4.24.2020 - week 52 — luke macdonald

on how to start again

i lived the first 33+ years of my life more or less in the same lane. same church. same area. lots of the same people. there were (what felt like big at the time) small transitions, from christian school to public high school, from high school in the suburbs to college in the city, from living in a small cramped dorm with my buddies to a small cramped apartment with kristen, but it was all inside a system and all moving down a certain track. almost everything new that happened was evaluated inside a way of thinking i had already established.

almost 18 months ago, that all changed. after being canceled by most of what i knew, i had no choice but to start anew. new state. new culture. new style etc.

part of that was this newsletter, i have always wanted to write regularly, but never carved the time before. same with grad school. and working out 5 times a week. etc. learning new cultures and styles and peoples all while grieving and processing my feelings has been both exhilarating and exhausting. but through it all i have uncovered something quite lovely …. starting again can be an incredible gift.

new people and new places and new discoveries are a balm

that soothes the grief of past problems + pains.

i talked to a lot of people this week discouraged about where there are in the quarantine moment. they aren’t praying or exercising as much they thought they would. they are finding cracks in their foundation more than opportunities galore. so my simple blessing + encouragement is …. just start again. just give it another try. just pick yourself up and walk forward.

just start again. god’s mercy is new every morning (lamentations 3:23).

we are stuck in the past, god isn’t. we have immense opportunity surrounding our frustration. it may not be what it was or what it could be, but it can be something, if you start again today.

just start that prayer habit. get out and exercise today.

put your device down and throw all the bottles out right this second.

unrelenting grief over where you aren’t almost never propels you to where you could be.

just start moving.

and all of a sudden,

you will turn around and be amazed where you get to.

KG Korner

(a few wise words from lady kristen macdonald)

I love parades. I love getting the whole family color coordinated for the fourth of July parade and cheering and clapping for the veterans who come along in their floats and get applauded by people whose freedom has been protected by their bravery. It’s really amazing to think about men and women who have chosen to serve and put their life in danger for the good of our country and to continue the freedom that our founding fathers built our country on. None of these veterans went to war to get applauded, if they did they would have quit a long time ago, they went to war for the bigger purpose of freedom. There’s no way that the applause would have been worth what they sacrificed.

I think one of the biggest gifts we get through salvation is freedom. Freedom from our past, freedom from anxiety, freedom from striving to be perfect, freedom from the need to do a certain amount of good works. And yet in the same way that when someone signs up to be part of the Army/Marine Corp/Navy they count the cost of the sacrifice, God did the same for us before he allowed Jesus on the cross because he wanted to make a way for freedom to truly set us free. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

I wonder if like me you have been burdened by the yoke of something that is not allowing you to claim the freedom you have in Christ. For the last year I have felt the weight of many things and if grappling with them, praying around them, or worrying about them could have solved the problem I would have gotten there a long time ago. But alas I felt stuck and as I have really tried to work through some of it, I have come to the conclusion that I have been carrying weight I was not made to carry. And because of that, it has shown up in every reality of my life. I thought I could hide it or shove it to the side but instead it rears its ugly head at the most inopportune moments because I don’t have the capability to carry it. You see, God has wanted to carry it all along, but I have to bring those things to him on a daily basis in order to shed them and to truly walk in freedom.

After a month and a half of continually bringing these ‘weights’ on a daily basis I have begun to stop carrying them realizing the freedom Christ offers me is invigorating. This is how I believe we were made to live, after all 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” And John 8:36 says, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” I believe this is one of the greatest gifts God provides and I grieve the fact that I spent so much of the last year forgoing it. He would have never sent Jesus to the cross if he wanted us to try to carry our stuff ourselves, He says instead to come to him, those who are heavy laden for he will give rest. He is begging us to come as we are and shed these layers of pain, anxiety, perfectionism, you name your __________. I believe that the release of these things will relieve and invite this beautiful freedom that he paid the most costly price for.

May this song be an invitation for you to come, the Lord brought it to mind last week and I have listened to it on repeat! Come Home Running by Christ Tomlin.

cup of leadership

reach for the empathy bill

pay the compassion tax

do what you don’t have to

you know that moment at the end of a meal when the bill comes and there is that quarter of a second before someone reaches for it.
(yes i know – being in a restaurant feels like ancient history right now)
that moment says a lot about the relationships of those gathered…

if (in typical teenager fashion) everyone throws down a few bucks and leaves the responsibility to someone else, that says something. if the whole table looks at uncle X or person Y side-eyed assuming they will grab it, that says something. if you are the kind of friends where one of you secretly slipped the waitress your card before you sat down, that says something (my buddy tim is notorious for that lol).
in every relationship, one of you is paying the bill.
that can mean being the one who initiates and keeps the relationship going

that can mean being the one who mostly listens to the other talk

that can mean being the one who talks about subjects you prefer not to

that can mean letting the other person say a bunch of unflattering nonsense when they are upset and never mentioning it again.

really healthy people don’t mind paying the bill.

in fact, they delight in being able to.

if i have one guiding philosophical idea in my leadership/management/communication it’s the picture above. i believe in radical candor. being willing to figure out how to be graciously honest is extremely difficult, but tremendously useful. this is my second time through this book and the first 100 pages or so are for my money, the best practical management content i have ever read. the author has worked directly for steve jobs (the guy with the turtlenecks who invented everything), sheryl sandberg (coo of facebook), eric schmidt (founder of google) and worked with many other notables, but not being the genius in the forward facing top job, she has seen and done the day to day work with many many people. if you are in a leadership position of any kind, i HIGHLY recommend you check this out.
(if you want read it, but are a bit interested, this talk gives some of the vibes)

one blessing of the quarantine has been that due to my lack of spare $ and how slow amazon currently is, i ran out of books and went to my office in search of things i had never before completed. one gem was a series of 3 oswald sanders books. though not as well known as ‘spiritual leadership’, which i reviewed last year, the first 3rd of this book especially blew me away. it contains fresh and different ways of conveying spiritual concepts than many other mainstream evangelical type stuff. highly recommend.

content this week

my brother landon + i have started a show, called, ‘the luke + landon show.’ it’s a youtube/facebook/podcast, which is a collection of our weekly content with our typical non-sense banter .. we would LOVE for you to check it out.

watch the first episode on my facebook page for last week’s content collection

verse of the week

so jacob served seven years for rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

genesis 29:20

pieces of good news I saw this week

1. i absolutely LOVE studying/reading/living with these gentle musical vibes in the background .. SO SO good from my friend eric from future of forestry

2. i have read probably 80% of every new yorker magazine since 2005 cover to cover. this profile of mitch mcconnell feels important to consume and ponder whatever side of the political spectrum you find yourself on … it will make your angry at the write or the subject

3. my dear friend jon guerra (and his wife val) have a new album out today … an eclectic mix of wonderful devotional music, it has moments of quiet and moment of soaring and everything in between, i think you will love it ..

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4.24.2020 - week 52