Friday Thoughts

To those who know me well I am considered shall we say, "hard to please." I am never completely satisfied with something. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know the answer to that question. I once heard a sermon by Andy Stanley. He spoke of being a leader and that a valuable part of that was a critical mind. He said that leaders are made as critical people. They look at something and begin to ponder how it could be made better.

I'm not writing this blog as a complaint of my friends laughing about my typical response, "it's okay." instead I am desiring to dig into understanding me. Since my last blog I have been pondering my negativity. I feel like I have always been an optimist rather than a pessimist. I even often view pessimism and perfectionism as negative character traits. I know that this view isn't fair either.

My desire, which is perhaps a self esteem issue in itself, is to be the type of person that people feel blessed having been around. I feel like that was the character of Christ. People felt built up, appreciated, encouraged, cared for when they were in his presence. Even when Christ offered criticism he seemed to have an amazingly comfortable/compassionate way of doing it.

Where is the line between being a "leader" as Stanley would say, and being a negative person. I want to be one but not the other. I fear I spend more time on the negative side than the leader side. I am not comfortable with that reality.