You Must Do The Things You Don’t Want To Do
Insights from the “Lead2Serve” Podcast
Season 5. Episode 3
The Conversation of Growth
In our latest episode, I had the joy of sitting down with Pastor Bob Claycamp, who joined me in the studio for all of Season 5. Together, we jumped right into a conversation about growing into deeper effectiveness in serving Jesus.
The Pitfall of Entitlement
One of the critical issues we tackled was the concept of entitlement. It’s a trap that can ensnare anyone, leading us to focus on ourselves rather than on the people we are called to serve. Pastor Bob and I discussed how entitlement can hinder our effectiveness and the importance of repenting from this sinful mindset. We deserve nothing. But God has been so gracious to us. We need to learn to redirect our focus towards serving and loving people with a pure heart.
Connecting and Understanding
A large part of our discussion centered on the importance of actively seeking to understand and connect with others. For instance, taking the time to listen to and engage with our children is crucial to knowing their hearts. We also emphasized the value of prayer and shared spiritual disciplines in fostering deeper connections with others and with God.
The Proactive Nature of Servant Leadership
Throughout the podcast, Pastor Bob and I encouraged you, our listeners, to actively seek opportunities to serve and minister to others. Effective servant leadership is proactive and selfless. It’s about taking steps of faith and being open to being used by God in the midst of people.
Conclusion: Stepping Out in Faith
The essence of our message is to inspire and equip you to grow in your effectiveness and skills for serving the Lord. It’s about embracing the proactive and selfless nature of effective servant leadership. As we concluded our conversation, we left with a challenge for ourselves and for you: to look for things to do and do them, to serve without expecting special treatment, and to step out in faith, ready to be used by God.
I hope this episode has been as encouraging for you as it was for me. Let’s continue to grow together in our servant leadership journey, for the glory of God and the good of His people.
Remember, every step we take in service is a step closer to the heart of God. Keep serving, keep leading, and keep growing.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Intro VO:
Calvary Church presents, Lead2Serve, a leadership podcast with Ed Taylor.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Hey, welcome again to another episode of the Lead2Serve podcast. My name is Ed Taylor. I’m in-studio here with Pastor Bob Claycamp. Welcome, Bob.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah, it’s a joy to be here.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
I’m glad that you’re with us and making the time, really, it is a challenge to schedule the time to do this. So I’m glad that you’re here. I’m the pastor here at Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado, at Calvary Chapel, and I’m the host of…this is Season 5. So thank you guys for all your feedback, for sharing, for becoming a part of the Lead2Serve family, really through this podcast in our minds. Just so you know, we envision you in the room with us. Like, we’re “talking ministry,” together. This is really what it’s like here at our church when we have a pastors’ meeting or we’re talking ministry together. We’re just talking out loud. We may not have fully-formed thoughts. It’s not a podcast where we’ve got every single answer to every single issue. We’re thinking. We’re talking out loud. We’re processing things. And the response has been great. We always want to hear from you, so you can text me directly. 720-608-0012, that’s my cell. And you know, Bob, people will say at this point, they’ll say, “are you…what are you thinking?” “Are you gonna…you…the podcast goes out to thousands of people, and you’re gonna give them your personal cell phone number?” Yes. I give it out at conferences. I put it in the books that I publish. I put it on the podcast, because here’s the thing, very few people use it. It’s not overwhelming. My phone’s not blowing up. It’s not. I don’t get a thousand calls a day. But I do know this, when I get the call or the text, it’s pretty significant and pretty important. So use it if you need to use it. You have an idea. If you have a complaint, send it to Bob. He loves to read complaints. Only good things for me. But again, if you have, in all seriousness, if you have input, you want to hear something. I got a text recently that we’re going to convert into an episode here in the near future from a brother friend of mine, just out of the blue. He said, you know, when you start your podcast again, can you consider doing this? And I sent it to Bob, and I