Powerful Interactions

maxed out: i saw a documentary on debt that was especially powerful. i made me think of how critical it is for people to know & follow money management principles.

harry potter & deathly hallows: (don’t worry, no spoilers!) there’s something aboout this series that is especially powerful. certain archetypes just seems to reach across generations & this series if full of them.

in-laws & family relations: i’m up to my neck in wedding stuff, but marriage and family life keeps coming up as a theme. what does a healthy relationship with one’s family look like? how do we avoid the pitfalls of repeating unhealthy patterns? how do you make and maintain healthy boundaries?

“While Europe Slept” by Bruce Bawer
Written by a gay guy who moved to Europe because he thought it was cool and the US was uncool. He changed his mind after he saw how Europe was falling rapidly to Islam. He came to appreciate the US and saw Europe as nearly hopeless.

“Infidel” by Ayan Hirsi
Ayan grew up as a nomad in Somalia and became a member of the Dutch Parliment. She shares intimate details of her life under Islam (including a graphic description of female circumcision) and after she renounced Islam. Her story gripped me and made me ache for the millions of girls and women like her who are enslaved and suffer under Islam. She has to live with body guards in hiding because she dared to speak out.

“The Bomb in my Garden” by Mahdi Obeidi
Everything you ever wanted to know about centrifuges and how to make plutonium but were afraid to ask. Mahdi was one of Saddam’s nuke scientists. Among other things he sought out equipment from Germany and other places to start a bomb factory. I was amazed at the story he told about when he was heading down a highway with his son in their car… he had black hooded guys with big guns behind him and a massive column of armaments (our guys rolling into Baghdad) heading up the highway toward him fast… needless to say he took the first exit (and found safety) seconds before they opened fire and leveled the bad guys. He also told about how one of our bombs landed in his garage but did not explode… if it had it could have taken out the block he lived on. He found some of our guys and told them about it… they kindly came and disarmed it and took it away… walking right over where he hid some of his nuke stuff in a barrel buried in a big hole in his backyard.

Lord of the Rings
I find the whole trilogy to be very spiritual and relevant to our world today.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
2 Peter 3-4
What does it mean “to participate in the divine nature”? That one gets me excited.

Geography of Heaven
I think a lot about the geography of heaven. How it is laid out… sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that we will experience there.

Eternal Reward
The doctrine of eternal reward is something that has always motivated me… the idea that it is not just about making it into heaven… getting across the finish line… but about pleasing Jesus… and different folks will receive different levels of rewards (not sure what those are exactly) based on what they did or did not do here in this life. For example those who suffer for his name and are persecuted… even martyred will receive the highest rewards and we will all rejoice with them one day.

God and Government
Civil government was God’s idea for sinful man… man gets it wrong almost every time (I personally think the Pilgrims of Plymouth came closest to getting it right for about 50 years). For 25 years or so I have been trying to sort this one out. We have a responsibility to bring our influence to bear on the system and yet we are citizens of another country… this world is not our home… but we can’t abandon government to those who don’t know God or his ways.

are plaguing me lately.

the transformation process in general.

&

the state of our individual souls. i’d love to understand the soul more. david crowder’s book “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die” was the beginning of my curiosity.

I’ve been listening to Andy Stanley’s Sunday podcasts. He is doing a series called “Take it to the Limit.” It is all about having margins in our lives and that we do have limits. I love the Biblical truth in it all. It isn’t new information—-really I have all kinds of books about balance but this series has really been awesome. Or maybe I’m just listening to it this time.

Been having lots of conversations about “shadow missions”….trying to identify mine, asking people to help me identify it…

I’ve been reading in Genesis about Noah. I never thought much about the story until the other day. How strange would that be to be the only “not wicked” person in God’s eyes and see everything around you destroyed. How did he not cave into the peer pressure if he and his family were the only people who were God honoring?!

How does a person become so reliant on God and not social feedback from people they can see and audibly hear?

I am in the middle of a book that had been sitting unread on my shelf. It is Henri J.M. Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved- Spiritual Living in a Secular World. It is incredible, especially reading it in God’s timing of just getting out of a time of exhaustion in every part of my life. I want to make it required reading for everyone in Silicon Valley, where a people are immersed in a world which says, “you are worthless, you are despicable, you are nobody- unless you can demonstrate the opposite.” I see so many people inside and out of the church working their tails off and never quite doing it as good as the next guy for results, whatever the result is wanted. But in reality, what they are searching for is deeper than they could ever imagine. Something they can’t earn, but only can receive and give. I have spent a few years trying to figure out why the Bay Area is so dry spiritually. Others had said money, the pace of life, power, people moving a lot, the exaltation of the mind, and other things that didn’t quite seem right. I now believe that the thing missing is the love and affirmation of God. The other things may be problems, but they are just symptoms of a deeper longing and need in their lives. Please, please, read the book, and let God whisper in your heart that you are His beloved.

