Leadership Summit 2009 Takeaways
I’ve had the privilege of attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit the last two years. Last year, I didn’t really know what to expect. This year, with my upcoming field study, I had a sense of anticipation. There were a lot of great speakers and this year there were a lot of small statements that spoke directly to me. They were convicting and I’m still working to live these out. Here are a few of the statements that stood out to me. Read more
A Week in the Life of a Developer – Part 5
The custom CMS package is now displaying text to the browser. I got the text editor working so now updates to said pages can be made easily. But at the same time, the more I work on this, I realize there are more and more components that pop up that need to be coded. There are going to be a lot of late nights trying to get this functioning before I leave for Cambodia in 19 days. That self-imposed deadline is looming large in front of me.
But despite all the stress of feature creep and deadlines, I did have some victories. I have spent the last few weeks trying to develop a module that will allow the end user to reorder pages in their menu structure. I also want the module to allow users to move pages into a hierarchy if they want. And for several weeks, I would write equations and draw diagrams to no avail. The solutions functioned but were incomplete. That was until yesterday. I was taking a break and thinking about the problem. It was almost as if the heavens opened and the answer came forth. It was a simpler solution, yet worked in all situations.
It is moments like that which make me remember why I love programming. The struggles, the puzzles, the late nights trying to debug code are all worth it. And yes even the moments where I realize my complete incompetence. Many times after hours of struggling with something, the solution presents itself. Most times it was staring me in the face the whole time. Yet the next time, I do not make the same mistake or I diagnosis the problem in minutes as opposed to hours.
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Birthdays & Skating
So I did something tonight that I haven’t done in years. I went skating. It was fun. It was like a game of Frogger trying to weave between kids and not run over them when they cut in front of you. We celebrated a friends birthday and we just acted like kids even though most of us are probably 15 years or older than the kids there. But after about 2 hours I could feel my age kicking in and I started going slower and slower. Plus my back started tightening up on me. I’m going to be so sore in the morning. However, once we left the rink at about 11pm I was just getting started. I guess it was all the endorphins but I’m really not that tired right now. So I ended up taking a long drive to just be out and enjoy the nice weather we’ve been having.
Early on in the evening one my friends (she will remain nameless to protect her identity) sat down because she was scared she was going to hurt herself. I went over and checked on her and she was telling me her fears. I chuckled, not at her but at myself. I told her that I was trying to think of something sympathetic to say to her but I couldn’t. I wanted to tell her to just suck it up and get out there and do it. And I told her as much but in a kinder tone. Eventually through coaxing from others she got out there and enjoyed herself. A thought hit me after I talked with her. How many times in my life am I worried about something and all the things that could go wrong? I worry about failing. I need to suck it up and just do it. One kid helped drive this point home for both of us. My friend was expressing her concerns about hurting herself when this kid busted it right in front of us. My friend wanted to use that as an example of why not to try. However, just as quickly as this kid fell down, he picked himself up, put a smile on his face and went right back to skating.
I know this seems like an overly simplistic example but hey our Lord did most of his teaching using parables. Why is it that we will go and throw caution to the wind with some momentary event or activity yet we stammer or hold on so tight that our knuckles turn white when the Lord calls us to do something? We have the creator of the Universe, the God that raises the dead in our corner prodding us and giving us His strength to accomplish his purposes. So the question posed to each of us, “Will we throw off the shackles that so easily entangle us or will we sit quietly tied down watching life pass us by.”
