HCLM BLOG

I just received a copy of Ben Stein's final Column, this was the one where he wrote from a famous restaurant that had traditionally be the hangout for Hollywood Stars. In that final column he said that he was going to stop because things had changed. He no longer feels that the people who live in "insane luxury" and are paid millions of dollars to memorize lines and speak them back to an audience or a camera are the heroes that he once thought them to be. He then lists the type of people that he feels are the true heroes of today's society. His final thoughts are that to be heroic a life must be a life lived in service to others.

The root of this kind of thinking to me is that to be a hero is to do the difficult with little regard for our own welfare. Serving others can be this when it is done with recklus abandon! To live the heroic life is to put my needs and wants behind the needs of others. The hero leads the way, they lead not by asking others to give to them, but by offering to give themselves to others.
Great leaders have always known this, but it seems to just now have come into the foreground of leadership training. We are the heroes, when we care for ailing parents, or give ourselves completely to our spouse.

In this Easter season it is easy to see that Jesus was that type of hero and would lead us in that direction. But in the society that we live in today too many people still see heros as those who do whatever it takes to get what they want for themselves!
The "ME" generation produced a generation that looks up to those who put themselves first. Even in the current envirorment of "Change" as our country digs deep to pour Trillions of Dollars into the econamic bail outs and people are suffering as never before, I read yesterday that the government knows that more than 10% of those trillions will be lost to fraud, graff and con artists. Where are the Heroes? We need to let Jesus lead our lives and then let our lives shine on those around us. That is the only thing that can produce "Change".

What do you think?
Pastor Paul