A number of years ago a move of the Spirit circled the globe. We were swept up in it with our friends. It was both beautiful and strange to our natural minds. God’s message was: I love you unconditionally, you don’t have to perform to anyone’s expectations to receive my love. I am so grateful for that message and I hope we will never forget it and I earnestly wish that for others. It is not about winning our neighbors or achieving some status in life. It is about glorifying God and enjoying him forever. When we learn to enjoy him we will want to spread his love around quite naturally.

I have often wondered what the world must have looked like in his day… good point about the peer pressure! It is amazing how he and his family stood their ground when all other voices around them were mocking them.

I've been thinking about this question since Frances posted it.  Intuitively, I knew what the powerful interaction for me was but didn't really understand why I felt it to be so.  I think I have some insight into it now.

A week ago Tuesday, I had an intensive interview at VMware.  I arrived at 11:30 AM and left a bit after 5:45.  I was scheduled for six half-hour interviews with different people and I was to make a half hour presentation on a technical topic of my choice, only it couldn't be about VMware.  To get to this point, I had already had long conversations with a VMware recruiter and the hiring manager and about a half hour with a tech guy to measure up my tech skills.

I met the hiring manager, Phil, for lunch in the cafeteria. He and I had already talked a lot so our convo was about life in the Bay area: real estate, earthquakes, culture, technology and business. 

Then I met with two people who would leave me stunned.  The woman essentially started out the interview by saying, "If you don't get this position, there are other places in VMware where you can fit."  Not exactly a great buying signal...  The other guy, who would be my peer, was more tactful in his approach but eventually, through his questions, led me to the same kind of realization: I don't have the technical chops for this job.

Then came my presentation.  I'm a good presenter and I was in my zone.  But I noticed a few blank stares -- just empty faces -- and a few times where people looked puzzled.  Ordinarily, I would've stopped and asked if I needed to clarify anything but my two previous discussions had left me feeling incredibly insecure and their facial expressions were just the final culmination of a strong feeling of shame and inadequacy: I am a Midwest bumpkin coming here to compete with the highest concentration of tech talent in the country. I am out of my depth.

After my preso, the manager who was in charge of most of the people I met with was scheduled to interview me.  He bailed on me in the name of being "busy" (which I am sure he was).  I somehow managed to make it through the remaining hours, but I knew when I left the campus I was not getting the job.

Prior to coming out here from Michigan in February, I felt really strong about my skill set.  We moved here in February from Michigan for me to work for a Los Altos startup.  It was mostly a bad startup and so I left the company before I got whacked. I had many people tell me I wouldn't have a problem finding anything.  "You're smart, the market is pretty hot and you have good experience."

Yet unintentionally, the people at VMware exposed my experience as inadequate for the kind of work I want to do.  Suddenly, I felt inadequate not only for this one job but for work in the tech valley.  As I drove home, I was literally blushing with embarrassment; I could feel the heat in my face and neck as shame spread across me. I had a feeling of despair, that my work experience isn't going to be enough for me to compete for the kind of job I want to have here.  I was suddenly ashamed for believing that being a big fish in a medium pond in the Midwest was going to get me work.  And with shame, I concluded: this is why I've been unemployed for five months.  I had long suspected my skill set was incomplete and the VMware experience "confirmed" it.

Yesterday -- in fact, it was during an evening meeting with the "Purple Cobras" -- I wrapped up a week's worth of self-dialogue and talking with God by deciding to trust God with my experience. My shame comes from my own insecurity and one of my life fears that I will somehow be "found out" as not being good enough. 

This realization fits in with a couple other themes that I think I see God working out in my life right now.  Last night, on the way home from our meeting, I felt something kind of settle into place inside me.  I'm going to have to work through the idea that God's power is  made complete in my weakness -- perceived and real.  I need to discover that God did not abandon my professional development for the past 9 years and that I am not screwed here in the valley.  Once I get past my insecurities, I really do think I am good enough for companies like VMware.  I have a lot to offer in terms of tech skills, business skills, vision and enthusiasm.  But ultimately, I need to trust that God was involved in my professional development, that my skills weren't neglected by him and that this process of finding a job is more than about merely finding a job.  I think what settled in my mind is that I'm willing to go through this process, participate in it and wait for God to bring about the tangible result of a job and the intangible mystery of his work inside me

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I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, "You're my favorite."

Dave,
I know the feeling… I felt the same way at a Google interview a few months ago. I don”t even have a degree… I have worked with intellectual giants… and I am a family man without a lot of time for overtime work… what am I doing here… but over the years I realized that by simply trusting in God’s grace and doing what he tells me to do he would never and he has never let me down… from one shaky startup to another. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I recently landed a new job with a wonderful team and a great boss who founded the first internet search engine (long before Google). God is faithful… he is able to make me a blessing to those that I work for… I don’t deserve any of it and it is not because any smarts I have… it is his free gift. He can do the same for you… he cares for his kids… also… our accuser is a liar, lying is his native language… he will tell you, you are no good, etc… I have heard it all from him and I don’t buy it. There is a positon out there fit for you where people really need you.
Jim