go, “yeah, that’s a great topic,” so we’ll get to that. We’d like to integrate it, or it might just become a part of the conversation, and it won’t be an episode in and of itself, but the response has been great. And let me just remind you the goal of why we do this. We want to help you grow in your servant leadership. That’s why we call it Lead2Serve, but also you’re serving to become a better leader. And that’s the key, Jesus said, and he taught us, and that’s the emphasis of this. Although the principles are applicable at work, at home, in the church, we’re pastors. So the context of what we’re sharing with you is biblical wisdom, the insights that we’ve learned from the Holy Spirit through the text that we know as the Bible, the teachings of Jesus. He talked about, if you want to be the greatest, you need to be the servant of all. We know this, the better servant you are, the better leader you’ll become. And the better leader you are, the broader service you will be giving to the Lord and to others. So these times are designed to discuss important topics relating to serving God in every aspect of your life. And again, it’s surprising, as I think about the numbers today. But 80 years of collective ministry experience that we can draw upon, that’s 80 years of mistakes as well. Like falling on our face, or making mistakes. And it’s just very helpful to talk these things out. So we’re blessed to be Episode #3. We’re titling it, “Do Things You Don’t Want to Do.” And remember the theme, it seems, as it develops, as we put these together…theme of Season 5 is, like, growing. “I want to be more effective,” OK. Or I want to be more usable. Okay. Or, “I want to get out of this rut.” I’m thinking, you know, I want to get out of this rut. I feel like I’m in a rut. I feel like I’m not making any progress, or I don’t even want to serve anymore. Like, I’m tired. And we are seeing a theme develop with these topics that we had in Season 5, Episode 1. We talked about “Giving Out As Much As You Take In,” or “Take In More Than You Give Out.” And we’re…remember, we’re talking about being “poured out,” like Paul said. So good. And then that word Bob shared with us poured out was the Greek word “spendo.” And to be spent, I thought, that’s pretty cool. And then the second episode was, “Look For Things to Do and Do Them,” and we even had a Lightning Round of, “hey, what do you think?” “What do you think, Bob?” And “what do I think, Ed?” And back and forth of looking for things, but being “intentional,” I think, is probably the…that’s a big buzzword right now, but that’s really what that is. Like, when did you stop looking for things to do?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
And I’ll tell you when. When you got hurt, when you got tired, when things became routine. There’s a lot of reasons why we stopped looking. But you want to revitalize your ministry and your servanthood, look for things to do. And now today, this is important because we’re also seems to be, in these first few episodes, an underlying theme of entitlement. Like we don’t want to become. We all, I would say. I think it’s safe to say, but maybe you have some feedback on it, Bob. Like, we all know and have met people in ministry that give that vibe of “they’re entitled.” And it stinks. It smells like, it doesn’t smell good. It’s not the “aroma of Christ,” at all.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s just like you’ve got a…you’ve got something bad in the refrigerator and you don’t know where it is, but you can sure smell it when the door opens and it’s like a potato that’s been there for five months, you know, in the back. Or a piece of broccoli.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
You just reminded me of an article that I read today that it just, I didn’t read the article, actually. It was the, it was the headline, but somebody was on a Delta Airlines flight and maggots were falling on them from above. And you know what it was? It was a rotten fish in somebody’s carry-on.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Oh my God!
Pastor Ed Taylor:
And so you just spark that. Like, that smell, you know, there’s something here, but you don’t know where it is. And, and it is, it’s the visual of. That’s disgusting. And let me just say, it’s disgusting. For us as servants of the Lord, the more responsibility we have, the more servant-oriented we need to become. We can’t become entitled. It will wreck us and it’ll wreck the people that are around us. Like, “what do you owe me?” If I walk into the room and I’m like, “okay, Bob, what do you have for me?” What have you done for me lately? Instead of “Bob, I’ve been put on this earth to make your life easier. How can I serve you?” And “what can I do to bring more value and joy and happiness to your life?”
