P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

AVOIDING THE ROBERT REDFORD SYNDROME

Did you hear about the lady who encountered the famous actor Robert Redford in an ice-cream parlor in Santa Fe, New Mexico? She was absolutely thrilled!! But she was determined to stay cool, calm and collected and not make a fool out of herself, so she pretended to ignore his famous presence.

After leaving the shop, congratulating herself on being so in control, she realized that she didn't have her ice-cream cone she'd bought and paid for. "I must have left it there," she said to herself. So she returned to the shop to ask for her cone.

Overhearing her, Robert Redford interrupted and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, I believe you'll find your cone where you put it - in your purse."

So much for cool, calm and collected! It's easy to sometimes get so excited or distracted or caught up in something that we forget what we're all about. We lose our sense of purpose. You might call it The Robert Redford Syndrome: allowing obstacles along the way to side-track us from our mission.

This woman did buy her ice-cream cone. But her real mission was to eat it. And a cone stuck inside a purse isn't very eatable! She got sidetracked, didn't she.
What are the Robert Redfords for you? What are the obstacles in your life that might be keeping you from accomplishing the most significant things in your life? Perhaps it's your job that keeps you so busy you don't find time to live out your priorities with your family and your God. Perhaps it's your schooling, or your relationships, or entertainment.

One of the most significant "Robert Redfords" is simply not taking the time to determine what our mission and purpose in life really is. So we find ourselves basically floating along, going with the flow. And in that scenario, any path will get us to where we're going - nowhere.

I like the way Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, puts it: "How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most. If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind." (p. 98)

Covey's talking about knowing where we're going, having a personal mission and purpose clearly in mind, and evaluating our progress regularly. Does that describe your experience right now? Do you have a clearly defined personal mission that guides you in your journey through life? Would you like to live your life more effectively?

This week we’re going to look at the life of a man who experienced a personal mission from God but then spent his life trying to deal effectively with the Robert Redford Syndrome. Sometimes he did it well, other times he failed miserably. But through it all, he was considered to be a very special friend of God.

I'm talking about Abraham. Let's look at how he managed his mission with God. Let's notice the pitfalls and the peaks, the successes and the sidetracks of his journey. Maybe we can learn some valuable lessons along the way.

Today’s part of Abraham's story begins in Genesis 12. God is calling him on a special mission. Notice what God says in verses 1-2: "The LORD said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you." (New Century Version)

Now how would you feel if you were Abraham? You're not told where you're going. You're simply told to gather your family together, to pick up your stakes, and leave home. God doesn't contact the local AAA office to send you some roadmaps and reserve motel rooms along the way. He hasn't arranged for the chamber of commerce at your destination to send you colorful brochures describing the local economy and geography and sociology and meteorology, to entice you to come. God simply says, "Go! And I'll be with you."

What would you do? You're living a very comfortable life as a prince and leader among the people. You're respected in the high social circles of the city. You live in a sophisticated culture with advanced educational opportunities. You have a beautiful two-storey home surrounding a nice courtyard. You have everything you could ever want: power, riches, a retinue of loyal servants waiting on your every wish. Would you give all this up to go on a mission from God to an unknown destination?

Imagine what your friends and neighbors would say? "A mission from God? Sounds like he's going off the deep end this time!"

Sports Illustrated magazine told about Bill MacCartney who was the coach of the University of Colorado football team some years back. He had just led his team to another winning season. And he had already led them to a national championship.

Then suddenly, he quit his $300,000+ annual salary, walked away from his fame as a winning coach and disappeared. Why? Before he left, he said that he felt convicted by God to spend more time with his family. He realized that football wasn't as important as family. His decision was made as a part of his spiritual values and commitments.

You can imagine how the Sports Illustrated reporter reacted to this kind of talk. He made it sound like McCartney had lost his mind, like he had gone off on this religious binge and become fanatical. “Good riddance!” The pundits said. “The football world will be better off without you!”

It takes courage to respond to a mission from God. There's always a price to pay. Abraham does not come from a nomadic lifestyle. The clues from the Bible suggest that he’s most likely a cultured, sophisticated city-boy. And he’s married to a princess named Sarai with the same background. So how do you think she feels about selling their estate and living in tents as they journey through a 1000 miles of dust and wilderness to a land they've never been to? Most women would relish that opportunity, right?

And yet, when God calls Abraham, verse 4 says, "So Abram left Haran as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. At this time Abram was 75 years old." (New Century Version)

Let's face it. Change is difficult at any age. But it's particularly difficult at the stage of life when everything has settled down and you're enjoying the fruits of your labors. I mean, why rock the boat? Why fiddle with success? Why disrupt comfort? So what is it that enables Abraham, at his stage in life, to respond so quickly and obediently to God's radical call?

Hebrews 11:10 describes his secret. It says, “Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.” (New Living Translation)

In other words, Abraham is empowered to leave the familiar to go to the unfamiliar because he’s living his life with a clear sense of his God-given mission. He knows who he is and where he's going, so when God provides him with new details of this mission, he can respond without hesitation. Change isn't threatening. He's already living his life within his God-given mission. So Abraham goes.

Steven Covey suggests a similar paradigm for how we are empowered to navigate through change successfully: "People cannot live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value." (p. 108)

That's why being clear on what our mission and purpose in life are is so absolutely significant. When we have that clarity of vision, we can flow with changes. We don't need to figure out everything else in life, to nail down every single detail. Knowing who we are and where we're going empowers us with the same timeless strength in the midst of change that Abraham enjoyed.

Let me ask you this question, do you have a personal mission statement? Have you ever sat down and tried to write your own purpose statement? How would you fill in the following blank: "For me to live is ________." Can you sum up your life purpose in one sentence? The question is, what are you living for? "For me to live is _________."

One of the ways Covey suggests answering this question is to imagine yourself at your own funeral (now there's a pleasant thought). There are to be four speakers in the program. One from your family, another from your friends, a third from your work or profession, and the fourth from your church.

What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions and achievements would you want them to remember? What difference would you like to have made in their lives?

Answering those questions will begin to give you a handle on what you see as your mission and purpose in life. They deal with your values and character. What is God calling you to be and to do and to live for? "To me to live is _________."

Taking time to deal with these questions is one of the most important things we can do in life. So many people are giving first class allegiance to second class causes. They've climbed the ladder of success or whatever else and they get to the top only to find that the ladder's leaning against the wrong wall. They've expended all their energies on the wrong things! Sad way to exist!

Instead, you want to live so that when you’re confronted with the Robert Redfords of distraction, you won’t get side-tracked from what’s truly important. So here’s what you do: state clearly your God-given purpose; then list 5 steps you can take to live out that purpose; and then go to it with confidence. And watch yourself achieve significance!