, possibly sociably-unaccepted people? What happens to my heart when I see an opportunity to step away from everything that I think I know and – and in more hubris moments – circumstances which think I can control?
It is our greatest desire to facilitate moments like this through our lives and work at Global Community Advancement. We are so thrilled that you are considering becoming part of this privileged way of living life at its fullest! Join the adventure and discovered more about yourself, God and the human race than you could ever imagine possible. Become a FAT person and see what happens…
“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love. If I do not love a person I
am not moved to help him by proofs that he is in need; if I do love him, I wait for no proof of a special need to urge me to help him.”
– Roland Allen –
“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ did.” – Romans 15:18-19
White African Aliens 