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah. You know, Jesus said, “The Son of Man has come not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28). And in recently, reading through the Gospel of Luke, there were, I believe, three different times, at least two, but maybe three different times, where He was invited to dinner at a Pharisee’s house and He knew what He was going to walk into and He went anyway. It didn’t go well. And knowing that it’s not going to go well, those are things you don’t want to do. But because the Father said, “Yes, you need to go,” Jesus was obedient. He didn’t bring his disciples into it. It was just Him. And it just struck me that, yes, He knows about situations that are going to be awkward and unfruitful, it seems, but you do what the Father leads you to do.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
It’s important. And I believe that when we have the opportunity to make our own decisions, which we do all the time, one of the decisions we need to make is to do the things we don’t want to do. To step into things that we perhaps have delegated because we have help now and we don’t do those anymore. But what are your thoughts on doing things you don’t want to do? What comes to mind?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Well, I like the scripture in Philippians 2:12 and 2:13. And it says there, Paul is writing to the Philippian church, and he says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” And there are times in the living out…this isn’t, of course, “working out,” to gain salvation. This is living out your salvation. But understand that Paul is saying there’s going to be times where God needs to work in you to will, because it implies you’re not willing. And I’ve had times where, quite frankly, when the Lord says “you’re to love your enemy,” my first reaction is, “I don’t want to.” And I said, “I know that because of how you work in me, You want me to be willing and You’re going to work with my willingness. But I’m really not wanting You to work with my willingness because I’m not willing.” It’s just a big cycle until finally, you know, the Lord is just patiently waiting for you to get over your tantrum. And then He starts working in your heart to then say, “OK, God, make me willing to do this, because right now I’m not willing. And I know I’m supposed to be. And if I ask You to make me willing, You’re going to do it, and I don’t want You to do it. But I’m tired of fighting. So would You work in me to make me willing to be obedient to what Your Word says?” And 100% of the time, by the end of the day, there’s that change of heart.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
I like the combination of both “to will” and “to do.” There’s a battle of willingness, and it hits all of us. It hits all of us. This particular example is very common because most of the challenges that we face in serving are people challenges, personality challenges, being offended, even being easily offended or literally being sent against or taken advantage of or being slandered. We can go on and on as we take the step to present ourselves to God. A living sacrifice, serving others. There’s this constant pushback in the spiritual realm. We know it. There’s no question. It’s not like it’s something we don’t know. Maybe you’re learning it for the first time as you hear it on the podcast here, but we know that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6:12). If I have a problem with Bob, the problem really isn’t Bob as much as it is the spiritual dynamic behind Bob. Bob is who he is. His personality is what it is. If there’s a personality clash or a challenge, the issue isn’t with Bob. It’s there’s a spiritual dynamic happening behind that that is wanting to bring friction and division and difficulty. And every time that I try to go after the person to fix the person, I’m forgetting that it starts first with prayer. Like you just said, especially when it comes to agape love, “God make me willing, because it’s obvious right now I’m not very willing.” Or I think of, you know, “I really don’t want to go into this meeting.” I dread it. I scheduled a meeting not too long ago at 5PM. And it was after a live radio broadcast. And it’s fine. It fits everything right before service, right after radio is fine. But knowing I have that meeting at 5PM – I really didn’t want to do it. It’s a weird thing, because I did want to do it. It needed to be done. So there was a part of me that this is what God has called me to do. This is my responsibility. I do want to fulfill it, but I really don’t want to do it. That’s a weird feeling.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah. “The Spirit’s willing, but the flesh is weak,” yeah (Matt 26:41). And there’s that warring that goes on between the flesh and the Spirit. There are reasons the Holy Spirit prompts us to step into things that are awkward. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to end successfully in our mind.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Correct.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
But it accomplishes God’s desire, maybe way down the road. It has to do with that. And that’s where we just have to be obedient and stop being so success-oriented, where it’s supposed to all work out and, you know, “end like a Hallmark movie,” or something.