Jan 15. Pony Pile or Joyful Smile?

As the leader of a team like a family, a company or organization, how are you mitigating risks? The first step of risk mitigation is to look for risks in the first place. Our decisions daily may need to recognize those risks to choose how to act.

If we ignore that we have areas of risks, then we are open to the risk and an attitude of victimhood. Victimhood is an attitude that does not promote value. If we are mitigating risks, we can reduce victimhood and reducing victimhood leads to increases in value.

Victimhood gives one permission to stay broken and to stay where someone else puts them. One might stay in that place longer and almost certainly with less joy and love.

Finding a way forward faster may be about deciding what actions we can create for ourselves which results in the beginning of solving problems. Casting blame or judgment to others just keeps the attitude lingering.

It can be like a wheel spinning in the mud digging deeper and deeper into the slop. How might you be able to transform an attitude of victimhood on your team? It might start with the statement; I might do this differently.

Maybe we could use the statement, I might think about how to do it differently. When the team is empty of victimhood attitude the team will likely begin to collaborate at a higher level. One might even be able to trust and to ask others for opinions without fear or judgment.

In Genesis 2, there is a double wedding story. A man named Jacob left his family under duress and found his uncle Laban. Jacob goes to work for seven years to marry Laban's daughter, Rachel. He was really enamored by her looks as we are told she had a sparkle in her eye.

But Jacob woke up from the wedding bedroom with the sister Leah! He was tricked. Was Jacob a victim? One might think yes but the answer might also be maybe. Consider this, did he carry a victim attitude? Not really.

He lodged his complaint and Laban shared that one cannot marry the youngest daughter first. Jacob did not do a very good job of understanding the cultural rules about weddings when he proposed. Notice how we might begin to defend Jacobs’ right to be a victim.

Even though he marries Leah, Jacob also receives Rachel as his wife. It happened in just seven days later because he agreed to a new arrangement. He works another seven years to marry Rachel. His adjustment of his attitude must be done right away, or it could risk his future with Rachel.

In our walk with Christ, do we choose to find a new position of focus instead of feeling like a victim? We can look for the positive in everything. I recall a story of two boys who are placed in different rooms of a warehouse for an experiment on their birthdays.

Each boy’s attention is grabbed when the overhead garage door opens. Each excitedly retreat to a corner of their room while a truck backs into their room. The sound systems play happy birthday over the loudspeaker. The hiss of the brakes spew as the trucks stop, and each lift on the bed rises.

The back gates slide open, and manure begins to slide out filling each room. The first boy begins to sob and cry. He looks around with his sad eyes. This is not what he wanted for his birthday. The second boy runs to his pile and digs into it with gusto. He throws manure to the left and right.

He is knee deep and covered head to toe when the scientist running the experiment enters and asks what he is doing. The boy responds, “Wherever there is this much horse manure, there must be a pony on a boy’s birthday.” Pony focus beats manure focus on your birthday, but a Christ focus helps every day.

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, today we know that everything is not going to go our way. But we can still love you and we can still love one another. Help us to look for you in the places where we might not be looking. Help us to find our joy, in you, all day today.

Let our smiles populate the world so that your love might be known. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen,