Labor, Birth and Your Unraveling Plan

My first child came into this world after a 48 hour marathon of labor. Lot's of screaming. Lot's of cussing. Lot's of crying. And that was just me.

I had somewhat fallen for the lie that this was going to be the most beautiful and miraculous thing I had ever experienced. Call me calloused, but the most beautiful thing about that weekend was when the doctor prescribed me a bottle of Xanax. Little did I know that the miracle of birth is made somewhat prettier by the Gaussian blur placed on the cover of all those birthing books at Borders.

When baby number two came at us, I was ready.

I had studied, critiqued, memorized, planned, and strategized a battle plan based on baby number one.

There was nothing that this birth could throw at me that I would not be ready for.

I had it all laid out.

I was a strategic mastermind.

Andy Stanley's systems had nothing on me.

I was ready.

So when Heather let me know that the contractions had begun I spring into action.

We were in San Diego at the time and got in the car to drive back to Riverside.

A 75 minute drive.

I called both sets of grandparents and let them know that in the next 24 hours or so they should begin to make their way down to southern California to witness the miracle of baby number 2.

By the time we got back to Riverside my wife could barely sit down.

She demanded we go straight to the hospital and I reminded her that according to my studies, the first child arrived in 48 hours and we were only 90 minutes into this journey.

She, in no less than 3 words, convinced me otherwise.

My plan was being thwarted.

My plan was being disrupted.

By the time I wheeled her into Labor and Delivery we were told that she was about 5 minutes away from having this baby.

WHAT!?!

It had been 2 hours!!!

This was NOT happening.

Heather demanded I run back to the car to get the camera.

The doctor recommended I not, seeing that the baby would be there any second.

Heather gave me the look and I was gone.

Sprinting to the car, fumbling for my phone, dialing 2 wrong numbers, looking for the keys, digging for the camera, getting yelled at by her mother, running back to the labor and delivery ward, I was a wreck.

I made it back for 3 pushes and a baby.

A little under 3 hours and baby number 2 was here.

What happened?

Where did my plan go wrong?

How did my strategy fail?

After mulling through these questions for about 10 seconds my second child was placed into my arms. All of my strategy, planning, critiquing went out the window.

All I knew was that I was in love with what God had blessed me with.

And I promised Him to do everything within who I was to make her feel like the queen of this world.

 

You may or may not find a similarity in your life story with the birth of my children.

But if you have ever launched any ministry, you have more in common with me than you probably care to.

You see if you are anything like me, you love to try new things. You love to birth projects that can change the world.

Once in a great while you have a project that clicks. It works. It changes culture. It defies your own comprehension.

You end up building a system around that success. That is not a bad thing. It is actually a smart thing.

For many of us that project could be a church plant, a ministry plant, an evangelism project. It can take the shape of many great things.

The danger lies in building the rest of our ministry off that one success.

What is worse is trying to build a successful ministry off of the success of another laborer. Buying that church growth book and trying to duplicate what Ministry X did in your own ministry.

That would be akin to my buying those Gaussian blur birthing books at Borders and expecting my wife's labor to be the same.

Yet the more I think about it, the more I see us all doing just that.

We try and duplicate success and not let success define itself.

There are going to be great truths that are available by looking into the past.

But we must remember that there is a unique story in everything that is birthed from God. This includes that tiny idea sitting in the back of your head right now.

Let it develop in its own way so that it can succeed in ways you never imagined.

 

5 Comments »

1. Awesome truth in there! Just like in life, everyone’s tempted to duplicate success, instead of being original.

   And that temptation is hard to deny, especially if someone’s success contains something that was already in YOUR head to begin with, but not fully birthed for whatever reasons. 

   Human nature?

   Comment by chappyswife - Dec 01, 2008 @ 02:01 PM

2. Great article!  Long story short, after 16 hours of labor and an emergency c-section later, the Lord blessed us with our first child.  Definitely not according to our plan of a nice little birth.  After the stress of our first experience, we decided on a planned C-section for our second child.  In a word it was… uneventful.  Exciting and wonderful, yes.  A beautiful baby girl… but uneventful. Maybe a better description… safe.

   After a ministry idea/event fails to succeed, how many times have I sought to regain some control (a planned c-section) over the next “success”?  How often are ministry ideas “birthed of me” vs. “birthed by God.” 

   Thanks for the inspiration.

   Comment by Clay - Dec 01, 2008 @ 03:47 PM

3. Great stuff.

   I agree that too many times we strive to be someone else.  We try with everything we can to do something that worked well for someone else.  We are called to lead where we are because God has a unique goal in that location.  I personally don’t think God puts us in leadership so we can lead identical to someone else.  Really enjoyed this article!

   Be Blessed!

   Comment by shanesanchez - Dec 02, 2008 @ 05:43 PM

4. Very good article. As an instigator myself, this is something I’ve been wrestling with for awhile now. I love creating new things and get bored quickly with status quo, even successful status quo. However, I think there is a subtle difference and danger between being creative for God’s sake and doing things our own way simply because we want to do things our own way. I actually wonder if creativity, the desire to be unique, the need to do it our way can actually be a hindrance to progress and success at times.

   Take sermons as an example. Why do all pastors (at least all pastors I’ve ever encountered) feel the need to only preach their own “original” sermons? Sure, many pastors quote other pastors, books, speakers, etc. But I’ve never heard a pastor actually preach someone else’s sermon (at least, they’ve never said they did, which could be a whole different issue…but that isn’t really the point here). Yet there are some amazing messages out there that I would love for my pastor to preach. They would be completely relevant to our church. And I am certain that God would use them to change people’s lives.

   Please don’t get me wrong. I hear what you are saying and agree that creativity is critical and that duplication can be a bad thing.

   I guess I am just wondering if duplication gets a bad rap (vs creation) in a similar way that management gets a bad rap vs. leadership. It seems to me that there are appropriate uses of duplication.

   To be a bit obtuse, I duplicated this comment in another forum (either your blog if this is on the Catalyst site or the Catalyst site if this is on your blog)…

   Good, thought-provoking article. Well done!

   Comment by Dave © - Dec 02, 2008 @ 11:57 PM

5. Great thoughts Los!  One stuck out to me-building, or trying to build, on the success of another.  Perhaps this is why following someone who was the pastor for sooooo long is so hard for many.  Either trying to build on the success or trying undue the damage?  The other thing I noticed was the need for patience to allow an idea to ferment and grow.

   Comment by cycleguy - Dec 03, 2008 @ 10:17 AM

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