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Or like a “control.” Because we, let’s say pastors, for example, that’s the role that we’re in. I was also in the corporate world. I was a manager, then a director, and I was on my way to vice president in the company I worked at. And there’s a lot of responsibility. And you’re making decisions. Constantly making decisions. You have authority. You’re helping people out. You’re setting goals. You’re implementing new projects and new programs. You’ve got all of these decision-making capabilities and you get decision fatigue. You get leadership fatigue. And then you don’t want to do things anymore. And then the more you dwell on the fact that you don’t want to do it, you actually have the ability to not do it because you’re your own authority. You are self-motivated. You have the ability to say “yes,” or “no.” For example, that meeting, I could have postponed it. I could have, at 4PM, I’m like, “yeah, I just don’t want to do it.” And not meaning I was sick or anything, it was just meaning I didn’t want to do it because at 4PM, I’m still like, “I don’t…this is going to be a hard one.” On the one hand, I love this family and I love the couple and I want to talk to them. I want to hear their heart. But at the same time, I know it’s going to be hard what I’m going to hear. And I don’t really want another hard thing today. And at 4PM I could have said “I don’t really want another hard thing today.” It wouldn’t have necessarily even been sin, but I knew that all I’m doing is “kicking the can,” and I’m serving self instead of this family. The reason I walk into this difficult meeting…the reason why I do something I don’t want to do…is because it’s, I have to come second, not first, even if I have the, that’s where, you know, you squeeze the life out of authority because all of our authority and leadership is “delegated authority.” It’s not ours. In the church it belongs to God, but in the corporate world, it belongs to the board of directors. Like, every authority we have is delegated authority. I mean, we can squeeze the life out of our growth by not doing the things we don’t want to do. This is key. Like, if you can develop this habit of submitting yourself to God, praying, like you said, for the willingness and do the things you don’t want to do, you will see exponential spiritual growth in your life because God will bless that.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah. He’ll surprise you.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
He’ll surprise you as you die to yourself.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Right. He’ll surprise you. And, and there’s fruit that comes out of it sometimes completely different than what you anticipated.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
You know what the biggest response is to things we don’t want to do? Procrastination.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Totally. That’s, and, you know, it’s trying to balance, trying to discern the difference between “waiting on the Lord,” and procrastinating. It’s important to understand the difference, because, I mean, the very word procrastinate means “to put off intentionally and habitually,” or “to put off intentionally doing something that should be done.” And it comes from the Latin word meaning “to put forward to tomorrow.” And so what’s the difference between procrastination and “waiting on the Lord?” That’s a good question because waiting on the Lord carries with it the sense of timing, not just duty. And so I can cover, “Oh, I’m just waiting on the Lord,” when I’m really just trying to kick the can down the road. Cause I don’t want to do it. And that’s something the Holy Spirit has to work in your heart to show your heart and say, “Look, you know, this is becoming a habit. You’re just kicking the can down the road cause you don’t want to do it. And so we need to talk. I mean, we need to have a season here where we understand My heart, because it’s not about you, it’s about Me.”
Pastor Ed Taylor:
I think life is sucked out of men and women in ministry when they aren’t what the world’s calling today, “self-aware.” I love the phrase, it’s too bad the world…sometimes the world invents phrases that you wish you would have invented first to describe things that really are not biblical. “Self aware,” is really not a biblical phrase. However, it can be like, where you are aware of your flesh, you are aware of your weaknesses, you are aware, because I’m talking to people right now. We’re talking to people right now, Bob, that are procrastinators and they’ve made every biblical, spiritual reason or whatever to justify their procrastination. But, in reality, they’re just in the flesh. They don’t want to do it. Yeah, we all have things we don’t want to do that. These are hard, these are challenging, but these are also the places of growth. If we don’t do the things we don’t want to do, then our growth is stunted. And if you want to be effective, you want to really grow moving forward, you want to be more usable, you have to learn this skill, “do things you don’t want to do,” and “know the things you don’t want to do.” You got to know them. And we’ll do another “fire round,” at the end today of what are some things we can do that we don’t want to do? And we’ll see how many if we can come up with 10 because I’m less inclined to think of five right now. But I think the Holy Spirit will help us because there are things I don’t like to do and I choose to do them anyway. So, I think we can do that. But we got a few more minutes till then. But do the things you don’t want to do, especially in relation…I think this should increase in relationship to the amount of authority and responsibility you have. For example, when we bring on a pastor here and we invite them to join our team and they become a pastor, that takes of the tithes and offerings of the church, which is basically they support their family with other people’s “worship money.” They are worshiping God and giving. And that is the resources that the Bible clearly says that a “workman’s worthy of his hire,” but we’re receiving those as a salary and living on the worship money of the church (Matt 10:10). When we invite someone on, we talk about this and pretty much we’ve already seen them because they were raised up in our church here. But on occasion we have men join us from outside of the church, from another ministry, and we talk about this principle. “Do you know how, have you ever had a position or a role where you had a lot of freedom?” And what do you mean by “freedom?” Well, you know, we’re not going to “micromanage” you. We’re not going to “dictate your day” to you. We’re not going to tell you breathe at 8:02 and answer the phone at 8:04 you’re going to have to learn how to respond to things, but also how to self-manage your time. And you’re going to have to learn this principle. This is how you handle freedom. If you’ve ever had a job with a lot of freedom, you’ve got to master this principle: “you need to do the things you don’t want to do.” And it’s not okay if you don’t want to do things. You just give them away. Just give them away. I don’t do that anymore. Again, it’s that entitlement part where, “Oh, I don’t do that anymore.” Oh, really? When did you outgrow that? I didn’t know you could outgrow that. I thought the farther you went in life and service, the more you served, not the less you served. But you’ve got to do things that you don’t want to do.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
