Are you a fan of the phenomenon called The Chosen? It’s a streaming television series, working on its fifth season and it’s unbelievably popular. It paints the story of Jesus’ ministry on earth and it puts into action the stories we read about in the gospels. As an artistic format, it’s a great supplement to reading the Bible because we actually get to know the characters, spread over hours of viewing time, and I believe the results are biblically accurate.
I bought a book from The Chosen group called A Blended Harmony of the Gospels. We all know that the four gospels of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – were written by different people. In a previous two-part blog series, (here and here) I researched and described each author, and we know that two of the books were written by members of Jesus’s Twelve, and two were written by men who came later and only heard about him through eye-witnesses to him. Some gospels feature stories repeated more than once, and some gospels tell stories that are not repeated otherwise. Or the stories are a little bit different – the details vary.
A Blended Harmony of the Gospels is one book that includes all the information presented by the four gospels. It accounts for differences in details, and when there are stories told more than once, it consolidates them into one story. Unlike the Bible, there are no chapter or verse numbers. It reads more like a novel or a historical account.
As I was reading it a few key points jumped out to me. I jotted them down and after looking them over it dawned on me that by following Jesus’ example, we come up with a pretty solid guide to managing efforts or situations in our own lives. Here, let me show you what I mean:
One thing that stood out to me when reading the blended gospels is how often Jesus loved to go to the ocean.
It doesn’t surprise me that this point caught my interest because guess what: I love to go to the ocean too! Some people are mountain enthusiasts, some love the forests or lakes. But for me, it’s always been the ocean. As a child, my parents, who were ocean lovers too, made a dedicated effort to get our family to the ocean every summer. Fortunately, my husband is an ocean lover too, and was on board when I wanted to carry on that tradition with our kids. Now, retired from the day job and able to live wherever we want, we live just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean in beautiful South Carolina.
Going to the beach is a regular part of my schedule now. I go because I love it – the beauty of the waves, the sinking and rising of the sun on the horizon, the wildlife I see along my walk – crabs, seabirds, sea creatures that get washed up along the shore, the seashells that fill up my pockets when I spot unique ones I’ve never collected.
That sound the ocean makes as the tide roars in and out. A phrase always runs through my mind, “The ocean’s gonna do what the ocean’s gonna do.” I’m not sure where I came up with it, but it reminds me that we are not always in charge. There are things we can’t control, and the ocean is one of them.
It’s a great place to pray. As I move my legs to hike through the sand, my heart pumping, my eyes feasting on the beauty around me, my mind is free to focus on prayer. I give thanks to the Lord for his creation, and for the glorious set of circumstances that allowed me, a land-locked Midwesterner for the majority of my life, to end up here – exactly where I want to be. I run through problems or issues with him and talk through options. I plan the future, I ask for forgiveness, I praise him for everything I can.
When I’m done with my walk, I’ve accomplished so much – exercise, yes. But I’ve enhanced my spirit and my mood, and I’ve hopefully resolved whatever issues were running around my head.
Another thing Jesus did – Jesus went away from his demanding work to be alone and pray. This reminds me of when I was in the thick of a very exhilarating, demanding, often stressful but always rewarding career. I spent over twenty years in leadership at a major Fortune 50 company, and in that length of time, corporate direction evolves. Priorities change, processes change, technology changes. One thing that doesn’t change is the need for those of us leading the show to think. To meditate. To address problems and to decide which way to go to avoid the next round of problems.
Jesus was a leader of the highest degree. His three-year earthly ministry could be seen as a project to bring improvement to the status quo. He was the project manager, God was his sponsor, and his disciples were his core team. His stakeholders and consumers were all the people he encountered each and every day while out preaching. And he had critics too, a very outspoken set of them in the Pharisees and Jewish leaders of the day who opposed him.
I’m certainly not comparing my own leadership role to Jesus’s! But go with me here – there are some similarities, aren’t there? There were times in my own career that I felt so burdened with the daily meetings, the project schedule, the budget concerns, the change in requirements, the loss of key people – in other words, the day-to-day grind, that I forgot to go away from the work to be alone and think things through.
If I had done that, removed myself from “the crazy” for a little while, I could probably identify some key problem areas that weren’t clear to me when I was in the thick of it. I could ruminate about problem solving, identify options. How to change what we were doing that not only wasn’t solving problems, they may have been making things worse.
I like to think that Jesus saw the value in this method too. He often walked away from his disciples and the people leaning on every word to be by himself and pray with his ultimate sponsor, his Father.
Another method Jesus used that stuck out to me was: he understood his scope. Project leaders always have to nail down what is in scope, and what is out of scope because of this little thing we like to call “scope creep” – if your effort isn’t clearly defined, you’ll continue to take on more and more work and ultimately nothing will ever get done.
What do I mean by Jesus understood his scope? Yes, he knew that he was God’s son and God’s will was to place him there on earth at that particular place and time to make revolutionary change. He would become the sacrificial Lamb on earth to take away the sin of the world. And he would let people know that by accepting Him as their savior and asking God’s forgiveness for sins they would be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven so that they might live with God eternally.
Big order! But a verse in Matthew (15:24) gives us a clue that Jesus understood his own scope of this incredibly big job. In the New Living Translation it reads, Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.”
Jesus’s earthly ministry was focused on the people of Israel – in other words, the Jews. What we discover later in the Acts of the Apostles, is that Jesus’s promise of salvation was not just intended for Jewish people – but for Gentiles as well – in other words, non-Jews. Everyone! God has opened up the doors of the Kingdom to any human who believes in him. He’s a loving and inclusive God who wants all his sheep saved. But Jesus, in his limited time on earth, and to clearly define his scope, he limited his teaching to Jews.
What are the big “projects” you’re facing in your life? Are you caught up in the daily whirlwind, just going through the motions that you’ve always done? Maybe it’s not the best way. Jesus’ lessons in project management can be applied to any major effort you’re facing in your own life. Just make sure you regularly communicate with your sponsor for regular feedback and direction setting!
Let’s pray:
Dear Lord, thank you for the wealth of lessons and learnings that we find in the Bible. And thank you that certain lessons speak loudly to us when they apply directly to our lives. Please illuminate the learnings you direct us to so we can absorb and execute as you would have us do. Amen.