I was sitting with my daughter the other day having lunch. I mentioned that the triple caramel shake i ordered was not “caramelly” enough. Somehow the conversation evolved into my ability to over analyze things. I debated her of course but in the end she was right; but is that such a bad thing?
Reflecting on that conversation, I found other examples of my almost neurotic over analyzing. When my wife makes dinner I will sometimes say, “You know what will make this better?”
I caught my self the other day in Starbucks, asking the girl if she could recommend somethings new. She did, it involved soy milk, but I got it anyway. As I sat and enjoyed the drink, the over analyzing gremlin came to me again, “What would have made this transaction perfect is if she came over to me and asked me if I liked it.”
My daughter tried to convince me that this trait of intense examination is bad. I say we don’t look deep enough for the perfect.
I see my compulsion as the spirit of innovation. I mean really, if we didn’t ask, “How can this get better?” We’d still be riding horses, working on PC’s (thank you MAC), and drinking regular coffee (thank you Starbucks)
It is because we accept everything as it is that we live average lives, eating at average places, and live slightly above average Christian lives. Some of my favorite verses in scripture involve analysis:
2Cr 13:5“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” KJV
Lam 3:40 “Let us search out and examine our ways, And turn back to the LORD;” NKJV
Psa 26:2Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart.
1Cr 11:28But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of [that] bread, and drink of [that] cup. KJV
We often do not examine our life our youth ministry because we are afraid of what we might find. I say , look, examine, pull apart, re-tool, cry, scream and dance, because if we do not dig deeper, the result is more average. And do we really need another homogenized, average youth ministry or life for that matter?
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living” .
I say, “The unexamined youth ministry is not worth leading”
What say you?
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