And it’s not like you look for disgusting things to do. I mean, just for the principle of the thing. But there are times when you have to step into a situation that’s awkward, that’s difficult, that’s uncomfortable, that is going to be emotional. And, I mean, it’s easy for your flesh to go, “yeah, I don’t know, I’ll kick the can down a little more.” And no, because the prompting of the Holy Spirit is huge in this. To give you discernment and to give you the courage to step into it. I mean, like Jesus did with those invitations to dinner at Pharisees’ house, and there were other people there, and it was a setup. And yet he went in the strength of the Holy Spirit because the Father was leading him.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Yeah, “do things you don’t want to do.” Just let that phrase sink into your heart and mind. It will help you become so much more usable, and it’ll help you to pay attention that there are a lot of things you don’t want to do. A lot of things that you have the flexibility of whether to do them now or do them later. And sometimes there are things to do that nobody actually even knows that you’re supposed to do them except for you. That makes it a lot easier to never do them. But along the way, you’re hardening your heart. It’s not okay to avoid doing the things that you must do just because you don’t want to. And this is the greatest self-awareness, biblically, that you can have, where you recognize, “it’s just not an area that I like to do.” I want to step into them. I think of, well, I’m going to save it for our lightning round. Because I think of some things that, let’s just jump into the Lightning Round, Bob. I was the odd number, first number last time. You’re going to be the, you’ll kick it off. Let’s talk about things that we don’t want to do that we can help people with some ideas to examine in their own life. Things that they need to do that they don’t want to do.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Okay. Number one, having devotions with your wife in the morning.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Why would you not want to do that?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Because you got things to do. It’s busy. You know, you’re, you got up late, the timing is bad and you know, she probably doesn’t care anyway and it’s just you’re looking at yourself and you’re not looking at investment.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Yeah. Well, let’s keep it on theme of “wife,” number two. I’ll keep it on theme. Do the dishes, clean the house, mop, sweep, help your wife around the house. I can say, “Ed, why wouldn’t you want to do that?” That is the last thing I want to do. And I’m being straight up. I do not like the dishes. I hate the dishes. Matter of fact, I saw a meme recently of Snoopy…a Snoopy cartoon…where he is so angry doing the dishes. He’s so like he’s flipping out doing the dishes. And I sent it to Marie and I said “this is me – every day of the week.” I just had to…I grew up doing the dishes. We didn’t have a dishwasher. The kids were the dishwasher. And I’ve carried it into my adulthood. I’m in my fifties for goodness sake. We have a dishwasher now and I still hate doing it and I need to do it because it blesses my wife. I need to do it because it’s something I don’t want to do. I need to help. You know that book “Love Languages” ? Marie’s “love language,” to receive, is acts of service. I like to give and so we don’t…we cross lines. Like, I would rather like “give.” I’ll go get her a gift and bless her and she’s like “Oh, thanks.” You know, get her this massive thing of roses. “Oh, nice.” And she puts them to the side. But man, if I did the dishes regularly, I would get six months of joy from her. And I do. I actually go in spurts. This is a repetitive thing. So there’ll be seasons where I’m really on top of it, taking care, taking them out. So, you know, help around the house is definitely something I don’t like to do. And it blesses my wife, so I need to do the things I don’t like to do. So that was two. Number three.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Okay, number three. When my wife had surgery recently, I had to do all the things she had to do, which wasn’t so bad until it got to landscaping. She likes, that’s her “therapy.” She likes to do landscaping. Mow the yard. She likes to weed. And I hate weeding. I think it goes back to when I was eleven years old, working at a rose nursery and got fired because I hated cleaning up. But I had to do it, and so I had to purpose in my heart to do “weed day,” which, you know, I did. I got on my hands and knees and did all that. It took a long time and God changed my heart. It’s not that I want to do it all the time, though. It was just grace for one day. And that’s fine with me.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Well, we got the picture of you because you were talking about that back then and actually dreading it as it was coming up. And then I don’t know if it was you, or Jeanne sent us the picture of you in the garden weeding, and it is something you didn’t want to do. It was very clear and you did it. So real quick here, from the perspective of, if you remember, by identifying something you didn’t want to do and doing it, was there any benefit that you experienced? Do you remember anything? Are you still kind of bitter about it? Like what?
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
I’m not bitter.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
No, I get it. Like, was there any benefit, like, not just a “thank you,” from Jeanne, but like internally? Like, was it.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yeah, you know, it’s like, “grow up, Bob. Come on, you know, put on your big boy trousers and just take care of things,” you know. “Stop being such a….”Anyway, yeah.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Okay, so what number are we on? Okay, number four. Let’s get away from the marriage examples for a minute. And let’s come to interpersonal things, singles, anything. You need to forgive. That’s an area where many people don’t want to do that. They don’t. It could because of wounding, it could because of trauma. It could because the person is really nasty and mean and horrible. But you need to do something you don’t want to do. You need to forgive, you need to release. There’s a pamphlet. If you want it, you can email me at ed@edtaylor.org. We give this pamphlet out by the hundreds every month on the topic of forgiveness. All you need to do is email me and I’ll respond. But that I feel like is a word from the Lord. We turned a corner from something were laughing about to something a little more serious. But forgiveness is essential even as you have been forgiven by God. The reality of forgiveness, I don’t know if it’ll bring reconciliation. I don’t know. I don’t know what the future will hold, but we will never know the future unless you forgive.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Yes. I think it’s walking into a situation where you know you’re supposed to address an offense.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Yeah. “Have the hard conversation.”
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
And you know that addressing it, you could lose your friend.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Yeah, I was just reading today in Acts 15, we’re going to get there soon enough. Paul and Barnabas, it was a very hard separation right after a very hard counsel about the nature of salvation. Like there was such a great victory that came out. But have that hard conversation. How about this one? Clean the toilets. Somebody’s cleaning the toilets all the time and it’s probably not you. So do something. You had mentioned earlier in the podcast, doesn’t always have to be something dirty and nasty, but sometimes it does need to be. Take out the trash, like look for, “I don’t like taking out the trash,” “I don’t like cleaning the toilets.” Well, somebody’s doing it. I don’t know where we think how we are exempt all of a sudden we started doing something and we don’t do it anymore because we have somebody to do it. This happens in churches a lot. This happens with pastors a lot. I think of a guy that’s church planting. In the beginning, they’re doing everything, and then over time they end up doing nothing. And I don’t mean I understand the responsibilities grow and you can’t always do it. However, you can’t “never do it,” either. So clean the toilets, take out the trash, do things around the church that you used to do that you think other people are supposed to do.
Pastor Bob Claycamp:
Now, I think for me as a pastor counseling married couples that don’t want to hear it, and it’s been our fourth time, and you’ve said everything you know, and that they are looking for a reason to abandon each other. Quite honestly, there are times when I have to tell them, “I don’t know what to say to you and it’s a hard thing.” And they say, “Well, I want you to fix our marriage,” but they don’t want to personally take responsibilities.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
You may not want to do it, but it’s important to do it. And that is “humble yourself and ask forgiveness,” about a particular offense. So it’s a little different than having the hard conversation, maybe, of having to tell somebody that there’s an offense. This is more along the lines of you’re the offending party. The Holy Spirit has spoken to you about that, and you know that. And this is…it could be marriage. It could be with your kids. This is a dynamic thing I learned as a dad, as a new believer dad that I didn’t experience in my family. At all. Ever. And that was my parents asking for forgiveness for screaming at me, yelling at me, whatever they did. And it was a principle that I picked up in my own parenting. And I remember how effective it was just asking my kids forgiveness or asking people I failed. And being able to lay your life out on…just lay your reputation, lay your life out. Don’t worry about what people are going to think or what, like, you do the right thing because you know it’s the right thing. So I think doing things you don’t want to do, sometimes you don’t want to ask forgiveness and humble yourself. There’s no reason to hold back. One more.
Pastor Bob Claycamp”
Okay. Taking care of my dad in his final years – the sense of overwhelming responsibility, not knowing what to do. We had been somewhat estranged. And all of a sudden this responsibility kind of lands in my lap and I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to have to change what I’m doing to take care of him. But there was…man, the Holy Spirit stepped right in and gave me a mandate, “You bless his last years.” You don’t know how long you’re going to have him. “You bless his last years,” that’s My mandate for you. So you do that and I’ll give you the strength to do it day by day. And it was hard. It was hard some days, especially when I had to tell him he had to go into hospice and he…it was a freakout time. And then, you know, coming into our house, what’s that look like? And with Jeanne and, you know, so there was a lot of, “I don’t want to do this,” but there was this mandate where from the Holy Spirit, “you must do it.” There are no options.
Pastor Ed Taylor:
Well, number 10, I think I’m number 10 now, if we counted them correctly. You know, you got these interpersonal things, you have practical things. I would add to the list something that you don’t want to do. “You don’t want to take a step of faith.” You are holding back because it’s a season of comfortableness, taking a step of faith. Can be positive or negative. I’ll add number eleven, because it’s flowing in my mind. One of the things you don’t want to do is “you don’t want to make the hard decision.” You’d rather not make the hard decision. It’s going to be disruptive. It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be misunderstood. It’s going to be a whole host of things. And you think today that if you don’t make the decision, you’ll save yourself a lot of grief. When in reality, you need to do something you don’t want to do because it’s from the Lord. You know you need to do it. You know, it has to be made. And it could be ministry-wise, I’ve had to make some decisions, that even collectively as a board that we’ve made together, and I’ve had to be the communicator of them. Very hard. But like you just shared with caring for your dad, I remember having to take the keys away from my mom and tell her she couldn’t drive anymore for her own good. And for the good of everyone else on the road, because of her health condition. She had diabetes and she was having blackouts and she didn’t need to be driving. And it was just hard. She got so upset. But it was the hard decision. And that’s kind of how God has put me in our family. He’s given me the fortitude in our family to make the hard decisions. But I get tired of making hard decisions. I’d rather not make them anymore. Quite frankly, the rest of my life, I think I’ve made enough. I don’t like to do them. But, yeah, that comes to the end of…brings us to the end of our episode today. And you can see these are real life issues. Like, this “Lightning Round,” thing is pretty fun because it makes us think and kind of stumps us. And I know that’s how, if I was listening to this podcast, that’s how I would be. I’m like, “what do you mean, do the hard things?” And this is what we mean. This is going to make you more effective. You can see the opposite. When you don’t do the things you don’t want to do, then you begin to create a dome, if you will, of comfortableness. You aren’t willing to step out, you’re not willing to do…you’ve created a life that serves you, instead of yielding yourself to the God you serve. So, do the things you don’t want to do. This is Episode 3 of Lead2Serve Season 5, in-studio with Pastor(s) Bob Claycamp and Ed Taylor. We’re both here at Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado. If you have any feedback of these episodes, make sure you let us know. You can text this number, 720-608-0012, or email me directly – ed@edtaylor.org. I’d love to hear from you. You have any great reviews? Please review on Apple Podcasts or Google or wherever you get…Spotify…wherever these are out, please leave a good review. Give us all the stars that you can so that the algorithm picks it up and other people get to listen. This is the Lead2Serve podcast. Until next time. The Lord bless you, encourage you, and strengthen you.
Outro VO:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Lead2Serve with Pastor Ed Taylor, a leadership podcast from Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado. If you have a leadership question you want to hear answered on a future Lead2Serve podcast, please email it to pastored@calvaryco.church
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